SSH & Samba Write-up

I solved a windows network connectivity problem I was
having when I was using a socks 5 proxy through an ssh
tunnel to my OpenBSD box for safer browsing. I'd leave
the windows box running but not use it, sometimes for
hours, and more often than not, overnight. When I'd try
to get anywhere with the browser I no could. I still had
connectivity with the OpenBSD box, but that was it. I put
in a batch file that cleans up the local area connection
on the windows box and run it from windows scheduler
every 6 hours and it solved the problem. The addendum,
batch file, and link to the network article that helped me
are at the bottom of my original write-up at:

SSH & Samba

Fluxbox Article

I've got a new write up on switching desktop wallpaper in
fluxbox automatically on a scheduled basis by using a script
and a cronjob to call it. I also made some additions to my
.kshrc file exporting some values into the environment for
when I login to the system that can be tested against and
also tell fluxbox which one of my wallpaper files to load
when it's starting.

Fluxbox Desktop

Recent Web Site Updates

I finally got a couple of pages up I'd been wanting to
despite a bunch of interruptions. One is on installing
and configuring Conky to display system info on your
desktop. It also shows how to pull in other information
like weather reports and some system info that I couldn't
get with Conky's regular functions, due to either my own
misunderstanding of the instructions, or else something in
my chipset that's incompatible with the program. Probably
some of both.

ADDENDUM: 2008-06-06
Pertaining to Conky above, I've added some info to the page
that shows how I'm now getting stock market data to display.

ADDENDUM: 2008-06-13
Again, pertaining to Conky above, added some info on how I
kludged together a script to filter out my daily Accuweather
forecast email message, format it and scp it from that box to
the box I'm using conky on to be displayed below the current
conditions feed I get from NOAA's weather site.

The other write up is on creating a file to be used as a
persistent table for OpenBSD's PF packet filter firewall,
how to automatically concatenate IP addresses of would
be intruders to the file using scripts that run on a schedule
from a cronjob, and then flush the one table that does the
collecting and reload the persistent file back into its own
table. This makes it truly persistent, since rebooting has no
effect. You don't have to start back all over again with loads
of intrusion attempts in your logs.The pages are at:

Conky
PF with a Cumlative Table

ADDENDUM: 2008-07-04
Again I've added some more to the conky article above.
This addition describes how I run 2 instances of conky
and change one of them depending on the time of day and
the day of the week, since one configuration uses stock
market data and weather, while the other for the times
when the market is closed just displays the weather.
The change is accomplished using 2 short shell scripts
and 2 cronjobs. The last part of the entry shows how I
clean stale values from the environment in case I close
X but don't log out of the system, and then restart X.
From the value that gets exported from .xinitrc conky
determines which configuration file to use by comparing
that value with a small text file containing appropriate
times to load the file with stock market data. If it's
after hours or on the weekend when X restarts, it loads
just the weather version of conky on the one side of the
screen. The other conky running on the right side of the
screen doesn't change. It always shows system information.

4.3 Upgrade & New Pages on Web Site

4.3 OpenBSD is out and I've got one box upgraded so far. Had a
couple of problems which you can read about at:

Denny’s OpenBSD Newbies blog

Should be clear to see they were my fault. :-)

I also put up a couple of new pages under the tips & tricks section.
One on using colors in xterm and one on quick remote printing over ssh.

Xterm and Color

Quick Printing Over SSH

Web Site Update

Finally made good my threat and added a new page on using
SSH, Samba, and Cygwin on Windows to forward ports for secure
browsing, file management, and so forth, from Windows boxen
to OpenBSD boxen. Includes a howto on generating passwordless
SSH RSA keys which is what I believe is safer than typing in
cleartext passwords. Page is at:

SSH & Samba

I also added a link to a site where you can pick up binary updates
for OpenBSD. When I checked it there were currently 3 available,
4.0, 4.1 and 4.2. Here's the link again:

Binary Updates for OpenBSD

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New Updates on Web Site

Added some pages to the new web site. There's help there on
vim, mutt, getting help on OpenBSD mailing lists, NTPD, dump
and restore, working with packages, and a page on scripting
help and .profile aliases to keep from opening the same program
twice.
Polarwave's Tips & Tricks

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