Matt Fahrner « mattfahrner.com

Resurrection

By Matt Fahrner, on November 20th, 2022%

Been quite some time since I’ve posted to this site, in part because I had to debug a plugin issue, but also because I’ve spent too much time on Twitter, and (no small deal, and by far the best part) had a son to shepherd to adulthood.

Some updates since:

Can be found on . . . → Read More: Resurrection

Equifax

By Matt Fahrner, on September 8th, 2017%

Being in the industry, I understand how difficult it is to secure an organization, so I have some sympathy for Equifax. As an ex-NSA colleague noted (paraphrasing), “A defender has to protect everything, an attacker only has to find one hole.” That said, their business is PII, so there is a higher standard there.

In . . . → Read More: Equifax

VMware virtual or not?

By Matt Fahrner, on April 3rd, 2017%

Depending on naming, in a VMware environment you may not actually be sure if a Linux system is VMware or not. Here’s a quick command to find out:

sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer

1	sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer

which will generally output “VMware, Inc.” if VMware.

On older systems you may find “-s” doesn’t work, in which case just pipe “dmidecode” through grep looking . . . → Read More: VMware virtual or not?

Installing Plixer’s “Scrutinizer” NPMD

By Matt Fahrner, on February 26th, 2017%

Plixer makes a good “Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics” (NPMD) application called “Scrutinizer“. NPMD, as Gartner calls it, mostly omeans, collecting, aggregating, and reporting on Netflow data.

Plixer provides a VMware OVF for installation of a virtual appliance. I, however, ran into a few issues with the installation:

I couldn’t get the install to work . . . → Read More: Installing Plixer’s “Scrutinizer” NPMD

I was but the learner, now I am the “Radar Technician”…

By Matt Fahrner, on February 20th, 2017%

Ubuntu package commands

By Matt Fahrner, on November 25th, 2016%

Because Ubuntu has a mix of utilities to manage packages I constantly seem to be forgetting the options I need when I go to do basic package management. Mostly for my sake are the ones I use most regularly:

List installed packages:

dpkg -l
dpkg --get-selections

1 2	dpkg -l dpkg --get-selections

List names of available packages (including those not installed):

apt-cache pkgnames

1	apt-cache pkgnames

Tell what . . . → Read More: Ubuntu package commands

Good basic email advice

By Matt Fahrner, on October 18th, 2016%

Professor Alan Woodward from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Surrey via The Register:

â€œEducate users not to open files that they are not expecting. Practice your ABCs â€“ Assume nothing. Believe no one, and Check everything should be drummed into users â€“ personally I preach ABCD – if in any doubt . . . → Read More: Good basic email advice

Fix Apple Bonjour with Cisco autonomous APs

By Matt Fahrner, on September 26th, 2016%

I purchased some used Cisco C1140 autonomous access points for my home network (autonomous meaning not lightweight or requiring a WLC). While everything seemed to be fine at first, later we noticed that printouts to our Canon laser printer were no longer working from our Macs. After some research I realized that the Macs were . . . → Read More: Fix Apple Bonjour with Cisco autonomous APs

Dell PERC 5i/R or H200 VMware Performance Fix

By Matt Fahrner, on June 12th, 2016%

I had an old Dell PERC 5i/R RAIDÂ card laying around and wanted to use it for a home lab ESXi box (note: also works on Dell PERC H200). The card isn’t amazingly high performance, but it it’s good enough for simple RAID. Well, that is, it’s good enough performance if you change the settings. . . . → Read More: Dell PERC 5i/R or H200 VMware Performance Fix

Fix VMware Web Client Integration Plugin for Chrome on Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11)

By Matt Fahrner, on April 27th, 2016%

The latest vCenter Server 6.0 VMware Web Client Integration Plugin does not work on OS X El Capitan. The installer finishes, but silently fails due to missing libraries, libraries that probably existed in earlier OS X versions.

Because the libraries don’t exist, necessary certificates don’t get generated, and even re-running the installer from the application . . . → Read More: Fix VMware Web Client Integration Plugin for Chrome on Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11)