I’ve been quite annoyed recently with my video card, the “nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400 GS (rev a1)“. A number of sites using Flash tend to bleed through Firefox or Chrome and into other tabs or even other workspaces.

I can still SEE YOU!

I’ve upgraded the nvidia-drivers a number of times, never actually fixing the problem. Other Gentoo users on the #gentoo channel of freenode have suggested migrating to gnash instead… and while I have contemplated this, I’ve noticed a number of things that don’t work well under gnash on my netbook.

Thankfully I’m not the only person to be experiencing this. Earlier today I came across a solution (that while not optimal) definitely fixes the problem:

No acceleration, but no bleeding either.

Disabling hardware acceleration thankfully stops the bleedthrough. (Just right click on a flash movie, select “Settings” and disable acceleration under “display”) You will need to restart your browsers for it to fully take effect.

I was hoping to have time to further familiarize myself with IPv6 this weekend -  but workplace emergencies, sleep, and a technical glitch slowed me down. Here’s the story of the technical glitch.

GNS3 - this thing rocks.

GNS3/dynamips can handle emulation of a number of routers, and I was happy to see that it can emulate host PCs as well. Unfortunately networking in GNS3  is done via UDP tunnels – something that requires a Qemu patch to implement.

For some reason QEMU won't really start if it's networked.

In Gentoo, simply building GNS3 from the Sunrise Overlay doesn’t provide sufficient support for this requirement. Emulated routers (and I’m assuming switches) work fine when networked together. Emulated host machines work fine when NOT connected to anything. But once you network things together you’ll discover that your Qemu host won’t start.

Here’s why – when you start a Qemu host, this is essentially what GNS3 runs:

/usr/bin/qemu -name QEMU1 -m 256 /mnt/virtualmachines/dynips/IPv6-tc/working/QEMU1/FLASH -hdb /mnt/virtualmachines/dynamips/IPv6-tc/working/QEMU1/SWAP -enable-kvm -net nic,vlan=0,macaddr=00:aa:00:8f:e4:00,model=rtl8139 -net udp,vlan=0,sport=20000,dport=10006,daddr=127.0.0.1 -net nic,vlan=1,macaddr=00:00:ab:fa:72:01,model=rtl8139 -serial telnet:127.0.0.1:3000,server,nowait -no-acpi -vnc :0

GNS3 attempts to use the -net udp option, something not offered in the default QEMU-KVM distribution. With no Gentoo USE flags to add the patch in either 0.13.0 or 0.14.50, I decided to simply upgrade to 0.14.50 and see if it was part of the default build:

# kvm –version
QEMU emulator version 0.14.50 (qemu-kvm-devel), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
# kvm –help | grep “net udp”
#

Nope, it’s not. So the next step is to remove app-emulation/qemu-kvm from your system and build it by hand.

First, remove kvm and download the source from kernel.org:

# emerge -C app-emulation/qemu-kvm

# cd /usr/src/

# wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/gentoo/distfiles/qemu-kvm-0.13.0.tar.gz

Unpack and patch it, using the patch provided by the gns-3 team .

# tar zxvpf qemu-kvm-0.13.0.tar.gz

# cd qemu-kvm-0.13.0/

Testing the patch, I ran into a handful of issues:

# patch –dry-run -p1 < /mnt/nas/downloads/qemu-0.13.0-
mcast-udp.patch
patching file Makefile.objs
Hunk #1 FAILED at 25.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED — saving rejects to file Makefile.objs.rej
patching file block/raw-win32.c
Hunk #1 FAILED at 93.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 347.
2 out of 2 hunks FAILED — saving rejects to file block/raw-win32.c.rej
patching file hw/e1000.c
Hunk #1 FAILED at 567.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED — saving rejects to file hw/e1000.c.rej
patching file net/udp.c
patching file net/udp.h
patching file net.c
Hunk #1 FAILED at 30.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 1075.
2 out of 2 hunks FAILED — saving rejects to file net.c.rej
patching file net.h
Hunk #1 FAILED at 33.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED — saving rejects to file net.h.rej
patching file qemu-options.hx
Hunk #1 FAILED at 996.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED — saving rejects to file qemu-options.hx.rej

A quick modification and we’ve got a new patch file. This one applies nicely:

# patch –dry-run -p1 < /mnt/nas/downloads/gentoo-qemu-0.13.0.gns3.patch
patching file Makefile.objs
patching file QMP/qmp-commands.txt
patching file block/raw-win32.c
patching file config-all-devices.mak
patching file config-host.h
patching file config-host.h-timestamp
patching file config-host.ld
patching file config-host.mak
patching file hw/e1000.c
patching file libdis/config.mak
patching file libdis-user/config.mak
patching file libhw32/config.mak
patching file libhw64/config.mak
patching file net/udp.c
patching file net/udp.h
patching file net.c
patching file net.h
patching file qemu-doc.html
patching file qemu-img-cmds.texi
patching file qemu-img.1
patching file qemu-monitor.texi
patching file qemu-nbd.8
patching file qemu-options.hx
patching file qemu-options.texi
patching file qemu-tech.html
patching file qemu.1
patching file roms/seabios/config.mak
patching file roms/vgabios/config.mak
patching file x86_64-softmmu/config-devices.mak
patching file x86_64-softmmu/config-devices.mak.old
patching file x86_64-softmmu/config-target.mak
vonnegut qemu-kvm-0.13.0 #

So let’s apply it for real and then configure, build, and install our new Qemu:

# patch -p1 < /mnt/nas/downloads/gentoo-qemu-0.13.0.gns3.patch

…

# ./configure –prefix=/usr –target-list=i386-softmmu –enable-sdl

# make && make install

A quick check to ensure UDP tunneling is compiled in:

# /usr/bin/qemu –version
QEMU emulator version 0.13.0 (qemu-kvm-0.13.0), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
# /usr/bin/qemu –help | grep “net udp”
-net udp[,vlan=n]sport=sport,dport=dport,daddr=host
#

And voila – now not only does my host machine start when networked into my layout, it also has connectivity:

Yes, it finally works.

Next up – continue lab work with IPv6, and begin studying for my CCNP.

Recently (don’t ask me why, seriously) I had to migrate a physical Redhat 9 server to a virtualized platform (KVM).

Yes, ideally one rebuilds the deprecated server anew, but due to time-constraints and a number of other issues that wasn’t a possibility. Unfortunately, sometimes you just have no choice but to kick the can down the street.

The migration from physical to virtual is simple – create the virtual guest, create an LVM logical volume for the disk,  format it and rsync the contents from the physical to the virtual drive. After that, install grub on the guest and voila – you’re done.

Keeping some consistency (although unnecessary), I went with an EXT3 filesystem on the “new” guest. Unfortunately, I came across the following snags:

• The inode size used in Redhat 9 is 128 bytes, but modern systems (ie: the host I formatted the partitions from ) use 256 bytes.
• There’s a number of attributes that weren’t present in Redhat 9.

Here’s the output of tune2fs on a Redhat 9 EXT3 partition:

# tune2fs -l /dev/hda1
tune2fs 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
Filesystem volume name:   /boot
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          9e6fa853-18bc-4c08-bb7c-51c74e0c11ae
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal filetype needs_recovery  sparse_super
Default mount options:    (none)
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              8032
Block count:              32096
Reserved block count:     1604
Free blocks:              17451
Free inodes:              7982
First block:              1
Block size:               1024
Fragment size:            1024
Blocks per group:         8192
Fragments per group:      8192
Inodes per group:         2008
Inode blocks per group:   251
Filesystem created:       Tue Oct 26 12:48:49 2010
Last mount time:          Thu Oct 28 15:58:10 2010
Last write time:          Thu Oct 28 15:58:10 2010
Mount count:              11
Maximum mount count:      28
Last checked:             Tue Oct 26 12:48:49 2010
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Sun Apr 24 12:48:49 2011
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal UUID:             <none>
Journal inode:            8
Journal device:           0×0000
First orphan inode:       0

The following is output from a Centos 5.5 formatted EXT3 filesystem:

# tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
tune2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          7384cac8-b098-4c85-be6d-643443ae3d3d
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype needs_recovery sparse_super large_file
Default mount options:    user_xattr acl
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              6809088
Block count:              6807552
Reserved block count:     340377
Free blocks:              6204875
Free inodes:              6752521
First block:              0
Block size:               4096
Fragment size:            4096
Reserved GDT blocks:      1022
Blocks per group:         32768
Fragments per group:      32768
Inodes per group:         32736
Inode blocks per group:   1023
Filesystem created:       Thu Oct 28 13:31:34 2010
Last mount time:          Thu Oct 28 17:43:57 2010
Last write time:          Thu Oct 28 17:43:57 2010
Mount count:              2
Maximum mount count:      -1
Last checked:             Thu Oct 28 13:31:34 2010
Check interval:           0 (<none>)
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal inode:            8
Default directory hash:   tea
Directory Hash Seed:      42eb54b3-8f66-4aef-8578-388c9863423c
Journal backup:           inode blocks

As you can see, some basic features and the inode size has changed in 10+ years. The solution:  format the “new” guest  to match the specs of the old:

#mke2fs -O has_journal,filetype,sparse_super,^ext_attr,^resize_inode,^dir_index \
-I 128 -j /dev/sda$disk

And that’s it- rysnc the files over to the guest VM, install grub, verify your fstab is good, and voila – you’ve transferred a physical server to a virtual one.

Recently, I noticed someone using one of the QuickSearch toolbars included in Firefox as a place to temporarily paste something while working on their desktop.

Put it here temporarily?

It makes sense, you need to place to hold something for a moment – it’s right there and readily available. And since you’re not pressing the Enter key, it’s not going to be sent anywhere right?

Well, actually it is. After you stop typing, it immediately sends an HTTP POST request to it’s target (Google in this case). And while the search does takes place, it doesn’t update your browser (so you might not realize it even happens). Here’s a copy of the content in the packet:

GET /complete/search?output=firefox&client=firefox&hl=en-US&q=mysuperleetpassword HTTP/1.1
Host: suggestqueries.google.com
User-Agent: <omitted>
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8

Does this matter? That depends on what you put there. You probably wouldn’t pick up the phone and call Google (or Yahoo!, or BING, etc) and tell the receptionist “Hey, my Facebook username is … and my password is …”, but you can very easily do this by simply pasting ANYTHING in that handy little search bar.

Here’s a quick video of me running a packet capture and typing something into the search area. Again, I only moved my cursor – never did I press Enter (View it fullscreen for better detail).

I wonder how much garbage accidentally falls into search engine pits like this. I’m also curious as to how many sites log mistyped passwords (think of it this way – you accidentally type your webmail password into Facebook or vice versa).

All the misguided traffic reminds me of  the pollution problem of 1.0.0.0/8.

Not much has happened project-wise in the last few weeks. Any free time I’ve had has gone to updating the wireless firmware to capture MAC addresses and pass them off to an Elgg plugin I’ve written. I’m still waiting on a box of 10 Servo’s from China to continue my RC Car modification project.

I’ve also got plenty of work to do around the house until May.

But now, after almost 4 years, I’ve decided it’s time to spruce up BrainDeadProjects.com.  I’m retiring the  glowing brains that have been the personification of BrainDeadProjects for these past few years. Sure, remnants will probably remain (the favicon for instance)… but now let me introduce you to “Tin Can Head“:

Tin Can Head is the work of LogoDesignCreation.com. Give them your idea, and for a modest amount  (under $60), they’ll propose a few design ideas for you. Turnaround is fast, Wired.com gave them a good grade, and overall I have to say that I’m pretty satisfied.

More project updates soon, in the meantime stare at the glowing brains of Tin Can Head.