We feature technical articles across the entire IT spectrum - Networking, security, operating systems, cloud, and programming.

ESX – ViClient Cannot connect to host

Issue When trying to connect to the console within the VI Client you receive the following error,               Cannot connect to host my.esx.host.com: no connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it In this example you have the required ports open on both your firewall and your ESX box. You see … Read more

Worm Prevention – Disable Autorun

There are a number of worms which exploit the autorun feature of your removable media. This is normally caused by infecting your autorun.inf file. A counter measure to this is to disable the auto run feature. Fir3net.com has supplied the relevant registry key so that you can disable the auto feature. The registry key to … Read more

Cisco ASA – What is the ‘MSS Exceeded’ ASP Feature ?

Background PIX or ASA running 7.0 later introduce a security feature in which any packets containing an MSS larger then the announced size during the 3 way handshake will be dropped.During the 3 way hand shake both sides announce their MSS (Maximum Segment Size). The MSS is the largest TCP payload that the host can … Read more

AWK – By Example

Remove the columns $4 $5 $12 and $13. awk ‘BEGIN{FS=OFS=” “}{$4=$5=$12=$13=””}{print}’ file.txt Break down each line and numbers each field. awk ‘{print NR”: “$0; for(i=1;i<=NF;++i)print “\t”i”: “$i}’ Add list of numbers within a file. awk ‘{total+=$0}END{print total}’ file

Bash / Korn – Change the default session timeout

This short guide will show you how to set the default session timeout. We will set the TMOUT variable, of which is supported by both shells, Bash and Korn. To check your current timeout setting, enter the following, [root@localhost ~]# env | grep TMOUT To change this setting globally edit the /etc/bashrc. To change this … Read more

Netscreen – Console settings

In this article we will be looking at the various console commands available to us on the Juniper Netscreen. From entering the get command we can see the current console settings along with console session details, ns5gt-> get console Console timeout: 10(minute), Page size: 22/22, debug: buffer privilege 200, config has not been changed! ID … Read more

ffmpeg Commands

FFmpeg allows you to record, convert and stream digital audio and video in various formats. The installation guide can be found here Commands ffmpeg -i [source].flv -vn acodec copy [dest].mp3 Copy the sound of a video to an mp3 ffmpeg -i [source].avi -s 320×240 -b 1000k -vcodec wmv2 -ar 44100 -ab 56000 -ac 2 -y … Read more

Recursive ZIP command

This is a small command which will take each file in the directory that it is run in and zip the file and then remove the original. for i in `ls` ; do zip=$(echo $i | sed s/iso/iso”.”zip/) ; zip -r $zip $i && rm -fv $i ;  done

NSM – I`ve Forgotten / Lost my NSM Password

Have you lost, forgotten, misplaced the NSM password ?Below are the steps to reset your “super” account password, NSM 2006.x and below Log into the NSM via SSH as root Stop the NSM Server (you should be able to find the init scripts in /etc/init.d) Run the following command /usr/netscreen/GuiSvr/utils/.hashPasswd <new password>, you will receive … Read more

Check Point – How to Reset SIC

How do i reset SIC ?  Go into the CLI of the Firewall and type cpconfig then choose Secure Internal Communication. You will then be prompted to enter a passcode. Enter anything it doesnt matter. Then exit cpconfig using option 10. cpfw[admin]# cpconfig This program will let you re-configure your Check Point products configuration. Configuration … Read more