To get kernel modules to load automatically on boot

Put them in /etc/modules.

Adding packages into a yum server and self-signing them

• Dump the rpms into a subdirectory
  

• gpg --gen-key

  
  
• Edit ~/.rpmmacros:

  
  %_signature gpg
  %_gpg_name Peter Parente
  

  
  
• In the RPMS directory:

  rpm --resign *

  
  

• gpg --export --armor key name > RPM-GPG-KEY-mine

  
  
• On both clients and server:

  cp RPM-GPG-KEY-mine /etc/pki/rpm-gpg

  
  
• On server:

  createrepo /my/repo/where/rpms/are

  
  
• Add a+r on files and a+x on directories for serving.
  
• On the client:

  rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-mine

  
  

VMWare Server Console broken on Hardy - gcc version conflict

VMWare-server-console ships with a bad library that reports errors about version GCC_3.4 not found. Easily fixed: delete the bad library from /usr/lib/vmware....

Cisco pix firewall configuration notes

To start logging for debug:

logging buffered debugging

To view logs:

show logging

Log to remote syslog:

logging trap errors
logging host inside ip

Need a default route as a catchall on the outside interface:

route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 ip 1

NTP:

ntp server 10.0.0.205 source inside prefer

Disable nat in both directions:

nat (inside) 0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
static (inside,outside) internalip internalip netmask

If you are dicking around with nat rules make sure you:

clear xlate
clear arp
show xlate

Use nat to do inside --> outside nat. Use static for outside --> inside. To use port address translation (PAT) for inside --> outside with the outside external ip:

nat (inside) 1 ip netmask
global (outside) 1 interface

Enable SSH login from a IP range on the internal side:

ssh ip netmask inside
ca generate rsa key 2048

To save config:

wr mem
ca save all

Vim neutered on hardy

So on ubuntu hardy the default vim install is vim-tiny, which is rubbish. Can't even do syntax highlighting. To get usable vim, install vim-runtime, or for the real deal vim-full.

Customising the eeepc

Here's what I did

• Disabled samba and portmapper by commenting them out of /usr/sbin/services.sh. Tried just commenting out their start methods in init.d, but services calls start-stop daemon directly for portmapper. Didn't want to actually uninstall in case I want them later where there is no inet access.
  
• Disabled cups auto-discovery off (Browing Off in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf) because it requires a process listening on the network.
  
• Changed computer hostname using kcontrol
  
• Connect to my home wireless automatically on boot.
  
• Changed screensaver to lock after a few seconds.
  
• Added in extra apt package sources and installed openarena - awesome.
  

Doing incremental reveal in Open Office Impress

I like doing presentations with incremental reveal on my points, where one point comes up on the screen for each mouse click. Powerpoint calls this something like 'animate by 1st level paragraph'. To get this to work in open office impress:

• Click on your text box, then custom animation in the task pane on the right hand side
  
• Click Add...
  
• Select Appear
  
• Right click the animation that appears in the box and select Effect Options...
  
• On the Text Animation tab, choose 'Group Text: By 1st level paragraphs'
  

So intuitive! I couldn't get it to apply to all slides by doing this to the master so I just did it to one slide then used 'Duplicate Slide'.

Well done to both Powerpoint and OO for making it easy to do all sorts of distracting and stupid flying animations but hiding useful features under a maze of configuration.