Mister Fahrenheit's Guide

Easy Way To Set-up Bind9 and Squid3 on Debian.

freddie — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:33:23 +0000

Running your own Bind9 and Squid3 server is a pretty cool. For one, it can enhance browsing experience. Let get started:

1. Install necessary softwares

sudo apt-get install bind9 dnsutils squid3

2. Configure bind9-editing resolv.conf

gedit /etc/resolv.conf

3. Add new line on top of the line

nameserver 127.0.0.1

4. Save file and restart bind9 service

/etc/init.d/rsyslog restart; /etc/init.d/bind9 start

5. Run these commands to verify its functionality. Observe the query time when the dig command is issued the second time. You will see 0msec when it is properly configured.

dig www.yahoo.com

7. Now on to configuring Squid3

gedit /etc/squid3/squid.conf

8. Clear all and paste the following code.

acl manager proto cache_object
acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/32
acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8 0.0.0.0/32
acl SSL_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 80 # http
acl Safe_ports port 21 # ftp
acl Safe_ports port 443 # https
acl Safe_ports port 70 # gopher
acl Safe_ports port 210 # wais
acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535 # unregistered ports
acl Safe_ports port 280 # http-mgmt
acl Safe_ports port 488 # gss-http
acl Safe_ports port 591 # filemaker
acl Safe_ports port 777 # multiling http
acl CONNECT method CONNECT
http_access allow manager localhost
http_access deny manager
http_access deny !Safe_ports
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
http_access allow localhost
http_access deny all
http_port 3128
hierarchy_stoplist cgi-bin ?
cache_mem 128 MB
maximum_object_size_in_memory 512 KB
memory_replacement_policy heap LFUDA
coredump_dir /var/spool/squid3
refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080
refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440
refresh_pattern -i (/cgi-bin/|\?) 0 0% 0
refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320

## disk cache stuff if you want
#cache_replacement_policy heap LFUDA
#cache_dir aufs /var/spool/squid 4096 16 256
#minimum_object_size 0 KB
#maximum_object_size 4096 KB
#cache_swap_low 90
#cache_swap_high 95

## disable all logging for better performance
access_log none
cache_store_log none
cache_log /dev/null

9. Save file and restart squid3 by typing

sudo squid3 restart

10. Now configure your iceweasel browser to use your own proxy server – Edit > Preferences>Advanced>Network>Connection>Settings>Manual Proxy Configuration>Enter 127.0.0.1 and the port is 3128.

11. Test your proxy server by typing www.google.com. Now type www.google.comss and you will get a nice squid3 message.

How to Setup a DNS server with BIND on Windows 7 (Part 2)

freddie — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:06:03 +0000

..continued from Part 1.

Setup

Configuration Files

1 . Now this is the hardest part of the tutorial. Firstly download file called named.root from

ftp://ftp.internic.net/domain/

2 . Copy the downloaded file to the DNS\etc folder.Depending on your Windows version, for 32 bit the location is

C:\Windows\System32\dns\etc

and for Windows 64 bit

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\dns\etc

3 . We will generate a BIND key by running:

rndc-confgen -a

4 . Next will generate a file called rndc.conf by runnning:

rndc-confgen > C:\Windows\SysWOW64\dns\etc\rndc.conf

(depending on the Windows version)

5 . We will open the file rndc.conf using notepad+ and copy the highlighted lines

and close the file.

6 . With notepad+ create a file called named.conf and paste the lines into the file.

7 . At the top of the line, type:

options {
directory “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\dns\etc”;
};

8 . Uncomment the lines by removing the # sign as in the picture.

and save file.

9 . Create another file called resolv.conf and type 127.0.0.1 at the top of the file. Type your DNS server from your ISP to the next two nameserver. For my machine, I use google dns address which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Press enter at the end of the lines. Save the file.

Windows Service

1 . Click Start button and type ” services.msc ” inside the box.

2 . Locate ISC BIND and double click. Go to Logon Tab and please select “Local System Account” and check the box under it.

3 . Go to general tab and click Start button. The service should start or check the log if it fails to start.Click ok and close the window.

Network Configuration

1 . Click Start button and type Network Connections inside the box.

2 . Choose your internet adapter, right click and select properties.

3 . Look for Internet Protocol Version 4 and double click.

4 . Now select ” Use the following DNS server addresses” and type 127.0.0.1 in the first box. Click Ok and close then box.

That’s it!

Results

We have to verify the functionality of the DNS server. Fire up Command Prompt box and type

host websiteaddress.com

and verify the details.

Next, run these commands

dig websiteaddress.com

and observe the Query time.

Now run the command again and you will see a much lower query time. Repeat with other website to see how much time you can shave with BIND.

Summary

This guide does not promise a faster internet experience for all user. While the improvement of speed in browsing may be increased by a small percentage, the fun is in knowing that you have managed to run your own DNS server. How cool is that

How to Setup a DNS server with BIND on Windows 7 (Part 1)

freddie — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:05:04 +0000

Content

Introduction
Objective
Checklist / Item required
Steps
Result
Conclusion

Introduction

BIND is also open source software that implements the Domain Name System (DNS) protocols. You can run your own DNS server for your own purpose or for enhancing your internet experience.

Objective

At the end of this howto, you will be able to host your own DNS server on which you can use to speedup the internet of the host computer or other machines connected to it.

Checklist / Item required

Notepad+ installed.
Bind9 software.
Windows 7 with UAC disabled.

Steps

BIND installation

1 . Download latest version of Bind from http://www.isc.org/software/bind

2 . Extract the zip files to any location.

3 . Now open the folder and run BINDInstall.exe. Under “Service Account Name” put your windows username. Then put your password in the next two box like in the picture below. Click Install.

Windows 7

1 . Click Start button and type “advanced system properties” inside the box.

2 . Click Environment Variables.

3 . Now under System Variables look for Path, highlight Path and click Edit.

4 . Under Variable Value, put at the end of line:

%SystemRoot%\sysWOW64\dns\bin

and click ok on everything to close all the windows.

Continued to part 2..

My experience with Malaysia wireless broadband

freddie — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:02:41 +0000

I wanted to share my personal experiences with reader on three of Malaysia’s major telco provider. Let’s start with number one.

Celcom broadband

I have been using Celcom broadband for the longest time, from 2008-2010. It was a costly move from me having spend RM400 for the 3g modem alone. The speed if I’m not mistaken is 512 kbps and download speed was never above 60kbps. The allocated data volume is 3GB and after that you will still be able to surf at slow slow speed. It was a painful experience because when the bandwidth throttling is active, it will hit you hard. Youtube rarely loads smoothly with celcom and sometime it makes Facebook look like Picasso.

Maxis broadband

Maxis broadband offers the same package setup as Celcom which suits me well. It was tempting because it comes with free modem made ZTE. Plus the usage is free for the first month. For a moment I had a blast because it was so fast and i am very enjoying it so much. The speed is achievable as advertised but in the end of second month it stopped working! Apparently I hit the 3GB quota mark and when I open browser, it keeps asking for me to buy some data volume. And I thought my package is uncapped! I could be wrong with the package selection but at least Maxis should allow me to surf a capped speed. I don’t understand what is wrong and thus I dropped Maxis name from my list.

Digi Broadband

I have seen this short advertisement about Digi Discovery Day broadband package. It is really cheap -RM38 and so I thought it would make no harm for me to try. The caveat is that at nighttime, the speed will be capped. Honestly, I could not feel any difference in day and night. It’s also as fast as Maxis but more consistency. Followed by this, i have switched completely to Digi by subscribing to Digi Smartplan package. It is the perfect plan ever, RM68 commitment+what ever you use for sms and calling. Like Maxis and Celcom, it also got some problem on its own and I have to compensate for it. There is not enough Digi 3G cell tower for coverage in Malaysia. For instance when I am at Jitra Kedah, there is no 3G line at all and even EDGE is not used in GSM

So there you have, my short stint with Malaysian telco company for the last three years. I would recommend Digi to the reader if you are looking into wireless broadband. I’m sure in the future all our telco will improve in service.

Xperia X8 battery capacity tweak

freddie — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:24:40 +0000

Introduction

I have been inspecting the Xperia X8 build.prop file when I realize that the battery capacity parameter was not the same as my hardware listed.

The build.prop has been changed after the Eclair update and SE developer may have change the value for compatibility among all region handset. In Android 1.6 version, the battery capacity was set 1200mAH which is correct for my hardware, however in the latest update the battery capacity has been changed to 950mAH. So I decided to change back the value.

Requirement

Rooted device
Root explorer android application
Android ADB
Notepad+ windows application

Procedure

1. Connect your device, turn on debug mode on your android and run this command in italic.

adb pull /system/build.prop C:\

This will fetch file called build.prop from your android and store it at root of C: drive.

2. Open your case back and read the battery capacity. Mine is showing 1200mAh.

3. Now edit the build.prop using Notepad+ and change the parameter:

ro.semc.batt.capacity=1200

Change from 950 to the capacity of your battery.

4. Open Root Explorer and mount the /system folder to read-write (rw)

5. Store the build.prop file back to the X8 by running command:

adb push C:\build.prop /system

6. Reboot your X8 and see if you can get a better life.

Comment or improvement please use the form below.

How to increase LCD density in Xperia X8

freddie — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:07:15 +0000

Introduction

In other word, increasing the screen resolution of your android screen. The advantage is that more text can be viewed on the screen and less scrolling is needed. I find that the LCD Density of 140 works best for X8, instead of the original 160.

Requirement

Rooted device
Root explorer android application
Android ADB
Notepad+ windows application

Procedure

1. Connect your device, turn on debug mode on your android and run this command in italic.

adb pull /system/build.prop C:\

This will fetch file called build.prop from your android and store it at root of C: drive.

2. Now edit the build.prop using Notepad+ and change the parameter:

ro.sf.lcd_density=140

Change from 160 to 140.

3. Open Root Explorer and mount the /system folder to read-write (rw)

4. Store the build.prop file back to the X8 by running command:

adb push C:\build.prop /system

5. Reboot your X8 and enjoy the new screen size

Comment or improvement please say it below.

How to back up windows user profile the easy way.

freddie — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 02:19:13 +0000

Introduction

It is always a good idea to back up your windows user profiles just in case your computer stopped working. Much better if you can store it off site and this will make restoring the system painless. In windows 7, the user profiles is stored in C:\Users\username.

How it works

Best summarize in a diagram below.

| user profile | <———-synchronize————> |external backup|

Advantages

Why should we care? There are many benefits of doing a systematically user profile backup, for instance:

Easily restores your files, bookmarks, favorites, images,etc on a fresh windows installation.
Automatically eradicate duplicate files.
Clever way to update your files and avoid rewritings.
Fast back up time.
It costs nothing (except for the external drive) because we’ll be using Open Source app.

Item Checklist

External harddisk, space are cheap nowadays. Get 1TB for god sake.
Free File Sync

Steps

1 . Install Free File Sync software.

2. Connect your external drive.

3. Now launch the Free File Sync software. On the left side will be your user profile location. Click browse button and point it to your user profile.

User profile

The right side will be the location of your external back up drive. Click browse and point it to your drive.

Back up drive

4. Next click the synchronize button to start the process. For initial synchronization process, it will take quite a long time to run. For the next backup session its really quick. Well, that depends on the back up size alright.

Synchronize

and after doing some calculations, it will show the diagram below. Click start.

Start sync

5 .If you got an error dialog pop ups, most of the time it is harmless, please tick Ignore and click ignore button.

Its safe to click ignore

6. At the end of the process you will get:

Completed

Click ok and have your mind at rest now

Summary

This guide may not be suitable for everyone. Hopefully some of you will find it useful and if you have other better method to do this, please share it on the comment box below. Thank you!

Optimize Your AMD Raid Array for Speed and Stability.

freddie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:28:31 +0000

Introduction

Having used the AMD raid setup for 6 month, I have discovered the settings that work best for me. I have done comparison graph using hard disk benchmark software before and after the settings. However I will not post any benchmarks here since I dont intend to mess around my perfectly setup system now. This guide is for AMD system only

Prerequisite

AMD SB700 and SB800 series with Raid support
Mechanical Harddisk
AMD Raid Xpert software
Windows 7

Step

1. Click start menu and type inside the search box – device manager and hit enter. Now expand Disk Drives and double click AMD XXXX SCSI Disk Device

2. You will see the property box and then go to Policies Tab. Please tick ” Turn off windows write-cache buffer on the device”. Doing this your disk is more susceptible for corruption in case of power failure but performance trade-off is huge. I’d say its worth it because I have an off-site backup system.

3. Next, install the AMD Raid Xpert. You can get it from AMD download website.

4. Launch AMD Raid Xpert program and sign in. The default credential is:

Username: admin
Password: admin

5. Now expand Physical Drive View and select your first hard disk. On the right side, choose Settings and please check:

Write cache enabled: Enable

and

NCQ enabled: Disable

Repeat this for all your physical drives.

6. That’s it! Now you can run your own benchmark and see the improvement. I believe that graph will be much more stable and consistent.
Summary

I did not have resource to try this setup on any other machine so it may work differently for you. The only tell sign is to run benchmark right after configuration changes. You may want to do the changes one by one and then running the benchmark to see the changes. Doing so, it will be much easier to undone any mishaps. Share your opinion below.

Step by step tutorial – Enable JIT Compiler for Xperia X8 / W8

freddie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:57:23 +0000

Introduction

The Just In Time (JIT) compiler is an android system optimization component. Enabling JIT in your device will improve your Android experience in terms of speed and smoothness. Some say it even extends your battery life. By the time this tutorial is created, the Android version for X8 is 2.1.

Objective

At the end of this tutorial, you will be able to get higher score in linpack and quadrant benchmark software.

	Quadrant	Linpack
Before
After

Item checklist

JiT-toggle-0.1.zip – You can get this from xda-developer forum.
ADB files – Android Debug Bridge. It contains file like adb.exe, AdbWinApi.dll, etc. Google for it.
Notepad++ software
Your device must be rooted. Google for it.
Windows Operating system – I don’t have any other Os.

Once you have all this requirement, proceed to the next step.

Steps

Extract both ADB.zip and JiT-toggle-0.1.zip to your desktop. Now you will have two folder on your desktop called ADB and JiT-toggle-0.1.
Run windows command prompt and navigate to ADB folder.
Type:

adb pull /system/build.prop C:\ and enter.
Now you will now have file called build.prop in you C:\ drive. Copy the file and go to your JiT-toggle-0.1 folder. Paste the file into both folder called vmlibs_stock and vmlibsv2, replace any file if prompted.
Now open folder JiT-toggle-0.1/vmlibsv2 and open build.prop with notepad++.
Scroll to the most bottom and change:

dalvik.vm.heapsize=24m to dalvik.vm.heapsize=32m

and make sure that:

debug.sf.hw=1 is also available

Now type:

dalvik.vm.execution-mode=int:jit right under keyguard.no_require_sim=true

Now save changes and close Notepad++
Now mount your sdcard and paste JiT-toggle-0.1 folder inside your sdcard.Unmount your sdcard, unplug cable and reconnect.
Now return to your command prompt.
Type:

adb shell                 and enter
su                             and enter

Now type:

cd /sdcard/JiT-toggle-0.1                 and enter
sh enable_jit.sh                                       and enter

Your phone will reboot and it should be ready. Run necessary benchmark to compare with mine

Troubleshooting

If you failed to get the output from the command prompt like in the screenshot, download another version of adb and retry.

Summary

I can felt that my X8 is slightly responsive and much smoother now. I can say that it is worth all the trouble in doing this. In case or failure, you can always reflash your X8 with the Sony Ericsson updater program.Good luck!

Fix for wireless mouse stutters

freddie — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:32:20 +0000

I have accidentally discovered the fix for this issue I am having. At first I thought my cheapo wireless mouse is bad because I have put a fresh new battery and yet it the mouse pointer movement is jerky again. FYI, I am using Aluminium ATX tower and the USB wireless mouse adapter is behind the case. I don’t know if this will work with your wireless mouse but it is worth trying.

The problem is due to WEAK signal strength! Or disruption of wireless signal. To solve this, get a USB cable like in the picture below and you can place your wireless USB receiver anywhere within the cable length. Now, put your USB wireless adapter in sight-line of your mouse which should be near your monitor. After putting the USB wireless adapter near the mouse, my problem disappears

Something that look like this.

Does it work for you? Share your comment below. Thanks for reading.