Hardware

How to fix IPMI KVM JAVA BMCMD5withRSA and is treated as unsigned error

Posted on in Categories Datacenter, Hardware last updated July 8, 2017

Like any good sysadmin, I kept my servers and desktop side up to date and patched all the time. However, recent Java updates have broken my IPMI KVM Java Applets on Dell, IBM, HP, Supermicro and FreeNAS mini servers. You will get an error that read as follows:

Unsigned application requesting unrestricted access to system. The following resource is signed with a weak signature algorithm MD5withRSA and is treated as unsigned.

Intel Euclid: Ideal platform for Robotics and Ubuntu Linux powers it

Posted on in Categories Hardware last updated May 23, 2017

Intel announced Euclid development kit for robotics. It is Ubuntu Linux 16.04 based system. One can run, monitor and manage their robotics apps with the web interface. The software works with any ROS-based (Robotics Operating System) robot such as Arduino to build sensing capabilities in your project. You can use sensors and cameras to control a robot.

How to enable Wake on Lan (WOL) with Advanced TomatoUSB wifi router firmware

Posted on in Categories Hardware, Howto, Networking, Open Source last updated March 29, 2017

I recently installed TomatoUSB advanced firmware on my Asus RT-AC66U wifi router. This router act as my wireless Ethernet bridge. TomatoUSB advanced has additional features like

  • SSH
  • Multiple WAN support (3G/4G/Static IP/Cable/ADSL2)
  • Tor
  • Virtual Wireless
  • DMZ
  • IPv6
  • FTP/Media server via USB
  • BiTorrent Client via USB
  • UPS support
  • OpenVPN client and server
  • Tinc VPN server and much more.

The Librem 13 v1: A full-fledged modern laptop with coreboot for freedom and privacy freaks

Posted on in Categories Hardware last updated February 28, 2017

Coreboot is a free and open source software. The project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS firmware and blobs. Unfortunately, Coreboot does not run on the modern laptop (except Chromebooks) due to Intel ME and other closed source technologies.

Purism vendor sells Linux preloaded on the Librem 13 and the Librem 15 laptops. Purism claims to follow a strict belief in users’ rights to privacy, security, and freedom. Untile today Librem bios was not freed. However, the coreboot port for the Librem 13 v1 is 100% done. It means you can have blob free Coreboot running on a full-fledged modern laptop. The laptop comes with Hardware Kill Switches that physically sever the circuit at the hardware level for Wireless & Bluetooth, Camera & Microphone. The specs are as follows:

How to protects Linux and Unix machines from accidental shutdowns/reboots with molly-guard

Posted on in Categories Command Line Hacks, Debian Linux, Hardware last updated February 19, 2017

Oops! I did it again. I thought I was logged into my home server. Turns out I rebooted the db server. Another my not so favorite is typing “shutdown -h 0” into the wrong terminal. I know a few people who have admitted to doing that here.

My anger that can't be contained
Is there any end to the madness? Do I need to suffer from accidentally random reboots and shutdowns? After all, it is human nature to make mistakes, but one should not keep on making the same mistakes again and again.

PSA: Intel Atom C2000 Chips Flaw Bricking Routers/NAS/Firewall devices that are powered by Linux, pfSense and FreeNAS

Posted on in Categories Hardware last updated February 7, 2017

Intel’s Atom C2000 chips are bricking products, and it’s not just Cisco hit. From the theregister:

Intel’s Atom C2000 processor family has a fault that effectively bricks devices, costing the company a significant amount of money to correct. But the semiconductor giant won’t disclose precisely how many chips are affected nor which products are at risk. Coincidentally, Cisco last week issued an advisory warning that several of its routing, optical networking, security and switch products sold prior to November 16, 2016 contain a faulty clock component that is likely to fail at an accelerated rate after 18 months of operation.

Intel has “Silvermont” which is a microarchitecture for low-power Atom, Celeron and Pentium branded processors used in systems on a chip (SoCs) made by Intel. It includes:

  1. Avoton – SoCs for micro-servers and storage devices.
  2. Rangeley – SoCs targeting network and communication infrastructure.

How to use CoreFreq CPU monitoring software on Linux

Posted on in Categories Hardware, Open Source last updated February 8, 2017

Recently I came across an excellent software called CoreFreq. It is a CPU monitoring software designed for 64-bits Processors w/ architectures Intel Atom, Core2, Nehalem, SandyBridge and superior, and AMD Family 0F. It runs on 64 bit Linux system. CoreFreq provides a framework to retrieve CPU data with a high degree of precision: