ktdreyer

laura-dreyer.com redesign

2009-05-30T21:24:00.002-06:00

Laura and I spent the past three days re-designing her website, adding a blog, re-vamping the gallery... it was hectic but fun!

6 days and counting till I'm married :-)

Last View from Moody

2009-05-15T17:00:00.000-06:00

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at MBI, and I won't forget the many memories from the school or the city.

new kenandaudrey.com coming up

2009-04-17T15:35:00.005-06:00

We're re-designing our wedding website to be more interactive, and it's getting a facelift in the process. Here's a sneak preview :)

Also, I've re-vamped the website for Gingrich Enterprises at www.gei-1.com.

RAID1 on nslu2

2009-04-17T15:28:00.003-06:00

Can RAID1 work on the nslu2 for big drives? Yes! I've got two 750 GB SATA drives hooked in, and it's humming along. I had to upgrade to SlugOS5 in order to be able to boot to the md device. Be ready for long RAID sync times though... it's taking about 21 hours to sync a 650 GB partition :)

Authenticating Wordpress with multiple domains in Active Directory

2009-03-29T20:02:00.004-06:00

Recently I've been working on a project involving authenticating Wordpress to Active Directory. There's a great plugin on wordpress.org for doing AD authentication, but I needed it to do a bit more than the author intended. The main thing I needed was support for authenticating users from many different domains.

In the original plugin, there is a single, universal "account suffix", stored in the Wordpress settings database. I'm guessing the intent here is to have a user simply enter their username, like "kdreyer", and have the suffix automatically appended to it ("kdreyer" + "@example.com"). Since we're using multiple domains, this won't work. I could have a "kdreyer@example.com", or a "jsmith@xyz.com", and I need to authenticate both.

So here is my hacked version of the Active Directory Authentication plugin. It pulls out the domain from the user's account using split('@', $username), and uses the user-supplied suffix instead of the universal suffix. This means I can get rid of the global Account Suffix and Default Email Domain settings altogether.

There are one or two other modifications here as well. I'm using SSL in my adLDAP instantiation... and so should you ;-) I've also added a bit to update the user's display_name to be "John Smith", instead of jsmith@xyz.com... the info's already there in AD, so, why not help our user out and put it in there for him :-)

I'm using Wordpress 1.7.1, and the patch is against Active Directory Authentication plugin 1.0.5.

Laura's website

2008-12-30T20:38:00.004-07:00

Just finished 1.0 of my sister Laura's website, www.laura-dreyer.com. Laura designed the whole thing in Inkscape, I carved it up with GIMP, put it into a custom Wordpress theme, and put the finishing touches with jQuery. It was really fun and I learned a lot along the way. Laura's a great designer (and sister :)

Going to pick Audrey up in a few hours from the airport... our final un-married New Year's :)

"trick" interviews

2008-12-10T19:21:00.007-07:00

Apparently giving "trick" interviews is as popular as it is unprofessional.

Ethically, is there a difference between what Michael Moore does to Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine and what certain creationists have done to Richard Dawkins?

Fedora 9 impressions

2008-06-09T19:51:00.003-06:00

I've been running Fedora 9 for a while now. Although some things in F8 felt half-baked to me (I had trouble with PulseAudio + Audacious), F9, like each Fedora release, feels more polished.

Improvements:

Yum is much faster - not as fast as apt, but getting there.
PackageKit is much more polished than the package manager GUI F8 used (Pirut and Pup).
Swfdec works pretty well!

Gripes:

Firefox 3 occasionally crashes, and many plugin authors haven't updated their plugins to version 3.
Gkrellm: I haven't seen an error window like this in a while :)

summer internship

2008-06-07T09:24:00.007-06:00

I'm interning this summer at Community Bible Church, at Pocono Lake, Pennsylvania. I drove up to the area on May 24, met the pastor that night, and met the church congregation on Sunday the 25th. They are a nice bunch of folks! I was so surprised to see the sign outside the church welcoming me.

So far I've been able to teach Sunday School on Sunday mornings, lead Bible study on Wednesday nights, and redesign the church website: poconolakechurch.org. Tomorrow I preach my first sermon there on the book of Esther.

My fiancée, Audrey, is on a plane to the Philippines for her internship this summer, where she'll be working with the missionaries there and discipling women in the church group.

first mac experience

2008-05-14T00:52:00.004-06:00

A friend gave me an old G3 to play around with today. It's my first Mac experience... and I promptly managed to hose Safari by installing the latest version from apple.com. Apparently OS X 10.3 doesn't support the newer versions of Safari or WebKit. After struggling around trying to downgrade back to Safari 1.3, I finally found good instructions for what I needed. Apparently I have to go back to Safari 1.2, then to 1.3 :) Also, Pacifist was necessary; simply installing 1.2 the regular way doesn't work.

big news

2008-05-12T11:26:00.000-06:00

I'm engaged :)

hacking the WGR614v7

2008-01-13T16:42:00.002-07:00

Netgear often builds a telnet daemon into their routers, but sometimes it can be a little tricky getting in. I was curious to see if my WGR614v7 has any way to access a command line interface, so I fired up nmap:

$ nmap 192.168.1.12

Starting Nmap 4.20 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2008-01-13 17:42 CST
Interesting ports on 192.168.1.12:
Not shown: 1694 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
23/tcp open telnet
80/tcp open http
8080/tcp open http-proxy

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.355 seconds

All right! Let's try to log in...

$ telnet 192.168.1.12
Trying 192.168.1.12...
Connected to 192.168.1.12.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

Rats. For some reason we are kicked out as soon as we touch the daemon. A little hunting on the internet provides an explanation. Apparently the telnet daemon is disabled by default, but the Netgear staff have a Windows utility that will send a packet to the router in order to enable the telnet interface. A hacker has somehow reverse-engineered the encryption process and written it into a C program.

$ gcc -o telnetenable md5.c blowfish.c telnetenable.c

Now I use the program to construct the "unlock" packet with the IP and MAC address of my router, and the default username/password "Gearguy/Geardog":

$ ./telnetenable 192.168.1.12 00AABBCCDDEE Gearguy Geardog > modpkt.pkt

Then I send it to the router with netcat:

$ nc 192.168.1.12 23 < modpkt.pkt

Now I try to log in again...

$ telnet 192.168.1.12
Trying 192.168.1.12...
Connected to 192.168.1.12.
Escape character is '^]'.
Login: Gearguy
Password: *******
U12H06400>

And we're in! "?" gives a list of commands. I'm most interested getting the network statistics from this and putting the results into cacti... but I'll save that for another time! :)

--Edit--

Apparently seattlewireless.net, the original website that hosted the files and information, is down. I've put the C files up for grabs here:

http://ktdreyer.googlepages.com/telnetenable.c
http://ktdreyer.googlepages.com/md5.h
http://ktdreyer.googlepages.com/md5.c
http://ktdreyer.googlepages.com/blowfish.h
http://ktdreyer.googlepages.com/blowfish.c

Good luck!

Junior Year

2007-09-02T11:38:00.000-06:00

I'm back in Chicago for the semester. For classes, I've got Systematic Theology I, Communication of Biblical Truth (a preaching class), Greek Exegesis I, Interpersonal Communication, and Ministry and Staff Relationships. My PCM this year is at a nursing home where I'll be leading a Bible Study. It's awesome to be back on Dryer 2 and really great to start another year at Moody.

On the work side of things, I've quit using, or trying to use Cisco's VPN client on Linux. It was not very well maintained to begin with, and I couldn't even get it to compile against the kernel in Fedora 7. Now I'm using an opensource program for Cisco VPNs now called vpnc, and I really like it. It's 100% open, doesn't require a kernel module, runs as a daemon instead of an active program, and certainly feels faster. I had a great summer doing full time work and look forward to continuing part time for the rest of the year.

Speaking of Linux, my laptop has a Intel 3945ABG wireless card inside it, and Fedora 7 shipped with the new iwl3945 driver for this card. It is my understanding that the license is more open than the usual ipw3945 driver, and though the iwl3945 driver was new and kind of buggy, the Fedora devs had to decide to either bundle this one or none at all. I wasn't able to get the original iwl3945 driver on the CD to work, but when I updated to 2.6.22.4-65.fc7 I tried it again and it seems work well with both open and WPA networks.

Last Friday was the first "Programming Tonight" session I've attended (they started when I was in VA). It was a neat place, I had a good time, and learned something new about OpenLDAP - I didn't realize the registration dates were stored for each user! Pretty useful.

Done with school forever

2007-05-10T13:48:00.000-06:00

Just took my last exam this morning. I'm so relieved to be done; this week has been rather hectic. I'm sticking around Illinois for a week to go to a friend's wedding, then I'll be heading back to Virginia for the summer.

A few weeks ago my new Netgear router started acting up. I did a cold factory reset (holding the pin in the back while powering it on) but when it booted up all the lights stayed solid green. The device was inaccessible, and subsequent resets and reboots yielded no change. Thankfully the thing was still under warranty, so I sent it back to Netgear and just received the replacement in the mail this week. I had purchased a WGR614v6 International Version from newegg.com, but Netgear sent me back a brand new WGR614v7 North America Version! This version seems to have fixed the authentication bug I noticed in the v6. I also got to keep the old ethernet cable :) So even though I had to pay a few dollars to ship the old one out, I'm still satisfied with Netgear's quick response and their better-than-the-original replacement device. I'm using it now as I type this with no problems :)

Lastly, we've finally rolled out our LDAP creation tool on chicagolug.org. Sign up, or update your account info. This means our wiki is open to all who register!

ktdreyer.com

2007-04-20T16:14:00.000-06:00

I just registered ktdreyer.com with nearlyfreespeech.net. FreeBSD, SSH access, CGI, PHP, MySQL, unlimited subdomains... and you only pay for the bandwidth you use. Awesome. I'll probably use them for Laura's upcoming site as well. I'm still going to keep my email ktdreyer#gmail.com, although email forwarding with nearlyfreespeech.net is only $0.02 a day.

New wireless device

2007-04-18T23:32:00.000-06:00

I just got a Netgear WGR614 from NewEgg for $36.42 (including shipping). It's going to replace my aging Linksys BEFSW11S4, which I'll give to my sister to use at home. I haven't got a chance to test out the wireless capabilities of the Netgear since I don't have my new laptop yet, but the firmware options available on the WGR614 are much more advanced than the Linksys hardware I've used (the BEFSR41 and BEFSW11S4... but that's understandable since those devices are several years old :)

The only issue I have with WGR614's configuration is that they try to oversimplify things with their "Smart Setup Wizard". For example, if you go to the default page at http://192.168.1.1/, the WGR614 will automatically redirect your browser to http://www.routerlogin.com/welcome.htm, which is a 404 error. To get around this redirection, I took a look at the source of the redirect page on the firmware itself and noticed it had a string in a line of Javascript, "start.htm". I tried http://192.168.1.1/start.htm and it brought up the configuration page without the hassle of the "Setup Wizard". All is well... though it appears that this method bypasses whatever authentication method the WGR614 is supposed to have. Oh well. At least it tracks my IP so that only one IP can be "logged in" to the manager web app simultaneously. It's sufficient for my needs here, and maybe I haven't found the right setting in the config, but I think this is pretty insecure if it works this way out of the box.

In other news, I just found out that Dryer 2 Skip Day is going to be the same day that Mom and Grace are coming to visit! Another reason I can't wait till Thursday :)

New laptop on the way

2007-04-02T21:02:00.000-06:00

Just ordered a new computer from Dell... the Inspiron E1405. It's got an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB), 14.1 inch Screen, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 80GB Sata Hard Drive, CD/DVD Burner, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g wireless, 9-cell Battery, and most importantly... the 4 year warrenty :) Total was $1,587, and with a $450 off coupon, it was down to $1,193.85 (tax included). Incidentally, tax was about $25 more if I shipped to Chicago than to ship home, so my mom's going to bring it up when she comes in a few weeks. I'll need to think of a hostname for it in the meantime :)

chicagolug.org progress

2007-03-30T23:14:00.000-06:00

The work to rebuild chicagolug.org is moving along, slowly but surely. Last night I added the scuro theme to the ChiGLUG Planet. There's still some bugs to work out (the image borders need to match our background, and where is a good place to stick that RSS feed sidebar!?) but it's cool to see it in action. Special thanks to the Planet Gnome devs for the inspiration :) Of course the major project still to do is the LDAP account creation tool, which feels daunting but will be awesome when it's completed. The wiki authentication is already tied into our LDAP server, so when it's done the account creation tool will really open that up.

Back from Spring Break

2007-03-26T22:29:00.000-06:00

Audrey and I got back to school yesterday afternoon and found it to be a nice 72 degrees downtown. We walked around for a while, looked all around a mall, and ended up in a Waldenbooks store where I found an interesting book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I read the first few chapters and would love to finish it up one of these days. The author does a good job of taking complicated scientific concepts and writes in a way that is interesting to the average person. I couldn't help but note the author's cheap shots at "foolish" things like intelligent design. The merits of I.D. aside, at the very least the cheap shots were a strike against the perception of purely scientific, rationalistic neutrality. Think not I am what I appear, eh? ;)

new chicagolug.org server

2007-03-02T16:54:00.000-07:00

We've got a new chicagolug.org server! Thanks Tristan for donating this one until the main machine arrives. It's hostname? "rebirth" :)

Message to Laodicea

2007-02-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting example in my Hermaneutics textbook this afternoon. In Revelation 3:14-22, John records a message to the church at Laodicea. He writes:

¹⁴"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
¹⁵'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
¹⁶'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

This Laodicean church is useless; it is not like hot water (for taking a bath) or like cold water (for a refreshing drink). We must interpret the "hot" and "cold" water in light of the archaeological background. Laodicea was located close to the hot springs by Hierapolis and a cold stream by Colossae. Both hot water and cold water are desirable and useful. But the spiritual condition of Laodicea is neither. It is tepid and lukewarm. We have to guard against quick misinterpretations: Jesus is not saying that active opposition to him is better than being a lukewarm Christian.

Culby vs Dryer

2007-02-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

Thursday night a rumor floated around that a bunch of Culby guys were going to storm our floor with snow. A lot of Dryer 2 guys prepared to counter the attack by filling up tons of trash cans with water. After several false alarms, a number of Culby guys did rush up to the building. They stayed outside and threw snowballs at the lounge windows. Eventually people from all three Dryer floors went outside for a snowfight. Both sides had trashcans for heaving snow and several people got a lot of water and snow in the face!

This morning right after chapel started in Torrey-Gray Auditorium, some Dryer 3 guys hiding in the choir loft quickly pulled back a curtain to reveal a banner they had made. It had the names of all three Dryer floors and read:

"The next day, when Dryer searched the battlefield, they found Culby dead on Dryer Lawn. They cut off Culby's head and stripped off his armor. Then they spread the good news all through MBI country and among the Moodies. They displayed his armor in the shrine of Torrey. They nailed his corpse to the wall of Gray. 1 Samuel 31:8, Dryer Abridged Version"

Whoever made the banner had also collected a bunch of clothes which the Culby guys had dropped during the fight, and fashioned them into a headless dummy which hung from a rope next to the banner in front of the whole school during the whole of chapel!

What Happens After You Die

2007-02-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

I preach at a retirement home for my PCM, and when I get back from Spring Break, I'm going to be preaching a series on "What Happens After You Die." I'm pretty excited about it. I'm planning to read over Spurgeon's sermons on the subject, and if you can think of any other good sources good information, please reply :)

Back in business

2007-02-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

Audrey and I had a great time last Saturday. We went out to the Grand Lux Cafe on Michigan Avenue for dinner. It was nice to sit and talk with her. This week we are busy walking back and forth to Moody Church for MBI's Founder's Week. The weather is bitterly cold and we got about 4 inches of snow today. In these single-digit temperatures, I'm very thankful for the new scarf mom sent in the mail.

I finally got Cisco's Linux VPN client to connect and route the traffic appropriately. The firewall admin here at Moody had to open TCP port 3322 (and fix some kind of routing/subnet issue). Also, I got an 80GB IDE hard drive from a friend to put into ethne, and I'm backing up my home folder from kappa onto it. The ethernet jack has been flaky, but hopefully that wireless firmware holds out long enough to transfer everything over. I'm just excited to have everything more or less back in order. I'm thankful to God that I had another computer to use when kappa died!

ethne with FC6

2007-02-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've wiped ethne and installed Fedora Core 6 and Xfce 4.4. After a long hassle, I'm basically back to where I was with kappa, desktop environment-wise. Setting up my HP 1020 wasn't hard with foo2zjs drivers. The biggest challenge was the Cisco VPN client.

After installing kernel-devel, I downloaded vpnclient-linux-4.8.00.0490-k9.tar.gz and ran the vpn_install bash script. The script complained about some problems with the kernel source. After hunting around online I found a blog describing the necessary fixes to make the client compile with Fedora Core 6. After the client compiled and installed correctly, I started the service. The script in /etc/init.d complained that the kernel module wasn't valid. After more hunting around I read on FedoraForum.org that this was a result of the infamous FC6 kernel bug (FC6's anaconda installs the kernel for i586 when it should install i686). Once I replaced the kernel with the correct architecture I was good to go. I set up the profile to get into the VPN server in Reston, and... "Connection timed out". At that moment I remember noticing that Moody's network had gone down and all the dhcp leases were wiped out. This means ethne now has a new IP address, but Moody's firewall rule is presumably still using the old one. I rushed over to Crowell to see if someone in IS could change it, but the main engineers had already left for the weekend. What a bummer. But God is good to me. And hopefully this will be resolved soon so I can get back to work! :)

Oh, and it's Audrey's birthday today. We're going out to celebrate Saturday night :)