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Phase 3 of D-Link DNS-323 hacking - Placing ffp on USB stick

I wanted to run ffp (fonz fun plug) running from a USB stick to minimize drive spin up. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. It seems like there are many ways to do this, and they vary with the version of ffp (even two methods for the same version of ffp 0.5

It's pretty easy to mount and format the USB, so I can use that if needed. Anyway, I won't be spinning the disks too much, and I need to move on. But here are some rough notes on this.


http://wiki.dns323.info/howto:external_drive
http://bfg100k.blogspot.com/2008/11/upgrading-ffp-05-and-moving-it-to-us...

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Phase 2 of D-Link DNS-323 hacking - Root user and sshd setup

Here's a follow-on to my first post on hacking the D-Link DNS-323 hacking.

This is what you should do after you've downloaded and installed Fonz' fun_plug (ffp) and made the initial telnet into the system.

Here's a useful guide for this :
http://wiki.dns323.info/howto:ffp?s=password


# pwconv
# passwd
# usermod -s /ffp/bin/sh root

# login (test root/newpw)

# store-passwd.sh
Copying files to mtd1...
Copying files to mtd2...
Done.

# cd /ffp/start
# sh sshd.sh start (test ssh login)


# cd /ffp/start
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Phase 1 of D-Link DNS-323 hacking - Running fun_plug on DNS-323

Here is probably one of the best short explanations of how this works :
http://wiki.dns323.info/howto:fun_plug

On Windows client, mount the DNS-323 as a drive (L: in this case).

Grab the latest version of the fun_plug script provided by fonz :


L:\>wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/fun_plug

L:\>wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/fun_plug.tgz

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Git push - How To

As I've mentioned before, Git push takes some getting used to. Issuing the simple command "git push" may not give you what you expect.

I've kind of gotten used to using git fetch to pull into FETCH_HEAD, and then seeing if I want to merge FETCH_HEAD into master. Here's the analog when pushing.

First, let's assume we're pushing into a Linux repository from a Windows client. Our Linux repo has just two files initially:

Linux

@linux:/tmp/gitTest (master#) $ git commit -a -m "Initial commit"
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How to fix a dishwasher that won't drain - look up!

We recently had a problem with our dishwasher -- it wouldn't drain. Merely scraping stuff off the bottom of the washer didn't help. I pulled the rotor out, and took off a housing above the motor, but this didn't reveal lots of gunk either.

I tried running with white vinegar and baking soda. I think it cleaned things up, but still water at the bottom.

Next I took the baseboard off and unconnected the drain tubing. This allowed water to drain freely, so it looked like things were draining from the washer fine.

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Git versus Mercurial for tracking large file systems

I'm looking to find a way to retain, access, and analyze files which come in over time. One part of a solution to this may be using a free, efficient file version control system (VCS) like Mercurial or Git.

One way to track file updates is to save multiple copies of a file for a limited time. However, itt should be more more space-efficient to have a VCS merely save diffs in the files. A VCS would also aid in tracking exactly when a certain change was made.

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Knoppix recovery for Mac Mini crash

We had a hard crash of our Mac Mini the other day. It wouldn't boot after a hard power reset. Don't ask -- I'm trying to protect the innocent ;-)

My wife used to work at Apple, but I'm not a Mac man, so we brought it in to the "Genius" counter at a local Apple store. The guy was pretty helpful but he said there was no hope to recover the disk. However, I've been using computers long enough to know that this was some kind of file system error that was largely recoverable, and we had some data that wasn't yet backed up.

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Odd Chromium behavior on image flyovers

I was doing some testing of the in Google Chrome (Chromium). I sometimes like to use a different browser just to see how things look.

Anyway, I noticed that "menu flyover images" weren't changing in Chrome. But the text (Description and Time) were changing. Odd thing was that ONE of the images changed, but the others didn't.

Things worked OK in Firefox 3.x, IE 7, and Opera 9.x, so this is likely a Chrome bug. I think Chrome has an optimized JavaScript interpreter, so that may be a source of the quirkiness.

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How to set up PuTTY SSH keys

1. Start up PuTTYgen.exe. The defaults of SSH-2 RSA and 1024 bit key should be fine.

2. Click Generate to make the key (moving mouse randomly over blank area).

3. Fill in the comment (me at example.com). Enter a passphrase. A passphrase is more secure, but you'll be prompted for it on every access (unless you use keychain or others).

4. Use PuTTYGen's button to save the public key on your PC (ex. c:\putty\keys\me-at-example.txt).

5. Use button to save the private key. You must use .ppk extension (ex. c:\putty\keys\me-at-example.ppk).

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