Mike's musings

SELinux

I've started reading up on SELinux. It's important for the work I'm doing, and it's not something I've really ever got to know, so it's time. Interesting so far, and fits in quite well with knowledge I already have, so it's not completely foreign at all.

Labels: linux

Hardening - and the Blessed Virgin Mary

I've been working on lots of (often pretty low-level) hardening techniques for Linux recently, for a project I'm involved in. It's been really interesting, and I'm attending some very relevant training in a month or so. Today I've been looking at ntpd, which can be configured to keep your computer's clock up-to-date. This is an important security issue, as a number of forensic techniques require a good knowledge of what exactly happened, and when. I've also been helping someone with how to dispose of old hard drives and smart-cards, trying to work out exactly what a particular customer _really_ wants, and looking at account creation, security and locking. It's been an interesting, if busy, day.

Today is also the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. It's a very important day for many Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. I'm not a big proponent of Marian devotion (devotion to Mary), but as I've mentioned in this blog on a number of occasions, I'm moving slowly higher up the candle: that is, I'm getting slightly more catholic - with a small "c". I think that what I'm learning is that ritual can be a good way of showing respect, and respect is something that I rate highly in my worship.

Labels: geekery, linux, saint

Expenses

(backposting) Did some expenses today. And discovered that work can't find the receipts I sent for a set for over £175, so don't want to pay them. I'm working on this...

The really bad news - on top of this - is that I've picked a very, very short straw. We need to harden a Windows 2003 system, and I'm in charge of writing the policies and procedures for hardening our Linux systems, surely I'm the person to do the Windows one, too? So the thinking goes. Oh well.

Ironed for a couple of hours tonight. Felt virtuous and achy.

Labels: linux, work

New phone

Yesterday I got a new phone: the Nokia N82. Liking it, I have to say. Also wrote up an internal report and tried to work through some other stuff.

Took Buster for a (very wet) walk at lunchtime, which he enjoyed.

And upgraded my laptop to Hardy Heron.

Labels: linux, phone, work

NFS, compiz, amarok, firefox

Some keywords: .kde, .qt, .mozilla, .config

It turns out that compiz doesn't like being run where the home directory is mounted on NFS. Specifically, you need to softlink .config to a local directory.

Similar problems with firefox: softlink .mozilla

Similar problems with amarok: softlink .qt and .kde

This took quite a lot of investigation, mounting, remounting, linking, etc., but my main box is getting close to working as I'd like it to. It also appears that amarok isn't desperately keen on building a large collection on a samba share, but we're getting there on that, too.

Labels: geekery, linux

All change

Our CEO at Certicom resigned today, which has kept things fairly busy this afternoon. Also tidied up my main machine, including getting printing working from remote machines, which was a surprise, as it's usually a nightmare. We love Ubuntu.

Labels: linux, work

Liturgy

(backposting) Jo and I went up to the church to catch the Palm Sunday service, only to discover that it was taking place at a different church in the benefice, and had started around 30 minutes ago. So I decided to create a little liturgy that Jo would enjoy and understand. We had a confession - where we said sorry for things - an absolution (an adapted version of the collect for the 21st Sunday after Trinity), a reading (a simplified version of the Palm Sunday reading - the Entry into Jerusalem), some intercessions, some thanksgiving, and we sang "Lord of the Dance". Jo seemed to enjoy it, and I think it was a rather good service.

I'm supposed to be putting together a liturgy - and reflection on it - for Harvest, Christmas, or Good Friday, and I'm thinking of doing one similar to today's, but for Good Friday. For just me and Jo, maybe Kate (Moo's mum) as well.

On a different note - I've been meaning to do a clean(ish) install of Ubuntu on my main machine for a while, and got round to doing it last night, which meant that I was a little late to bed. Not because it went badly, but because I went better than expected and I got more done, which is good. Luckily Jo slept well, and we did a bit of relay sleeping in the morning to top ourselves up.

Went for a lovely (if slow!) walk with Moo (who can't walk fast at the moment, but does maintain a steady pace) and Jo (who can walk fast, but stops for every puddle, stick, tree-stump and plant). Oh, and Buster - who kept running between them to check that they were both OK.

Labels: linux, liturgy, walk

Tutorial, Ubuntu upgrade

Had a tutorial for the Life and Service module. Should have finished this module by now - or nearly - but I was too ill earlier. At least I've started.

Also upgrade Ubuntu from 6.10 to 6.16: nice. Just a bunch of improvements, to be honest. Still playing.

Labels: ERMC, geekery, linux