Moving The Blog

The site moved to Jekyll hosted on GitHub.com.

Upgrading your FIOS router’s wireless security to WPA2

Verizon configures their wireless routers with WEP by default. WEP is incredibly easy to crack. Networking or security skills are not really needed. A simple Google search sets would be hackers on their way to cracking a WEP protected wireless network.

The good news is WPA2. Most Verizon routers support WPA2.

Setting up WPA2 on your Verizon router

1. Connect to the router with your web browser – http://192.168.1.1 and login
2. Click on Wireless Settings in the top bar
3. Click on Basic Wireless Settings in the left nav bar
4. If Wireless is off – turn it on
5. If WEP is on – turn it off
6. Click Apply at the bottom
7. Click Advanced Security Settings in the left navigation bar
8. Select WPA2 under Level 1
9. Select Pre-Shared Key for Authentication Method
10. Select ASCII as the format for the Pre-Shared Key
11. Enter a good pass phrase* for the Pre-Shared Key.
12. Select TKIP and AES for the Encryption Algorithm.
13. Click Apply at the bottom.
14. Test the new settings.

• Verizon security update
• Compatibility Issues
• Verizon’s instructions for enabling WPA2
• PC Magazine article on Verizon’s WEP problem

* Use a good Pass phrase

• Use a good, strong pass phrase. wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength
• Don’t worry. The pass phrase is only used the first time a computer accesses the network. It doesn’t get entered every time.
• Do not forget to write the passphrase down.

BFG Repo-Cleaner

BFG Repo-Cleaner is a good tool to clean up a Git repository before sharing.

Removes large or troublesome blobs like git-filter-branch does, but faster. And written in Scala.

    $ bfg --strip-blobs-bigger-than 100M --replace-text banned.txt repo.git

Replace all passwords and listed in a file (prefix lines ‘regex:’ or ‘glob:’ if required) with

     ***REMOVED***

wherever they occur in your repository :

    $ bfg <strong>--replace-text passwords.txt</strong>  my-repo.git

Delete all files named ‘id_rsa’ or ‘id_dsa’ :

    $ bfg <strong>--delete-files id_{dsa,rsa}</strong>  my-repo.git

Using BFG on Windows:

• Use Git Bash or Windows 10 Bash.
• Download and install Java from here.
• Download BFG here.
• Make an alias for BFG:

  java -jar bfg.jar $*

• Make a replace.txt file:

PASSWORD        # Replaces PASSWORD with ***REMOVED***
PASSWORD==>TEST # Replaces PASSWORD with TEST
PASSWORD==>     # Replaces PASSWORD with blank
# You can use Regular Expressions also

• Run this command in the repo folder from Git Bash or Win10 Bash:

bfg –replace-text replace.txt

• When bfg is done run these commands

git reflog expire –expire=now –all && git gc –prune=now — aggressive

git push                   # -f may be needed

Notes:

• I had already pushed the repo and shared it.  That got complicated by multiple branches.  My fault.  It would have been much simpler to run bfg before sharing.
• I fumbled a bit trying to get bfg running in Windows command shell.

Resources:

• StackOverflow

• Removing Keys, Passwords and Other Sensitive Data from Old Github Commits on OSX

• BFG Repo-Cleaner – Removes large or troublesome blobs like git-filter-branch does, but faster. And written in Scala.
• Using BFG Repo Cleaner tool to remove sensitive files from your git repo
• The BFG Repo Cleaner

Microsoft Windows File Server Locked File Watcher

• It is common for companies to work with Excel, Word and other files on Windows network shared folders.
• More than one user cannot usually work on files like Excel at the same time.
• When trying to open a locked network file it can be hard to see who has it locked.
• The best method to see who has a file locked is from the Windows file server. But that requires Administrator level access. That level of access is not practical for all users for security reasons.
• This tool has two parts:
• A Powershell process that watches for locked files and saves the result.
• A web server that displays the locked files and who has them locked.
• No special access is required to view the web results.The Powershell process uses
• The Powershell process uses a list of watched files and folders. This limits the number of files displayed. This also allows it to avoid showing sensitive files or network folders.

Visit Github to download.

Cliplink – a utility for short, reliable links on Windows networks

What is Cliplink for?

• I developed Clipboard-Link from end user need. It is a reliable method to create links to files and folders on Windows network drives.
• Spaces and special characters break Outlook’s ability to create hyperlinks to network files. Clipboard-Link eliminates that problem.

How do I get set up?

• Get Cliplink from => GitHub.
• There is no configuration
• There are no dependencies
• No database configuration
• Save the contents of this repo to a network drive or share.
• Tell users to run setup from there.

How does it work

• Locate the file or folder on the network.
• Right-click and select Send To > clipboard-link
• Cliplink creates a safe link to the file and puts it on the Clipboard.
• Paste the link into Email, documents, etc.

To make a friendly link

• Create a link to a network file or folder with Clipboard-link and paste into a message
• Select the link part and Cut
• Select the name part between the brackets
• Select Insert menu > Hyperlink
• Paste the link in the URL box
• Click Ok
• Clipboard-link copies the file / folder name and shortened link to the clipboard

  

                 [Engineering Documentation]                  file://F:\ENGINE~1 

    

                          ^ Name ^                               ^   link  ^
  

NOTE: **Cliplink will not create links for executables [files ending with .EXE, .COM, .BAT, etc.].

Who am I?

• Developed by dkurman@netsnbytes.com with lots of help and feedback. I had jobs as I.T. Manager, sysadmin, helpdesk and programmer for several companies.
• @davekurman on Twitter
• LinkedIn