Billy Zoellers

Fix ARD after remote Lion Upgrade

Billy — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:16:49 +0000

ssh into the offending machine and type:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -configure -access -off

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -restart -agent -privs -all

see here for more: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2370

AR.Drone

Billy — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:07:15 +0000

A video of the Parrot AR.Drone flying over Pikeville, KY.

More info at http://store.apple.com/us/product/H1991ZM/A

Home Network Stats

Billy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:27:30 +0000

Over Christmas break I did some cleanup and reconfiguration of my network at home in Pikeville. I’m going to document the setup and devices I use on the network at home.

The router [10.0.252.1] is a Dell OptiPlex GX620 running pfSense 1.2.3 with 3 interfaces. The WAN interface is connected to the AT&T DSL internet connection (6Mbps down/512Kbps up). The other two interfaces LAN/DMZ are internal and behind the firewall.

LAN: The LAN [10.0.252.0/24] operates at 1Gbps and connects to a 16-port Netgear switch. It connects to Cat5e drops installed throughout the home as well as an Apple Time Capsule in the center of the house to provide wireless connectivity on two SSIDs:

ZoellersTChs: Wireless-N (5Ghz) operates at 300Mbps.
ZoellersTC: Wireless-G (2.4Ghz) operates at 54Mbps.

DMZ: The DMZ [10.0.254.0/28] operates at 1Gbps and connects to a 5-port Netgear switch. It connects to specific devices that are isolated for bandwidth monitoring and Quality of Service/Traffic Shaping. The DMZ is connected to an AT&T 3G Microcell device to provide reliable 3G connectivity to cell phones throughout the home as well as the following devices:

Vonage VoIP device -> provides local telephone service to the home.
Apple Mac Mini -> Hosts the backup system that utilizes the Drobo’s. This acts as an offsite backup for my clients systems via the CrashPlan Pro software. It hosts Portable Home Directories [OD/FileSync], DNS, and VPN for macs in the home, as well as Billings Pro Server to handle my client management and billing system.
2 Drobos -> Connected to the Mac Mini via Firewire 800. Added together, these two devices have up to 6.29TB of redundant (RAID5 type) space [easily expandable to 24.8TB].

Mac OS X Server Security

Billy — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:49:59 +0000

Whenever you have a server sitting directly on the internet (and not behind a hardware firewall) it is more important than ever to ensure that all of your security holes are covered. Ever since my move to MacMiniColo I’ve been more conscious of this than ever, because so far every server I have worked with (for the most part) has been behind a hardware firewall/NAT with ports opened in the firewall as needed. Because of this, it has definitely been a relief that Mac OS X Server performs so well on the open internet.

For reference, my Mac OS X Server 10.6 based server at MacMiniColo has 1 100Mbps NIC directly to the internet [in the Switch datacenter]. That NIC has three public IP addresses [web server, mail server, and expansion]. The Mac OS X Server services I am running are Firewall, MySQL, and Web. Kerio Connect is also installed and the SSH server is active.

In terms of my firewall, I lock down all unnecessary ports and run the firewall in stealth mode. SSH is only enabled for traffic coming from one IP to minimize unwanted traffic coming from interfaces that there is no reason to SSH into. I also tend to run SSH on a non-standard port. You can see an excerpt from the firewall log below, letting me know what unwanted traffic is being blocked. My firewall has a ‘block list’ for IP’s that I see attempting brute force type attacks so I can keep them from actually trying these attacks on my server.

My SSH server also disallows root logons and uses non-standard username as a preventative measure against brute force type attacks. Mac OS X Server uses emond to block IPs for a certain amount of time when they continually enter incorrect SSH passwords [you can see an example of this in the excerpt from the system log below].

You can also see in the excerpt from the secure log that Mac OS X server tracks log in attempts with incorrect passwords, and even tries to help at identifying break in attempts. ['jjohnson' is NOT a valid user on my server].

Move to the Mac Mini

Billy — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:40:01 +0000

My hosting clients have been moved from Slicehost to Mac Mini Colo with my messaging system coming to Mac Mini Colo soon as well.

This move comes after I began experiencing performance issues with Slicehost when the service was put under load. The ability to have dedicated resources with MacMini Colo at an equal cost makes the switch and easy decision; especially with the capability to expand to multiple minis and load-balance with round robin DNS as my load increases.

Below you can see a load test of this blog on each hosting provider. This is obviously an unfair test because of the difference in specifications of each host. But it is a valid comparison for me, because they are both approximately the same in terms of cost to me. I’ve also included a load test of a dreamhost wordpress blog to compare these results to shared hosting.

Slicehost- 512MB VPS w/ limited CPU and I/O based on other clients on the host. 20Mbps capped bandwidth.

MacMini Colo- 4GB RAM with dedicated CPU and I/O. No bandwidth cap on 100Mbps connection.

Apple Xserve Discontinued

Billy — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:32:57 +0000

Apple announced they will be discontinuing their Xserve product on January 31, 2011. While I can see that they’re trying to focus on getting servers in the hands of the average small business (under 50 users) with the Mac Mini Server, I’m a little disappointed in the offering of the Mac Pro as an option for the corporate/education server room.

One of my higher-end business customers utilizes an Xserve as their small office server. While a Mac Mini or two might have worked in this situation, I chose Xserve because I knew it would be very hard to outgrow and it would be easy to keep running of an extended lifespan (I have every intention of running it for at least 5+ years in it’s current capacity). I’m not sure I’m sold on the Mac Mini Server idea, but I guess it’s worth testing out; I make use of them currently for smaller backup servers and etc.)

I guess for businesses and education the Mac Pro is a solution, but it still lacks many of the server-class features of the Xserve. (The mini fails when it comes to 50+ users because of it’s performance). The hard disk (1x500GB 5200rpm) in my spec-ed out Mac Mini runs at about 78.1 MB/s as of my last check, while the Xserve’s RAID weighs in with 202.5 MB/s in disk performance. Maybe I should try my tests on an actual Mac Mini Server (with 2x7200rpm drives), mine is just a top of the line mini running Snow Leopard Server and a few server apps.

All in all I’ll miss the Xserve, it’s a cool product; but I’m excited for the challenge of using multiple mac mini’s (or something) to accomplish the same task.

On the web.. again

Billy — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:24:02 +0000

Lately the billyzoellers.net domain has been somewhat neglected as I haven’t really maintained much of an online presence in the past few years.

I’m hoping to revive this domain a bit in the form of a blog to document my day to day work in technology as well as any other random information that seems semi-relevant.