preload
Dec 08

Building VPN Connections from any Windows client against IPCop running Zerina is actually very straightforward. Doing that from a Ubuntu client is a little bit tricky since ubuntu’s network manager cannot handle Zerina’s .p12 (pkcs) files.

  • Install network-manager-openvpn using synaptic
  • I know it’s not linux style – but do a reboot know – just to insure that all services are running. I had no success with the next steps without rebooting. Or I’ve been too lazy searching for the services that needed a restart.
  • Download the .p12 file from IPCop or ask someone to do it for you.
  • Now you have to extract 3 certificate files out of your .p12 file.

    openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -in (filename).p12 -out userkey.pem
    openssl pkcs12 -nokeys -clcerts -in (filename).p12 -out usercert.pem
    openssl pkcs12 -nokeys -cacerts -in (filename).p12 -out userca.pem

    Or download that script and call it with pkcs2certs.sh your-username.p12 and it’ll create the required files for you.
  • Now place the files into your vpn configuration and make the settings match your zerina configuration (cipher, compression etc.)
Nov 20

Caps-Lock is (IMO) the most useless and annoying key. Since there doesn’t seem to be a GUI way for disabling just type the following in a terminal:

xmodmap -e “remove lock = Caps_Lock”

In order to make these changes permanent open your ~/.bashrc using

sudo nano ~/.bashrc

and add the line above

Nov 19

The Kerio Mailserver is a great thing when accessed via Outlook from Windows. When it comes to Linux Clients it get’s a little bit tricky but it can be done.

I’ve setup the email client Thunderbird with its addon Lightning for Calender/Tasks

  1. Email via IMAP
    Simply specify your Hostname and Username/Password
  2. Calendar/Tasks via calDAV
    Add a new network calendar using calDAV with the address

    http://<hostname>/calendars/<domain>/<user>/Calendar

  3. Adressbook via LDAP
    Create a new Adressbook with LDAP
    Name: Your name but can be whatever you like
    Adress: your server’s hostname
    Base-DN:  fn=ContactRoot
    Port: 389
    Bind DN: your emailadress
    The only Drawback is that this Addressbook will be read-only
    Nov 05

    I’m a proud owner of a quite outdated but otherwise extremly reliable Palm Treo 680. For software testing reasons I require a network connection from my Palm to a Ubuntu 8.04 box using bluetooth. Continue reading »

    Sep 13

    When installing the Dovecot IMAP Server on Ubuntu its certificate is only valid for a short time.
    You can create a new certificate by issuing:

    openssl genrsa -out server.key 1024
    openssl req -new -x509 -key server.key -out server.pem -days 1826
    sudo mv server.key /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
    sudo mv server.pem /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
    sudo /etc/init.d/dovecot restart

    Continue reading »