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What is L.O.M.?
Lights Out Management (LOM) is a management tool used by high-end hardware manufacturers to give low-level, hardware-based access to the console of a running computer system without having to be in the room with it. How is this useful?
If you are faced with a failing piece of hardware and it is local to you, you can simply go to the hardware, view the console screen and see if there is any indication of what the problem may be. If you can't make the operating system reply, you can reboot into the hardware monitor (firmware, or BIOS) and watch the startup sequence for clues.
If you are NOT in the same room with the failing hardware, you most likely rely on remote access tools, such as LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, VNC or Remote Desktop. But all of these systems require a running operating system in good enough shape to support the network stack, the user interface and the graphics system. If you have a dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), you won't see it from any of these tools. You will, however, see if from an LOM system!
Serious Security Issue on ALL Platforms!
There has been a serious security issue revealed in the past few weeks that affects every single computer in the world! I know that sounds alarmist and the setup to a bad joke, but it's true. To understand it's pervasiveness requires a technical explanation of the fundamental way we secure ourselves online.
Public-Key Encryption
Public-Key Encryption, or PKI for short, is the most common method used for encrypting traffic across the Internet. It is also the primary way we use to ensure the identity of people and computers across the internet. Your web pages that start with "https://" as well as your email connection using secure services for POP and IMAP use this technology. Most importantly, encrypting a certificate with these pairs ensures that the certificate that you receive truly is from your bank and not some nefarious hacker trying to steal your information!
Using Strong Passwords
The PRIMARY method that a hacker uses to access your personal account information is to guess your password. This password is much like the key to your house. If someone else can pick the lock and guess your password, they ARE you and you are compromised!
With something so simple as a password, why not take the time to create a very complex password and keep people out? For most people, they don't remember passwords very well, so they use simple ones to "protect" their information.
How do you create passwords in such a way that you can remember them and that you can make them more complex to make them hard to guess? Here are some simple ways to create easy-to-remember complex passwords:
Pass-phrases: Create a "sentence" that is easy to remember and then use parts of each word as your passphrase. For example, "My Uncle Earnie received a Purple Heart for his bravery on D-Day" would become "MUEraPH4hboDD" - or - "I wish I could remember my password!" would become "IwIcrmp!"
Dovecot IMAP and Quotas
I recently ran into an issue with a Dovecot (POP/IMAP) server on a Linux system that perplexed and annoyed me. The client complained that they were not receiving new emails and that their customers were getting bounce messages back from attempts to send them. As usual, the first step is to get a copy of the bounce to see what the problem reported to the sender is.
The error was a temporary one (thank goodness) so that meant that after I figured out the problem, email should begin flowing without loss:
deferred: local mailer (/usr/bin/procmail) exited with EX_TEMPFAIL
Are you on Cloud 9?
You may be hearing more about "Cloud Computing" these days. Just what is cloud computing? What does it do? How can you use it for your business?
What is it?
Cloud Computing is a set of technologies that allows you to use resources such as disk storage, common applications and even security services on someone else's network across the Internet. Some of the more common cloud services are storage, email and spam-reduction, however, more complex cloud platforms are available and commonly in-use by companies, big and small, throughout cyberspace.
