Woke early this morning to go and book our Cave Tubing activity with the Black Water Rafting Company.  Shortly afterwards we were introduced to our guide and shown to our wet suits.  Damn those things are damp & cold first thing in the morning!

As we were making our way down towards the cave entrance, we were given the chance to practice a backwards jump onto our tubes from height into the river outside.  The river water was freezing cold, but it gave the wet suits enough water to start warming up on our trek down to the cave.

The trek through the cave itself was pretty cool with a couple of backwards jumps off waterfalls on the way.  Half way through the system we were instructed to turn off our head lamps – All of a sudden the roof of the cave lit up with thousands of tiny bright specks of blue/green light from the glowworms.

An amazing day out!

9th August – “Hobbiton”/Matamata, New Zealand – Sunny

Set off this morning later than we intended but luckily we arrived just in time to take the Hobbiton Movie Set tour.  Was pretty cool to be able to walk around and touch the stuff that was in the LOTR movies.  Our tour guide way very enthusiastic and a proper LOTR geek!

After walking around the Party Tree and looking over the lake we walked up to and explored the hobbit holes and Bag End – Lots of photo opportunities!

After a nice lunch in the farm cafe we drove down towards Lake Taupo, our next stop for the night.

10th August – Wai-o-tapu, New Zealand – Cloudy

We had yet another rushed journey this morning to get to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland in time for the Geyser eruption.  Yet again, we made it with just minutes to spare.  The eruption was pretty cool, something we’ve never seen before except on TV.  The only downside was the horrid sulphur smell when the steam cloud passed over you.

After the eruption, we made our way back down the hill to the main Thermal Park and spent a few hours walking around lots of strange thermal pools/craters.

After we finally escaped the eggy smell of the sulphur clouds, we made our way to Tongariro National Park to camp in a site below “Mount Doom”.

The site wasn’t quite what we were expecting so decided to only stay the one night.  We spent the evening in the cafe with beer, wine, chips, lemon meringue and chocolate fondant.  Leela managed to blitz her way through another 20 thank-you cards for our guests – Must have been a sugar rush

11th August – Tongariro National Park, New Zealand – Cold & Cloudy

This morning we went to check out information on booking a flight over and around the mountains.  The pilot was very vague about the conditions and appeared to still give us hope about a decent flight.

Once up in the air things turned out different – We only managed a short 20 minute flight around the park near one of the mountains due to the bad weather.  Leela also discovered she doesn’t travel well in small light aircraft that get bumped about a bit by bad weather

After the flight we headed off towards Wellington, a 5 hour drive with stunning views of Mount Rhapehu en route.

12th August – Wellington – Cloudy

Spent the morning sorting out the motorhome and getting things organised properly.  In the afternoon we took a bus into Wellington City Centre.  Had a look around the shops but couldn’t find anything that took our fancy then walked down towards the Embassy Theatre where Return of the Kind had its world premiere.

Found a fantastic restaurant called Zibibbo where I had a gorgeous duck and gnocchi with spinach and mushroom meal.  This was followed by an impressive Tapas dessert with 2 raspberry sorbet cones, chocolate & mandarin mousse, mango crème in an egg, cinnamon donuts, vanilla ice cream and finally a coffee crème brule.

13th August – Wellington – Sunny

We spent the morning at the Weta Cave, home of the LOTR and Narnia (amongst tons of others) special effects.

Watched a 20 minute behind-the-scenes film of what they’ve done for various films, then explored the mini-museum of weapons, armour, models and clothing used in the LOTR films.

Spent a good few hours on the ferry from Wellington, through the Cook Straights and finally onto the South Island!  The journey was pretty uneventful – We spent the majority of it freezing outside on the front deck hoping in vain to see some dolphins or whales.  However, the views of the hills and mountains on the way into the Picton terminal were fantastic.

Drove down to Blenheim to stop for the night – The weather was pretty miserable during the journey.  Once there we had a great meal in Roccos Restaurant and found a fantastic local wine – “Drylands Sauvignon Blanc 07”.  We’ll definitely have to visit the winery tomorrow and pick up some more!

14th August – North East/Kiakoura Coast, New Zealand – Sunny

Had an amazing day today.  We left Blenheim early and headed up the coast – Leela drove the motorhome for the first time too!  Our first stop was only 6km up the road at the Drylands winery, the vineyard that produced last nights bottle of wine.  We spent about an hour there, sampling the different wines and came away with a few bottles for the trip.

We continued on up the coast road and found hundreds of seals all along the coast.  Leela found a great spot to stop where we spent a few hours walking around them taking plenty of photos.

We then crossed over the main road an took a quick 10 min walk up a small track which eventually led to a waterfall.  In the pool at the bottom we found a couple of baby seals playing around and their mother asleep on a ledge above.  An amazing experience that could have been so easily missed.

Spending the night camping in Kaikoura after a not-so-great chippy tea…

Hi there!

We’ve spent approx 12 hours in the air so far flying from Heathrow to Singapore.  The staff, service & food from Singapore Airlines are great – Pity about our sleeping arrangements.

We spent the majority of the “night” trying to get comfortable and getting occasional small amounts of sleep.  I’ve also discovered I suffer from “Barometric Pressure Headaches” when the plane comes in to land.  Not nice in the slightest!

Our hotel, the “Marina Mandarin”, is lovely.  Our room has a nice view over part of the city across towards the marina.

Whilst Leela took a nap to recover from the flight & jet lag, I spent some time on my laptop browsing through the amazing photos that our wedding guests uploaded to our website.  Thanks to everyone that took the time to upload these, they are great!

5th August – Singapore – Hot, cloudy

Today the weather was very hot but overcast, so we decided to venture out to the Chinese and Japanese Gardens.  After working out the MRT system we enjoyed a scenic (and thankfully air-conditioned!) journey out to Jurong.

The Chinese Garden is amazing, we walked up 7 flights of stairs to get to the top of the Pagoda and were rewarded with fantastic views and a nice cool breeze.

Within the gardens we found what is meant to be the worlds largest collection of turtles at the Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum.  We spent an hour or so here, feeding a massive collection of frenzied turtles which seemed desperate to get a bite of cucumber!

In the evening we decided to go visit the Singapore Night Safari.  On our way to the bus stop, we found some people selling tickets to the Night Safari along with a free bus ride.  Once we accepted the offer and took the bus, we realised this wasn’t an “official” operation and was obviously run by someone re-selling bulk-bought tickets.  We did get there though, and in one piece!

The safari itself was strange – You’re basically taken around on a bus trip through a zoo, in the dark.  You can’t really see very much while on the bus and the tour guides sound like they’re reading from a very cheesy script.  It seemed lots of emphasis was put on animals we might consider “normal” such as goats and cattle.  Once we left the bus and decided to go walking around on our own we finally got to see some impressive animals close-up including elephants, leopards and lions.

6th August – Singapore – Hot & Sunny

We slept in today and were woken by massive gun salutes being carried out by the Singapore Military practising for National Day.  After applying lots of sun cream we took a walk to the Singapore Flyer, similar to the London Eye but bigger!

We saw some amazing views across Singapore and the harbour, but the most fascinating view was of the grand prix circuit being prepared for the Formula 1 race the following month.

We spent the afternoon in the Hotel Lobby/Atrium eating lunch (mine was a plate of the smallest burgers I’ve ever seen!) and writing thank-you cards while waiting to leave for the Airport and our flight to New Zealand.

7th August – Auckland, New Zealand – Sunny

We’re in New Zealand at last!  We arrived early this morning, and after a round of Biosecurity checks on Leela’s hiking boots we were finally allowed to enter!  A driver from Kea Campers arrived to pick us up from the Airport and took us 30 mins north of Auckland to their base and our motor home.

Our Kea Motorhome – Home for the next 3 weeks!

We then drove several hours south of Auckland to Waitomo and our first campsite…

The day started out looking pretty bleak, with heavy downpours over the entire North East.  However as noon arrived, the clouds parted over Chillingham just in time and treated us to a wonderful sunny day.

We had a fantastic day joined by lots of our friends and family and have many wonderful memories to treasure.  Thank you all for helping to make our wedding such a special day.

We’ve had so many photos sent to us it’s going to take me a while to sort through them – Needless to say, I’ll post a blog entry once they’re online!

I’ve also replaced the default banner images of fruit & trees with some banners snipped from my photo collection.  They’ve turned out much better than I thought they would – Not bad for 5 mins work with Paint.NET

Nine Inch Nails – Lights In The Sky Over Sacramento 2008

Update: Looks like someone at Google noticed.  Everything’s back to normal for me now…

Bacula currently doesn’t support VSS backups of a 64-Bit version of Windows Server 2008, so there’s a number of hoops you have to jump through to get even a semi-reliable System State & Exchange backup.  For an Exchange backup we use the NTBACKUP binaries from Windows Server 2003 64-bit and for the System State we use the Windows Server 2008 wbadmin tools.

For both jobs we’ll use a couple of “Client Run Before Job” commands to trigger client-side scripts to run the client-side backup jobs…

WARNING: This method works for me, but please test and then test some more before relying on any backups made like this!

Exchange Backups

First of all, grab the ntbackup.exe, ntmsapi.dll and vssapi.dll binaries from a Windows 2003 64-bit server – They should be located in C:\Windows\System32 by default.  Place the binaries in their own directory.  eg: C:\Program Files\NTBackup

Next, create a folder to store the scripts & Exchange database backup files.  eg: C:\Backup

Run NTBackup, cancel the wizard, click the “Backup” tab, browse the tree and tick “Microsoft Information Store” under your Exchange Server:

Click “Job” then “Save Selections”, save the file as “C:\Backup\Exchange Backup.bks” then exit NTBackup.

Create a text file in C:\Backup named “BackupExchange.cmd” with the following contents (watch for line-wrapping, the following should be all on one line):

start /W "" "c:\Program Files\ntbackup\ntbackup.exe" backup "@c:\backup\Exchange Backup.bks" /N "Exchange Backup" /F "c:\backup\Exchange Backup.bkf" /FU /L:f /M normal

This script will run a full Exchange Information Store backup on-demand and store it in C:\Backup\Exchange Backup.bkf, overwriting this files previous contents.

Next, we’ll edit our existing Bacula client config to skip the C:\Backup folder for standard backups and create a a new job to trigger the above script and backup the C:\Backup folder:

Client {
  Name = exchange-fd
  Address = exchange.server.address.here
  FDPort = 9102
  Catalog = MyCatalog
  Password = "my_bacula_fd_password"
  File Retention = 30 days
  Job Retention = 6 months
  AutoPrune = yes
  Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 1
}

Job {
  Name = "Exchange"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange FileSet"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchange.bsr"
}

Job {
  Name = "Exchange DB"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange DB"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchangedb.bsr"
  Level = Full
  Client Run Before Job = "C:/Backup/BackupExchange.cmd"
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange FileSet"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = "C:/"
  }

  Exclude {
    File = "C:/pagefile.sys"
    File = "C:/Backup"
  }
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange DB"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = C:/Backup
  }
}

Once we’ve done this, we can reload the bacula config and we’ll be good to go!

System State Backups

System state backups are a bit trickier – Because we’re running the 32-bit Bacula-fd binary, we’re inside the 32-bit WOW compatibility environment.  Inside this environment, C:\Windows\System32 is remapped to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 which contains 32-bit binaries.  However, the backup tool we require (wbadmin) is 64-bit only and is not available to us due to this re-mapping. Attempts to copy the wbadmin.exe binary to another location proved unsuccessful with other strange error messages.

However, the following method/kludge does work:

Copy the 64-bit C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe to C:\Backup

Create a text file in C:\Backup named “BackupSystemState.cmd” with the following contents (watch for line-wrapping, the following should be on 2 lines, each starting with “start /W”):

start /W "" c:\backup\cmd.exe /C start /W "" c:\windows\system32\wbadmin delete systemstatebackup -backupTarget:d: -keepVersions:0 -quiet
start /W "" c:\backup\cmd.exe /C start /W "" c:\windows\system32\wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backupTarget:d: –quiet

This script works by first of all launching the 64-bit command-prompt, then in turn launching the wbadmin backup process.  The 2 commands being run here first of all delete any existing System State backups from D:, then starts a new System State backup with D: as the target volume.

Next, we’ll edit our Bacula client config again, adding the following new FileSet and Job:

Job {
  Name = "Exchange SS"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange SS"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchangess.bsr"
  Level = Full
  Client Run Before Job = "C:/Backup/BackupSystemState.cmd"
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange SS"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = D:/
    File = C:/Windows/Logs/WindowsServerBackup/
  }
}

After reloading the Bacula config, you should be all set!

Drop me a line if you have any comments/suggestions.

• Upgraded to WordPress 1.7
• Updated all plugins
• Installed new Facebook integration plugin
• Upgraded to latest version of Windows Live Writer

So this post is just to test all that lot is working correctly

THIS:

So after approx 30 mins on hold to Xbox support, I finally get put through to a call centre where a helpful man takes down my details and registers a free repair.  Whilst looking at the serial number label I took note of the manufacture date…  3rd December 2005!  Today was my Xbox’s 3rd birthday!

*sniff* :’(

UPDATE 15th Dec: A brand new healthy Xbox landed on my doorstep this afternoon!

I’ve scanned the photo in and uploaded it to facebook, but as facebook tends to restrict the dimensions of uploaded images I’ve attached the full size image to this blog post for your viewing pleasure

This scan was taken from the Friday May 13th 1983 edition of the Runcorn World newspaper.

Enjoy!

• Kylie – Live at Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (Photos and Video!)
• Leelas PGCE Graduation
• Simons Leaving Night Out
• Trip to Amsterdam

More photos to come, when I get round to sorting them out…

Enjoy!

Clicky here and here!

I now need to find the time to locate someone local who can do a nice repair job.  Any recommended repair shops in the Newcastle area?

I can only image the conversations John Zubrzycki (BBC Research) had with set top box manufactures in late December:

John:

“We are going to do a trial of HD on digital terrestrial and need to develop a set top box”

Manufacturer:

“Great, we can get our development team across it. What’s your timescale and how many units do you need?”

John:

“Well it would be good to have say 500 for a trial in June”

Manufacturer:

“June, that’s June 2008?”

John:

“No, this June – in time for the World Cup.”

That was probably followed by the sound of the phone going down!

Head over and read the full article if this kind of thing tickles your fancy…

Eg:

The problem first reared its ugly head a few months back, with it happening more frequently over the past week or so.

Is it just me, or is it annoying the hell out of anyone else too?

That is all

My transparent bridging post had been altered to include a bit of HTML code to call an external URL in an IFRAME. I’ve no idea what was on that page, but no doubt it was malicious content targeting unpatched web browsers.

This Stopbadware blog post has more info…

All clear now!…

Apparently, the information about building a traffic shaper may harm your computer if you view it!  Err, I think not!  I’ve submitted a review request to Google and StopBadware.org to figure out WTFs happening here.

After a quick cleanup of my WMP 11 library, I fired up the Xbox 360 and found all the videos on my PC are playable!  Maybe I can finally get rid of the old Xbox 1 brick from underneath the TV…

Normally, I’d go for some kind of Linux solution, but after doing a bit of research it looked like one of the BSD’s with pf/ALTQ would be the way to go. After trying out a couple of popular ready-made “appliances” (m0n0wall, pfsense) I decided that the best, most flexible way, would be to get my hands dirty and roll my own.

This post is just a quick summary of the active configuration at the time of writing, mainly for my future reference. So, without further ado, here’s what I came up with…

[Updated]

I decided to go for OpenBSD, grabbed the ISO, burnt it to CD and made a standard installation (minus the games.tgz package). The server I’m using has 2 on-board NIC’s and a 4-port PCI NIC card. During installation I configured one of the on-board ports as my servers main Internet/management interface.

Next I configured a couple of the ports on the PCI card to act as bridged interfaces:

/etc/hostname.vr0 :
up

/etc/hostname.vr3 :
up

/etc/bridgename.bridge0 :
add vr0
add vr3
up

Now it was time to configure pf, the ALTQ traffic queues and some rules to assign packets to queues. The server is going to act as a transparent bridge between the internet-facing 100Mb switchport and the LAN. The “LAN” is all public IP addressable, so no NAT rules/translation etc is needed here. The LAN should also only be allowed 10Mb of Internet bandwidth. Here’s the current configuration after a bit of playing around and tuning:

/etc/pf.conf :

# Define the interface aliases
ext_if=”vr3″ # External WAN-facing interface
int_if=”vr0″ # Internal LAN-facing interface

# Leecher IP addresses – These are punished with a shared low-bandwidth queue
# Separate addresses/CIDR ranges with commas.
#
table <leechers> persist { }

# Enable ALTQ on the internal interface, assign the root queue and
# ultimate bandwidth limit
altq on $int_if hfsc bandwidth 10Mb queue { int_root }

# Define the interface queues
queue int_root bandwidth 100% priority 0 hfsc {default_out, penalty_out, acks_out, normal_out, high_out}
queue default_out bandwidth 1% priority 1 qlimit 500 hfsc (default realtime 1% red ecn)
queue penalty_out bandwidth 1% priority 2 qlimit 500 hfsc (upperlimit 1Mb red ecn)
queue acks_out bandwidth 30% priority 7 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 10% red ecn)
queue normal_out bandwidth 20% priority 3 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)
queue high_out bandwidth 45% priority 4 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)

# Enable ALTQ on the external interface, assign the root queue and
# ultimate bandwidth limit
altq on $ext_if hfsc bandwidth 10Mb queue { ext_root }

# Define the interface queues
queue ext_root bandwidth 100% priority 0 hfsc {default_in, penalty_in, acks_in,normal_in, high_in}
queue default_in bandwidth 1% priority 1 qlimit 500 hfsc (default realtime 1% red ecn)
queue penalty_in bandwidth 1% priority 2 qlimit 500 hfsc (upperlimit 1Mb red ecn)
queue acks_in bandwidth 30% priority 7 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 10% red ecn)
queue normal_in bandwidth 20% priority 3 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)
queue high_in bandwidth 45% priority 4 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)

###
# Packet matching rules – A match will assign a packet to a given queue
###

# Put leeching mofo’s into the penalty queue
pass in quick on $int_if from { <leechers> } to any queue penalty_out
pass in quick on $ext_if from any to { <leechers> } queue penalty_in

# Give ICMP packets high(er) priority
pass in quick on $int_if proto icmp all queue high_out
pass in quick on $ext_if proto icmp all queue high_in

# Give VPN, RDP, SSH & DNS packets high(er) priority
pass in quick on $int_if proto ah all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto ah all queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto esp all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto esp all queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto gre all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto gre all queue (high_in, acks_in)

pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 3389 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 3389 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 22 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 22 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 53 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 53 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto udp from any to any port 53 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto udp from any to any port 53 queue (high_in, acks_in)

# Assign standard web & mail traffic to the “normal” queue
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 443 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 443 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 25 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 25 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 110 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 110 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 143 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 143 queue (normal_in, acks_in)

# Stick everything else into the default queue
pass in quick on $int_if all queue (default_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if all queue (default_in, acks_in)

A quick check with “pftop” shows that traffic is being queued & shaped correctly…

QUEUE               BW SCH  PR  PKTS BYTES DROP_P DROP_B QLEN BORR SUSP P/S  B/S
root_vr0           10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
 int_root          10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  default_out     100K hfsc     565K  358M      0      0    0           284 316K
  penalty_out     100K hfsc  2     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  acks_out       3000K hfsc  7  454K   25M      0      0    0           113 6417
  normal_out     2000K hfsc  3 1119K 1405M      0      0    0           277 364K
  high_out       4500K hfsc  4  219K   65M      0      0    0            78  42K
root_vr3           10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
 ext_root          10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  default_in      100K hfsc    1839K  878M     15  17364    4           566 301K
  penalty_in      100K hfsc  2     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  acks_in        3000K hfsc  7 56271 3425K      0      0    0             5  396
  normal_in      2000K hfsc  3 76830   81M     10  15140    0             7 4698
  high_in        4500K hfsc  4  163K   39M      0      0    0            71  22K

Hopefully someone somewhere will find this useful. If anyone has any ideas to fine-tune my config, please feel free to let me know

UPDATE 1: The above installation was made onto a standard IDE harddisk, but I intend to replace the disk with a 256MB IDE flash card. If anyone has any advice for getting a small OpenBSD installation onto one of these, please drop me a line. Thanks

UPDATE 2: It turns out installing onto flash was easier than I expected it to be. I fired up the installation CD, partitioned the flash drive with one large 256MB partition and then only installed the bsd, base41 & etc41 packages. Once that lot installed I created /proto/var & /proto/dev, re-created the device nodes in /proto/dev and copied /var into /proto/var. All that was left was to edit /etc/fstab to mount /var and /dev from the prototype dirs as ramdisks. Job’s a goodun!…

/etc/fstab :

/dev/wd0a / ffs rw,noatime 1 1
swap /var mfs rw,-P/proto/var,-s=65535,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noauto 0 0
swap /dev mfs rw,-P/proto/dev,-s=1200,-i=128,noexec,nosuid 0 0

This last piece of advice was taken from this website: http://www.kaschwig.net/projects/openbsd/wrap/