Archive for July, 2008

There has just been a new regulation about keeping network logs for last 6 months.

According to the regulation 5651,

Internet endpoints, DHCP IP distribution records, and traffic information of Web, e-mail and FTP servers in your organization’s intranet have to be saved in the format mentioned in the law; in a form that, their consistency, integrity, and the hashes of the files are preserved and their privacy is assured.

I am really curious how DHCP records will help if some violations occur in the network. If something occurs, and you are judged, the court applies for an authority. In Turkey, anyone can be an authority. All you should know is how to use Frontpage. If the authority can’t find a solution, he asks for the logs. This regulation just fulfills this requirement.

How will the system admins make sure that the log information’s consistency, integrity and the hashes of the files are preserved and their privacy is assured? If an admin is sure that the log is in safe, he can also protect the system against hacks. May be sending the last 6 months logs to the government’s servers can be a solution. However, this solution has problems too. How the governments will build a logging log server, and how they will protect these servers against hacks? I have even not mentioned how it will cost, who will analyze all these logs, find the needed information, automate, and adjust the system according to the requirements in that field.

Judges judge according to how expert’s judge in IT cases. This is why a regulation something like this is needed. However, this regulation is open to violations. How will experts make sure that the information on those systems are real?

Anyway, Expert (authority) system is a problem in Turkey, just like any government related case. Our government could not see yet that digital information is not reliable. Anyone may be hurt because of these laws and regulations. Who will protect innocent people’s rights?

I have just purchased my new domain name www.ahmetyildirim.com.tr.

After a huge amount of time, I am able to write something here. I have been to Adalar a while ago, and am explaining my trip to there and explaining what to do if you want to go there now.

First of all, you should decide what you will be doing at Adalar. Most of all, who goes to Adalar for the first time, usually ride bike. There are lots of bike renters in Adalar. In my opinion, you should try to ride bike at Büyükada, if it is your first visit. You should choose a line from IDO web site according to your location in Istanbul. I get on the ship from Bostancı to go to Adalar. There are too many ships available; you can pick one of them according to your schedule.

Istanbul ferries have really funny atmosphere. While you are exploring Marmara sea, seagulls will gratefully follow you. All you have to do is to share and throw some pieces of a bagel towards them while you are eating it. Once you throw, most probably they won’t catch, they will skydive and catch it on the surface of the sea. They will follow you to the end of the trip, if you go on sharing your bagel. All ferries have buffet inside. Besides, ship employees sell tea and fresh orange juices. You can have a breakfast inside a ferry. I suggest you, toast with orange juice.

If you pick a long line to Büyükada, which means the ship steps by each island, in my case, from Bostancı, your trip longs to one and a half hour. At some daytimes, there are short line services to Büyükada which does not stop on any station and directly go to Büyükada. In this case the trip only takes 20 minutes. If you have time and love ferryboat trips you can choose the long lines.

After arriving at Büyükada, you will see Historical Büyükada Square. You can buy waffles in the square. There are a lot of ice cream and waffle sellers. You can find bike renters also here. After negotiating and having your bike and the island map, you will see that there are two lines for bikes. One is shorter but you climb some to the hill. The other is really longer, but you go seaside, so you don’t need to climb. The choice is yours. You can take a break on the hill peak if you choose the short line. I have not gone the long line yet, so can’t tell anything about that line.

For the ones who don’t want to ride bike, they can rent phaeton. You will most probably go through the short line, but an island trip with horses feet sounds may sound good to you. After the island trip, you should try fish restaurants at the seaside on the left hand side after getting out the dock.

A weekend may worth be spent at Adalar, especially at Büyükada. In summer time, you can swim in the sea. There are beaches at Adalar in every island. Adalar can’t be finished by explaining. You should explore it. Please do so and give comments.

By the way, while going back with the ferry, seat outside near to back of the ferry. Before getting into the ship, buy a beer. Nothing makes you relax more than having a beer while seeing that you are getting far away from the island with the phosphorescence in the sea. Don’t let ship employees see the beer; it is forbidden

When you want to spend a quiet weekend outside the crowded city Istanbul, Lake Sapanca is just for you. The whole weekend or a vacation confined to one day, which is to be Saturday or Sunday, will get you out of the sophisticated city life and bring you to the beauty of nature. I will explain what to do for a day at Lake Sapanca.

First of all, you should decide whether you want to stay at Hotel or not. If you want to stay at an hotel, you should call the hotel at least one week ago and reserve a room. There are several hotels; a little research on the Internet will help you find one.

Secondly, you should decide by what vehicle you want to go there? By your car, by a train or by bus? If you are an active car driver, I suggest train. Your holiday just becomes a nostalgic trip. You won’t need to drive. You will get some rest.

Train from Istanbul starts at Haydarpaşa. After about 2 hours, and if you are lucky, you can get of the train at Kırkpınar. The train only stops at Kırkpınar 4 times a day. For detailed list of when it stops you can visit TCDD web site . If it doesn’t stop at Kırpınar, you will get out at Sapanca which is the next station. For this two hours of time at train, you can do many things. You can sleep, you can read magazines or newspapers etc. Some trains have tables in front of seats. If you think you are gonna eat something, these tables are realy useful.

Considering you arrived at Sapanca, you should walk to town center and find a minibus to Kırkpınar. After arriving at Kırkpınar now you can go to lake side and do tracking, or you can go brunch at lake side and get some rest after the busy week.

You can stay at an hotel if you like, or you can leave at the same day. There are two trains passing by Kırkpınar at evenings. You can get on one of them or, you can go to Sapanca and get on a more frequent train.

Getting some rest after a busy week beside the Lake Sapanca will be the most relaxing weekend you will ever experience.

Before diving into my entry, think of an Istanbul in the morning. What it may look like?

Time is 6 am; I got used to geting up at that time, but my clock alarm always approves me. I take a 10 minutes shower and prepare to catch the bus at 6.30 am which passes by my house. I usually have 2-3 kinds of combination of clothes for that week. Picking one of the clothes which I haven’t wore the day before, I go out. This winter was not like a winter. It only snowed two times and not very much. It rained a little. A water shortage is expected for this summer.

Usually I get cold in the mornings although it doesn’t rain. The sky is usually dark blue. I walk to the bus station quickly. It is always same, first a 129K bus passes, which typically does not get any passenger since it goes to it’s first station to get started to it’s day. After that a 19D bus passes which goes to Bostancı. And finally a 19 bus arrives. I get on that bus. It is always same 2 seats left unoccupied. I sit down and will to get some sleep. If I’m lucky and there are not so much high schools students, I wake up at Kadıkoy. I usually can’t sleep, because after 2 stations after I get on the bus, the bus is full. High school students are really noisy.

After arriving at Kadıköy, I get out of the bus and see what is happening in Kadıköy. I usually think what I see is the “Istanbul’s undiscovered face”. People are preparing to the day except for the homeless guys sleeping at bus stations and stands. I usually arrive at Kadıköy at 7 am. There are two ships at that that time. One is at 7 am to Kabataş and the other is to Beşiktaş which is at 7.15 am. I usually can’t catch Kabataş ship and get on Beşiktaş ship at 7.02 am. That means I have 13 minutes to sleep. Before geting on the ships I usually buy a toast from the buffet at the bus station. After eating that toast and getting on the ship, I hope I will sleep but guest what? Again high school children. The ship trip passes having half-sleepy – half-awake. By that time, the sky turns to light blue if it is not cloudy. I sometimes see the stage that songs are played during late daytime. That is a very nice idea. People listen to live music when they are traveling. Throughout one of my ship trips I came encountered live music. They play traditional Turkish live music which sounded to me nice.

After getting out the ship at Beşiktaş, I go to the the bus station for one of the 43R or 559C Rumeli Hisarüstü buses. But this time I do not only see high school children but I can also see businessmen and businesswomen. I see the same man bagging to get help.

Time is about 7.35 am and I usually get the bus 43R. I always see the same people on that bus. Again high school students are majority. Their count increases on every station. Other’s decreases and at Etiler station the people left at the bus are only students. Some of them are high school and some of them are university’s students. The university students are I think English preparatory students since they seem very young like high school students.

Finally I reach to school at 8 am. I get out of the bus at Kuzey Campus. I go in the building via the shortcut.

To conclude, on early morning, I see few adults and much high school children. When the time passes number of children decreases and number of adult increases. This is always almost the same every day. When I am to summarize my one and a half hour morning trip every day, may be fifteen minutes of sleep, see every kind of people, taking 3 vehicles, and early Istanbul morning some from sea some from Asia and some from Europe..

This is my first blog entry after setting up this site. I wanted to see how it works. This entry is also a test for me. Now I feel that everything is ready. Setting up this site took my 2 months since my daily occupation is too much. I get up at 6 am every weekday and 7 am on Saturdays. I come back to home at about 22.30 am. Since I’m in the thesis period, I think that seemingly boring life style will continue for 5 months from now.

To make Firefox compatible with Thunderbird (which means mailto:// protocol will be handled by Thunderbird), you should apply the following:

• Open about:config address
• Add a string line having the following values:

  network.protocol-handler.app.mailto = /usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird

Easyubuntu comes with great support to extend the Ubuntu Functionality. These include codecs, some archive file type supports(including ace) and microsoft fonts.

To install EasyUbuntu first download the Ubuntu package from the following link:
http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/files/easyubuntu_latest.deb
Then go to (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal) and go to the directory where you have downloaded the debian package of EasyUbuntu and issue the following command to install EasyUbuntu :

sudo dpkg -i easyubuntu_latest.deb

After completeion of the above process issue the following command in terminal

sudo wget -q http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- |
       sudo apt-key add -

Now EasyUbuntu should be set up for installation of packages. Go to (Applications -> System tools -> EasyUbuntu ) to launch EasyUbuntu , beyond this the applications interface is quite easy for beginner and one can easily install packages without much help.

We can share printers using samba. The servers we should install are cups and samba. After installing the servers and setting up printers connected to the server, we should have /etc/samba/smb.conf file like this:

  [global]
  workgroup = workgroup_name
  netbios name = server_name
  server string =  Print Server
  load printers = yes
  printing = cups
  printcap name = cups
  encrypt passwords = yes
  security = user
  valid users = a_valid_user_name

  [print$]
  comment = Printer Drivers
  path = /etc/samba/printer
  guest ok = no
  browseable = yes
  read only = yes
  write list = a_valid_user_name

  [printers]
  valid users = a_valid_user_name
  comment = All Printers
  path = /var/spool/samba
  browseable = no
  public = no
  guest ok = no
  writable = no
  printable = yes
  printer admin = a_valid_user_name

Here, a_valid_user_name can be a username defined in samba users. This definition can be done using

  smbpasswd -a system_user

If there are no /etc/samba/printer and /var/spool/samba directories, please create so. If you install a postscript(PS) printer, you should extract {{blog:technical:windows_drivers.tar.gz|this}} file into the directories /var/spool/samba and /etc/samba/printer . After extracting chmod these extracted files to 777 and apply this command as root:

  cupsaddsmb -H server_name -U root -h domain_name -a -v

this command will install drivers for windows computers to automagically download PS drivers when they connect to the printer.

Now, edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and set server_name and server admin parameters. If you want to manage cups from only the machine you are using, find the section below:

  
  AuthType Basic
  AuthClass System
  Allow From 127.0.0.1
  

and set Allow From to 127.0.0.1 . You can set this entry whatever IP you want to manage cups from.

Find /etc/cups/mime.convs and uncomment the line like following:

  application/octet-stream        application/vnd.cups-raw        0

Find /etc/cups/mime.types and uncomment the line like following:

  application/octet-stream

Now restart the servers. You should now see the shared printers on windows machines.
Good Luck!!

You can forward a remote port to a local port using SSH. To do so, try you can use the command below:

ssh -L local_bind_port:remote_connect_address:remote_connect_port
   username@remote_host

For example,

ssh -L 8080:google.com:80 username@server

will forward google.com to localhost:8080. This means when you open http://localhost:8080/ you will see google.com . The remote machine will connect google.com and this connection will be forwarded to your local computer in tunnel. This is really a great feature when you want to connect to a web site in your Intranet.

When you want to have a secure mysql connection, simply forwarding the remote mysql port to your local port using ssh will satisfy you.

ssh -L 3306:127.0.0.1:3306 username@server

will tunnel the remote mysql server to your machine. You should connect to the mysql server using host for localhost.

Good luck!!