Digital Ocean cannot deploy a Custom Image larger than 100Gb. Security Onion requires 200Gb to install. To workaround the Digital Ocean limitation, create a 100Gb custom image of Ubuntu, configured with only three partitions: /boot, /, and /tmp. (Leaving out /nsm and swap requirements for the […]
Install and whitelabel Grafana with a custom grafana_icon.svg and a few other minor changes
Grafana is an amazing application, one of the most active open source projects in the world, and they are firmly committed to the Free Software / Open Source way of doing things. You should know up front that the following information enables a feature (whitelabel) which is part of the Enterprise […]
How to configure Ubuntu via /etc/network/interfaces using ifupdown managed by Network Manager for Security Onion
That headline is a mouthful, so let's break it down: How to configure Ubuntu via /etc/network/interfaces using ifupdown managed by Network Manager for Security Onion In more simple terms I would prefer this headline: "How to configure Ubuntu with ifupdown for Security Onion," but it turns […]
Placing Apache reverse proxy in front of Security Onion
Security Onion prefers to think that it's talking to the world, not a proxy. But you can do it. It took me awhile to get this working because I was also trying to get Apache Basic Authentication working. Alas, Security Onion is so complex that I was only able to get Authentication working smoothly […]
Important insight into Power and how it operates outside of Logic
Years ago I was impressed by the power of Law to transform me. I was impressed because I was sincerely changing my nature and behaviors due to the way I had encountered Law and Order (the justice side of it), and wanted to ensure that I did not encounter Law in that way before. I began a long series […]
What to do when qemu-guest-agent on CentOS does not work after installing with yum
After installing qemu-guest-agent with yum, which was easy enough with sudo yum install qemu-guest-agent I did not see IP information in the proxmox host, so I knew it was not yet working. I tried several things, none of them worked. First I tried looking at the status. Got an error indicating the […]
Kill a Proxmox VM that won't quit with a one-liner using the pve node's command prompt
I was using the handy information at Proxmox can’t stop VM – How we fix it! (bobcares.com) for a while. They have a two-line approach which does the job, but displays the (very) long command line for starting a proxmox VM on the screen while doing so. To me, facing a wall of text while searching for […]
Fix Shellinabox "rhostsrsaauthentication" and "rsaauthentication" errors
ShellInABox is a tidy little app that works well, but when you configure it to connect via SSH directly instead of using its internal shell, it throws up a couple minor errors when logging in: command-line line 0: unsupported option "rhostsrsaauthentication" command-line line 0: […]
Upon glimpsing the unicorn of Riemann's missing one half while awakening
I just now, minutes ago, was drifting between awake and asleep. slowly becoming aware of the lightly falling rain outside, while also in a half-dream state, contemplating random mathematical ideas, when I caught a glimpse of the 1/2 which completes the sphere of infinity. I have glimpsed it […]
Installing ShellInABox on Debian, Ubuntu, Devuan, etc and configuring for white-on-black GUI
You can install shellinabox with your Debian-flavored package manager with a single command: sudo apt install shellinabox White text on black screen The default setting is a white screen with black text. You can right-click to switch it, but if you're like me you'll want to set it to black screen […]
Configure one-time-password (a.k.a. 2FA or MFA) in Apache using mod_authn_otp and FreeOTP
I did this on a Devuan system, which is basically Ubuntu without systemd. This not a well-known distro, so your mileage may vary, but I think it will all work as described on vanilla Ubuntu or similar Debian-based flavors. At the end of this article is a list of URLs I used while putting this all […]
Configure one-time-password (a.k.a. 2FA or MFA) in SSH using libpam-oath and FreeOTP
I did this on a Devuan system, which is basically Ubuntu without systemd. This not a well-known distro, so your mileage may vary, but I think it will all work as described on vanilla Ubuntu or similar Debian-based flavors. At the end of this article is a list of URLs I used while putting this all […]
In which I realize my life now is a fractal of a beautiful idea from 24 years ago
The following quote brings a compelling moment of perception into clear view. Dinah is keen that I not misquote her by writing something as sentimental and clichéd as "being at one with the universe." So she describes a process in which there was a "dissolution of the self" and a […]
Installing Mx Linux or Ubuntu, Debian, etc. on MacBook Air
I was oddly not able to find quick hits on this topic when I searched, so I finally just tried it, and it worked so easily I was quite surprised. As a long-time attempter-of-things-so-new-that-they-often-fail, I remember when it was a hassle to install Linux on Mac. For years it was frustrating. I […]
How many fragments of infinity does it take to make one complete infinity?
A fragment of infinity happens when we count "one, two, three, four," or any sequential series of numbers, and conclude it by saying "and so forth, unto infinity." Note, this not infinity, it is only a fragment of it, which represents it. We symbolize this repeated iteration with […]
Accessing OPNSense Web UI running within Proxmox on the WAN interface by disabling reply-to
After I migrated from pfSense to OPNSense for my firewall embedded within a Proxmox lab, I was stumped for two days looking for this obscure setting. It was a problem right out of the box: After I got the interfaces configured and assigned static IPs for the two network interfaces, I tried and tried […]
Insight into Time and its relationship to Good and Evil
In a series of meditations on the nature of infinity while in the process of developing a larger concept of a new kind of mathematical infinity -- a super-infinity which contains all possible infinities in an intuitively-coherent way -- I have been bumping into the relationship between time and […]
In the "Sense of an Ending" is a sense of equilibrium
Reading D.G. Leahy's writing is to me an experience that feels like reading Isaiah. It is obviously densely packed with meaning, but so inscrutable, it's like reading hieroglyphs must have been before the Rosetta Stone was found -- glimpses of meaning percolate up through the text in iridiscent […]
Perambulating the moon should be a playful thing
Getting to the moon will happen in stages. The new contract just awarded to SpaceX is for the most critical stage, which has 3 steps: 1. Dropping out of moon orbit to land on the moon, 2. exploring the moon for a week, 3. departing from the moon. The contract is for one test flight with no one […]
The origin of synarché and why it is an infinity greater than all infinities
The word infinite is from the Latin roots for "un-limited" or another way to say it: "without-end." Structurally, this word is similar to Greek a-perion, Hebrew ein-sof, Chinese tai-ji, and many others, all referring to the same underlying concept: that which is so great it is […]