AVG & FUD?

Like most techies I get the job of fixing and maintaining relatives’ PCs. As part of this after fixing whatever is broken I have some common clean-up and install routines that I go through to both help the system run faster and to extend the period before I’m called back, and I’ve used AVG free […]

Network sniffing in VMware ESXi

VMWare ESXi is perfect for a self contained lab, but as I’m used to having full access to a ‘real’ network there are a few things I miss not having control over for testing and other things. The biggest of these is a spanf port (or mirror port depending on your hardware). If you’re not familiar, the basic premise is to configure one (or more ports) to reproduce any traffic flowing through any port(s). This provides packet level access for debugging network problems, passing to an I[D/P]S, etc.
ESXi doesn’t provide this functionality, but does allow you to set a vSwitch to be ‘promiscuous’.

SSH Tunnelling Example

A fairly common setup; you’ve got an internal resource (for example an intranet wiki for documentation), this is in turn protected by a firewall that only allows access from trusted location. Under normal circumstances all staff can access the resource without problems, and any malicious sources (human or automated) can’t access the service.
Solution?: SSH tunnels