Ubuntu 12.10: Configuring Kismet to work with Centrino Advanced-N 6200 wireless NIC

A good guide to configure Kismet can be found here:

http://emmanueltoko.blogspot.be/2010/10/kismet-how-to.html

the only problem being that my wireless NIC reports "iwlwifi" as the driver. Kismet won't start when configuring this value, It will die with this error:


Launching kismet_server: //usr/bin/kismet_server
Suid priv-dropping disabled.  This may not be secure.
No specific sources given to be enabled, all will be enabled.
Non-RFMon VAPs will be destroyed on multi-vap interfaces (ie, madwifi-ng)
Enabling channel hopping.
Enabling channel splitting.
FATAL: Unknown capture source type 'iwlwifi' in source 'iwlwifi,wlan0,addme'
Done.

the trick to make this work is to use "iwl4965" as the driver in the Kismet.conf file. Ex.:

source=iwl4965,wlan0,test

after doing so, Kismet works. Have fun.

Ubuntu 12.04 - How to solve "The disk drive for /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 is not ready yet or not present" error at boot

This error comes up when your swap partition cannot be mounted for some reason. Your system will run and for modern systems with lots of RAM, this should not be a problem at all, but you might want to reactivate swap. If you do, it's better you do it the right way, not only by enabling swap, but also making sure that it gets encrypted, like the rest of your home directory.
The way to do it is the following, commands or files are in bold:

• sudo swapoff -a (turns off swap)
• comment existing swap configuration in /etc/crypttab
  ex.
  cryptswap1 /dev/sdb8 /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256
  
• comment existing swap configuration in /etc/fstab
  
  ex.
  /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0
  
• re-format swap partition with gparted as linux-swap
• sudo mkswap /dev/sdXX (create new swap, XX depends on your system and is the partition you formatted earlier, in my case it was sdb8)
• mark somewhere the UUID value that the previous command returns
  
  ex.
  Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 4208636 KiB
  no label, UUID=06a9be15-d05b-466d-bfe3-a086bb9cdba0
  
• update /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume with the new UUID
  
  ex.
  RESUME=UUID=06a9be15-d05b-466d-bfe3-a086bb9cdba0
  
• sudo update-initramfs -u (update initramfs)
• sudo swapon /dev/sdXX (enable swap, XX depends on your setup)
• sudo ecryptfs-setup-swap (encrypt swap)

now you can check that swap is on by using the commands 

free -m

                     total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached

Mem:         11950       6662       5287          0        126       4002

-/+ buffers/cache:       2533       9416

Swap:         4109          0       4109

or 

swapon -s

Filename                 Type Size     Used Priority

/dev/mapper/cryptswap1                  partition       4208636 0 -1

Disable automatic "Sleep" function right after installing a new Windows 7 machine

Right after installing Windows, you usually have a lot of other stuff to do, like upgrading drivers, installing Windows updates and installing new software. The "Sleep" function might interfere with all of that.

• Open Control Panel
• Select System and Security/Hardware and Sound/Power Options
• On the left, click on "Choose what closing the lid does"
• Set both "When I close the lid: options to "Do nothing"

• Go back to "Power Options" and select "Change when the computer sleeps"
• Set both "Put the computer to sleep" options to "Never"

How to fix checksum errors in a capture file

On Ubuntu, checksum errors inside packet capture files can be fixed with tcprewrite, which is part of the tcpreplay package. The command to use is

• tcprewrite -C -i inputfile -o outputfile

How to reset Ultraedit's window position

I frequently switch from dual monitor to single monitor and back. Ultraedit 11 will save the last window position and this can be a problem when your last Ultraedit window was opened in a screen that is not there anymore. To reset it, you need to

• open uedit32.INI
• delete the line WindowPos=<series of numbers>
• reopen Ultraedit

Welcome

Hi,
I'm glad you are here and I hope you enjoy it. I'm out of my twenties, live in Europe, work in the computer security area, am a dad of 3 and have to confess that am a geek and have been for a long time. This blog will contain useful tricks, things I learn when trying to subdue my computer to do what I intend it to do and the occasional technology rant. I hope you'll find it useful.