I hate proxies but they seem necessary in the Corporate world. Getting all the websites, programs, widgets, etc working as people want can cause much pain and suffering.
This is a simple post, but hopefully it'll save someone a few hours of frustration.
We have a group that has to use Yahoo! Messenger for chat. So I put them on our web filter/proxy, allowing the Yahoo IM access. (Note, our proxy requires NTLM/Active Directory authentication to allow traffic). Those not using Yahoo's client (like those using Pidgin) connected fine. But the official Yahoo client seemed like it wasn't passing the Windows Authentication to the proxy and not connecting. Setting the client's proxy settings to Direct Connection did not work; Yahoo was still pulling Internet Explorer's proxy settings.
After a few hours of searching, I came across this Microsoft KB article: How to Set Up Yahoo Messenger to Use Only Integrated Authentication on Your ISA Server Computer. In the article, it advises that you set your Internet Explorer settings to enable "Use HTTP 1.1 through proxy connections".
Apparently Yahoo Messenger client doesn't send a keep-alive header in it's NTLM request, thus not keeping itself authenticated. Telling it to use HTTP 1.1 forces this, since the keep-alive header is default in 1.1.
Check out the Microsoft article (linked above) for more information, but this simple checkbox fixed the issues for my users. It's not JUST for ISA; I'm not using ISA and it worked for me.
May 12, 2009
March 16, 2008
So, a family member brought me a laptop from a small business owner who he helps with computer issues. Well, the laptop is broke. It looks like it'll boot into Windows (XP Home) and then blue screens. Safe mode does the same thing. Although the BIOS will see the disk, the Windows install media doesn't. And of course the laptop's owner really needs the company data off of it, can't afford data recovery, and, of course, has no backups.
We pulled the drive out of the laptop and used a IDE to USB converter to hook it up to my laptop. Windows recognizes the disk and assigns it a drive letter, but took forever (like 10 minutes) before it showed up in My Computer. Attempting to access the drive via My Computer, command prompt, or even by Run (e:\) would error out. So I figured the disk is in some way corrupt and a third party recovery software was needed.
I tried several recovery softwares, but the one that eventually worked was TestDisk. TestDisk is OpenSource freeware designed specifically for drives with lost partitions or recovering data from non-bootable drives.
From thier website, TestDisk can:
* Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
* Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
* Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
* Fix FAT tables
* Rebuild NTFS boot sector
* Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
* Fix MFT using MFT mirror
* Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock
It can also run under DOS, Windows, Linux, BSD, MacOS, and SunOS and can handle MANY different file systems.
For my issue in particular, I did the following:
1. Hook the drive up your computer. I used an IDE to USB adapter, but I'm sure setting the drive into slave mode and installing it into a PC will work as well.
2. Allow Windows to find the drive (I'm not sure if this is necessary since Windows XP found the drive for me. It may work without Windows recognition).
3. Open TestDisk (did I mention that no install is required?).
4. It asks to create a log file, I chose Create.
5. Select the drive and choose Proceed.
6. Choose the partition table type. Since this drive was running Windows, I chose Intel.
7. Here's the meat of the software. I chose Advanced.
8. Choose your partition you want to analyze. Some drives have more than one partition; even if there's only one presented to Windows, some manufacturers have a Diagnostic or Restore partition.
9. The next option I chose is List.
10. This should list the files on the drive. Select the drive by using the Up or Down arrows. Enter will bring you into a folder. The Left arrow will bring you up a level in the folder tree.
11. Select the file or folder you want to recover and hit the C key to copy. It will present you with an option to choose the directory on the local machine (the machine you're running TestDisk from) where you want to copy the file to. Hit Enter with your choice.
12. After the copy is complete, the text "Copy done!" will appear in green text. You can now choose another file or directory to copy or hit the Q key to quit.
Also be aware that if you copy a large amount of data it will be fairly SLOW. Or at least slower than most people's standards. But you will have your data, so a little time should be no big deal.
Seriously, add TestDisk to your Admin toolbox immediately.
February 22, 2008
Wow. This is amazing and scary at the same time. Basically, some researchers figured out that in order to bypass harddrive encryption when you have physical control over the device, you can read the contents of the RAM chips to obtain the encryption key. This is not an attack on the encryption itself. It's like finding the key to the super-secure door under the welcome mat. Even if power is cut from the device, data stays in RAM for a certain amount of time (this time can be expanded by freezing the chips with a bottle of canned air). Booting the device to a special tool allows for the memory to be copied and analyzed. They can even remove the ram chip and put it in another laptop for analysis. The only secure way to protect yourself is to power the laptop down completely and guard it for a few minutes for the memory to finally clear.
Be sure to spend the 5 minutes watching the video in the article.
What's even more interesting is that most folks transport their laptops in a power saving mode, such as in standby or hibernation. Even I carry my laptop around in standby. All it takes is for someone to steal the laptop and the encryption won't matter.
This just proves that carrying information around is not safe. The approach I've been trying to take with my users is to give up the fat client laptops for a thin client laptop approach, such as offerings from Neoware or HP. The idea is to leave all information on the corporate network and require my traveling users to log in via secure VPN and RDP directly to their desktops. On top of not storing information, the thin clients are sturdy, don't have moving parts, run our VPN software just fine, easy to replace (no user specific information to transfer to another laptop), and are fairly cheap (approx a third of the cost of a regular laptop). I usually just keep a couple laying around for loaners; so if someone who doesn't travel much can check one out and I don't have to set up anything on it for them, only have to enable RDP on their desktops.
July 19, 2006
here is a look at the default set of services that come with a fresh installation of Windows XP. "We'll tell you the ones that you don't need and try to tell you why, so you can disable them without any problems."
read more | digg story
If you have to reinstall Win XP on the same equipment, you know what a pain it is to reactivate XP. This simple guide tells how to backup and restore two small files so you can avoid reactivation.
read more | digg story