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What Happens When you Block Ads on a Site with No ads?
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USB3 Ethernet Adaptors Are OK
The Internet forums would have you believe that USB-based ethernet adaptors aren’t good enough if you’re performance conscious. I’m planning to deploy an Intel NUC mini-PC as a home router/firewall. NUCs only have one ethernet adaptor built in, but have USB3 ports.
I naturally wanted to find out what performance I might be sacrificing if I used a USB3 port as the second LAN port on the NUC, so I got an Anker-branded USB3 to Ethernet adaptor, plugged it into a laptop, and configure iperf3 as a server on my desktop.
Connecting to host 192.168.1.125, port 5201 [ 4] local 192.168.1.98 port 54918 connected to 192.168.1.125 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 106 MBytes 886 Mbits/sec [ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 104 MBytes 871 Mbits/sec [ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 93.5 MBytes 784 Mbits/sec [ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 106 MBytes 886 Mbits/sec [ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 103 MBytes 866 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 102 MBytes 858 Mbits/sec [ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 106 MBytes 886 Mbits/sec [ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 104 MBytes 873 Mbits/sec [ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 108 MBytes 908 Mbits/sec [ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 111 MBytes 931 Mbits/sec
The performance speaks for itself. It works just as good as the built-in ethernet card.
Don’t be swayed by vague claims about the suitability of USB ethernet adaptors for use in homebrew routers. They seem fine for the task.
VMWare Workstation 9 vs 12: Quick Card
A quick information card comparing VMWare Workstation 9.0 with Workstation 12.0 Pro.
The Old Version (9.0)
Usability
- There are many modal dialogs which often get in the way (example, the virtual network editor)
- Too many clicks required to get some basic information (like NIC mac addresses)
- Too many clicks to add extra hardware to VMs
- limited ability to scale virtual machines to fit monitors.
Performance
- Performance for my use case (Linux dev and test boxes, enterprise networking and Web App Firewall virtual machines, Windows Server and windows 7/8/10 VMs for test and experimentation) is more than satisfactory. All I had to do was fully load my core i5 3570K box with 32GB of RAM (which I have yet to exhaust), and replace the spinning disk with SSDs (1.5TB worth for both bulk storage and VM disks).
Guest OS Compatibility
- As far as my experience goes, I’m able to deploy everything I want on Vmware workstation 9.0. This includes Windows Server 2012 and Windows 10.
What’s Changed?
(this is not an exhaustive list):
- It still looks and feels mostly the same as version 9.0
- The virtual network editor no longer appears to be modal which is nice
- It no longer assigns Floppy Disk controllers to new VMs — hurray!
What Hasn’t Changed?
- It still takes too many clicks to add hardware to VMs (VMWare ESX is easier in this aspect)
- Still too many clicks to find a NIC’s MAC address
- Still limited scaling options it seems (it either adjusts the VM resolution, or adjusts the window size of the hypervisor). It would be nice if it allowed you to resize a window in the hypervisor by scaling the guest OS.
What would it take for me to upgrade?
- A lower asking price
Caveat
- My use case is probably a narrow one. You should make sure you consider your own needs when evaluating version 12.0
GPU for Dual 4K Display
I’m looking towards updating my desktop to two 4K displays, and it appears that two good choices of GPUs that support this kind of setup (I don’t really care about gaming on this rig) are:
- Nvidia NVS 510 – £220+
- AMD Firepro W2100 — £120
I’ll probably go for the AMD as it has a lower power consumption profile (hence lower cooling needs) and looks on paper to support exactly the features I need.
Fooling around with the Collatz Sequence
Spent some time working on https://projecteuler.net/problem=14
It was fun, and I produced:
Crunching Collatz Sequence...go make some coffee Number 13 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 18 iterations found for 14 Number 15 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 21 iterations found for 18 Number 19 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 24 iterations found for 25 New record of 112 iterations found for 27 New record of 113 iterations found for 54 Number 55 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 116 iterations found for 73 New record of 119 iterations found for 97 New record of 122 iterations found for 129 New record of 125 iterations found for 171 New record of 128 iterations found for 231 Number 235 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 131 iterations found for 313 New record of 144 iterations found for 327 New record of 145 iterations found for 649 Number 654 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 655 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 667 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 171 iterations found for 703 New record of 179 iterations found for 871 New record of 182 iterations found for 1161 New record of 183 iterations found for 2223 Number 2322 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 2323 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 209 iterations found for 2463 New record of 217 iterations found for 2919 New record of 238 iterations found for 3711 New record of 262 iterations found for 6171 New record of 268 iterations found for 10971 New record of 276 iterations found for 13255 New record of 279 iterations found for 17647 Number 17673 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 282 iterations found for 23529 New record of 308 iterations found for 26623 New record of 311 iterations found for 34239 Number 35497 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 324 iterations found for 35655 New record of 340 iterations found for 52527 New record of 351 iterations found for 77031 New record of 354 iterations found for 106239 New record of 375 iterations found for 142587 New record of 383 iterations found for 156159 New record of 386 iterations found for 216367 New record of 443 iterations found for 230631 New record of 449 iterations found for 410011 New record of 470 iterations found for 511935 New record of 509 iterations found for 626331 New record of 525 iterations found for 837799 The record number of terms was 525, Produced by number 837799
RUN FINISHED; exit value 0; real time: 320ms; user: 0ms; system: 300ms
This felt good, so I bumped the target number up to 1 billion and got
Crunching Collatz Sequence...go make some coffee Number 13 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 18 iterations found for 14 Number 15 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 21 iterations found for 18 Number 19 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 24 iterations found for 25 New record of 112 iterations found for 27 New record of 113 iterations found for 54 Number 55 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 116 iterations found for 73 New record of 119 iterations found for 97 New record of 122 iterations found for 129 New record of 125 iterations found for 171 New record of 128 iterations found for 231 Number 235 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 131 iterations found for 313 New record of 144 iterations found for 327 New record of 145 iterations found for 649 Number 654 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 655 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 667 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 171 iterations found for 703 New record of 179 iterations found for 871 New record of 182 iterations found for 1161 New record of 183 iterations found for 2223 Number 2322 also has same number of terms as previous record Number 2323 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 209 iterations found for 2463 New record of 217 iterations found for 2919 New record of 238 iterations found for 3711 New record of 262 iterations found for 6171 New record of 268 iterations found for 10971 New record of 276 iterations found for 13255 New record of 279 iterations found for 17647 Number 17673 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 282 iterations found for 23529 New record of 308 iterations found for 26623 New record of 311 iterations found for 34239 Number 35497 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 324 iterations found for 35655 New record of 340 iterations found for 52527 New record of 351 iterations found for 77031 New record of 354 iterations found for 106239 New record of 375 iterations found for 142587 New record of 383 iterations found for 156159 New record of 386 iterations found for 216367 New record of 443 iterations found for 230631 New record of 449 iterations found for 410011 New record of 470 iterations found for 511935 New record of 509 iterations found for 626331 New record of 525 iterations found for 837799 New record of 528 iterations found for 1117065 Number 1126015 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 531 iterations found for 1501353 Number 1564063 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 557 iterations found for 1723519 New record of 560 iterations found for 2298025 New record of 563 iterations found for 3064033 New record of 584 iterations found for 3542887 New record of 597 iterations found for 3732423 New record of 613 iterations found for 5649499 New record of 665 iterations found for 6649279 New record of 686 iterations found for 8400511 New record of 689 iterations found for 11200681 New record of 692 iterations found for 14934241 New record of 705 iterations found for 15733191 New record of 706 iterations found for 31466382 Number 31466383 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 745 iterations found for 36791535 New record of 950 iterations found for 63728127 New record of 951 iterations found for 127456254 Number 127456255 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 954 iterations found for 169941673 New record of 957 iterations found for 226588897 New record of 965 iterations found for 268549803 New record of 966 iterations found for 537099606 Number 537099607 also has same number of terms as previous record New record of 987 iterations found for 670617279 The record number of terms was 987, Produced by number 670617279 RUN FINISHED; exit value 0; real time: 7m 6s; user: 760ms; system: 7m 4s
This was single-core on a Virtual machine running on a core i5 (sandybridge).
I am not sure I want to test what 4 billion looks like without finding a way to use more than one thread.
I don’t think the answer is wrong, but I might have made a mistake I don’t yet realize 🙂
x-cycle: insert a rotating X-Forwarded-For Header
I made a pretty simple chrome extension that allows you to configure a list of IP addresses, as well as a target host and it will insert an X-Forwarded-For header into the requests for the target host, and switch to the next IP in your configured list after about 6 requests.
This was useful to me when testing our a Web Application Firewall.
I have attempted to publish it in the Chrome Store several times, and the experience is just horrible. It gets published, then without reason, it gets taken down until I raise a support ticket. One day later, it gets published again with no explanations or apologies offered, and the cycle repeats again.
If you’re in luck, it may be available in the chrome store here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/x-cycle/bnlmhngacoghehikmhlcmpkbbnjdifca
Otherwise, you can download the latest copy I have hosted on my server: https://nucco.org/files/x-cycle.crx
If you care for this sort of thing, the sha1sum of the current file on my server should be:
c436ae78256a212851ee862e19fe51d08eab0049 *x-cycle.crx
Enjoy.
Walled Gardens need Improvement
I came face to face with “The Man” recently, and lost hopelessly.
You see, I spent two weekends working on a relatively basic Chrome Extension that I find useful in my day job; I often have to test a Web App Firewall, and usually you need to simulate traffic from multiple different source clients. The easiest way to do this for HTTP is to use the X-Forwarded-For (XFF) header, and configure your WAF to trust it. So, I thought, If i made an extension to automatically switch the XFF header, it would take some tedium out of this process.
I spent a bit of time on the Eloquent Javascript and the Chrome Developer Documentation, and over two weekends, came up with a slightly configurable and reasonably usable extension that allows you to inject XFF header into requests to a target server you configure. I called it “x-cycle“.
Feeling proud of my accomplishment, I push this to the Chrome Store as a Developer Tool (paid a $5 verification fee in the process).
I spend the next 12 hours eagerly searching for my extension in the Chrome Web Store, hoping that my first ever extension would show up. After frustration with not finding it, I decide to go to my Chrome Developer Dashboard and check. “At least one of your items has been removed from the store because it did not comply with our policies or terms of service.” Huh? No email, no notification, and no specification of which terms I have violated, and very little I can do about it.
Nobody will get to use my extension, unless I distribute it manually, and Chrome already makes it near impossible to distribute an extension outside of the Chrome Store, so, I won’t get much traction there, regardless of how much I think people with my kind of job would find this tool useful.
I understand more vividly why walled gardens can be a problem. Previously, I have always preferred Android to iOS because I felt like Google didn’t do too much to dictate what kind of software I can use on my phone compared to Apple, but looking at Chrome, it seems like I never considered the fact that Chrome has become a walled Garden, and one that badly needs to improve its engagement at that.
If you take down someone’s work, you need to at least explain why, so that they can work on resolving it. I get the distinct feeling that some Reviewer just saw “X-Forwarded-For”, googled it, and saw it as a way to “mask” your IP address, and thought “Oh No! Hacking Tool!!” and took it down. This would be a real shame.
Any experienced web admin knows that you don’t trust X-Forwarded-For, unless it was set by a device that you control, thus there is limited scope for abuse of this extension, even for people who are intent on mischief. The policy for trusting XFF is that you strip whatever you received, and then inject the value that you are going to trust. Someone who tests a WAF is both in control of the client and the web-server, and can configure it to trust this header, and this is what makes this extension useful in my view.
I have submitted a support ticket to some Google Support service that took some Googling to find hoping I would get back a more actionable response whenever they do get round to it.
Until then, twiddling thumbs and wondering whether the “open” web we so proudly proclaim is not really just a walled garden with tremendous power in the hands of the people who make web browsers. It is probably little wonder then that practically all browsers are free of charge; they trade the cost for the users, which in turn amplify the power of the browser vendor. They can then hold advertisers, publishers and developers to ransom. Hmmm.
Paste in Mac OS Command Line (Terminal)
Apparently, you just need this simple key combination: CMD + V.
Mind == blown!
If you found that hard to discover, you’ve been using putty and/or linux for way too long.