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Linux servers running your gadgets

I love the fact that so many consumer gadgets are increasingly Linux based and for the so inclined you can ssh or telnet into them to fiddle around with their settings 🙂

Tivo is probably the most common of all consumer devices running Linux. We love our Tivo box. We still have a Series 1 and it’s run continuously 24×7 since approx 2002 when we first bought it. It’s only been powered down a couple of times during power outages, and from memory I can only remember once or twice when it hung and had to be restarted. It’s hands down the most stable, most reliable piece of consumer electronics I’ve ever owned, by far.

The Iomgea ix2 NAS boxes run on Linux (as do most NAS boxes) – you can enable ssh from the ‘hidden page’ at /support.html and then ssh into it using id=root and password=soho+[your admin user password]

A lot of DSL and cable modems, and Wifi routers also run Linux. Most Actiontec DSL modems have a telnet port open on the internal network, and you can telnet into them using your web admin interface userid and password.

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Enabling SSL for Apache2 on Ubuntu

Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf – add:

LoadModule      ssl_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_ssl.so

Generate SSL certificates:

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/serverguide/C/certificates-and-security.html

Add SSL config and 443 port to a new Virtual Host in apache2.conf – for example:

<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin your_admin@email.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/your_doc_root
SSLEngine on
SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLCertificateFile path/to/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile path/to/server.key
ServerName your.server.name
DirectoryIndex index.php
</VirtualHost>

Add a listen port on 443 to /etc/apache2/ports.conf:

NameVirtualHost *:443
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Microsoft caught harvesting search results from Google

I love stories like this, especially when a representative from each side find themselves on stage at a conference to argue it out.

Apparently Google was suspicious of search results that were showing up on Bing, so Google deliberately modified search results to introduce bizarre search terms and typos in search results to prove that search results from Google were being fed into results being displayed in Bing. And what so you know, according to Google it’s true.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve said it time and time again, when was the last time Microsoft actually produced anything new and innovative? Even their search results (if you interpret this article literally) are copied from Google…

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