Custom CA certificates & Android

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With the number of servers I have internally, I have setup my own Certificate Authority and sign all my internal SSL certificates against this private CA.

This offers the useful advantage of being able to import the one CA certificate into all my devices and then being able to validate all connections to remote systems – if you run more than one or two personal servers, I’d highly recommend this approach – certificate signing takes a little bit of getting used to, but it’s a good skill to have.

As I want to access a number of systems via my Android mobile, I needed to import this CA file – the following instructions were followed with ICS release 4.0.3, however it may apply to earlier/later releases as well.

If you’ve followed most typical instructions for building your CA, you will have an PEM encoded CA certificate file in ASCII format. This is fine for import into most browsers and desktop OSes, however Android is particularly fussy with it’s input and requires a binary format only.

You can convert the CA PEM format file with the following command:

openssl x509 -inform PEM -outform DER -in CA.pem -out CA.crt

Then transfer the generated CA.crt file to the sdcard – easiest is via adb:

adb push CA.crt /sdcard/

Once done, you will be able to tell Android to install the CA file via Settings -> Security -> Credential Storage and selecting “Install from storage” and following prompts.

To verify functionality, easiest test is to access an https website signed with your CA certificate via the browser.

Some commenters have had issues – here is me importing a valid CA cert in DER format.

2012 New Year’s Resolutions

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It’s 2012, time to update my new years resolutions and make plans for this year! :-)

Firstly, what’s happened since the start of 2011?

I met Lisa, we’ve been together 11+ months now! :-O
I’ve packed up my life and moved to Auckland after Lisa started a journalism job up here, it’s the first time I’ve lived outside of Wellington, so it’s a big change for me!
I’ve been working for Prophecy for over a year now, these days working from home or from customer sites in Auckland, going pretty well.
I’ve done more travelling around NZ than ever before, various road trips around the North Island and seeing new places.

I think I’ve done a pretty good job of the resolutions I made last year:

I’ve reduced the amount of stuff I have, sold almost all my rackmount servers, sold all my beloved data centre components and cleared out huge piles of things from the flat.
I haven’t quite gotten down to the goals of my less, less, less life approach, now that I’m not single it’s not quite as easy, if I clear out some space, Lisa just fills it in with something. ;-) Although I’ve done a pretty good job of holding myself off buying gadgets that I don’t really need this year.
I’m working sane hours and having a bit more of a work/life balance. Will be interesting to see how this lasts now that I’m working from home though.
My blogging is more frequent, although not as much as I think it should be.

What I haven’t achieved is as much projects or geeking as I wanted, so I will be making more time this year for doing so and getting into more fun projects. :-)

So, my new years resolutions for 2012 are:

Complete planned minimalism, selling off items I don’t need or use, reducing to things I actually care about. I still have too much cruft IMHO, but it’s hard to keep it low.
Getting fitter – I need to lose weight and want to level up my fitness to potentially tackle the Te Araroa walk in late 2012 or early 2013, and with the move to Auckland I’m not getting the level of exercise I used to have in Wellington.
Reduce amount of crap in my diet – reducing alcohol and snack foods will be the major difference, if I don’t buy it, I won’t eat it….
Get out and explore the Auckland region!
Get back up the mountain for some more snowboarding! I loved my first trip and want to do much more!
Blog more, social network less. Blogs take longer, but are much more meaningful posts and I waste far too much time on social networks. Target is at least one decent blog post per week.
Improve my saving situation and consider investment options for my savings.
Move off proprietary networks as much as possible – mostly twitter at this stage, but also interested in options to replace google search, maps, etc.
Complete many mostly done projects and release publicly! Lots of cool things I’d like to get out there. :-)
Self enhance – work on improving my computing work environment with better tools – I’m planning to try one new tool every week and then pick the best ones for my needs.
Learn new computing languages: Python, C++ and Java. I know bits of the above, enough to get by, but I want to be fluent in them.
Learn a new IRL language. I want something I can use and then go overseas and live there for a while, so thinking maybe something like French or German, both places I’d like to go. Maybe German, then I can sing along to Rammstein songs better ;-) I think the key bit will be having someone to practice with, ideally a native speaker somewhere.
Decide what my long term plans will be – Auckland, Wellington, or overseas. It’s a little more complicated now that I’m not as unattached as I once was.

Xmas Break

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I’m now back in Auckland after a week and a bit of tripping down to see Lisa’s family in Hawkes Bay and mine in Wellington, as well as catching up with friends along the way.

In some ways it was nice to have the break, but (scarily) happy to be back in Auckland to spend my second week off just doing geeky things – planning to build Android from source, upgrade laptop and complete other fun tasks. :-)

Some pictures from the trip:

Raaaage at slow campervans not pulling over on the otherwise quite fun Taupo-Napier route.

Looking over the boats from one of the many drinking establishments on West Quay in Napier.

Neat sea wall formation in Napier.

OMG I got to pet a bunny! It's like a cat, for vegetarians!

Hers & his laptops snuggling ;-)

Best part of Hastings: an escape route!

Due to the Manawatu Gorge being blocked by slips, ended up on the Saddle Rd bypass track, right by the wind farms :-D

OMG it's geekflat! I could even still pickup the wifi (just) from the AP I setup there. (seen from the Mercue on Willis Hotel)

Delicious iced coffee from Maranui Cafe in Lyall Bay Wellington. Kinda overloaded with tasty bits ontop....

Wellington was a little wet..... for the 3 days we were there, it rained almost constantly :-(

Looked into the towering boxes of mine at my parents place..... decided the 500+ ethernet cables could just stay there for now...

Noooooo, how can you be so cruel lift??? There's *six* stories to go up :-/

All the people without death wishes pulled over at the road side thanks to huge thunderstorm right above flooding the road and reducing visibility. Could actually feel the thunder shaking the car!!

Xmas & New Years Plans

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Time is rushing by in Auckland and already making xmas and new years plans. I’ll be heading down to Hawke’s Bay for the Xmas period with Lisa’s family and then down to Wellington for a few days to see my family and catch up with a few friends.

Holiday plans are:

24 Dec: Drive from Auckland to Hawke’s Bay
25 Dec: Hawke’s Bay [Plans: Family Stuff]
26 Dec: Hawke’s Bay [Plans: None]
27 Dec: Hawke’s Bay [Plans: Family Stuff]
28 Dec: Hawke’s Bay [Plans: None]
29 Dec: Drive from Hawke’s Bay to Wellington. [Plans: Catch up with family]
30 Dec: Wellington [Plans: catch up with friends]
31 Dec: Wellington [Plans: catch up with friends]
1st Jan: Drive back from Wellington to Auckland

If you’re in Wellington or Hawke’s Bay on any of those dates, let me know, always keen for drinks and a catch up. :-)

Other than that, I will have from 1st – 8th Jan (inclusive) in Auckland on leave, so if you’re passing through Auckland, come say hi. I expect to be sitting around coding and upgrading my laptop’s Linux build most of the time. Possibly from in the pool, considering I can barely handle the Auckland heat already. :-/

Process Monitor for Windows

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From time to time I’m dragged into the murky world of Microsoft to debug a problem a customer is having, or to setup the occasional small business server.

My Windows skills are passable, but certainly nowhere near as good as my Linux capabilities – simple stuff like doing an strace on linux becomes a “ummmmm how?” on Windows.

Recently had an issue with an old Windows application refusing to launch on Windows Server 2008 due to a missing DLL file – found a very handy application published by Microsoft that works on XP SP2+ called “Process Monitor”.

It shows all calls being made by programs including what DLLs are being called and what registry values are being queried, along with the response from all these calls.

In my case, I was able to see what DLL file the problem was requesting and seeing that the OS was returning a NOT FOUND response – installed the require library, and fixed. :-)

Download from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

Walk Te Araroa?

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I’m not a particularly outdoorsy kind of person, but there have been times when I’ve ventured out into the sun and been rewarded with painfully blistering skin instead of my delightful geek tan (as witnessed with my recent snowboarding efforts).

One thing that’s come to mind in past, is exploring more of New Zealand on foot, rather than it racing by at 100km/h – so I pondered the idea of whether there are proper walking tracks from the top to bottom of New Zealand.

Turns out there is – the Ta Araroa track goes from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island and is almost complete with a completion date of end of 2011. :-)

It would be a pretty intense walk, according to google maps it would take 18 days if I walked 24×7, so in reality it would take a good 2 months minimum factoring in sleep time and the fact that I’m sure I’d want to stop over at some paces overnight.

And of course, I’d need to increase my fitness, upskill with learning how to camp and tramp properly, but there’s certain appeal to doing it and to having that time just exploring NZ in a different way to what most experience.

Something to consider for late 2012 I think. :-)

I’m not the first person to consider this either, in the past few days have come across a guy who’s currently doing the walk, someone currently making plans, and a guy who biked the length of NZ.

Of course, I’d probably do it typical geek style, expect me to lug a laptop along with me and blog and tweet the whole way, but part of me is keen to have that time away from regular life, away from apartments, junk, work, people, debts and having those long periods of isolation to just ponder life.

And maybe I’ll be able to drag some friends and maybe Lisa into doing it to. Although I know she thinks I’m nuts for even thinking about this idea. ;-)

OMG Auckland

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Goodbye Wellington (pic of my plane by @scottjpalmer at Wellington Airport)

So I’m now offically an Aucklander, after my trip down to Kiwicon, I can’t deny it any more – I’ve moved in, my server is back online and I’m slowly setting into regular patterns of work/social life with Lisa.

It’s been pretty weird so far, having days that are up (yay, omg new city, new exploring, new friends) and days that are down where I miss some of my great Wellington friends, family and reminiscing on past experiences.

I grew up in Wellington and whilst somewhat well traveled (in the AU/NZ region anyway) this is the first time I’ve actually truly lived away from home and it’s a big change – from living in the city where I know every other street, had visited friends/hookups in every other suburb, started a business, met some amazing people, obtained nemisies, to living in a strange city which I’m unsure about whether or not I’ll like.

To be fair to Auckland, most of my past experiences have been as a visitor here for business, so trips have basicly involved Airport – Traffic – Office – Traffic – Airport which isn’t really giving the city fair trial, so I’m prepared to go into this with an open mind, to look at what’s good in Auckland rather than focusing on the bad and to get out there to meet new people and do new things.

I’ll be in Auckland for certain until late June 2012, when Lisa and I will then be re-evaluating what we want to do – I’m still very strong on doing a number of years overseas, it’s more a case of deciding when the best time to do it is. And I expect to return to NZ eventually, particularly if I do decide to raise a family long term, I think I’d want to do that in Wellington.

Going to miss my family in particular – not being able to pop over whenever I feel like to chat and hang with my brother is certainly a downside to the move.

And I’ll also miss my very good friend Tom, who has been my long suffering flatmate, for a while employee and most importantly friend. Considering we’ve probably been flatting together for the past 4+ years, it’s kind of like leaving a partner or brother. :-/

It’s also a time of great change as I close a chapter on my single years – I now have a flat with just Lisa and I – no longer firing objects or having sword fights in a kitchen with rackmount servers all over the floor with my friends; dragging some random people home; heading to strange addresses late at night to meet snuggle buddies; collecting blade servers from weird places to setup in my startup company office and heaving it through the office alone or boozy twitter sessions in Wellington’s great bars.

Wellington is both full of great and bad memories… I love it more than anything and will be back, but in a way, it’s nice having this chapter away from it for a while.

Right now, starting a new chapter in life with Lisa <3 And it’s scary, but it’s good. :-)

Pretty Wellington (from #geekflat apartment I lived in for the past ~3 years)

Packing Nightmare.... I found I have 3 car loads of stuff and only had one car :-/

Found my first Linux whilst tidying up :-D

Squeezing everything into the boot of my car before driving up to Auckland. Managed to fit my big server in underneath everything and used clothes in all the odd gaps... even stuff under passenger seat. I need a bigger car. :-/

Goodbye curry with @thatjohn (John) and @macropiper (long suffering Tom)

Final night in Wellington, the fireworks farewell was a nice touch ;-)

Server online at new apartment. Pretty much #1 priority. Far cry from the days of the twin 42U racks tho!

Kiwicon in Wellington

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Having only just moved to Auckland, I’ve only just started reassembling my computer setup and unpacking boxes, yet already back down to Wellington attend the 5th Kiwicon Hacking & Security conference.

Looking forwards to it, it’s always an interesting conference and I get to catch up with the guys at geekflat and my other Wellington mates for curry, geeking and other awesomeness.

I’m flying down Friday morning, spending the day working from the Wellington office, then catching up with friends in the evening.

Saturday will be conference and I’ll try to get along to the tweetup that’s taking place. Sunday will also be conference and probably a visit to parents place before returning to Auckland in the evening.

So it’s a pretty busy visit, totally need more time – missing Wellington and my mates heaps after the move. :-(

Getting a move on

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Just got back from AU this morning, been an awesome trip which I’ll probably blog about next week, as this one is far too busy.

Started this morning with a dead car battery when I went to take Lisa to the airport and a txt from the movers advising that the truck had broken down, not the greatest way to start my day.

Fortunately Lisa managed to get to the airport in time and the AA battery replacement service was pretty fast – turns out the battery in my car dated back to 2002, infact it even seems to run better with the new battery whilst driving and starts even faster, wonder if the old one was impacting the motor.

The movers arrived and took away all my furniture to Auckland, it arrives on the 26th and I’m up in Auckland 26th & 27th for work projects so can help Lisa start setting up the flat.

After I return on Thursday, I’ll be living on an air mattress for Thur, Fri and Sat nights. Not really wildly excited about the air mattress part, but have to just live with that till the drive up to Auckland on the Sunday.

Somehow I have to fit all my computers into my car, along with clothes and various other items, it’s looking like it will be tight squeeze TBH – and my brother is coming along as a passenger for his first Auckland roadtrip, so there’s not going to be much room by the time the car is loaded up.

Clearly this is a sign that I should have less things…. anything that doesn’t fit and that I don’t want ASAP will have to go to parents for now.

Busy Buffer Overflow

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It’s an insanely busy month – I’m up in Auckland again for a few days, before heading back to Wellington, then off to Melbourne & Brisbane for a few days, before returning to Wellington, then Auckland for a few days, then Wellington, then drive to Auckland and speed a week there, before returning to Wellington for a weekend….. as you can see, too much going on!

Really sick of hotels ATM, have spent 2+ weeks in different Auckland North Shore motels in the past week and none of them can seem to tick all the boxes – bad showers, bad beds, bad living space, over all just pretty disappointing.

Will be great once we’ve settled – Lisa will be moving into the new flat on the 26th and I’ll be following shortly on the 30th, I’m sure it will make us both feel a lot better – the inability to truly relax currently is getting very annoying.

Anyway, time to sleep, prob catch up on blogging in early/mid November!