Technical Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Stefcho's Tech Blog

Asus RT-N16 supported with DD-WRT 100 pages thread

Posted on 10/03/2011 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

One of the major sources of information about this model, and the supportability of different features was this topic.

Asus RT-N16 now supported

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=61570&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Unfortunately as the last post states:

Murrkf: This thread is way too long to be practical. Outdated info is mixed with new info and few will read all 100 pages.

So you can,

SEE SUMMARY OF THIS THREAD AND CONTINUE DISCUSSION HERE:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=88118

pfSense 2.0 RC1 released, on Hyper-V

Posted on 01/03/2011 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

Today pfSense 2.0 RC1 was officially released. So I’ve quickly downloaded it and setup one test VM in VMWare. The new interface reveals a lot more features than the previous version 1.2.3. For full list of improvements look here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/2.0_New_Features_and_Changes

What I was more interested in was the performance on Hyper-V VM. Recently I’ve setup a Hyper-V VM with 1.2.3 version and legacy network interface cards. Make a few quick file transfer tests and did not like the performance.

I’ve repeat the tests, and there is a 25% improvement over 1.2.3. This is encouraging. Unfortunately event with the new version, it is necessary to use Legacy NIC for the Hyper-V VM.

As it is stated in the Digest this is considered a stable release suitable for production use. I will continue the testing in production environment to get more realistic results.

pfSense 1.2.3 as Virtual Machine on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

Posted on 27/02/2011 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

After seeing pfSense working more than half year flawlessly on Alix, recently I’ve test it as virtual machine.

To avoid some compatibility issues a “Legacy Network Adapters” must be used.

For my surprise even with that trick, there was no network connectivity. The work around for this problem is explained in this thread: Pfsense 2.0-BETA4 in Hyper-V: Throughput not as expected

Open shell from the console, create new document

vi /usr/local/etc/rc.d/startup.sh

and type in

ifconfig de1 down
ifconfig de0 down
ifconfig de0 up
ifconfig de1 up

Just check before that the names of your interfaces, mine were de0,1.

For now it is stable, no issues, with very basic configuration. On the forums there are topics about possible problems with VLANs, but I didn’t need this functionality.

Upgrading DD-WRT Firmware on Asus RT-N16 with Optware Asterisk 1.4

Posted on 22/02/2011 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

As you remember before almost a year, I’ve setup a SoHo PBX on my router. Now it is time to upgrade the firmware. Usually I perform update on monthly bases. But after such extensible configuration for the PBX, and couple of month stable work, no changes were required.

Good place to start is this topic: Firmware Recommendations – Still 14929 – 02/17/11

There are K26 firmware recommendations are for 15230, but I decide to use slightly newer build “dd-wrt.v24-15508_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin”
But then it hit me, if I have to do all the configuration to enable Optware and Asterisk again, this would cost me hours of configuration.

After searching through the Wiki pages and the forum, found some relevant information:
“
/opt backup
Now we have prepared /opt for adding more packages. We can also create backup of the whole /opt tree in case of router upgrade, to give preinstalled /opt to a friend or just safety backup. We will create such backup with
~ # tar czf /tmp/opt-backup.tar.gz /opt
Destination for /tmp/opt-backup.tar.gz should be large enough! Beware that /tmp is RAM. Destination should be disk or remote smbfs partition. Extracting /opt backup could be:
cd /
rm -rf opt/*
tar xvzf /tmp/opt-backup.tar.gz
If /opt space is tight and no packages requiring libstdc++ will be used (like Amule) then removing this large shared library is recommended
~ # rm /opt/lib/libstdc\*
will remove
/opt/lib/libstdc++.so /opt/lib/libstdc++.so.6 /opt/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.8
ipkg-opt downloads packages into /opt directory and erases them after installing. If you have enough free RAM and /jffs only then adding –tmp-dir /tmp is recommended instead of default /opt
”

source: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware

and something more meaningful:

“ gobbledigook
DD-WRT User
Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 376
Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:55 pm Post subject:
if optware is installed to an external drive (usb) then when settings are reset all you need to do is enable usb support in services, and select the mount point as /opt/ apply and reboot
”
Check out the whole topic here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=464506

After reading this I’ve gain some confidence, and decide to upgrade.

And it was a success, no additional configuration was needed, Asterisk was up and running straight after the upgrade of the firmware.

Straight

Upmix mode Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeMusic 7.1 II

Posted on 20/02/2011 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

After updating my drivers, I’ve found that the Creative Console has been changed. Now to perfume the same operation you will have to pass slightly different way:

1. Open Creative Console, and select this icon for X-Fi CMSS-3D

2.In this dialog click on the Surround…Button. make sure that the Stereo Envelopment is in the center.

3.Finally clock on the radio button next to Stereo Surround.

That’s it, hope this help you out.

Upmix mode Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeMusic 7.1

Posted on 24/07/2010 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

After a successful installation of my Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeMusic and connected it to Inspire T7900. It is time for some tests. The software which came with the card really plays 5.1 audio. But here comes the problems. I’m using different players for audio and video. The problem is that they used at most 5.1.

Finally I found where you can play with the up mixing, and here it is. By default you hear Stereo Xpand upmix mode. This setting concentrates the sound on the front left, right and the central speaker. You don’t feeling like swimming in the sound. In order the sound to be spread across all the 7 speakers. Choose the Stereo Surround Upmix Mode. Then the fun begins. Play with the Stereo Envelopment control. You will definitely feel the difference.

Online Radio Recording with VLC Player

Posted on 24/07/2010 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

Тия дни исках да запиша малко онлайн радио. Поогледах се за някоя програма която може да ми свърши работа. Естествено имаше тонове такива. Проблема е че повечето са платени. Другия им недостатък е че не поддържат един или друг формат.

След дълго лутане, ми дойде „гениалната” идея да си ползвам една от любимите програми за целта. А именно VLC player. Не знам за друга програма с толкова богата функционалност. Може би заради модулната и архитектура, тя ти позволява да направих безброй комбинации от модулите, като това ти дава огромна свобода на действието. Точно след 30 секунди вече правех това което искам, както го искам и когато го искам. Перфектно! На всичко отгоре е и БЕЗПЛАТЕН!!!

За да не се лута някой ето и простите стъпки които трябва да се следват.
1. напиши адреса на радиото
2. избери Stream/Save, после Settings
3. Ако избереш Play locally – ще чуваш / виждаш какво се записва.
4. Избираш File, избираш къде да се намира, и как да се казва файла, съдържащ желаното съдържание.
5. Избери си формат в който да се кодира съдържанието.
6. Малко OKи, готов си.

File Sharing Protocols and Ports in XP and 2003

Posted on 24/07/2010 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

After digging around for open ports I have found TCP port 445 open on one of my machines. For what this port is used? The answer was here:
What’s TCP port 445 used for in Windows 2000/XP?

“Among the new ports used by Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, is TCP port 445 which is used for SMB over TCP.
The SMB (Server Message Block) protocol is used among other things for file sharing in Windows NT/2000/XP. In Windows NT it ran on top of NetBT (NetBIOS over TCP/IP), which used the famous ports 137, 138 (UDP) and 139 (TCP). In Windows 2000/XP/2003, Microsoft added the possibility to run SMB directly over TCP/IP, without the extra layer of NetBT. For this they use TCP port 445.
”

Then found this article:
How can I configure TCP/IP networking while NetBIOS is disabled in Windows 2000/XP/2003?

Perfect! Petri IT Knowledgebase

If you are interested in the topic references are very good source of information.

Import Microsoft VMs in VMWare Workstation

Posted on 24/07/2010 - 18/02/2019 by Stefan

I was trying to test System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 Evaluation Copy. But did not happened to have virtual server or hyper v. So I decide to import it in VMWare Workstation. The following error appeared when I try to import it “source format was not understood”.
After googeling it, the only relative result was : Converting Microsoft’s Virtual Server Machine to VMWare

“Today I downloaded a SharePoint virtual machine from Microsoft. When I tried to import it to VMWare I got an error that said “source format was not understood”. I google the error and didn’t come with a solution to my problem. So I did the next logical thing, I open the VMC file for the Virtual Server and poked around. I found that the attribute didn’t have any value. I changed that value to the physical location of the machine. In my case it was F:\Virtual Machines\MOSS Demo\WIN03_MOSS.vhd

When I started the import from VMWare, it worked.”

Close, but did not do the job for me. After reading the .vmc file.

Obviously this portion was the problematic one:

First I fixed the first absolute with new path, but still it was not working. Then think about it VMWare have completely different way of managing disk, to the relative and the differencing did not seem to fit in the picture. Removing the “relative type=”string”.\SCEsp1VHDSERVER_Diff.vhd” do the trick.

Hope this will be fixed later on.