October 2008

Let's see. Yesterday I talked to the network head and he agreed to give me the address space I need for the project. I sent him my configuration file so that he could be sure that I wouldn't be attacking the network.

Today I figured out how to do some very basic things in click. What I'm trying to do now is how to do something like NAT with click. I've been having a lot more trouble trying to just print out basic stuff than I thought I would. Most of my problem is trying to do things the way I think they should work rather than the way the examples show.

Also shot off an email to my advisor asking for some additional hardware resources.

I'm embracing reality

Normally I get depressed when its time to blog because I feel like I haven't accomplished anything, or haven't accomplished enough. But I hadn't realized that even though I daily fail to meet my own expectations, I do accomplish things, and they do add up over time.

What I just finished doing was getting the USB ethernet adapter I bought to work. I was just looking into what to do with my new multi-homed host. I'd been thinking 'router', but then, what do I want it to route? I guess I'm thinking about it more closely now. I'd lost sight of what this thing is for--the project. And for the project, what I need is a honeywall. My understanding of a honeywall is that its a reverse firewall--it only lets certain traffic out.

Now for just everyday use...well, I guess I really don't need it for everyday use, do I? I need to take the time and figure out what I want the home network to look like, what services I'm going to run, and what network appliances I need to run them.

I talked to Verizon and Suddenlink about the addresses I need. Suddenlink charges around $90 for service with 5 IP addresses, with $15 for each IP over that. Verizon charges $80 for 1 IP address, and each block of 5 IP addresses cost $20. For some reason I'd forgotten that Suddenlink charged per IP for over 5 until just now, so I was thinking Suddenlink was the way to go. And they still are, if I want to stick with 5 IPs. But I was thinking to start with 5, and eventually work my way up to 15. With Suddenlink that would cost me $150 extra, while with Verizon it would cost $40 extra. Darn it. I'd better call them back and ask about fees. Verizon charges a $99 setup fee and $99 for the modem, so that has to factor in too.

....

Just got off the phone with Suddenlink. The fees depend on the contract. If I go with a 1 year contact, installation and modem are $170. With the two year, installation is $60 and the modem is 'free.' With a three year contract, installation is $10.

I hate myself

for having so little to report here. Last night I was thinking about the possibility of using dynamic IP addresses. This morning I added wireless to thei list of possibilities, especially since most of the ISPs in town seem to be WISPs. I contacted Cybercom *again*, this time by email, and looked at a few alternatives. However, some internet searching revealed that most people have some antenna setup on top of their house to get the WISP signals, whereas if I went with Cybercom I wouldn't have to deal with that.

And...that's about it. I'm working on my mini-review now--and it seems I've been doing that for hours. Or rather, I should have been working on it...

As for the rest...

...what can I say. I set up my reminder, and I still failed to post like I should have last week. Sometimes I felt like I didn't have anything significant to post, even when sometimes's that's the point. Hopefully I'll do better this week.

I heard you

God got a hold of me at church today. I don't remember why, but I think somebody was praying and it made me think about a verse that I'd read in Acts earlier in the week. I began to search for the verse to read the complete thing. I had a hard time finding it and almost gave up, but didn't. The verse was Acts 12:2, where the Holy Spirit tells the believers to separate Paul and Barnabas for His work. I was wondering how you get to the point where you can sense God speaking something like this. As I read again, I saw in verse 1 and 2 that there were a small group of men that were 'ministering unto the Lord.' This included fasting. Then, during the next prayer, somebody quoted a passage of scripture. I don't know exactly where it was--I think it was Avery reading--but the passage definitely mentioned fasting (though I just did a bible search and couldn't find it). Anyway, then when the Pastor started preaching, he talked about moving forward with God by stopping. The passage was Nehemiah 9, and he talked about how the people came to God with fasting. So I got it. If I want to hear from God, I need to be fasting.

Insignificant?

It doesn't seem like I accomplished much today. We turned in our proposal for CPSC 689, but some of the conversation that went on with the project proposal was enlightening. The professor is saying that hardware is available but not IP addresses. He did not give any definite timetable and mentioned me using equipment at the other institution. This tells me that I need to work on my own setup for the thesis. I'm thinking that I may look at the local ISP for bandwidth before I talk to the phone provider. This also further cements my thinking that there may be a bigger difference between the project and the thesis than I originally thought, but now I find that I don't really have a problem with that.

I really am going to get this...

By that I mean actually doing daily logs. As a matter of fact, I'm going to make myself a reminder right after I finish this blog. No, I'm going to do it RIGHT NOW...

...DONE. That didn't take long, did it? Okay, so this weekend, I was preoccupied with turning in the (late) homework. Late this week, I was reading the Honeypot books I got from the library. This week, I read some of the papers that the professor sent. By "some of," I mean I read some of each of them. The masters' thesis was encouraging, because it didn't seem too complicated.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to connect with Dave via IM. We have done some communication. He did most of the work on putting together a proposal. At first, what we had down on file seemed like something we wouldn't even have done before it was time for me to graduate. But we scaled back, and the professor kind of okayed that before we even told him about it. So that's good.

I'm getting a better and better feel for what I want to do for my thesis. It may or may not line up totally with the project. I downloaded a couple of interesting things. I was beginning to think about what an uphill battle I could have trying to write my thesis on OpenOffice with the potential compatibility issues, because as I understand it, the thesis has to be just so. I considered the possibility of doing it in Latex for a second, then dismissed that as crazy. I reconsidered when I found a Latex thesis template on the thesis website. Its for EE though. I need to confirm with the thesis office that I can use it. That alone reminded me that the initial format doesn't matter, just the end result, which I'm betting is .pdf.

I also downloaded the proposal submission information again. For a minute there I though all we needed to submit was what the proposed title of the thesis, but the instructions give the actual info. I should probably go talk to someone in the thesis office sooner rather than later. And I think I'll ask Daniel how his experiences with the office have been.