Windows NT/XP security

An update: The emergency boot CD is an ISO that provides you with a convenient boot CD. The boot CD provides you with a boot into Linux with a simple way to reset your admin passwords. (site - ebcd.pcministry.com). This was useful to reset the passwords of NT images of defunct hardware that I was migrating to a virtual PC.

It is dangerous to allow a person to boot your PC with his floppy disk. This link discusses how you can get administrative access to a Windows XP machine by booting from a floppy disk.

The approach is rather ingenious. It edits the NT SAM database using an offline registry editor.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/nt.html. The utility chgntpw is excellent as an offline registry editing tool. A while back I was trying to find such a utility (see the BLOG on reinstalling Windows), but gave up. This seems promising...

This website also has approaches for admin access to Linux. A link from one of these pages discusses how to change Administrative passwords on Domain controllers - useful for administrators who install NT/XP half asleep ;-)

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/editor.html

RockXP3
While we are on security, be careful about RockXP3. One of its features is displaying passwords stored in Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and RAS. So if you save such passwords , they can be viewed with RockXP3.

Setup SMTP on a Mandrake Linux

Mandrake Linux uses Postfix rather than Sendmail.
When I try to telnet localhost smtp - it does not show any response from SMTP.

Look at /etc/syslog.conf
Find out which directory are the log files stored. In my case it was /var/log
Look at the errors in /var/log/mail/errors
Mar 6 08:29:37 linux3 postfix/smtpd[19852]: fatal: open database /var/lib/mailman/data/aliases.db: No such file or directory

. You specified two hash files in your postfix configuration and one of them doesn't exist. Try removing the /var/lib/mailman/data/aliases.db from main.cf and see if you can get basic mail delivery working first. Only after you are satisfied with how postfix is functioning, add in the mailman stuff.

After removing the mailman aliases.db, it still did not start.
The problem was that SASL parameters were turned on but SASL libraries were not installed.
Removed SASL parameters by going back to the initial version of the config files.

This page discusses setting up outbound SMTP authentication.

http://www.thecabal.org/~devin/postfix/smtp-auth.txt

Quick notes

Trying to see how Agile can be adapted into our SAP development group.

1. Installed TWIKI - very nice :-). Twiki is a WIKI site that allows users to modify the pages on the fly. It runs on Cygwin Perl and Apache. Found a very nice step-by-step install guide for Windows. Integrated this with Windows NTLM logins - again another step-by-step guide!
2. Installed a pilot site of CommunityServer. Installing CS is really easy despite the size of CommunityServer. BTW - the source code is now available. Guess I was on the bleeding edge when I needed it last week.
3. Emule - is a distributed file-sharing network. Tried it successfully today.
4. ABAP2HTML - Converts your ABAP program to a color coded HTML. You can change the VBA macro code for this program to adapt it to your needs.

Agile Programming and SAP

Martin Fowler's web articles got me rethinking about Agile Programming. He discusses various applicable methods in the article The New Methodology. The paper Is Design Dead raises a lot of questions about whether the waterfall model is really applicable for software development. He also has a nice paper on Agile with Offshore development.

But Ron Jeffries site has a compact (and quick) introduction to Extreme Programming (XP). Martin Fowler has a page full of links to XP resources on the web.

These articles are written for general software development, not really tailored for ERP software. I am interested in seeing how these ideas could be adapted to a SAP development group. Can these advantages be translated into reality with SAP development?

Basecamp and Ruby on Rails.

While surfing, I came across Rails - a framework to write web applications in Ruby.
The first application was Basecamp - a web based project management software.
I applied to Basecamp and created my project site. http://dmahajan.projectpath.com/login/

Ruby is creating a niche for itself. Rails (http://www.rubyonrails.org/) is touted as the framework to launch Ruby.

Another interesting link is Martin Fowler's site on Enterprise Software.
http://martinfowler.com/articles.html

CD Keys, offline registry editing - migrating to the new Windows XP install

The fresh install of Windows XP generated a few interesting questions.
How can you read / change the registry of another Windows instance?

1. The registry consists of 5 files in c:\winnt\system32\config. (see details here)
2. Copy these files over to your new instance. (If you have access to the drive, use the recovery console).
3. To read and manipulate these offline registry files, use regedit to load the 'hive' files. (see details here). You can even fix the offline registry and copy these files back to the original instance.

How can I recover my CD keys for Microsoft products (like Office XP, Visual Studio.NET, Office XP ....)?

There were a couple of programs that I found; RockXP , "Win KeyFinder 1.65" and "Office Keylight 1.00", "CD Key Finder: Magical JellyBean" . I liked RockXP. This thread discusses how these CD keys are stored in the registry.

Some other sites that I encountered along the way

PC Audit: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html - shows all software and hardware in a nice local HTML page.

Windows IT Pro: http://www.jsifaq.com/

Registry tricks: http://www.mdgx.com/reg.htm

Free 60 day trial key for Office 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/office/trialkey

Creating a slipstream installer: http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBF/Tip2500/rh2529.htm

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Finished the Nephrotic Syndrome site

It feels really nice when you finish a project and sit back to look at the results. I have just finished creating a website for parents with kids who have the Nephrotic Syndrome.
What is the Nephrotic Syndrome?

The site is a ASP.NET based website. It has a DotNetNuke portal and a CommunityServer forums application. Both applications are easy to setup and install. A bit of experience with MS SQL helps though.

To jumpstart the discussion forum, I decided to import messages from an existing discussion site @ siteboard.de. This took some time. I spent two days trying to see if someone had written a utility to import messages. Most hints on the net seemed to point to writing your own code - but I couldn't download the source code for CommunityServer from anywhere.

So I broke the problem into two parts.
1. Scanning the webpage of the old site - and building a list of threads with their messages.
2. Posting these threads and messages into CommunityServer.

Both parts were written in Perl 5.8.
The first part used regular expressions to parse the HTML files and store the appropriate data sections in a array of SB_Message objects.
The second part was simple in the end. There is a stored procedure cs_PostCreateData that creates a new post and updates all the tables. So I can create messages directly from Perl!
The challenges were
1. Learning to use the DBI module in Perl.
2. Parsing the German dates into a HTTP::Date format.

The next challenge was to take this utility and allow it to update the messages ongoing. This would let people continue posting in the old forum, but repost it in the new forum. This required some thinking - finally I decided to use the PropertyValues field to store the old message post code.

Anyway enough said.

Tracing Windows API calls

The program Traceplus (http://www.sstinc.com/products.html) lets you trace all Windows calls and see how they work!

Spyware infestation

Noticed that I have a Spyware infestation. It started with the installation of 180....
Then I noticed that this program installed a lot of other programs.
McAfee anti-virus scanner does not stop the installation of such spyware. That is SAD.

Time for help.

1. Download and install Ad-aware. It found 241 objects that it quarantined. Run a deep level scan to check the entire C drive. The definitions file was dated 16-Feb-2005. But it did not detect "Powerscan".
   
2. Go to a well known anti-spyware site. I chose the Computer Associates eTrust website to get more information about Powerscan,

I think that the best way is to restore your computer to a stable restore point that was created before the infestation.

Re-installing Windows XP

So I got a new harddisk!
I want to have a "clean" installation of Windows XP, since I've noticed that XP slows down after you install a lot of apps (typically that you never use).

A few learnings.

1. The "Recovery" XP disks that come with Dell do not have any support packs. It also does not have the drivers for the hardware. In short, it is just a plain vanilla XP installation CD. There is no "recovery" in this CD. What I had expected was that the CD would put the system back to its original factory-shipped state. No luck.
2. The following link discusses how to make your own custom recovery CDROM. It includes how you can combine SP2 with the installation files so that you don't have to do it seperately. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1750662,00.asp
3. The next problem is that I don't have the Microsoft CD Keys for Office and XP etc. XP was easy since the Dell had a sticker with the number. For Office - try the programs is program http://www.petri.co.il/quickly_retrieve_windows_cd_key.htm.
   Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder: http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml
   CD Key Reader: http://www.skaro.net/cd-keyreader
4. I-Tunes - The XML database uses relative paths. So create the same directory structure in the I-Tunes music folder as in the old PC. I used sysinternals.com "Junction" utility to map folders to different drives.
5. I am still slowly installing the applications that I "really" need. Since I still need to use applications on the "Old Windows", I wanted to find out how to setup "dual-boot" in Windows XP. It is really easy. You start up with the install CD and select recovery mode. Use the commands "fixboot","fixmbr" and "bootcfg". See the installing and using Recovery console link from Microsoft. Bootcfg will regenerate boot.ini which has a list of all operating systems for dual-boot.
   One web resource: http://windows.about.com/cs/dualboot/
   Microsoft notes: Win2000 and WinXP, Multiboot with XP, Installing and using Recovery Console in XP.
6. You never know which applications are really important!

Web based forums and message boards

I was looking at how could I setup a web discussion forum.
I found that there were two easy choices

1. Use PHPBB2 (www.phpbb.com) - This is PHP based. I found a site that provides free PHPBB2 forums. www.galacnet.com. PHPBB2 looks really good and easy to setup. Within 30 minutes, I had setup a simple structure (http://phpbb.galacforums.com/Nephrotic_Syndrome/). Using the free server had the issue that half the screen was filled with advertisements. One downside was that it is not easy to install plugins and mods for Phpbb on this server.
2. Use Community Server::Forums (www.communityserver.org) - This is ASP.NET based. My hosting provider automatically installs this application. It is a nice Forums + BLOGs+ Photo Gallery application. On the plus side - it has built-in RSS feeds for all public forums. However in an anonymous post - it does not let the person type in a name. Slightly annoying because a lot of times, the anonymous user doesn't mind writing the name - just cannot register.

Final decision: Use Community Server::Forums since I can remove all advertisements on that Forum.

Migrating messages is the next challenge. The current message board is run on www.siteboard.de. So I needed a program to download all the messages, while preserving the message - response-reply relationships and dates etc. At this point I've written a short Perl program [download]that can download an entire forum from www.siteboard.de and save it as a Perl Data::Dumper file.

Setting up SSH access to a Mandrake Linux box

1. Generate your private key (use puttygen for example).
2. Save the private key in "openssh" format.
Save the private key (in putty ppk) format.
Save the public key.
3. Create a .ssh directory
cd ~
mkdir .ssh
chmod og-rw .ssh
4. ftp the private key (openssh) format to the .ssh directory
call it id_rsa if you used RSA
call it id_dsa if you used DSA.
5. Generate the authorized_keys file
cd .ssh
ssh-keygen -y -f id_rsa >> authorized_keys
============
Troubleshooting logins:
1. View /var/log/auth.log

SAP Netweaver and XI - Exchange infrastructure.

With its Netweaver application platform, SAP has focussed on a solid application development platform. It pushes SAP in two ways. It provides a solid base for their next generation applications. In addition, in itself, it provides a solid base for customers to write their enterprise extensions.

Typically, a company would have SAP and a number of other technologies. eg. Microsoft/Java for some web pages, Tibco/Microsoft/IBM for middleware, other vendors for a portal. Netweaver aims to grab this area of the market, and more vendors for data warehousing....

Netweaver is a marketing brand under which SAP is unifying its products. It is the equivalent of .NET for Microsoft. It provides an integration base for SAP's next generation technologies. By providing a platform in which you can develop web services, web pages, and .... - it is a great step ahead.

Life in General

It is easy to get caught up in day to day things and lose the big picture. The best time to get the bigger picture is after you have a nice time and are completely relaxed. Then I can ask myself, what is the point!
So what is the point of SAP, Microsoft and the others?
How does this compare with the people who started the field of computers?
Along the way, what have we forgotten in the rush to tackle day-to-day imperatives?

Can we make things simpler? Software seems to have got too complex.
Do we have an alternative for the GUI paradigm?
Can we get computers to give us the information that we want - when we want it - without us struggling to find it within the computer?
How can a computer help a disorganized person (like myself) organize themselves?
How can the computer reced to the background and just let us do our tasks?
Does a TV really make you think about it when you want to watch a program?

Interfaces and their role

In a large project with multiple systems, it seems obvious that interfaces are important. Nevertheless, in one particular project, the interface group was not involved during the designs. In this situation, I would expect extra time to let the interface group catch up. But instead, the time to deliver about 150 interfaces was reduced by 45%. It raised a number of concerns. The process designs had implicit assumptions about what information they expect to flow through the interfaces. But these assumptions are difficult to pinpoint and document.

The project used Tibco as its middleware. It starts integration testing and things will get interesting!

WebDAV update

The problem that I faced with WebDAV was probably a bug in the Windows Sharepoint server 2003.

After they reset the server and gave me rights, the problem disappeared.
Curiously, most of the tools on Sharepoint require a "Sharepoint" aware application. so folks with Windows 2000 and Office 2000 are stuck. They are limited to using WebDAV or uploading files.....

Amazing how time flies.

This is my next post after April. It is quite a long time since I've thought about a Blogger post again. In the meanwhile, a lot of interesting directions.
The primary difference is the project which uses TIBCO middleware to integrate a CRM environment with SAP.
Along the way in this project came a lot of pressure, multi national differences in culture, time zone problems.
So a rather interesting project to be thrown into. Now things are settling down, giving some breathing space.

Gives me some time to settle down and collect thoughts on what I really like about computers. Sometimes I think that people and projects complicate things a bit too much. The politics and personallities in a project are often more complex to deal with than the underlying technology.

Feeling nice, drunk and relaxed - a good note to sign off.

Frustration with WebDAV

On Windows 2000, I keep getting the error "Cannot create another system semaphore" when copying files from a WebDAV folder. The WebDAV folder is on a Windows Sharepoint 2003 server.
The strange thing is that Excel can open files on this server. But I cannot drag and drop the files to copy an entire folder.
1. Fix DCOMCNFG permissions so that System and Interactive users have "Allow access" in default security.
   No luck.
2. Download Webdrive
   No luck - croaks with error "Error performing inpage operation". Turns out this error just means that cannot access the source file.
   It looks like an interesting application. Lets you map all sorts of servers to a Windows drive letter.
3. Install Perl HTTP::DAV.
   http://www.webdav.org/perldav/
   No luck - CPAN installer hangs during the build process.
4. Install Perl HTTP::DAV on Cygwin
   No luck - don't have LWP and don't know how to setup a proxy for the default FTP.
5. Install "sitecopy" on Cygwin.
   http://www.lyra.org/sitecopy/cygwin/sc-cygwin-tips.html
   Need to install libxml2 first.
   "Cannot authorize user" on the webserver!
   This is frustrating!
6. Use a Java client "http://www.ics.uci.edu/~webdav/download.html"
   Doesn't work with Sharepoint - Access denied!
7. Use Unison
   http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/index.html
   Doesn't support WebDAV. Support SSH though.

Some nice collection of stuff about WebDAV
http://www.ella-associates.org/alexis-info/docs/webdav-stuff.txt

A list of clients and servers
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/authoring/implementation.html

Its 11:30 - I should leave :-( No luck as yet.

Windows Installer tools

WIX - Windows Installer in XML is Microsoft's install tool. It generates MSI from an XML file. This blog article discusses the tool. There was a lot of comments and interest, but most are related to Microsoft/OpenSource. A few actually talk about the tool.

The links mentioned the N'ANT project which may be interesting too. It has tasks to build MSM/MSIs.

MSI2XML converts MSI to XML and back.

Jumping from here to other topics.

A SOAP WSDL API for blogging: BloggerAPI and MetaWeblogAPI using WSDL/SOAP.

Very interesting BLOG about model driven programming. It talks about Whitehorse which is Microsoft's next generation development tools. What is fascinating is that both IBM (in its Rational Rose + Eclipse = WebSphere ) and Microsoft Whitehorse are moving in the same direction. From whatever screenshots I've seen, Whitehorse looks interesting.

Creating a secure Wiki site

To create a quick WIKI for an interest group is easy and fun to do. However as with all good things, you have Wiki idiots who want to inject some junk or trash your Wiki.

Check out TWIKI.ORG for a secure WIKI site.