Multi-Machine Vagrant Environments with JSON

In this post I’d like to show you how to use a JSON-formatted data file to create and configure multi-machine Vagrant environments. This isn’t a new idea, and certainly not anything that I came up with or created. I’m simply presenting it here as an alternative option to the approach of using YAML with Vagrant for multi-machine environments (some people may prefer JSON over YAML).

If you’re unfamiliar with Vagrant, I’d start with my introduction to Vagrant. Then I’d recommend reviewing my original article on using YAML with Vagrant, followed by the updated/improved method that addresses a shortcoming with the original approach. These earlier posts will provide some basics that I’ll build on in this post.

To use a JSON-formatted data file as an external data source for Vagrant, the code in the Vagrantfile looks really similar to the code you’d use for YAML:

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# # vi: set ft=ruby :
# Specify minimum Vagrant version and Vagrant API version
Vagrant.require_version '>= 1.6.0'
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = '2'
# Require JSON module
require 'json'
# Read YAML file with box details
servers = JSON.parse(File.read(File.join(File.dirname Continue reading

Anyone could pull off a LostPass phishing attack to get all your LastPass passwords

Heads-up if you use LastPass as a security research released LostPass code on GitHub that bad guys could jump on immediately and an attack could be in the wild even now. In essence, if you use LastPass then you could be tricked into handing over the keys – or master password – to your digital kingdom.The LostPass attack works best in Chrome, but if you think you could spot the phishing then think again; Sean Cassidy, CTO of cloud-based cybersecurity firm Praesidio, warned that a user would not be able to tell a difference between a LastPass message displayed in the browser and the fake LostPass message since “it’s pixel-for-pixel the same notification and login screen.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

LastPass phishing attack could have scooped up passwords

A relatively simple phishing attack could be used to compromise the widely used password manager LastPass, according to new research. Notifications displayed by LastPass version 4.0 in a browser window can be spoofed, tricking people into divulging their login credentials and even snatching a one-time passcode, according to Sean Cassidy, who gave a presentation at the Shmoocon conference on Saturday. Cassidy, who is CTO of Praesido Inc., notified LastPass of the issues. In a blog post, LastPass said it has made improvements that should make such an attack harder to pull off without a user knowing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Building an OpenStack home lab – The Lab

I’ve recently started to play around with OpenStack and decided the best way to do so would be in my home lab.  During my first attempt, I ran into quite a couple of hiccups that I thought were worth documenting.  In this post, I want to talk about the prep work I needed to do before I began the OpenStack install.

For the initial build, I wanted something simple so I opted for a 3 node build.  The logical topology looks like this…

image

The physical topology looks like this…

image
It’s one of my home lab boxes.  A 1u Supermicro with 8 gigs of RAM and a 4 core Intel Xeon (X3210) processor.  The hard drive is relatively tiny as well coming in at 200 gig.  To run all of the OpenStack nodes on 1 server, I needed a virtualization layer so I chose ProxMox (KVM) for this.

However, running a virtualized OpenStack environment presented some interesting challenges that I didn’t fully appreciate until I was almost done with the first build…

Nested Virtualization
You’re running a virtualization platform on a virtualized platform.  While this doesn’t seem like a huge deal in a home Continue reading

Some notes C in 2016

On r/programming was this post called "How to C (as of 2016)". It has some useful advice, but also some bad advice. I thought I'd write up comments on the topic. As somebody mentioned while I was writing this, only responsible programmers should be writing in C. Irresponsible programmers should write other languages that have more training wheels. These are the sorts of things responsible programmers do.


Use a debugger


The #1 thing you aren't doing, that you should be doing, is stepping through each line of code in a source level debugger as soon as you write it. If you only pull out the debugger to solve particularly difficult problems, then you are doing it wrong.

That means using an IDE like Visual Studio, XCode, or Eclipse. If you are only using an editor (without debugging capabilities), you are doing it wrong. I mention this because so many people are coding in editors that don't have debuggers. I don't even.

It's a concern for all language, but especially with C. When memory gets corrupted, you need to be able to dump structures and memory in order to see that. Why is x some weird value like 37653? Continue reading

The Schelling Game

At the Shmoocon conference, a vendor ("Breach Intelligence") is putting a card in ever schwag bag with an "IoC". The game works by giving everyone a different IoC, in pairs. If you find your matching IoC and come to their booth, they'll give you a free quadcopter.

This is like the "Schelling Point", a question in game theory. You are supposed to meet somebody New York City, but neither of you have been told where to meet. So where do you go? The trick is to estimate the most logical place that the other person, using the same information as you, would make. Most people agree that the answer is the "information booth at Grand Central Station".

So how do you find your matching IoC to win the prize? One guy is walking around asking strangers to match cards. That's useful, because a lot of people who don't want to play the game simply give him their cards, so he's got an ever expanding list of possible matches.

My solution is to tweet the IoC, and of course, blog about it:

If my partner searches Twitter, they will Continue reading

FidSafe: A cloud service for important documents (and the price is right)

FidSafe is a new online repository for storing digital copies of your important documents such as wills, bank statements, tax returns, etc., so that “the critical files you need are available to you and your family whenever and wherever you need them, even after you’re gone.” And by “gone”  XTRAC LLC (a Fidelity Investments company), that offers FidSafe doesn’t mean that you’ve just popped out to get ice cream, they mean “gone” as in having joined the choir invisible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade Services Director 2.3 released

The Brocade Services Director (formerly known as SteelApp Services Controller) lets you automatically provision, deploy, license and manage the inventory of thousands of ADCs in an “as-a-service” model, using the Brocade Virtual Traffic Manager as the core application delivery platform. The solution also enables a new consumption model for customers deploying ADC services. This allows ADC services... Read more →

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