the permanent TODO

May 24, 2010

Installing a VPN

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — {Francisco,François} Varas @ 9:30 am

Here I will explain how i’ve manageed to have a functional VPN with running Debian as server.
I have Linux and Mac OS X clients(Tunnelblick).
What you will need

  • A public IP
  • debian
  • an editor (vi or vim)
  • this howto
  • frustration proof patienece


- to launch the server:
openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --script-security 2 --daemon

- to launch a Linux client:
openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client.conf --script-security 2 --daemon (Debian, Ubuntu)

- to launch a Mac OS X:
Download and install Tunnelblick

- How to generate client certificates:
one installed, to generate a VPN

#cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/
#./build-key <client_name>
#cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/
you will find 3 files named:
- <client_name>.crt
- <client_name>.csr
- <client_name>.key (chmod 500 if not )

make a tarball with those files + ca.crt

This post is not complete. By now, you can follow the open VPN howto.

February 15, 2010

exporting users between two debian machines

Filed under: tech — Tags: , , — {Francisco,François} Varas @ 9:00 am

I wanted to create an account in my backup machine for a good friend of mine.
As laziness is a fundamental virtue I wanted to avoid as much work as possible, including the part of calling my good friend to tell him to change the password that was random generated in the second machine.
mi first try was:
(as root)
grep <user> /etc/{passwd,shadow,group} >> user_info.text

Then, copy each line of users_info.text into the passwd, shadow and group file in /etc/ on the second unit

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