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Previously, I explained how to use VPN to bypass a filter. I like that method a lot, but SSH has advantages. The SSH port 22 is usually open on firewalls, whereas VPN is less likely to be an open port. Also, it is a little simpler to set up.

So, here is how to set it up (Click images to enlarge):

1. Go to the router configuration page (Usually at 192.168.1.1)

1. Go to Services (You may have to enter your username and password)


2. Scroll down to where it says “Secure Shell”


3. Look in the image above, and use those exact settings under ‘Secure Shell’

And that’s it! The server configuration is done. Next post, I will explain how to connect to it and use it.

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See part 2-1 of this series for how to set up the server. In my last post, I explained how to set up a VPN server on a DD-WRT router. I will now explain how to access it, and use it as your internet connection.

On Windows it is quite simple. Perform these from a remote location. Here are step by step instructions for Windows 7:

1. Open Network and Sharing Center. This can be found by searching for it in the start menu.

2. Click “Set up a new connection or network”, and in the box that pops up, click “Connect to a Workplace”.

3. Click “Use my internet connection”, and for internet address, put the Internet IP address or hostname of your router. If you want a free hostname that you can remember, try DynDNS.

4. Click next, and for the username and password, put the username and password that is in the chap secrets on the router, leave Domain blank.

5. Click connect, the connection may fail, if it does follow these steps:

- In the Network and Sharing Center, click ‘Change adpater settings’.
- Right click on the VPN connection, and go to the “Networking” tab.
- Click on the IPv4 protocol, and click properties
- Click “Use the following IP address”, and set your IP address to the IP address that you set as the “Client IP”
- Set preferred DNS server to your router’s IP address (ex. 192.168.1.1)

Now it should work. And if you surf the web, all traffic will be going through the VPN.

For Ubuntu, it is a bit of a different process, and you must have installed the pptp-linux package:

1. Open a terminal window

To use this command, replace things like this: with the real thing. For example, if I say to type
pptpsetup -x [password]
And your password is foo, then type:
pptpsetup -x foo
I just wanted to be very clear on how to interpret my description of the command.

2. Anyway, type this:

sudo pptpsetup --create [anything here] --server [server name or IP] --username [your username] --password [your password] --start --encrypt

Use the username and password set in chap-secrets.

3. After that, you must route the internet through your new VPN server. Use this command:

sudo route del default gw [gateway IP address]

To find your gateway IP address, type “route” (no quotes) into the terminal, and look under “Gateway”.

Then, use this command:

sudo ip route add default via [Server IP address]

Your server IP address will be the one you set at the VPN setup page. Usually, it is 192.168.1.1

And that is the end of the VPN guide! Next post, I will show you how to use SSH to bypass a filter.

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This post will focus on configuring VPN on a DD-WRT router. First though, I will explain some things to remember if you are considering installing DD-WRT.

If you aren’t comfortable with installing DD-WRT, or otherwise just don’t want to, there are alternatives that don’t involve the router. You can install SSH servers on a computer at home, and use that instead. I won’t go into configuration of PC SSH servers, because that isn’t the focus of this tutorial.

So, now that you have DD-WRT installed and configured, you are ready to move on to the VPN server configuration. You can now access the web interface (Default IP address is 192.168.1.1) through your web browser. To do this, type 192.168.1.1 into your address bar.


You will see a page like this:

I have put 4 red dots on the ‘Services’ button. Click this button, and you may get a password prompt. If you have set a username and password, enter it. If not, the deafult DD-WRT username and password is:

User: root
Password: admin

After you type that in, you will be directed to another page. On this page, you may notice there is now a bar with a blue background under the other one. I have pointed it out in this image:


Click VPN in that bar. You will now see another page. Near the top, you will see PPTP server, and two radio buttons next to it (Enable and Disable). Radio buttons are the small circle buttons that you can click to activate. Click the Enable button, and then there will be more options. Set the next two radio buttons to ‘Enable’.

- For server IP, use 192.168.1.1, or whatever the IP address is (If you changed it).

- For client IP, put an IP address that starts with whatever the first 3 numbers of the Server IP is. For the fourth number, put any number up to 255. Remember the number you put here, as it will be used for client configuration.

- For chap secrets, put a username and password in this format:

username * password *

I used ‘root’ as the username, and it worked for me.

- Set the radius server radio button to “Disable”

Click “Apply Settings” at the bottom of the page, and the server’s configuration is finished!

Check out my next post for the VPN Client configuration (I have methods that you can use for both Windows and Ubuntu).

This is part 1 of 3 in a series. This series is actually for an English class assignment, but I decided to put it on my main blog instead of my second blog (http://antani02.blogspot.com/).
Use these methods at your own risk. If your workplace has an Acceptable Use Policy that forbids employees from bypassing the filter, then think before making the decision to do so.

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The first time I bypassed an internet filter, I used WEP key cracking. I used this because there were 2 wireless networks, a non-filtered network, and a filtered network. It took me a few months to get it working properly, and at the end of it I had a fully functional method of cracking a 28-digit WEP key in 3 minutes with my laptop. I am now in a place where that will not work, so I had to exploit something else in the system to bypass the internet filter.

In case you don’t know what I am talking about, an internet filter is a filter that blocks certain websites (games, etc.)
The internet filter only filters port 80, and all other outbound ports are open (Yes, this is a very large security hole!) I started out by using SSH port forwarding from the filtered area to my home PC, effectively bypassing the connection (see diagram below).



I used that for a while, but decided to use something else that wouldn’t cost $9.00 a month in electricity. I then installed DD-WRT on my Linksys WRT160N router, and used the ssh server on the router.

This worked well too, but when I tried to play Second Life from the filtered area, it didn’t work. I then researched alternatives, and found that DD-WRT also has a VPN server. I decided to use the VPN server instead to see if that worked. It worked great, and although I don’t play Second Life anymore, it still has the added advantage of being able to access computers and printers on my home network.

In my next post, I will explain how to use VPN to bypass the filter.

This morning I was having problems with a Fedora Live CD that I burned. After reading a bit online, I figured out the solution. I was originally burning it with Brasero, the CD buring software included with Ubuntu. I then tried a program K3D, available from the Ubuntu repositories.

I used these settings for burning:

- DAO/SAO mode (Disc At Once/Surface At Once)

- 8.0x burning speed

- K3D burning software

And the disc worked perfectly! I now have an installation of Fedora on my computer. That was my solution, it may not work for everyone, but if you are having problems, try it anyway!

This post is about how Hard Disk manufacturers cleverly mislead you about how much space is actually on their drive. Before I write about that, I will tell the story of how I discovered this. So, here it goes:

I recently installed a firewall called ZoneAlarm. When it was installing, the computer froze, and I had to do a hard restart. This caused an incomplete installation, which may be the cause of my computer resetting within about a minute of booting Windows. This problem is almost certainly caused by ZoneAlarm. After messing around in Linux, trying to find a solution, I gave up and decided to reinstall Windows.

This is when the problem arose of my hard drive space. I never had problems with hard drive space before, with my 500gb desktop hard drive and my 320 GB laptop hard drive. Those hard drives add up to 720gb of space. This is both a good and a bad thing, because my backup hard drive is only 500 GB. I make absolutely sure that everything I have on my computer is backed up, because I have lost things in the past to all sorts of things (Usually starting with me messing with the partitions or something).

Since my laptop and desktop are both more than 75% full, I don’t have enough space for backups. In case you are wondering why I am talking about backups, it is because in order to reinstall Windows, I need to back my stuff up. So, I decide to buy another hard drive just for backups.

I go to PC Cyber, and buy a $72.00 (Canadian dollars) 1 TB internal hard drive. When I get home, I hook it up and boot Ubuntu. I try to open it to start copying files, but I realize there is no partition table (obviously). So, I go to the partition manager, and see that the drive is not 1 TB, but instead it is 931.51 GB. I discovered that the company that markets the drive (Western Digital) is misleading their buyers.

What they are doing is perfectly legal, because it is 1 TB. It is not a terabyte (TB), but instead a Tebibyte (TiB). You see, a TB is equivalent to 1000 GB. A TiB is equivalent to 1024 GB.

Computers read disk space in Binary multiples of bits/bytes. Which means units such as TiB, GiB and so on. I won’t go into much more detail than that, but you can see how it can create a difference like that.