In Ubuntu’s Karmic and and Debian’s Lenny, sysklogd was replaced with rsyslog. This is fine, since rsyslog will have converted your /etc/syslog.conf to /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf. However, if you modified the (maddeningly strange sysklogd-specific) log file rotation in /etc/cron.daily/sysklogd or /etc/cron.weekly/sysklogd, you’ll want to review the new (sane) /etc/logrotate.d/rsyslog. (Note also that savelog uses .0 as the first rotated file extension, and logrotate uses .1.)
10/24/2009
karmic and log rotation
10/22/2009
TPM as RNG
I was reminded about some TPM coding I’d done to get random bytes from the pRNG on my TPM-enabled system from Matt Domsch’s recent post. I’m not fully convinced that the pRNG of the TPM is an appropriate source of entropy, but it does pass my simple FIPS-140-2 test.
I had to find the Intel TPM docs to figure out how to enable TPM on my system. It was under “Advanced / Peripherals”. I was expecting it under “Security”, like every other BIOS I’d seen. After that:
$ sudo apt-get install trousers tpm-tools
...
$ sudo modprobe tpm_tis
$ dmesg | grep -i tpm
[676618.167313] tpm_tis 00:07: 1.2 TPM (device-id 0xFE, rev-id 70)
$ sudo service trousers start
...
$ tpm_version
TPM 1.2 Version Info:
Chip Version: 1.2.2.16
Spec Level: 2
Errata Revision: 1
TPM Vendor ID: WEC
TPM Version: 01010000
Manufacturer Info: 57454300
$ ./tpm-getrand | hexdump -C
00000000 61 07 23 ff 71 3e 25 e8 f0 d5 de a7 a3 07 21 dc |a.#.q>%.......!.|
I could run rngd with a named pipe, but it’d be nice to have a new driver that could run a command instead to get the next 20000 bits.
UPDATE: I’ve implemented this in rngd now.
10/7/2009
Larson Scanner on Arduino
Inspired by the Larson Scanner project, I finally broke out my Arduino and ported the code from the ATtiny to the ATmega. (The Arduino IDE runs fine with openjdk-6.) I’m sure the power usage is terrible, but I wasn’t after long battery life. I wanted my very own Cylon eye.
Since I was successful with porting the code and wiring up the Arduino, I figured I’d see if the tiny Arduino-clone called the “DorkBoard” would work with it too.
Later in the weekend I grabbed a AAA-battery holder and hooked that up so the eye is untethered from the USB power source. Next up, coding the pesky self-awareness.
