Server hacked

March 9th, 2011

When attempting to post the image for my last blog entry, it failed to be resized. When I logged in to the server to see what was up with ImageMagick, I didn’t appear to have permission to execute ls. Or ps. Or netstat… A quick Google suggested that these were the hallmarks of a rootkit attack. Unfortunately the files had been modified prior to the oldest Slicehost backup that I had. At this point I realised the server was still running Intrepid, limiting my chances of picking up packages to detect and remove rootkits. After a reboot of the server I discovered that I had lost all connectivity. Booting up a Slicehost rescue image I was able to retrieve all of the data I needed. Now to get things up and running again. Earlier in the year I had been playing around with a free micro-instance on EC2 and this seemed like the ideal opportunity to switch across. The instance is running Apache rather than nginx as on my Slicehost image. This needed a bit of tuning down to prevent segmentation faults. Everything seems to be running smoothly now. I just need to switch the DNS records away from Slicehost and then I’m done.

London sightseeing

March 5th, 2011

893I’ve had a few days of work this past week, mostly spent around home, however on Wednesday we decided to take the children up to London for the first time. We bought a family railcard for the trip. Although this meant paying for one of the two children when both would be normally be free, the saving on our adult tickets meant that we almost broke even on this one trip and we should hopefully get more use out of the card than that. We arrived at Waterloo around half-ten and decided to do a bit of sightseeing en-route to a primary destination: the Natural History Museum. We went past the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and through St James Park to Buckingham Palace. Although we arrived just in time for the Changing of the Guard, sadly they only perform every other day during the winter and this was an off day. We were, however, overtaken by some Horse Guards and then, as we reach Hyde Park, were passed by two Royal carriages. It was then on past the Serpentine, the Albert Memorial and the Royal Hall to arrive at our destination just in time to check out the restaurant. Christine and I both enjoyed our lunch. Unfortunately we enjoyed most of the children’s lunches as well!

Emma was keen to see the dinosaurs after a previous encounter at the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. We then went on to look at the mammals (including the life size blue whale) and the creepy crawlies. Duncan also seemed to love the museum although that may just have been the chance to run freely from one brightly lit case to the next. There was bright sunshine when we emerged but we dived down in to the underground (all part of the experience) back to Westminster and then walked back to Waterloo, just about beating the commuter rush back home.

There are a few photos on Flickr. I would have taken more but the auto-focus on my kit lens seems to have packed in. Thankfully it’s still under warranty.

Longleat Tiger

January 28th, 2011

887I had last week booked off work and, as we were at Longleat on the Sunday, we thought we’d look at the option of staying on at the adjacent Center Parcs. Mid-week term-time the prices are pretty reasonable. Sadly though, it’s Monday to Friday and, having decided we couldn’t face packing the car for a week on the Sunday morning, we actually ended up driving back to Southampton for Sunday night! That wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if we hadn’t spent much of the journey back up north again sat in a traffic jam approaching Salisbury. It was, however, pretty wet on Monday anyway. Thankfully things cleared up for the rest of the week and we were treated to blue skies for the next couple of days.

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Going strapless

January 26th, 2011

This week’s Tuesday night entertainment was the undulating run. Stewart looked to be making a bid to step in to Neil’s shoes, showing us a clean pair of heels as we crossed over the common but it later transpired that he needed to get back for an appointment. Makes me wonder how fast he would go if he was trying! And ‘going strapless’? My Garmin watch strap broke just as we set off. I’m still trying to decide whether to replace it like-for-like, go for the velcro option, or perhaps go for the wrist/bike mount…

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Failed Safari

January 16th, 2011

It was the CompassSport Cup first round at Longleat today. We were expecting minor chaos as a result of the change in parking but in reality, dropping Christine and the children off at assembly and then getting the minibus back from the house worked very smoothly. Christine was running first and I took the children round the Dr Who themed string course. I have to wonder how many of the participants actually know who Dr Who is but at least Emma was able to understand the world’s worst knock-knock joke afterwards! It also has to be said that they did have a very impressive Tardis stationed at the start.
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Farewell run

January 11th, 2011

It was Neil’s last Tuesday night run before departing back to the southern hemisphere and consequently he got to choose tonight’s route. It was therefore fairly predictable that it would be the wettest and muddiest of those available: Lordsdale Greenway. The temperature must have nearly been a balmy 10 degrees but for some reason I felt cold for much of the time we were out. Suspiciously, the turnout at the pub afterwards seemed to be much larger than that on the run.

Farewell Neil – Tuesday nights just won’t be as much fun without you!
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Blue Skies at Lucas Castle

January 11th, 2011

884On Sunday we went to our first orienteering event of 2011 – an SOC local event at Lucas Castle and Highland Water (starting near Bolderwood). It was a frosty start but blue skies meant it turned in to a lovely day. I took Emma and Duncan around the white course. Duncan was asleep before we left the car so was pretty quiet until near the end where he started to object to being in the buggy. Emma enjoyed herself but, as always, needed some edible bribes to keep her going to the end of the course! We arrived back just before Christine so she could take over the reins whilst I went out on the brown course.
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Two Ponds

January 5th, 2011

It being the first Tuesday of the month, it had to be Sainsburys. Just for novelty, Neil took us on a detour to a pond in Rownhams (I forget the name) to make it the ‘Two Ponds Run’.

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