Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/02
Some links in case I ever need to jail-break a Mikrotik device:
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Internet, MikroTik, Power User, routers, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/28
Some links on IBM X-series and DELL versus standard fan pin lay-outs (one day I will try to merge them into a better overview story):
3 pin Fan Connections
*cable coloring varies from fan to fan
Pin Name Color Color Color Color 1 Ground Black Black Gray Black 2 +12v Red Black Gray Yellow 3 Tach/Signal/Sense Yellow Black Gray Green 4 pin Fan Connections
*cable coloring varies from fan to fan
Pin Name Color Color Color Color 1 Ground Black Black Gray Black 2 +12v Red Black Gray Yellow 3 Tach/Signal/Sense Yellow Black Gray Green 4 Control/PWM Blue Black Gray Blue
Dell sometimes swaps the wires around so that you will fry a dell fan on standard and the other way round.It has 5 pins but only 4 wires are used.Dell does not publish this. And some dells use standard wiring.
I believe this is correct.YMMV4pin PWM on 3 pin
Pin Number
Pin NumberDELL FAN WIRES AND COLORS
[Archive.is] Solved: Fan pin out order – Dell Community
The order is what is required for your specific model.I have seen no difference in the colors only the order of the pins.Note the Difference in this adapter.So if your fan is NON standard you may need to remove the pins and re order them to be correct. The fans are not any different only the wire order.Dell started making all the wires black so you cannot tell. its not documented and its not the same on all dells all models all years.DELL VS INTEL FAN COLORS
DELL To Standard 4 pin adapter
Note The KEYWAY
Another ay to look at it
Dell uses standard fans and the wires are swapped around in such a way that if you plug a standard fan onto the dell header you will fry the fan and the motherboard.None of this is documented.SOME models use standard wiring.Some Models use all black wires so you cannot tell.Dell Fan Wire Black Red White or Yellow
Dell 3 wire fanDell 4 wire fanDell 5 wire fanIf you use adapter or re wire the standard fan to the way Dell does it there wont be any issues.Dell sometimes swaps the wires around so that you will fry a dell fan on standard and the other way round.It has 5 pins but only 4 wires are used.Dell does not publish this. And some dells now use standard wiring.
I believe this is correct.YMMV4pin PWM on 3 pin
Pin Number
Pin NumberDELL FAN WIRES AND COLORS
Dell does not use standard wiring or Pinouts on their fan headers.Dell fan wires are deliberately swapped round.PWM and Tach and 12v and Ground.For 3 wire they reverse 12v and tach.Black Red White notBlack White RedDELL 3 PIN
This can lead to self destruction for a dell fan on standard motherboard or the other way round.This is the CPU FAN for Example.
Pin Number
Pin #DELL FAN WIRING
–jeroen
Posted in Hardware, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/27
I wanted to know the influence of PCIe versions to NVMe support, and found [Archive.is] M.2 SSD PCIE 3.0×4 vs 2.0×4 | Tom’s Hardware Forum answering:
You already know that the Z97 motherboard has one M.2 port. The problem is there are several M.2 variations. Here are the current possibilities:
M.2 3.0 x4 – State of the art M.2 SSD that uses 4 PCIe 3.0 channels for proper operation. The M.2 port on the motherboard is sometimes referred to as an Ultra M.2 port. It is the appropriate port for the Samsung 950 Pro SSD.
There are other M.2 SSDs that either use PCIe 2.0 or use fewer PCIe channels:
- M.2 2.0 x4
- M.2 2.0 x2
- M.2 SATA 3
You will need to check your motherboard manual or the company web site to determine if the M.2 port can support an M.2 3.0 x4 SSD like the 950 Pro. A lot of the Z87 and Z97 motherboards had M.2 ports for M.2 2.0 x2 SSDs that would not fully support an M.2 3.0 x4 SSD. With the exception of ASRock, the other motherboard manufacturers did not do a very good job of fully identifying the M.2 ports. You will have to find a little more information about the M.2 port on your motherboard. Hopefully the information is in the owner’s manual or the manufacturer’s web site.
The addition of M.2 ports on the the motherboard required the use of additional PCIe channels. Unfortunately Intel resisted adding chipset support for additional PCIe channels until recently. The lack of a sufficient number of PCIe channels resulted in some awkward solutions:
- Some motherboards reduced the number of channels available to graphic cards. The cards might be reduced from PCIe 3.0 x16 down to PCIe 3.0 x8. Graphic card performance is reduced by about 5%. That is not a terrible hit in performance.
- Some motherboards reduce the number of SATA 3 ports that are available. For example,the MSI Z107 Titanium motherboard has two M.2 3.0 x4 ports. If I install a 950 Pro in each port, then all of the standard SATA ports are disabled except for two ports. The M.2 ports do not reduce the performance of graphic cards
- Some high end motherboards add an expensive PLX chip to handle M.2 SSDs. An example would be the ASRock Z97 Extreme9 motherboard. The PLX provides direct data transmission between the M.2 SSDs and the cpu. It is actually possible to run two graphic cards in SLI at PCIe 3.0 x16 each and still be able to run two M.2 SSDs.
The Samsung 950 Pro uses the new NVMe protocol instead of AHCI. A motherboard would have to have a UEFI BIOS, an Intel chipset, and a Microsoft Windows operating system that support the NVMe protocol. You would have to do the following:
- Check for any BIOS updates. Sometimes the updates include new and improved support for the NVMe protocol.
- Check for any Intel chipset updates. Sometimes the updates include new and improved support for the NVMe protocol.
- Windows 7, 8, and 10 can support the NVMe protocol. Again you will have to check for updates or fixes that can improve NVMe support. NVMe is new so things could get a little complicated.
- Finally Samsung has issued their own NVMe driver for the 950 Pro. Reviews and articles indicate the Samsung NVMe driver is better than the Windows NVme drivers.
Some modern motherboards still provide a PCIe 2.0 slot. That does not mean you should purchase a PCIE 2.0 SSD or an M.2 SSD with an adapter card. M.2 3.0 x4 SSDs are backwards compatible.
It might be confusing but for all practical purposes it is just a matter of checking requirements and specifications.
Note I have bulleted some entries for readability and bolded some text relevant to some motherboards I still have running and fixed some typos.
On connectors and B/M keying:
Posted in Hardware, NVMe, Power User, SSD | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/27
Just 2 years ago I bumped into shodan.io through [Wayback] Onderzoekers: zestig slecht beveiligde Nederlandse scada-systemen op internet – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers and saved the entry [Wayback] Shodan (website) – Wikipedia:
Shodan is a search engine that lets the user find specific types of computers (webcams, routers, servers, etc.) connected to the internet using a variety of filters. Some have also described it as a search engine of service banners, which are metadata that the server sends back to the client.[1] This can be information about the server software, what options the service supports, a welcome message or anything else that the client can find out before interacting with the server.
Shodan collects data mostly on web servers (HTTP/HTTPS – ports 80, 8080, 443, 8443), as well as FTP (port 21), SSH (port 22), Telnet (port 23), SNMP (port 161), IMAP (ports 143, or (encrypted) 993), SMTP (port 25), SIP (port 5060),[2] and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP, port 554). The latter can be used to access webcams and their video stream.[3]
It was launched in 2009 by computer programmer John Matherly, who, in 2003,[4] conceived the idea of searching devices linked to the Internet.
It looked promising, but I was really pressed for time (having impromptu arrange all care for my mom, and became even more so when I got diagnosed with rectum cancer later that year), so did not pay much attention apart from registering.
Last year in the midst of my chemos I noted [Archive.is] Nate Warfield on Twitter: “https://t.co/16969jRfuL The latest Citrix vulnerability looks bad but there might be time to fix them before PoC comes out. The @shodanhq query above might help. (support.citrix.com/article/CTX269106 has more details)… “ (I think via @jilles_com) , so put it on my list of things to look into a bit further.
Since then, I found out a lot of people dislike Shodan and want to blacklist it because they see it as a threat. It feels like people think the internet is like the [Wayback] Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal | Hitchhikers | Fandom
The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a vicious wild animal from the planet of [Wayback] Traal, known for its never-ending hunger and its mind-boggling stupidity. One of the main features of the Beast is that if you can’t see it, it assumes it can’t see you.
(This by the way is one of the reasons for Towel Day – Wikipedia)
Anyway: a few lists of Shodan IPv4 addresses and hostnames, and means to maintain them for the ones interested:
Reality is that the internet is much smarter, so if you block Shodan from seeing you, others from the internet still will and if you have vulnerable services, one day they will be abused. For instance, this personal anecdote:
I forgot I had a port redirection on my router for RDP access a non longer existing Windows system any more. I forgot that this Windows machine had no fixed DHCP-lease while in use (it kept it’s lease as it was always on).
When that machine was long gone, another temporary Windows machine obtained the same internal machine (the router had been rebooted and after reboot hands out previously handed out IP address), and boom: the new Windows machine was bombarded with RDP logon requests.
In the end, the new Windows machine was not compromised, so I was lucky as it could have been.
Back when registering, shodan.io sent SMTP mail via sky.census.shodan.io, so you might want to not blacklist it if you blacklist at all (incidentally, when writing the IP address servicing that hostname was hosted in The Netherlands: [Wayback] 80.82.77.33 – sky.census.shodan.io – Netherlands – IP Volume inc – IP address geolocation).
It is good to think of you use Shodan, as not all usage might be legal where you live or where you travel to.
Some discussion in Dutch on the risks of using Shodan are in the above Tweakers.net link. It boils down to:
That’s basically with anything you find on the internet, for instance by Googling, so nothing new here.
I mainly use Shodan to see if I have any known vulnerabilities exposed. There are not that many ports open, but given the anecdote above, I might screw up again and not be so lucky.
This article has a balanced explanation of Shodan, how you use it, and how to stay safe: [Wayback] How to remove your device from the Shodan IoT search engine.
Posted in Development, IoT Internet of Things, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Security, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/25
For my link archive some videos below.
Note that I dislike ScanSnap Cloud, as I do not want an intermediate party in between me and my cloud provider.
I much more prefer providers like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc to configure locally and have them upload to the cloud instead of ScanSnap Could also seeing my scanned content.
–jeroen
Posted in Fujitsu ScanSnap, Hardware, ix100, ix1500, ix500, Power User, Scanners | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/22
If you think download speeds are slow for large downloads (or multi-media playback is slow or quality is low) on a fast link, then consider your DNS.
Many people report that using one of the centralised DNS services (like Google/Cloudflare/…) causes slowness because they direct CDN lookups to a small pool of servers that get overloaded.
Some links:
Via [WayBack] How to check whether DNS is working through a browser? – Super User
Google DNS also allows for interactive querying, for example [WayBack] Google Public DNS
Posted in Cloud, Cloudflare, DNS, Hardware, Infrastructure, Internet, Network-and-equipment, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/18
Reminder to self to check out if things have improved over time: [WayBack] Kristian Köhntopp on Twitter: “Trying my lvmraid kata from yesterday in real hardware was very frustrating. Everything is very single threaded, and does not leverage anything of the power of the actual device. … Basically, my linear-to-raid conversion idea died in the crib.” described to 2019 situation:
- [WayBack] Trying lvmraid for real | Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp
So basically this died in the crib, because it does not leverage any parallelism the CPU, the multitude of drives, the deep queues of the NVMEs or anything else would have to offer.
It’s from the past.
LVM is in need of serious overhaul in order to become a tool for the 2020’s. Outside of toy workloads, snapshots don’t work, lvmraid also does not work.
- [WayBack] Cloning and splitting logical volumes | Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp
–jeroen
Posted in Hardware, Power User, RAID | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/18
Some interesting observations at [WayBack] Intel brengt 665p-ssd van 1TB met 96-laags qlc-nandgeheugen uit – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers.
–jeroen
Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, SSD | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/15
Various storage providers have had overflow issues in their storage firmware , so be sure to apply firmware updates.
Example (that includes HPE and Intel failures): [WayBack] Bepaalde HPE-sas-ssd’s gaan kapot na 32.768 uur – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers.
–jeroen
Posted in Hardware, Power User, SSD | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/06
Access Denied
I knew it was possible to generate QR codes to access quest networks (as the QR code has credentials) for WiFi networks having a fixed SSID.
I just never bothered, but did when needed home care with quite a few different people providing the care.
Generating was easier than I anticipated, though I hoped I just could put the parameters in a URL and fire off to get a page including the QR code.
Alas, the pages I found require you to enter the SSID name and key/password phrase.
That’s OK: I have saved the PNG files for our network and my brother’s as images so I can put them on-line, and printed them out so guests can scan and use the network at once.
Here we go:
Related:
Posted in Barcode, Development, Fritz!, Fritz!Box, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Network-and-equipment, Power User, QR code, Scripting, Software Development, Web Development, WiFi | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 