Fixing Windows 7 boot problems

I was inspired to write this after spending an hour trying to get windows to boot. The problem started when i removed an IDE disk from the PC. Turns out that when i install windows on the PC with a pair of IDE and SATA disks, windows configured the IDE disk as the active partition even though i installed windows on the SATA disk. Now that the IDE disk is gone, there is no active partition. In this situation, the repair function windows boot CD will not work until an active partition is manually activated.

- Changing the active partition
Boot to repair mode on your windows CD. Under command prompt, run Diskpart
Look for the disk number with List disk
Select Disk x where x is the disk number from above
List Partition and look for the windows partition number
Select Partition x where x is the windows partition
With the active partition loaded correctly, the repair function now has the correction partition to work on.

- Restoring the boot sector on the active partition
The commandline way to rebuild the boot code.
Under Windows Vista and above, boot to repair mode on your windows CD
bootsect.exe /nt60 SYS /force where SYS refers to the system partition used to boot Windows. Replace SYS with ALL to update the boot code on all volumes that can be used as Windows boot volumes.

Loading IPTables rules on reboot

IPTables rules are flushed after a reboot. I found out when i couldn't connect to a SOCKS5 proxy after the vps provider rebooted my node without notice. Poor system uptime seems to be a problem with some budget VPS. Here's how to make the rules stick after a reboot.

- On  Debian,
Save the rules to a file
#iptables-save > /etc/firewall.conf

Create a startup script so ifupdown loads these rules on boot:
vi /etc/network/if-up.d/iptables
#!/bin/sh
iptables-restore < /etc/firewall.conf

chmod +x /etc/network/if-up.d/iptables
Reboot, and check rules with iptables -L

- On  CentOS,

/sbin/service iptables save
This executes the iptables init script, which runs the /sbin/iptables-save program and writes the current iptables configuration to /etc/sysconfig/iptables. The existing /etc/sysconfig/iptables file is saved as /etc/sysconfig/iptables.save.

The next time the system boots, the iptables init script reapplies the rules saved in /etc/sysconfig/iptables by using the /sbin/iptables-restore command.


You can also save the iptables rules to a separate file for distribution, backup or other purposes. To save your iptables rules, type the following command as root:

[root@myserver ~]# iptables-save > <filename>
where <filename> is a user-defined name for your ruleset.

If distributing the /etc/sysconfig/iptables file to other machines, type /sbin/service iptables restart for the new rules to take effect.

Note the difference between the iptablescommand (/sbin/iptables), which is used to manipulate the tables and chains that constitute the iptables functionality, and the iptablesservice (/sbin/iptables service), which is used to enable and disable the iptables service itself.

To flush existing iptables rules

# vi stop.fw4

#!/bin/sh
echo "Stopping firewall and allowing everyone..."
# Delete and flush. Default table is "filter". Others like "nat" must be explici# tly stated.
iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables --delete-chain
iptables -t nat -F
iptables -t nat -X
# Delete all chains that are not in default filter and nat table
iptables --table nat --delete-chain
iptables -t mangle -F
iptables -t mangle -X
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
chmod +x stop.fw4
./stop.fw4

Configure NAT with iptables

- Initial set of firewall rules for a NAT vps
vi start.fw4
#!/bin/bash
LOGLIMIT="5/m"
LOGLIMITBURST="10"
iptables -I INPUT 1 -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#change port 33322 to configured SSH port
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 33322 -j ACCEPT
#open UDP 123 for NTP
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --sport 123 --dport 123 -j ACCEPT
#for openvpn and pptp access
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o venet0 -j SNAT --to rem.ot.e.ip
iptables -A FORWARD -i venet0 -o tun0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i tun0 -o venet0 -j ACCEPT
#block others
iptables -N LOGDROP
iptables -A INPUT -j LOGDROP
iptables -A LOGDROP -p tcp -m limit --limit $LOGLIMIT --limit-burst $LOGLIMITBURST -j LOG --log-level 7 --log-prefix "TCP LOGDROP: "
iptables -A LOGDROP -p udp -m limit --limit $LOGLIMIT --limit-burst $LOGLIMITBURST -j LOG --log-level 7 --log-prefix "UDP LOGDROP: "
iptables -A LOGDROP -p icmp -m limit --limit $LOGLIMIT --limit-burst $LOGLIMITBURST -j LOG --log-level 7 --log-prefix "ICMP LOGDROP: "
iptables -A LOGDROP -f -m limit --limit $LOGLIMIT --limit-burst $LOGLIMITBURST -j LOG --log-level 7 --log-prefix "FRAGMENT LOGDROP: "
iptables -A LOGDROP -j DROP

chmod +x start.fw4
./start.fw4
- To list rules,
# iptables -L
To list masquerade and NAT rules,
# iptables -t nat -L

Updating OS on VPS

Debian

# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade

Centos

Type the following command to get a list of packages that are going to be updated, enter:
# yum list updates
To upgrade your box, enter:
# yum update

Initial SSH setup

Create User ID for normal use

• On Debian, useradd is a low level utility for adding users. Administrators should usually use adduser(8) instead.
• On Fedora or CentOS systems, adduser is just a symbolic link to useradd
• adduser <user>

Change SSH port and deny root SSH login

• vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
• Replace default port 22 with <random port>
• Disable Root login   PermitRootLogin no

Enable new SSH port on ipchains

• iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport <new SSH port> -j ACCEPT

Restart SSH service

• service ssh reload

DNS leaking with browsers

Following on this great DNS leakage test with Firefox , I ran my own simple browser privacy tests on browsers i use frequently.

Setup used for the test

- Remote SSH host

- Opera 11.10 Build 2092

- Chrome 10.0.648.205 with Proxy Switchy! 1.6.3

- Firefox 4.0

- IE 9.0.8112.16421

- Plink 0.60.9149.0

- MyEN Tunnel v3.5.2 to build TCP SSH tunnels for SOCKS5 proxy. More stable and better speed(Hulu) than opening a dynamic proxy with Putty (putty shell@xx.xx.xx.xx -fND localhost:7777)

- DNS Randomness test . Great tool for testing DNS leakage.

- Client DNS: OpenDns , ISP DNS

- Remote DNS: Remote host DNS

Results:

Browser	Proxy	Notes
Firefox	Client	Uses client DNS out of the box
Firefox with network.proxy.socks_remote_dns TRUE	Remote	Enable this in about:config. Tells firefox to use DNS SOCKS5
Chrome	Remote
IE	Client
Opera	NA	Not SOCKS compatible as of tested version.

Conclusion: Chrome has the best result out of the box. It looks up URLs using the remote DNS once you point chrome to a SOCKS5 proxy. There is no need for additional configuration or socks server traversing application.

Firefox requires an additional tweak to force remote DNS lookup.

I could not find a native way of forcing remote DNS lookup in IE. One alternative is to disable client side DNS caching in windows, probably not what you want on a corporate network. Another is to “socksify” IE with sockscap or widecap.

Opera has no socks support. Boo. There is always widecap or sockscap, but why bother when you can use chrome?

Random discovery: Your company domain admin may have a AD group policy that enables corporate proxy on your browser, overriding your SOCKS5 proxy selection. This is annoying and recurring, the browser changing to corporate proxy when you think you are surfing on the SOCKS5 proxy.

To workaround this on Chrome with Proxy Switchy, with Socks proxy selected configure the following in Switchy configuration.

Auto apply last selected proxy profile on startup.
Monitor Proxy Changes
Revert proxy changes done by other apps.

With this, you know your web traffic on Chrome is encrypted.

NWN2 Essence List

Code	Item
nx1_cft_ess_air01	volatile air essence
nx1_cft_ess_air02	brilliant air essence
nx1_cft_ess_air03	pristine air essence
nx1_cft_ess_earth01	volatile earth essence
nx1_cft_ess_earth02	brilliant earth essence
nx1_cft_ess_earth03	pristine earth essence
nx1_cft_ess_fire01	volatile fire essence
nx1_cft_ess_fire02	brilliant fire essence
nx1_cft_ess_fire03	pristine fire essence
nx1_cft_ess_water01	volatile water essence
nx1_cft_ess_water02	brilliant water essence
nx1_cft_ess_water03	pristine water essence
nx1_cft_ess_power01	volatile power essence
nx1_cft_ess_power02	brilliant power essence
nx1_cft_ess_power03	pristine power essence
nx1_cft_ess_spirit01	volatile spirit essence
nx1_cft_ess_spirit02	brilliant spirit essence
nx1_cft_ess_spirit03	pristine spirit essence
nx1_cft_ess_coven	Slumbering Coven Esssence

NWN2 Feat List

Code	Feat
0	FEAT_ALERTNESS
1	DEL_FEAT_AMBIDEXTERITY
2	FEAT_ARMOR_PROFICIENCY_HEAVY
3	FEAT_ARMOR_PROFICIENCY_LIGHT
4	FEAT_ARMOR_PROFICIENCY_MEDIUM
5	FEAT_CALLED_SHOT
6	FEAT_CLEAVE
7	FEAT_COMBAT_CASTING
8	FEAT_DEFLECT_ARROWS
9	FEAT_DISARM
10	FEAT_DODGE
11	FEAT_EMPOWER_SPELL
12	FEAT_EXTEND_SPELL
13	FEAT_EXTRA_TURNING
14	FEAT_GREAT_FORTITUDE
15	FEAT_IMPROVED_CRITICAL_CLUB
16	FEAT_IMPROVED_DISARM
17	FEAT_IMPROVED_KNOCKDOWN
18	FEAT_IMPROVED_PARRY
19	FEAT_IMPROVED_POWER_ATTACK
20	FEAT_IMPROVED_TWO_WEAPON_FIGHTING
21	FEAT_IMPROVED_UNARMED_STRIKE
22	FEAT_IRON_WILL
23	FEAT_KNOCKDOWN
24	FEAT_LIGHTNING_REFLEXES
25	FEAT_MAXIMIZE_SPELL
26	FEAT_MOBILITY
27	FEAT_POINT_BLANK_SHOT
28	FEAT_POWER_ATTACK
29	FEAT_QUICKEN_SPELL
30	FEAT_RAPID_SHOT
31	FEAT_SAP
32	FEAT_SHIELD_PROFICIENCY
33	FEAT_SILENCE_SPELL
34	DEL_FEAT_SKILL_FOCUS_ANIMAL_EMPATHY
35	FEAT_SPELL_FOCUS_ABJURATION
36	FEAT_SPELL_PENETRATION
37	FEAT_STILL_SPELL
38	****
39	FEAT_STUNNING_FIST
40	FEAT_TOUGHNESS
41	FEAT_TWO_WEAPON_FIGHTING
42	FEAT_WEAPON_FINESSE
43	FEAT_WEAPON_FOCUS_CLUB
44	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_EXOTIC
45	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_MARTIAL
46	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_SIMPLE
47	FEAT_WEAPON_SPECIALIZATION_CLUB
48	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_DRUID
49	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_MONK
50	FEAT_WEAPON_PROFICIENCY_ROGUE

NWN2 Spell List

Code	Spell
0	Acid_Fog
1	Aid
2	Animate_Dead
3	Barkskin
4	Bestow_Curse
5	Blade_Barrier
6	Bless
7	Summon_Djinni
8	Blindness_and_Deafness
9	Bulls_Strength
10	Burning_Hands
11	Call_Lightning
12	Summon_Clockroach
13	Cats_Grace
14	Chain_Lightning
15	Charm_Monster
16	Charm_Person
17	Charm_Person_or_Animal
18	Circle_of_Death
19	Mass_Inflict_Light_Wounds
20	Clairaudience_and_Clairvoyance
21	Summon_Ivory_Handmaiden
22	DEL_Cloak_of_Chaos
23	Cloudkill
24	Color_Spray
25	Cone_of_Cold
26	Confusion
27	Contagion
28	Control_Undead
29	Create_Greater_Undead
30	Create_Undead
31	Cure_Critical_Wounds
32	Cure_Light_Wounds
33	Cure_Minor_Wounds
34	Cure_Moderate_Wounds
35	Cure_Serious_Wounds
36	Darkness
37	Daze
38	Death_Ward
39	Delayed_Blast_Fireball
40	Dismissal
41	Dispel_Magic
42	Divine_Power
43	Dominate_Animal
44	Dominate_Monster
45	Dominate_Person
46	Doom
47	Elemental_Shield
48	Elemental_Swarm
49	Bears_Endurance
50	Endure_Elements