How to Connect One Router to Another
For this example, let’s assume that you have an OLD_ROUTER and a NEW_ROUTER.

Step 1: Make sure your old router is working.

Step 1a: Connect the Broadband modem to your OLD_ROUTER’s Internet (WAN) port. Then connect the computer to one of the four available ports on your router through an Ethernet cable.

Step 1b: Make sure that the Internet connection is working on your computer and on your wireless devices.

Step 2: Configure your new router

Most routers have an IP address of 192.168.1.1 so before you connect them, you need to ensure that they have been assigned two different IP addresses.

Step 2a: Shut down your OLD_ROUTER and the modem. Also unplug the Ethernet cable from the computer.

Step 2b. Plug the Ethernet cable into any of the numbered ports of NEW_ROUTER and connect the other end to your computer. Switch on the NEW_ROUTER.

Step 2c. Access the web dashboard of NEW_ROUTER (192.168.1.1) and change the local IP address to something like 192.168.2.1 so that there’s no conflict with the old router. Save the changes.

Step 2d. Test the SSID name of the new router and make sure it’s different from the old router. Also make sure that SSID broadcast is turned on. Save the changes.

Step 3: Connect the two routers

Step 3a. Connect the modem to the Internet Port of the OLD_ROUTER.

Step 3b. Connect one of the number ports of OLD_ROUTER to your computer.

Step 3c. Connect another free port on the OLD_ROUTER to the Internet Port of your NEW_ROUTER using an Ethernet or LAN cable.

Important Points to remember

1. It is suggested that the length of the LAN cable connecting the two routers should not exceed 100m and that you should avoid having any joints in the cable. LAN cables are pretty cheap – I got a Cat5e cable for 25¢/m.

2. If you have a compatible router, I suggest upgrading the firmware to DD-WRT as that will slightly boost the wireless signal plus you’ll get access to tons of other settings in your router.

3. If you have enabled Wi-Fi security in your previous router, use the same settings in your new router as well.

4. It is important that you assign different SSIDs to the two routers else the same network name will appear twice in your wireless network connections window.

5. If you don’t remember the username of your router, try these combinations – root + admin, admin + admin, admin + password or admin (as username) and no password.

Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for you to use the computer, portable media player, mobile phones, video game consoles, and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of cables.

With traditional wired networks, it is extremely difficult for someone to steal your bandwidth but the big problem with wireless signals is that others can access the Internet using your broadband connection even while they are in a neighboring building or sitting in a car that’s parked outside your apartment.

This practice, also known as piggybacking, is bad for three reasons:

It will increase your monthly Internet bill especially when you have to pay per byte of data transfer.
It will decrease your Internet access speed since you are now sharing the same internet connection with other users.
It can create a security hazard* as others may hack your computers and access your personal files through your own wireless network.
[*] What do the bad guys use – There have been quite a few instances where innocent Internet users have been arrested for sending hate emails when in reality, their email accounts where hacked though the unsecured Wi-Fi networks that they had at home. Wireshark is a free packet sniffing tool for Linux, Mac and Windows that can scan traffic flowing though a wireless network including cookies, forms and other HTTP requests.

How to Secure Your Wireless Network
The good news is that it is not very hard to make your wireless network secure, which will both prevent others from stealing your internet and will also prevent hackers from taking control of your computers through your own wireless network.

Here a few simple things that you should to secure your wireless network:

Step 1. Open your router settings page

First, you need to know how to access your wireless router’s settings. Usually you can do this by typing in “192.168.1.1” into your web browser, and then enter the correct user name and password for the router. This is different for each router, so first check your router’s user manual.

You can also use Google to find the manuals for most routers online in case you lost the printed manual that came with your router purchase. For your reference, here are direct links to the manufacturer’s site of some popular router brands – Linksys, Cisco, Netgear, Apple AirPort, SMC, D-Link, Buffalo, TP-LINK, 3Com, Belkin.

Step 2. Create a unique password on your router

Once you have logged into your router, the first thing you should do to secure your network is to change the default password* of the router to something more secure.

This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want. You can change the password from the Administration settings on your router’s settings page. The default values are generally admin / password.

[*] What do the bad guys use – This is a public database of default usernames and passwords of wireless routers, modems, switches and other networking equipment. For instance, anyone can easily make out from the database that the factory-default settings for Linksys equipment can be accessed by using admin for both username and password fields.

Step 3. Change your Network’s SSID name

The SSID (or Wireless Network Name) of your Wireless Router is usually pre-defined as “default” or is set as the brand name of the router (e.g., linksys). Although this will not make your network inherently* more secure, changing the SSID name of your network is a good idea as it will make it more obvious for others to know which network they are connecting to.

This setting is usually under the basic wireless settings in your router’s settings page. Once this is set, you will always be sure that you are connecting to the correct Wireless network even if there are multiple wireless networks in your area. Don’t use your name, home address or other personal information in the SSID name.

[*] What do the bad guys use – Wi-Fi scanning tools like inSSIDer (Windows) and Kismet (Mac, Linux) are free and they will allow anyone to find all the available Wireless Networks in an area even if the routers are not broadcasting their SSID name.

Step 4. Enable Network Encryption

In order to prevent other computers in the area from using your internet connection, you need to encrypt your wireless signals.

There are several encryption methods for wireless settings, including WEP, WPA (WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2). WEP is basic encryption and therefore least secure (i.e., it can be easily cracked*, but is compatible with a wide range of devices including older hardware, whereas WPA2 is the most secure but is only compatible with hardware manufactured since 2006.

To enable encryption on your Wireless network, open the wireless security settings on your router’s configuration page. This will usually let you select which security method you wish to choose; if you have older devices, choose WEP, otherwise go with WPA2. Enter a passphrase to access the network; make sure to set this to something that would be difficult for others to guess, and consider using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters in the passphrase.

[*] What do the bad guys use – AirCrack and coWPAtty are some free tools that allow even non-hackers to crack the WEP / WPA (PSK) keys using dictionary or brute force techniques. A video on YouTube suggests that AirCrack may be easily used to break WiFi encryption using a jail-broken iPhone or an iPod Touch.

Step 5. Filter MAC addresses

Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a unique MAC address (this has nothing to do with an Apple Mac) just like every computer connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. For an added layer of protection, you can add the MAC addresses of all your devices to your wireless router’s settings so that only the specified devices can connect to your Wi-Fi network.

MAC addresses are hard-coded into your networking equipment, so one address will only let that one device on the network. It is, unfortunately, possible to spoof a MAC address*, but an attacker must first know one of the MAC addresses of the computers that are connected to your Wireless network before he can attempt spoofing.

To enable MAC address filtering, first make a list of all your hardware devices that you want to connect to your wireless network**. Find their MAC addresses, and then add them to the MAC address filtering in your router’s administrative settings. You can find the MAC address for your computers by opening Command Prompt and typing in “ipconfig /all”, which will show your MAC address beside the name “Physical Address”. You can find the MAC addresses of Wireless mobile phones and other portable devices under their network settings, though this will vary for each device.

[*] What do the bad guys use – Someone can change the MAC address of his or her own computer and can easily connect to your network since your network allows connection from devices that have that particular MAC address. Anyone can determine the MAC address of your device wireless using a sniffing tool like Nmap and he can then change the MAC address of his own computer using another free tool like MAC Shift.

Step 6. Reduce the Range of the Wireless Signal

If your wireless router has a high range but you are staying in a small studio apartment, you can consider decreasing the signal range by either changing the mode of your router to 802.11g (instead of 802.11n or 802.11b) or use a different wireless channel.

You can also try placing the router under the bed, inside a shoe box or wrap a foil around the router antennas so that you can somewhat restrict the direction of signals.

Apply the Anti-Wi-Fi Paint – Researchers have developed a special Wi-Fi blocking paint that can help you stop neighbors from accessing your home network without you having to set up encryption at the router level. The paint contains chemicals that blocks radio signals by absorbing them. “By coating an entire room, Wi-Fi signals can’t get in and, crucially, can’t get out.”

Step 7. Upgrade your Router’s firmware

You should check the manufacturer’s site occasionally to make sure that your router is running the latest firmware. You can find the existing firmware version of your router using from the router’s dashboard at 192.168.*.

Connect to your Secure Wireless Network

To conclude, MAC Address filtering with WPA2 (AES) encryption (and a really complex passphrase) is probably the best way to secure your wireless network.

Once you have enabled the various security settings in your wireless router, you need to add the new settings to your computers and other wireless devices so that they all can connect to the Wi-Fi network. You can select to have your computer automatically connect to this network, so you won’t have to enter the SSID, passphrase and other information every time you connect to the Internet.

Your wireless network will now be a lot more secure and intruders may have a tough time intercepting your Wi-Fi signals.

Who is Connected to your Wireless Network
If you are worried that an outsider may be connecting to the Internet using your Wireless network, try AirSnare – it’s a free utility that will look for unexpected MAC addresses on your Wireless network as well as to DHCP requests. Another option is that you open your router’s administration page (using the 192.168.* address) and look for the DHCP Clients Table (it’s under Status > Local Network on Linksys routers). Here you will see a list of all computers and wireless devices that are connected to your home network.

*It is also a good idea to turn off the router completely when you are not planning to use the computer for a longer period (like when you are out shopping). You save on electricity and the door remains 100% shut for wireless piggybackers.

**If you ever want to let a new device connect to your network, you will have to find its MAC address and add it to your router. If you simple want to let a friend connect to your wireless network one time, you can remove his MAC address from the router settings when he or she leaves your place.

You are searching for something on search engine A (say Google) but since the information you need is not there, you temporarily switch to search engine B (say Bing) and perform the same search again.

The question is how do you quickly switch between these two search engines?

Firefox users can hit Ctrl + K to highlight the search box and then press Ctrl + Up or Ctrl + Down keys to switch search engines. These shortcut keys also work in IE except that you have to press Ctrl + E for reaching the search box. Google Chrome doesn’t have a dedicated search box but there are extensions to help you change search engines on the fly.

If that’s your current work-flow, let me share another useful trick here that will help you quickly switch between Bing and Google through the address bar itself.

Switching Between Bing and Google
Say you are searching for “health care bill” on Google.com and now want to repeat the same search on Bing.com. Just go to your browser’s address bar (it could be any browser) and change the word “google” in the search URL to “bing” and hit Enter.

Similarly, if you are on a results page of bing.com, you can quickly see the equivalent search results from google.com by replacing the word “bing” with “google”.

Safari users may find this trick especially handy since in Safari, you can’t really add a new search provider to the existing ones without using external plugins.

The trick basically works because Google and Bing share a very similar URL structure for their desktop editions. Don’t however try this on your mobile phone browser as Google’s mobile URLs are of the form google.com/m while Bing’s mobile edition uses the m.bing.com structure.

1. Use different open source projects like Linux, Solaris, Firefox, Filezilla, Apache HTTP Server, Gaim, and others.

2. Look for a place to contribute. This means not only programming, but also documentation, theme design, art work, or architectural design.

3. Note that each project has its own distinct methods for communication and submitting contributions.

4. Join the mailing list. This is highly recommended because you will never feel that you are left behind. You can also get feedback on patches and contributions.

5. Respect and maintain discussions.

6. Encourage contributions.

7. Start small by reporting and fixing bugs.

8. Submitting small patches containing bug fixes.

9. Respond and send feedback.

10. If you really want to help but don’t have the experience or the know-how, DONATE! By giving a few dollars to help out open source developers, you can help them get the tools they need to build better programs.

Also read, http://www.kegel.com/academy/opensource.html

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2. Now type ‘list volume’.

This command will list out all the drives of your computer with their label,size letter etc

3.Now lets say you want to hide volume 2 then you should type ‘Select volume 2′ i.e select volume ‘drive number’.

this command will select the volume you want to hide,remember the drive not hidden till yet.

4.Now lets say for e.g for hiding the volume 2,you have to type this command ‘Remove letter D’ the letter D is the letter assigned to volume 2,the letter assigned are different for different volumes.

Note-Your drive is hidden now it may take a restart to be in effect.The drive can be retrieve back easily just by following step 1 to 3 and instead of step 4 follow step 5.

5.To unhide your drive follow step 1 to 3 and then step 5..just type ‘assign letter D’,here letter D is just an example.

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• The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account. You can look at the last page of your Gmail Inbox (or go to Sent Items) to get an approximate idea of the date when you created the account.
• If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail. Use a search query like “in:all has invited you to open a free Gmail account” to find that invitation email
• The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account.
• The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you’re not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate*.

[*] For Analytics, look at the first date when it started collecting stats for your website(s). For Orkut, look at the last page of your scrapbook. For AdSense, you may take the help of your AdSense account manager.

#4. It goes without saying but do not use the same password for your main Google / Gmail account and your secondary email address.

#5. If you access Gmail and other Google services over a wifi network, make sure that you always use the secure url’s like https://gmail.com. Go to Gmail settings and set ‘Browser Connection’ to ‘Always use https.’ This might make your Gmail access a bit slower but your account will be more secure.

#6. Once in a while, do refer to that little line in the footer section of your Gmail Inbox that shows the different IP addresses from where your account is being accessed. If you find an unknown IP address, change your Google password immediately. The person who hacked my Gmail accounts configured them with his Hotmail account so he could effectively read all my email communication remotely from his Hotmail inbox without ever logging into my Google account again. I could figure that out only after I saw an IP address from a Microsoft server in my Gmail activity log.

#7. You should also consider copying emails from Gmail to another service (like Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail – it is effortless) so when your Gmail account is compromised, you at least have access to all your previous emails. Or you can configure a desktop email client like Outlook or Thunderbird with your Gmail account (via POP3 or IMAP) and thus you’ll have an automatic offline backup of your gmail inbox.

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Configuring a squid proxy is an easy task and allows you with wide number of options to configure your users access to the internet .
The best part is that squid is supported on all open source platforms
In this article I will explain on how to configure squid proxy server on redhat / linux.

For configuring squid server we first we need to install squid rpm
Step: 1)
#rpm –ivh squid-2.6.STABLE-5.el5_1.3.i386.rpm

You can also use yum repository for installation . If your system doesnot provide you can configure the yum server for your own

For how to configure yum server read this
After configuring yum server install the squid rpm using
#yum –y install squid

Step2:) Open the squid main configuration file :

#vim /et c/squid/squid.conf

This is the main configuration file which holds all the squid settings and controls.
Step3:) Squid , by default runs on port 3128. If we need to change the web proxy port.
In the file search for http_port 3128 and change it to http_port 8080.
Now your squid web proxy will run on port 8080.

Step4:) Next you need access rules for the proxy server which are known as ACL to limit users’ ability to browse the Internet. Squid matches each Web access request it receives by checking the http_access list from top to bottom. If it finds a match, it enforces the allow or deny statement and stops reading further. You have to be careful not to place a deny statement in the list that blocks a similar allow statement below it. The final http_access statement denies everything, so it is best to place new http_access statements above it

Here are some examples of the ACL

¬
Restricting web access by IP address
acl mylan src 172.24.0.0/16
http_access allow mylan
Restricting web access by phrase in the url
acl myphrase url_regex phrase
http_access deny myphrase
To read more about using squid acl click here.
Step 5:) Like every linux application squid needs to be restarted for changes to the configuration file can take effect..

# service squid restart

For enabling squid startup after the reboot:

#chkconfig squid on

You need to force users to use your proxy server by configuring the proxy setting in the web browser.
To add the setting in the browser read this
Now you can add an extra layer of security and reduce internet bandwidth charges.

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Anonymous FTP

Firstly you need to install vsftpd package :

#rpm –ivh vsftpd

If your system supports yum distribution then you can also install using.

#yum –y install vsftpd

To create a yum server read this
Next we need to edit to vsftpd configuration file:

The main vsftpd configuration file is /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

Open the file using your favourite editor: I m using vim in this case:

# vim /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

Enable the following two lines:

anonymous_enable=YES

anon_upload_enable=YES

anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES

chown_uploads=YES

Enable the following line and change whoever which is default enrty to root

chown_username=root

Add the following line anywhere in the configuration file:

anon_umask=077

Save and exit

Next we need to create a directory where the anonymous user will upload the files and we need to change the permission and ownership of that directory.

# mkdir /var/ftp/incoming/

# chmod 773  /var/ftp/incoming/

#  chown root:daemon  /var/ftp/incoming

Restart the service

# service vsftpd restart

To enable it after the reboot

#chkconfig vsftpd on

After doing this step you can allow anonymous users to uploads file onto your ftp server.

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For configuration for samba server we need to install samba rpm packages.
For installing package:
# rpm -ivh samba
If your system supports yum installation use:
# yum –y install samba

If your system does not support yum installation you can configure yum server for your network. For configuring yum server read this

The default configuration file for samba is /etc/samba/smb.conf which allows users to view their home directories as a Samba share. It also shares all printers configured for the system as Samba shared printers.

If you change this configuration file, the changes do not take effect until you restart the Samba daemon with the following command .
# service smb restart.

To specify the Windows workgroup , edit the following lines in your smb.conf file:
workgroup = WORKGROUPNAME
If you want to restrict users to access samba share only form your domain then
In section1:
host allow = your domain ip-address

To create a samba share which can be accessed on windows.Go to the last section of the configuration file for samba and add the following lines

[sharename]
comment = Insert a comment here
path = /home/share/
valid users = tfox carole
public = no
writable = yes
printable = no

You then need to add samba password for the valid users which will access the samba share on the windows machine

#smbpasswd –a username

#service smb restart

To enable service start after the reboot:

#chkconfig smb on

Samba also provides you with a utility called testparm for checking its default configuration file.
# testparm
The above command will show you all the shared folders and printers.

One can also login into the samba share on linux machine with the following command.

#smbclient //ip-address/share-name –U username
Enter the password prompted for and access the samba share.

Related articles
How to configure dhcp server on redhat/linux

How to make a nfs server

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So what is a vncviewer?

Vncviewer is a viewer(client) for virtual network computing.Vncviewer is an Xt-based client application for the VNC (Virtual Network  Computing) system. It can connect to any VNC-compatible server such as Xvnc or WinVNC, allowing you to control desktop environment  of a different machine.

It is relatively straightforward to display and access a Linux desktop from a system anywhere else on a network or the internet by using Virtual Network Computing (VNC). This can be achieved regardless of whether that system is running Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.. The more impressive thing about this is that it can be set up for free with only a little time and knowledge.

For enabling vnc settings three things are required:

1. A VNC services enabled on the  Linux system whose desktop needs to be accessed.

2. A VNC viewer client installed on the system on which you want to display your Linux desktop.

3. A connection between the two systems.

Here are some  simple steps that will help you in setting the vncserver and allowing others to have  access to your desktop.

Step:1)Firstly you need to install vnc-server rpm on your server system.

Give the following command to install vnc packages:

#rpm –ivh  vnc-server-4.1.2-14.el5

#rpm –ivh  vnc-4.1.2-14.el5

Step:2)On your Linux system desktop whose desktop need to be accessed, go at the top and click on the System—>Preferences—>Remote desktop

Similar to thepicture below

After clicking on remote desktop a dialog box similar to below one will get  displayed:

Here check the first box i.e Allow other users to view your desktop.

There are other options also available like do you want to have password authentication and want to allows the remote system to control your desktop or not.

Step 3:)On the client side install the vnc packages:

To install the vnc package, at the prompt type:

#rpm –ivh  #rpm –ivh  vnc-4.1.2-14.el5

Step 4:)At the command prompt,just type the following command

#vncviewer

The following dialog box will get appeared.

Enter the ip of the remote machine and enjoy the services

It worked for me like this: