Open source data encryption with Tomb
In this blog, I will show how you can utilise open-source data encryption software Tomb to protect...
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Automated SSL Labs testing with Opsview
In this blog I will cover how you can use a Nagios plugin to automatically test your websites SSL security strength on a daily basis, and alert you when it drops below a certain score – thus increasing the likelihood of a security breach.
Nagios plugins and Splunk.. wait, what?
Recently i’ve been on a bit of a tear with my infrastructure, moving from Apache to Nginx and migrating to new hardware (I moved from my beloved 25KG Fractal Define XL to a new mATX box that is 25% the size.. i call it ‘wife friendly infrastructure’!).
In my infrastructure of many ridiculous things, I use Opsview to monitor server temperatures (CPU/HDD/RAM), free space on my logical volumes, SMART status, RAID status and a few other things (systemd service status, etc). I then use Splunk Light to parse and display information gathered from logs for my web applications: ownCloud, Opsview, etc and also the logs forwarded from my router which handles port forwarding into the LAN (so i can see all the naughty port scanners..tsk tsk).
One thing I was always curious about was how could I get Splunk to analyse and interpret data generated by the Nagios (c) or Monitoring Plugins ran by software such as Opsview, Nagios, Icinga 2, or pretty much any monitoring tool out there.
Fail2ban for Owncloud: Brute force prevention and alerting
In this guide, I will show you how to configure your ownCloud server so that brute force attacks are one less thing to worry about. Not only will fail2ban block someone from having X number of failed login attempts to your ownCloud server, it will also notify you via pushbullet that an attempt has been blocked.
So lets begin!
Fail2ban for Opsview Monitor
This guide will show you a very quick and dirty way to use Fail2ban to prevent brute-force attacks on your Opsview Monitor 5.0 server. This should work the same for Opsview 4.x servers, but I havent tested it.
Fail2ban, for those who arent familiar, is “an intrusion prevention framework written in the Python programming language. It works by reading SSH, ProFTP, Apache logs etc.. and uses iptables profiles to block brute-force attempts.” (src: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fail2ban).
Creating a distributed Redis system using Docker
A common problem I face on a daily basis is a lack of hardware / resource in order to test things out to the fullest. For example, in days gone by I’d have needed 3 servers for what i’m about to do – and in more recent times, 3 virtual machines. I dont have the time to continuously build these items, nor the resource if we were going physical. This is where my new found interest in Docker can help me out!
What I want to do on my Ubuntu ‘host’ server is create 3 Docker containers running Redis, and link them all together so that I can then develop and test the best way to monitor h-scaled Redis. Below I will show you how i’ve done it, and the benefits (even beauty) of it!
Setting up a RELK stack from scratch (Redis, Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana)
Recently I thought i’d re-do all of my ELK stack setup, as i didnt fully understand every facet of it and i was really interested in introducing Redis into the mix. I’ve also messed around with the existing Kibana and Logstash front-end to the point it was fairly bricked, so it was ripe for a change.
What I wanted to get to, was having my 2 servers and my main router having their logs and syslog data sent into my log box so I could view and correlate across multiple systems.