Getting a list of TOR IP Addresses

First thing first is we need to get a list of TOR IP Address, and to do that we have two options:

• Use TOR Bulk Exit List from Torproject
• Use an external sites that list TOR IP Address such as from dan.me.uk or from torstatus.blutmagie.de

Note: dan.me.uk website only allow you to fetch it every 1 hour only (even if you accidentally clicked it), i choose to not link to the ip address url directly because of that reason and so you have to copy the url directly

For example purpose, here i’m going to use the list from dan.me.uk website and i obviously would like to thank him first for providing tor ip list

Blocking TOR on Nginx

I assume that:

• Nginx is located at /usr/local/nginx
• The conf directory is at /usr/local/nginx/conf

1. Edit your vhost configuration let’s say it’s called mydomain.conf

# Example configuration on blocking tor on Nginx for a specific server block
# /usr/local/nginx/conf/mydomain.conf

server {

	[...] # your access_log, error_log, etc

	# include tor ip list for a whole vhost
	include tor-ip.conf;

	location / {
		[...] # root configuration
	}

}

# And here's an example if you want to block it for specific location / file only

server {

	[...] # your access_log, error_log, etc

	location ~ "/no-tor-allowed/" {

		# include tor ip list for a whole vhost
		include tor-ip.conf;

	}

	location / {
		[...] # root other configuration
	}

}

But don’t go reloading your nginx configuration just yet

2. Downloading the ip list and automatically reload nginx

# this is a one liner, the output file is /usr/local/nginx/conf/tor-ip.conf
# make sure to adjust the nginx location if you put Nginx in different directory

wget -q https://www.dan.me.uk/torlist/ -O - | sed 's/^/deny /g' | sed 's/$/;/g' > /usr/local/nginx/conf/tor-ip.conf; /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -s reload

And done for the Nginx part

Blocking TOR on Apache

Depending on whether you have access to your Apache configuration file or not, the configuration will be different. But i’ll cover them both just in case you prefer to do it directly on Apache configuration file

If you have access to Apache configuration

The steps are pretty much the same like Nginx with the only difference is the location and the syntax of the block directive, anyway:

I assume that:

• Apache is at /usr/local/apache
• The conf file is at /usr/local/apache/conf

1. Open your vhost configuration file (if you put your vhost configuration file in httpd.conf then edit that file) and then locate your desired virtualhost (e.g mydomain.com)

# Example configuration on blocking tor on Apache for a specific virtualhost block
<VirtualHost 1.2.3.4:80>

	[...] # other stuff such as server name and so on

	# Adjust the directory if you want to block tor for specific directory only
	# The example below will block access from TOR users completely
	<Directory />
		# Include tor ip
		Include conf/tor-ip.conf
	</Directory>

	# Or you can also use location directive
	# in this example TOR users is not allowed to visit /no-tor-allowed url and its contents
	<Location /no-tor-allowed>
		# Include tor ip
		Include conf/tor-ip.conf
	</Location>

	# Or use this to block specific file only
	<Files my-files.html>
		# Include tor ip
		Include conf/tor-ip.conf
	</Files>

</VirtualHost>

And don’t restart Apache just yet or else it’ll fail

2. Downloading the ip list and automatically restart Apache

If you’re running Apache 2.2 and below

# This will save the output tor ip to /usr/local/apache/conf/tor-ip.conf

wget -q https://www.dan.me.uk/torlist/ -O - | sed 's/^/deny from /g' > /usr/local/apache/conf/tor-ip.conf; /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl graceful

If you’re running Apache 2.4

# This will save the output tor ip to /usr/local/apache/conf/tor-ip.conf

wget -q https://www.dan.me.uk/torlist/ -O - | sed 's/^/Require not ip /g' | sed "1i\<RequireAll\>\nRequire all granted" | sed '$a\<\/RequireAll\>' > /usr/local/apache/conf/tor-ip.conf; /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl graceful

Note: Actually as long as you have mod_access_compat compiled into Apache 2.4 (if i remember it correctly it’s included by default if you compile Apache yourself) you can still use the old allow deny directives but for future proof using Require would be better

If you only have access to .htaccess file

You are still able to use this but make sure to change /your/www/directory/.htaccess into the full path to your .htaccess file but please note that i’m not sure about the performance penalty for blocking many ip addresses in a .htaccess file

If you’re on Apache 2.2 and below

# Note: this will block all access from TOR by default.
# If you need to block for specific file, you need to modify the command below
# Also make sure to backup your .htaccess file first

sed -in '/#\ REAPER-TOR/,/#\ END-REAPER-TOR/d' /your/www/directory/.htaccess ; wget -q https://www.dan.me.uk/torlist/ -O - | sed 's/^/deny from /g' | sed "1i# REAPER-TOR" | sed '$a# END-REAPER-TOR' >> /your/www/directory/.htaccess

If you’re on CPanel Shared Hosting there’s a high chance that you’re on Apache 2.2

If you’re on Apache 2.4

# Note: this will block all access from TOR by default.
# If you need to block for specific file, you need to modify the command below
# Also make sure to backup your .htaccess file first

sed -in '/#\ REAPER-TOR/,/#\ END-REAPER-TOR/d' /your/www/directory/.htaccess ; wget -q https://www.dan.me.uk/torlist/ -O - | sed 's/^/Require not ip /g' | sed "1i#\ REAPER-TOR\n\<RequireAll\>\nRequire all granted" | sed '$a\<\/RequireAll\>\n# END-REAPER-TOR' >> /your/www/directory/.htaccess

And that’s it. Hopefully i didn’t forget anything and as a final note, if you’re going to use it in cron (obviously otherwise your tor ip data won’t be accurate), make sure that it’s scheduled for 1 hour at minimum to respect those that gives you free service to lookup tor ip =)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

# And it causes redirect loop (also tested on my local box)
# Note the | is for illustration
location =|~ /index.php {
	rewrite ^ http://www.domain.com/|/ permanent;
}

And being curious, i’m doing a test on my local box to remove that index.php thing from the URL and found a way to do it and it was simple. So if you’re currently looking for a way to remove your index file from the URL and you’re using Nginx perhaps this simple tips can help you with that

First thing first is open your nginx configuration files that hold your virtual hosts configuration and then add this line inside the server directive:

# This will redirect index.php index.htm to /
# Feel free to add other extension you need
if ( $request_uri ~ "/index.(php|html?)" ) {
	rewrite ^ / permanent;
}

And an example just in case you want to see where it should be placed

server {

	[...] # other stuff such as server_name, access_log, etc

	# Here goes the code
	if ( $request_uri ~ "/index.(php|html?)" ) {
		rewrite ^ / permanent;
	}

	location / {
		[...] # your root configuration
	}

	location ~ "\.php$" {
		[...] # your fastcgi configuration
	}

}

Then reload your nginx configuration. Now every request for /index.php or /index.html file will be displayed as http://www.mydomain.com/. And if there’s a query string in your URL it’ll be displayed as http://www.mydomain.com/?q=abc instead of http://www.mydomain.com/index.php?q=abc

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

For example, in my case, because i’m not using a computer case (in other words, i just left my motherboard open) and i don’t have a standalone front panel and at the same time i want to connect my headphone to the rear grey jack / side speakers jack (by default headphone can be connected only to the front panel jack) while also connecting a 5.1 analog speakers setup to the rear jacks (green, black, and orange)

Anyway to make thing short, here’s the steps:

0. Download the latest driver available because there are differences between the pin numbers used if you’re using old drivers, uninstall the old driver, restart your system, install the new driver and then restart your system once again (at the time i wrote this, the latest version is R267, and i’m using their driver for the 64-bit systems)

1. Make sure that you’ve plugged everything that you need first into your Realtek Jacks (whether front panel jacks if you have it or rear jacks). For example, in my case, i already connected the headphone to the side speakers jack (grey colored jack)

2. Open regedit by typing regedit at the run command (press Windows Key + R and then type regedit) and then locate the following registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\Settings\DrvXXXX_DevType_XXXX_SSXXXXXXXX

Note that, XXXX is random numbers

3. Create a new Binary registry key(s) using below Pin Numbers and Binary Values

The Old Pin Numbers (just in case)

"Pin00" = Front speakers (rear green)
"Pin01" = Rear speakers (rear black)
"Pin02" = Center / Sub-woofer (rear orange)
"Pin03" = Side speakers (rear gray)
"Pin04" = Mic-in (rear pink)
"Pin05" = Front Mic-In (front pink)
"Pin06" = Line-in (rear blue)
"Pin07" = Front Headphone (front green)

The New Pin Numbers

"Pin10" = Line-in (rear blue)
"Pin11" = Mic-in (rear pink)
"Pin14" = Front speakers (rear green)
"Pin15" = Rear speakers (rear black)
"Pin16" = Center / Sub-woofer (rear orange)
"Pin17" = Side speakers (rear gray)
"Pin19" = Front Mic-In (front pink)
"Pin1b" = Front Headphone (front green)

Binary Values

"00 00 00 00" = Line-in
"01 00 00 00" = Mic-in
"02 00 00 00" = Headphones
"04 00 00 00" = Front speakers
"05 00 00 00" = Rear speakers
"06 00 00 00" = Center / sub-woofer
"07 00 00 00" = Side speakers

For example if you want to map the rear side speakers jack into a front headphone jack, all you have to do is just write Pin17 binary key with a binary value of 02 00 00 00 as you can see below

Note that i didn’t test any other Pin Numbers besides Pin17 (because what i want is remapping / retasking the side speakers jack into headphone jack and it work right away)

4. Restart your system when you’re done adjusting it and after logging into Windows, try testing your new remapped jack(s).

As a side note, the remapped / retasked jack(s) can also be seen on Realtek HD Audio Manager as you can see below

Credits goes to Ulti for finding the method and Tnitro21 and Eliah_ for finding the values (link)

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 3 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

As an example, in this post i’m going to give an example of creating RSS Feed from HorribleSubs website (horriblesubs.org) that i’ve been using (for myself only) so i can keep track on their Gintama release easily (i read that they’re planning on doing a total makeover of their site so i guess it’s okay to use them as an example)

Before anything else, please see the source of the pipe used in this example (you need to log in to Yahoo first) because the screenshots used in this example is not a screenshot of the pipe itself but from the output debugger because the process itself is simple. And with that said, here are the description on each process

Update: Here’s the updated version of the pipe which is used for their new domain (horriblesubs.info) and their new site design. The old pipe is left there in case you want to compare the old pipe with the updated pipe. And as you can see by yourself, the process itself is still the same as before but with some adjustments

1. First thing you need to do is obviously examine the page source you’re going to fetch to see where you should start cutting and how the items separated

For example, in this case the content i’m going to pick is wrapped within a div ( <div id="tab3" class="boxcontent"> ) and the items is separated by <br/> tag. And so i just need to write that into the fetch page module

When you’re done with this step, the rest (perhaps) can be considered as cosmetic because you can use it without doing the rest but while at it, i might as well make it pretty even i’m the only person that use it

2. At this part, i’m filtering the content from unneded html tags and content that i deemed unnecessary by using the regex / regular expression module as you can see on the pipe source. But because there’s no single regex rule to rule them all (because it depends on your needs), you’ll need to experiment by yourself at the regex parts

3. And now, so i can process each item separately, i’m mapping the previously cleaned up content as title, description, and link which is going to be used for the RSS Feed title, description and link respectively by using the rename module so the output look like below image

4. Once again the regex module is used and this time i’m using it to clean-up the html tags in the title (to differentiate it from the description) and the link so it gives you the target url only (in this case it is the torrent link) so when you click on the title from your RSS Reader you’ll go to the target url directly (note: see the output difference between below output image and the above image)

5. Finally connect it to the pipe output and to get it as RSS, you just need to copy the Get as RSS link from your pipe to display it as RSS Feed and done

Also because there’s a usage limits imposed by Yahoo Pipes as quoted below

200 runs (of a given Pipe) in 10 minutes
200 runs (of any Pipe) from an IP in 10 minutes
If you exceed the 200 runs in a 10 minute block, your Pipe will be 999′ed for a hour.

You should make sure to cache your output before using it (unless perhaps you’re the only person that use the pipe you’ve created though it’s still better to cache it)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

Before we get started, i have to mention that there are two ways to run Clonezilla and GParted on Windows although they both use the same thing, the first one is by installing / adding Grub4DOS manually and the other one is by using EasyBCD a GUI to install NeoGRUB / Grub4DOS. And in this post i’ll focus on the later and that is using NeoGRUB which is easier for some people if you don’t want to add Grub4DOS manually. And beside if you came here looking to run Clonezilla and / or Gparted using Grub4DOS, i assume that you have Grub4DOS installed and just want to see the configuration file :)

Prerequisite

1. EasyBCD [download]
2. Clonezilla Live [download]: You are free to choose between the ISO version or ZIP version. For me, i choose the AMD64-ISO version
3. GParted Live [download]: Same goes here too, you are free to choose between ISO or ZIP
4. 7-Zip / Winrar / etc: This is used to extract the file inside the ISO or ZIP

Boot Clonezilla and GParted with NeoGRUB / Grub4DOS

1. Install EasyBCD or Grub4DOS (instruction here if you prefer to use Grub4DOS rather than NeoGRUB), run and at the add new entry section choose NeoGRUB and install it

2. Extract live directory inside Clonezilla and GParted somewhere one by one and rename it before extracting the other one. For me i choose to extract it and rename it into clonezilla-live and gparted-live (if you use different name than listed here, make sure to adjust the code below to your clonezilla and gparted directory name)

3. Now open C:\NST\menu.lst with your favorite text editor and then add this lines

# CLONEZILLA
title Clonezilla 1.2.10-14 AMD64
find --set-root /clonezilla-live/vmlinuz
kernel /clonezilla-live/vmlinuz boot=live config noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset noprompt ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="" vga=788 live-media-path=/clonezilla-live toram=filesystem.squashfs ip=frommedia  nosplash
initrd /clonezilla-live/initrd.img

# GPARTED
title GParted 0.9.1.1
find --set-root /gparted-live/vmlinuz
kernel /gparted-live/vmlinuz boot=live config noswap noprompt live-media-path=/gparted-live toram=filesystem.squashfs ip=frommedia nosplash
initrd /gparted-live/initrd.img

4. Restart your computer and choose NeoGRUB and then choose either Clonezilla or GParted and your done :)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

Anyway, before we begin, make sure that you have downloaded Squid Windows Binary Package / Squid for Windows that can be downloaded from Acmeconsulting. And you have extracted it somewhere on your hard drive. In this post, i choose to extract it to “C:\Squid” due to hardcoded path and beside most people don’t like to read long post. So if you changed Squid location, make sure to adjust it accordingly. And don’t worry the actual installation process is fast. The other steps described here are optional unless you need it

And as a note, i wrote this post (tested) on Windows 7 x64 with UAC Enabled using Squid 2.7 Stable 8 and i’m pretty sure as it will work with earlier version of Windows as well. And No! you don’t need to turn off UAC because turning UAC off isn’t a good solution

And now let’s get started

Initial Setup

First thing you need to do is, open command prompt as Administrator (if you’re on Windows Vista or Windows 7 and have UAC enabled) and then type below command to copy the default configuration files and install squid as windows service:

cd /d c:\squid
copy etc\*.default etc\*.
sbin\squid.exe -i

For the sake of completion, if you choose to put Squid.conf (or the entire Squid files) not at Drive C, replace the last command with this one (where x is your drive letter):

sbin\squid.exe -i -f "x:/squid/etc/squid.conf"

What the above code do:

1. Change directory to your Squid directory
2. Create the default configuration file for Squid which is a copy from the default configuration file
3. Install Squid Cache as Windows Service so it’ll start Squid Service automatically

And now we’re going to edit the main configuration for Squid Proxy Cache, and that is squid.conf. But obviously not everything is going to be covered here (you should go to the squid official site for this purpose). So i’m just going to list all the recommended options you should be aware / change

Restricting access to your Squid Proxy Server

To limit on who are allowed to connect to your Proxy Server, you should change / add the allowed IP Address that is allowed to connect to your squid proxy at below section

acl localnet src 10.0.0.0/8	# RFC1918 possible internal network
acl localnet src 172.16.0.0/12	# RFC1918 possible internal network
acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/16	# RFC1918 possible internal network

By using the same format as the above code for example, acl localnet src 123.456.789.0

And then right before http_access allow localnet, add http_access allow localhost so it looks like:

http_access allow localhost
http_access allow localnet

And finally if you don’t want Squid to bind to all adapters (which is the default) you might want to change Squid Listen Address and Port to your LAN IP Address or if you’re just going to use Squid for yourself only then you should use below

# Default http_port 3128
# Bind to localhost at port 3128 only
http_port 127.0.0.1:3128

Limiting access to specific ports only

If you need to limit on which ports your Squid proxy clients are allowed to connect to, then you need to adjust this

acl Safe_ports port 80		# http
acl Safe_ports port 21		# ftp
acl Safe_ports port 443		# https
acl Safe_ports port 70		# gopher
acl Safe_ports port 210		# wais
acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535	# unregistered ports
acl Safe_ports port 280		# http-mgmt
acl Safe_ports port 488		# gss-http
acl Safe_ports port 591		# filemaker
acl Safe_ports port 777		# multiling http

For example if you want to limit your clients to HTTP and HTTPS only, then you can remove / comment all the other lines beside 80 and 443

Changing disk cache location and size

For better performance, it’s better to put the Squid cache directory into another partition (in other words, not your system partition) and even better on different hard drive. So find this line:

cache_dir ufs c:/squid/var/cache 100 16 256

And then change it to any directory you want, and also adjust the disk cache size to your liking, for example to put your squid cache directory at X:\squid-data\cache with a maximum capacity of 1500 MB

cache_dir ufs x:/squid-data/cache 1500 16 256

Also it’d better to put all squid logs into different partition too

Creating Squid cache data directory

Now back at the command prompt again, and this time type:

c:\squid\sbin\squid.exe -z

To create Squid Swap Directories which is used to store cached objects

Starting Squid Service

Now we need to start Squid service for the first time (the next time it’d start automatically), and there are two ways to achieve this, you are free to choose either the command prompt method or the GUI method

If you choose command prompt method then you need to type (run command prompt as administrator if you’re on vista or 7):

net start squid

If you choose the GUI way then, press Windows Key (on your keyboard) + R, and then type services.msc, search for and right click on Squid service and choose Start to start Squid Service

And that’s it you’re done Installing / Configuring Squid on Windows

But if you still want more, then please continue reading :)

Special Note: If you placed squid not at C:\Squid, make sure to change anything in squid.conf that point towards C:\ into where you put Squid

Minimal Squid Configuration Tweaking

While the default configuration included with Squid is optimal for many, but sometimes you want more from your Squid installation and so we’re going to tweak several options i think necessary but obviously this is designed for a really small network, for other purpose or larger network, please consult your nearest squid experts :)

Creating custom.conf file

Create a new text file and save it as custom.conf file inside your squid/etc directory so it’ll looks like c:/squid/etc/custom.conf so we don’t need to modify the original squid.conf directly just to override default values

And the next step would be, opening squid.conf and find this line

refresh_pattern .		0	20%	4320

and comment it (by placing #) at the beginning of the line. Then place below line at the bottom of squid.conf

include "c:/squid/etc/custom.conf"

And now paste this into the custom.conf file you just created:

#######
# ACL #
#######

# to allow purging cache from localhost only
acl PURGE method PURGE
http_access allow PURGE localhost
http_access deny PURGE

# always direct all ftp request
acl FTP proto FTP
always_direct allow FTP

########
# TUNE #
########

# enable pipeline
pipeline_prefetch on

# shutdown timeout
shutdown_lifetime 5 seconds

# no half closed
half_closed_clients off

##############
# CACHE SIZE #
##############

# maximum object size
maximum_object_size 64 MB
cache_mem 96 MB
maximum_object_size_in_memory 256 KB

###################
# REFRESH_PATTERN #
###################

# ============= #
# GENERAL USAGE #
# ============= #

# Note: This is some of the refresh_pattern i'm using, and of course feel free to adjust it to your liking
# The refresh_pattern for wikipedia is an example for site specific

# static files for websites
refresh_pattern -i \.(j|cs)s$ 10080 100% 10081

# static images
refresh_pattern -i \.(jpe?g|gif|png|bmp|ico|svg)$ 10080 100% 10081 ignore-reload

# static a/v
refresh_pattern -i \.(wm(a|v)|mp[0-9]?a?|mpe?g|avi|mk(a|v)|og(g|m)|flv|swf|rmvb|m2?ts)$ 4320 100% 4321 ignore-reload

# static archive type
refresh_pattern -i \.(exe|zip|r(ar|[0-9]+)|7z|ace|gz|tar|bz2)$ 4320 100% 4321 ignore-reload

# static document type
refresh_pattern -i \.((doc|xls|ppt)x?|pdf|txt)$ 4320 100% 4321 ignore-reload

# wikipedia
refresh_pattern -i wikipedia\.org\/wiki\/.* 4320 50% 4321 override-expire ignore-private

# =============== #
# DEFAULT PATTERN #
# =============== #

# default pattern
refresh_pattern . 0	20%	4320

########
# MISC #
########

# use specific dns server
dns_nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

# disable htcp icp because we aren't going to use it
htcp_port 0
icp_port 0

# block displaying specific headers
header_access Via deny all
header_access X-Forwarded-For deny all

# hide version number
httpd_suppress_version_string on

# change hostname
visible_hostname Reaper-X-Cache

###########
# THE END #
###########

I believe the Squid config file already tells you on what the above directives do, but just in case:

ACL Section

There are two items here, the first one is an access rule to allow you to purge squid cache manually from the command line while the other one is for directing all ftp requests directly

And to purge your Squid Cache Object manually, you can type this at the command prompt:

c:\squid\bin\squidclient.exe -m PURGE full-url

Where full-url replaced by the full address of the object you’re trying to purge. Here’s an example of what it’ll looks like when you purge a cached object successfully (assume it’s already cached first)

C:\squid\bin\squidclient.exe -m PURGE http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/136797856_bb683d8f22.jpg
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: squid
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:01:48 GMT
Content-Length: 0
Expires: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:01:48 GMT
X-Cache: MISS from Reaper-X-Cache
X-Cache-Lookup: NONE from Reaper-X-Cache:3128
Connection: close

Note: if you want to look at what url has been cached by Squid (as long as you didn’t restart the squid process), you can type this:

c:\squid\bin\squidclient.exe mgr:objects | find /i "site url"

Cache Size Section

If you want Squid to cache larger objects then you should increase maximum_object_size from the default of 4 MB into bigger value. And if you frequently access that objects, it’d be better to increase the Memory Cache Options such as cache_mem and maximum_object_size_in_memory to serve that object directly from Memory. And depending on your hardware configuration, i’d suggest you to adjust it to your hardware setup to find the best configuration for you :)

Refresh Pattern Section

The refresh_pattern is used so you can fine tune caching specific file type or page. In this guide i have included caching for common static content such as images, static content that is used for website, audio videos, documents, and archives. With most of them using ignore-reload so even if your client do a hard refresh it’ll still serve the static files from the squid cache. As for the wikipedia part, i believe you can guess what that’s used for :)

Misc. Section

There are 5 items here:

dns_nameservers: This basically tells squid on what DNS server to use. So make sure to change this to your DNS Server (you can use Google public DNS, OpenDNS, Comodo Secure DNS, etc)

Disabling htcp and icp port: Since we’re not going to use this, we’re better off disabling it but if you think you’re going to use it then feel free to change it :)

headers_access: By default Squid will display various HTTP Headers that is indicating that you’re behind a proxy. Some people (including me) don’t like this especially if you’re just in a small network

visible_hostname and httpd_suppress_version_string: While we’re at it, we might as well make a good name for our Squid cache and hide the squid version used :)

Reload Squid configuration file

Now since we’re done configuring Squid, we need to tell Squid to reload it’s configuration file, and to do that you need to open Command Prompt (admin mode as usual if in 7 / Vista) and then type:

c:\squid\sbin\squid.exe -k reconfigure -n Squid

And done … the next step would be configuring your browser to use your Proxy by pointing it to your [proxy server address]:[port]

But what if you want your Windows Squid server to be able to filter ads, and probably more? then please continue reading :)

Filtering Ads on Squid

There are three ways to use Ads Filtering for Squid on Windows (at least there are only three that i’m aware of, so if you know more, i’d be grateful if you could mention them here. Because i’m not sure on whether SquidGuard or DansGuardian can be used on Windows)

1. The first one is using the a pre-made list of various ad servers created by http://pgl.yoyo.org/as/ and the instructions on how to use it with Squid can be found there and it’s straight forward

2. While the second method is by using a redirector program called adzapper that involves installing perl (well there’s a portable version too if you prefer portable perl). But you could use them both if you want. And to use it you just need to:

1. Go to adzapper website and download the script, rename it to squid_redirect.pl and place it into C:\squid\etc
2. Download Perl if you haven’t already. And if you’re looking for a portable version of Perl that doesn’t need to be installed, you can use Strawberry Perl. Just make sure to go to their releases archive page
3. Put this line at the custom.conf our custom config file for squid

# Make sure to change the directory to where perl.exe located
redirect_program "x:/strawberry-perl-directory/perl/bin/perl.exe" "c:/squid/etc/squid_redirector.pl"

3. And finally the third method is involving chaining Squid Proxy with Privoxy that is described below because it deserves a new section :P

Chaining Squid to other Proxy Server / Proxy Chain

This part deals with chaining Squid that is designed to handle caching to other proxy server designed for specific purpose. And in this case we’re going to chain squid with privoxy that is going to be used for various filtering purpose. But i’m not going into a much detail about Privoxy (like how to add new rules into Privoxy for example) because it’s already listed on their Documentation :)

Using Squid with Privoxy

First thing first. Put below lines in custom.conf right after the ACL section:

# don't cache privoxy config
acl privoxy-config dstdomain config.privoxy.org
cache deny privoxy-config

# forward request to privoxy
cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query no-digest

# force all requests to go to the proxy chain
never_direct allow all

And then if you haven’t downloaded Privoxy yet, download and extract it somewhere and then run privoxy.exe and finally reload squid configuration again and then open your browser and point your browser to http://config.privoxy.org

If you do everything correctly, you’ll see this message This is Privoxy X.Y.Z on hostname.com (127.0.0.1), port 8118, enabled

Pssst … To make editing Privoxy configuration much easier, you can use the included web-based editor (although for some items you need to edit the files directly). And to enable it, find and change enable-edit-actions to 1 in config.txt. But please read the reason on why it is disabled by default

And now we’re done with chaining Squid to Privoxy. But what if you want more? like for example chaining Squid to Privoxy and then to other proxy server or perhaps Tor or JAP? all you have to do is just put this line:

If you’re planning on chaining to Tor

# connecting to Tor
forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .

or if you want to connect to your local JAP setup

# for JAP
forward / 127.0.0.1:4001 .

Into Privoxy config.txt. To forward all requests to Tor (assuming that you have configured Tor correctly and it is running

And that is all … i hope this post isn’t to long, but if you did read it until the end, the reason i choose to rewrite the Squid Windows Guide is because the old one looks like a total mess for me (not that the new one is not messy but i think it’s a little bit better). Anyway I hope you find this guide useful and it helps you on installing Squid on Windows :)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

Bugs are common on every software and that’s including games, but a bug that caused me to not be able to load my saved game? this is the first time ever i experienced such thing. The reason for this, after i looked around the web, is apparently caused by … the game impose a limit of an unbelievable size of 10,260 bytes for your saved game (that’s what i think after reading through various forums posts)

I have no idea on why the developers impose such restriction to a sandbox style game where you can loot anything you want and in fact you should. And even if they should limit it, they should make sure that the limit can be seen directly in-game (i’m talking about the loot items in your inventory and also storage items)

I found this first, right after i finished the game with Xian (level 50), and when i tried to start a new game plus (or load the same save after finished), the game crashed when loading the save game. And after several retries, i’m thinking i’m experiencing a gamebreaking bug in this game (minor bugs are ignored) and so i searched the web and found the solution by running a tool made by KNR from Steam forums that can restore your saved games if you don’t mind on losing all the sidequests progress, and also knows why the save game caused the game to crash.

But because it’s a new game plus, obviously i didn’t lost any sidequests at all. And so i continue playing without picking up loots and also dropped any loot i think useless, although i still can’t resist the temptation to pick when i saw Purple / Orange colored items :P … and … anyway everything goes well until i hit Chapter 8 (second playthrough) and decided to take a break and when i try to continue my game … BAM … i got Crash to Desktop for the second time which is caused by game_x86_rwdi.dll (which is also the same error that happened when i tried to start new game plus) and obviously if i use the tool made by KNR, i’m going to lost all the sidequests progress and my last backup is when i’m going to rescue someone at the helicopter crash site and i guess you know the rest

Personally, i never experienced a single crash when playing the game (not even slowdown) other than this even with just a single ATI Radeon 4830 512MB card with all settings set to high (video.scr tweaked to add vsync only). But unfortunately with all the beautiful graphics Dead Island has to offer, there’s one gamebreaking bug that makes the games look bad

And anyway in case someone else also looking for a fix to Dead Island save load crash,
here’s the KNR Dead Island Save Fixer Tool

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0x87485B96 | Tags : Gaming

Anyway for the past 2 months, what i’ve been doing is basically consist of going back to see a doctor again and again from:

1. Going to the ER Room because i’m having breathing difficulties and this is when i decided to stop smoking. And the ER room doctor said that (after looking at the EKG/ECG result and asking me whether i have gastro problem) it was caused by GERD
2. Then go to a Pulmonologists (just to make sure that the breathing difficulties is caused by GERD, although he didn’t ask for X-Ray)
3. And then staying in the hospital for about 3 / 4 days due to infection
4. Then go to an Internist for a check-up a few days after i returned from the hospital
5. Then to a Dermatologist
6. And back to Internist once again
7. And then goes to a Dermatologist for about 3 times and next week i’m going to go see the Dermatologist once again so make it 5

Now if only money grows on trees …

p.s I was diagnosed with GERD in 2009 (long before this)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : Personal

Before i begin, please note that this tips is intended for use in Gaming only (or perhaps listening through your MP3/MP4s collection if you’re not using a music player that support realtime Dolby Digital Encoding from a plugin, like Winamp for example). Because for movie and music listening purpose the process is much simpler plus there’s no latency problem like this and you don’t need to spend money (unless you want to donate for the project) .. but i’m not going to describe the process for movie and music listening purpose here because as the title says this is for games :)

If you’re currently using below setup, then chances are you don’t need to spend $30 USD to get a realtime AC3 Encoder / Dolby Digital Encoder. But i haven’t tested it yet because i don’t have the required hardware

• If your sound card belong to the Creative Audigy Series

  Then you can try using redocneXk combined with Creative ASIO Driver or KX Driver. As the documentation itself can be found here

• If you have the new Creative X-Fi Series (a much better option for X-Fi series)

  Then you can spend $4.72 USD, and get the Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect Pack from Creative Store

Otherwise, if your setup doesn’t match above configuration then unfortunately you’ll need to spend $30 USD for a software that is required for this purpose BUT if you don’t mind on spending more money and prefer to skip all this together, you can just buy Diamond Multimedia Xtreme Sound 7.1 DDL (equipped with Dolby Digital Live feature, which is unfortunately not available on where i live because there are no distributor for it here according to the official website) if you prefer a cheaper alternative to X-Fi (at least for me)

Anyway here are the steps:

Required Software

1. Virtual Audio Cable ($30 USD): Link

   Trial version available with some limitation like female voice reminder each several seconds

2. AC3Filter (freeware and open source): Link
3. GraphStudio (freeware and open source): Link

Let’s begin

1. Install VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) and AC3Filter (GraphStudio don’t need to be installed, you can place it anywhere you like)
2. Run VAC Control Panel from Start Menu and make it look like this
   

   You’re free to adjust the sample rate and also bps. As for the Number of channels, read the special note at the bottom

3. Now run AC3Filter Config from Start Menu and make it look like below
   

   If your source sample rate isn’t 48000 you need to set the Output Format rate to 48000 (i already configured it to always deliver 48000Hz so i don’t need to set it in AC3Filter) or you can just set the AC3Filter sample rate to 48000

   

   Note: You should adjust the bass redirection frequency according to your Sub Woofer capability as described in the manual and feel free to adjust everything on this section to your liking

   
4. Now make sure that Virtual Cable is configured as default Playback Device in Windows ( open Windows Control Panel and then choose sound )
5. And then run GraphStudio and then choose to add new filter (you can press CTRL+F for shortcut) and add:
   1. Virtual Cable 1 from WDM Streaming Rendering Device because it provides much better latency instead of the normal Virtual Cable Line that needs to be adjusted everytime before you connect it to AC3Filter
   2. AC3Filter from DirectShow Filters to upmix the stereo channel into 5.1 AC3 / Dolby Digital
   3. DirectSound: [ Your Sound Card Name Digital Output ] from Audio Renderers. Where your sound card name is your physical Sound Card Name (mine is Realtek Digital Output)
6. Finally connect each filter so it’ll look like below image for an example ( Virtual Cable 1 ADC ’ AC3Filter ’ DirectSound: [ Your Sound Card Name ] )
   
7. Now to make things easier for future access, you should save the graph you’ve created in GraphStudio so you can just load your graph in the future for easy access
8. Now click the Play button on GraphStudio … and see whether the Dolby Digital indicator on your receiver is activated. If you can see Dolby Digital indicator on your receiver that mean everything is done. So try playing one of your game to test it

But please keep this in mind, in order to use this realtime ac3 encoding in the future, you’ll always need to launch GraphStudio first and then choose the play button on GraphStudio, or else it’s not going to work

Credits goes to the poster at AC3Filter Forum because without his post, i would have to get a X-Fi card which is … well … i’m not sure on when i can get it :)

Special Note

As a side note, upmixing like this may result in lower sound quality (perhaps if you can notice it). Also there’ll be latency problem (noticeable). So for certain games (such as Pro Evolution Soccer 2011) i choose to disable realtime ac3 encoding. But for games like Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Need for Speed Shift 2 Unleashed, it sounds great to me :D

And to those who are wondering, on why i didn’t set the number of channel to 5.1 (6 Channel) in Virtual Audio Cable Control Panel and Virtual Audio Speakers Configuration in Windows Sound Control Panel under Playback Device and Recording Device. The reasons are:

1. If i set the VAC Number of Channels to 6 in VAC Control Panel (and configure VAC Speakers Configuration under Windows Sound Playback Device to Stereo plus change the Windows Sound Recording Device for VAC to 6 channels). All the sound levels outputted are equal which means Front Left (FL), Front Right (FR), Front Center (FC), Back Left (BL), Back Right (BR), and Subwoofer (SW) at the same level (can be seen in AC3Filter) which is wrong (i think, but since i’m not audio professional, please ask your nearest audio professional). But if you prefer it that way you can just change the Recording Device in Windows Control Panel for your VAC device to 6 channels and keep the Playback Device for your VAC device to Stereo
2. If i set VAC Number of Channels to 6 and change both Playback and Recording device under Windows Control Panel to 6 channels … i get an error message about DirectShow Problem (can’t create buffers, when tested using Winamp)

And because of that reason, i guess it’s better to upmix it from Stereo to 5.1 AC3 / Dolby Digital :)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : How To

p.s. if you just want to know on what tools i used to do the recovery process and similar stuff, just scroll down

And here’s what happens last week:

1. I started my computer, to continue working for my new project. And just right after i booted into Windows Vista (x86) (i have Vista x86 and Windows 7 x64 in Dual Booting). Windows stopped responding and forced me to reboot my computer using the reset button
2. Computer restarted and then stuck on Windows Booting Logo (that progress bar thing), and force me to push the reset button again. This continue for about 2 – 4 times
3. After several times restarting finally i can get into Windows Vista and to my surprise i was greeted with a message that is basically saying One of the partition is corrupted (the corrupted partition is where i stored the my documents and such, because i moved the my documents into another partition located at different physical drive from the OS partition). And so i run this command at the command prompt

   fsutil dirty set x: && fsutil dirty set y: && fsutil dirty set z:

   to mark all the partitions (just to make sure) on that particular drive as dirty and then restart windows to make windows scan and hopefully able to fix it

4. At the scanning process, windows was able to locate and i guess fixing one partition, and when trying to fix another partition the chkdsk process stuck at 6% even after waiting for more than 1 and a half hour, so i decided to press the reset button once again
5. What happens next is really surprising for me … although i can boot into Windows Vista, but Windows Vista can’t recognize that particular drive (with 3 partitions on it). And obviously this shocked me. So i tried restarting several times but still it won’t recognize that particular drive
6. Then i tried running Recuva with hope that it’ll be at least recover my important files, but nope … instead it gives me a message saying something about partition (i can’t remember it unfortunately) but i guess that’s because the partition table (NTFS) got corrupted it can’t recognized it although the HDD can be recognized without problem in BIOS, so i have to resort to different tools, and fortunately i have several recovery cd’s which is based on Linux
7. So I booted using the recovery cd’s, and Linux was able to recognize the drive although it still basically says corrupted partition (or unformatted partition but of course i’m not going to format it because it’s just going to make things worse), and tried running several tools (can’t remember the order exactly) and tried using TestDisk to rewrite the NTFS partition
8. After using TestDisk to rewrite the partition table (all 3 partitions), i decided to restart to Windows .. but still Windows won’t recognize it, and so i booted again using the recovery cd and then found out that the NTFS partition is corrupted again and so i run TestDisk
9. Instead of restarting to windows, this time i decided to stick on TestDisk after the rewrite partition table process completed, and choose to browse the corrupted partition using TestDisk, and voila … i can access all my files inside all 3 partitions via TestDisk without problem, and obviously the next step would be …. copying all the important files to another harddrive and thanks to NTFS-3G i was able to copy it later to my NTFS formatted partition
10. And so after i have copied all the important files, i tried restarting again using different recovery cd’s, this time the recovery cd’s contain Mini Windows XP and run chkdsk /f via the command prompt on the corrupted partitions from Mini Windows XP to fix all those corrupted NTFS MFT and such and Thanks God, chkdsk was able to finish the job this time
11. Then after i’m done with chkdsk i choose to copy all files to another HDD without even choosing the files first :D

Aftermath

Because i’m curious on what caused that problem after seeing:

1. CHKDSK report no bad sector / error
2. Data LifeGuard Diagnostic report no error
3. SmartMonTools report no error

I’m thinking it’s probably IDE Controller issue or probably the SATA Socket that is being used on that particular HDD is dying … or there are too many dust on Motherboard + HDD (well i don’t use a case for my computer so it is left open, consider it as open source lol) but still i don’t have any idea on what caused such problems

And because i have no idea, i decided to clean everything after 6 months (including replacing thermalpaste for VGA, Chipset and Processor) :D

And for safety measure in the future, just in case my DVDROM Broke, i installed NeoGrub (basically Grub4DOS) to allow booting Knoppix, and other recovery tools directly from HDD (in other words frugal install or poor man install) to create backup for important files to other internal physical drives. And when i got enough money, obviously i’m planning on getting an External HDD for backup purpose, but for now i’m stuck with this option only

Tools Used

If you experienced similar problem like me, i’d recommend these tools that saved my life

Data Recovery Tools Used:

- TestDisk: TestDisk saved my live by recovering the partition table, and also recovering my files (it’s included with most linux live)

- Portable Windows: I think this is important if you want to check and fix your NTFS disk if you can’t boot into Windows and if you want to run Windows Programs. You can use PEBuilder to create one for you

- Live Linux CD/USB that is designed for recovery purpose: You are free to choose between:

• Knoppix
• System Rescue CD
• Parted Magic
• Puppy Linux
• Ubuntu Rescue Remix
• And so on

And if you want to combine them all into one CD/DVD, you can also use MultiCD or if you want to also boot the live cd directly from your HDD instead of CD/DVD, you can use Grub4DOS or NeoGrub from EasyBCD (p.s i’m using NeoGrub)

Testing Tools Used:

- Data LifeGuard Diagnostic

- SmartMonTools

Other Tools Used:

- CHKDSK and DISKPart (it’s included with Windows)

- Cobian Backup: This is my current backup tool. It offers incremental, differential, or full backup option and also offer Volume Shadow Copy to be able to copy locked/used files when backup process started

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0x87485B96 | Tags : Personal