Your ISP’s DNS servers may not always be the best ones to use. Some might suck, others might suck even more. There’s no iron-clad rule that says you have to use them, and only them. There are alternatives out there, one of the best being those offered for free use by OpenDNS.

First off, go to a WEP key generator site and get a new pair of Hex and ASCII keys. One that I’d recommend would be WareWolf Labs’ Key Generator site.

Let’s assume you end up with the following 104-bit key pair:

ASCII: mywlanwepkeys (13 characters)
HEX: 6d79776c616e7765706b657973

I. On the router:

On the OpenBSD router, edit your /etc/hostname.interface file (on my machine, that would be /etc/hostname.ral0) and integrate your new key. Remember to preface the HEX key with 0x.:

# vi /etc/hostname.ral0

After editing, it looks like this:

## Default: 104-bit WEP
up media autoselect mediaopt hostap mode 11g chan 1 nwid eggdropphair \ nwkey 0×6d79776c616e7765706b657973 \
inet 172.16.0.1 255.255.255.0

Restart networking:

# sh /etc/netstart

II. On the stations:

The procedure is the same as what was done on the router. On OpenBSD, you would edit /etc/hostname.interface and change the key. On FreeBSD, it’s /etc/rc.conf you have to change.

OpenBSD (4.3-current)

# vi /etc/hostname.ral0

After editing, mine looks like this:

## Default: 104-bit WEP
up media autoselect mode 11g chan 1 nwid eggdropphair nwkey \ mywlanwepkeys \
dhcp NONE NONE NONE

Restart networking:

# sh /etc/netstart
# dhclient ral0

FreeBSD (7.0-RELEASE)

# vi /etc/rc.conf

After editing, the relevant line looks like this:

ifconfig_ral0="inet 172.16.0.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 ssid eggdropphair\ wepmode on wepkey mywlanwepkeys weptxkey 1 DHCP"

Restart networking:

# /etc/rc.d/netif start
# dhclient ral0

Done.

November 21, 2008 fund-raising concert of PATATAG

It’s confirmed! Patatag’s fund-raising concert and re-launch of our 3 albums will be held on November 21, 2008 at 70’s Bistro in Anonas St., Quezon City. Showtime is from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

We will be singing old favourites — featuring new musical arrangements — and we will be joined by a new generation of Patatag — our very own children who have now become musicians and singers in their own right!

Also sharing the stage with us on the 21st of November is a member of Patatag’s family and dear friend, Susan Fernandez. Other performers will be making special appearances, we will keep you posted on the line-up!

How do you get to join us on this special night? Simple — purchase a 3-CD pack that Patatag will be releasing very soon — and the CD-pack becomes your ticket to the show. The 3-CD pack is a re-mastered (digital) release of our previous recordings, namely: “Nagbabagang Lupa,” “Batang Clark,” and “Masdan, O Yahweh.”

How do you buy the 3-CD pack?
1. You can purchase an advanced-sales coupon from any Patatag member, entitling you to a 3-CD pack, which you can claim at the venue on 21st November;
2. You can purchase a 3-CD pack, as soon as it becomes available, and bring the CDs on the 21st of November — it’s your ticket to the show;
3. You can purchase a 3-CD pack at the venue gate on 21st November.

Confusing?
Write us back, at Patatag84@gmail.com and we’ll try to clarify or arrange something!

Oh, and the price of the 3-CD pack (and a night of music with Patatag and friends)… is Php 500.00. All proceeds go to a support fund for a fellow Patatag member who is currently undergoing regular dialysis treatment.

We look forward to sharing music, memories, hopes and new aspirations with you on this night and beyond.

See you on the 21st of November!

Yours in music,
PATATAG

su to root:

[mish@blah ~]$ su
Password:
[root@blah /home/mish]#


Use disklabel(8) to check how the drive is configured:

[root@blah /home/mish]# disklabel sd0
disklabel: warning, DOS partition table with no valid OpenBSD partition
# /dev/rsd0c:
type: SCSI
disk: SCSI disk
label: Nano
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 255
sectors/cylinder: 16065
cylinders: 243
total sectors: 3913728
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0
 
16 partitions:
#                size           offset  fstype [fsize bsize  cpg]
  c:          3913728                0  unused      0     0
  i:          3905664             8064   MSDOS
[root@blah /home/mish]#

Here you can see that the letter i denotes the relevant partition.

We’ve got the information we need. Now, mount it:

[root@blah /home/mish]# mount -t msdos /dev/sd0i /mnt
[root@blah /home/mish]#


Done.

Addendum: Here’s how dmesg reports it when you unplug the stick:

sd0 detached
scsibus1 detached
umass0 detached


#####
References:
dmesg(8)
sd(4)
disklabel(8)
mount(8)

Note the last line. It indicates what filesystem is on the stick (msdosfs) and how the hardware/device is labelled/configured by the system (da0s1).

su to root:

[mish@blah ~]$ su
Password:
[root@blah /home/mish]#


Mount the drive:

[root@blah /home/mish]# mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt
[root@blah /home/mish]#


Do a listing:

[root@blah /home/mish]# ll /mnt


You’re done.

Addendum: Here’s how dmesg reports the stick’s unplugging:

umass0: at uhub0 port 1 (addr 1) disconnected
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry
GEOM_LABEL: Label msdosfs/NANO removed.
umass0: detached


#####

References:
dmesg(8)
da(4)
mount(8)