Eddie's Fancy

I ran into a sticky problem today and was pleased at the solution. I’m trying to install Debian on a little NSLU2 box I bought. It’s a linux-based network attached storage device I’m hoping to replace my spare boy in the office with. It obtains and IP address using DHCP but doesn’t have an attached monitor, so short of assigned a static IP I had no way knowing what address was assigned.

Enter ettercap which is mainly used to simulate man in the middle attacks and act as a general network sniffer. Using it I was able to scan all machines on my local subnet and get the MAC to IP address mappings. Neat, but not something to try on a very large network.

I’ve been meaning to read Philip Pullman’s trilogy for a few years now, but it was until the first movie was released (which I still haven’t seen) that I finally got around to it. It was surprisingly good, much more adult than I expect. Given the double crossings, murders, and bad parents it’s definitely not a set of books for younger children.

I loved the universe(s) he created and the mythology that went with it, and I was surprised at his anti-church stand.