Installing Unison

Most modern Linux distributions include Unison in their package manage system. On Mac OS X you can use MacPorts. Alternatively you could download a binary version for Mac OS X or Windows here. To prevent surprises and unnecessary trouble it might be a good idea to make sure that every involved system use the same version of Unison. At least on Linux and Mac OS X it is relatively easy to compile Unison from the sources.

Setting up public/private key authentication for ssh

One advantage of Unison over Rsync is that you can use different communication channels for the file transfers. One is ssh. As I always prefer/demand encrypted communication this is a big plus of course. In the default setup you can just use ssh. But for a little bit more comfort I suggest to create a public/private key pair for the authentication.
The following creates public/private keys without a password. Although this is much more easier to use, it should be only used on hosts which are trusted. If you are in doubt, use the normal password approach or even better create a public/private key pair with a password. Create a new public/private key pair with the following command:

user@host-a ~ $ ssh-keygen -t rsa

When you are asked for a password just hit Enter twice. The command creates the private key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa and the public key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. Now copy the public key to host B:

user@host-a ~ $ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub host_B:.ssh/authorized_keys

If you already have some public keys on host B, make sure you append the new key and not overwrite the file by the above command. Make the file accessible by the user only with:

user@host-b ~ $ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Now you should be able to connect to host B without any interaction needed.

Configuring Unison

Like in the long UNIX tradition, Unison is configured using text files. The files are located in the ~/.unison directory. You can configure more than one synchronization target by choosing a meaningful name. There exists one default target which is configured in the file default.prf. Because I have more than one target I prefer to split the configuration into several files. You can include other project files with the include statement as shown here:

# directory on host a (this is where Unison will be executed)
root       = /mnt/data/projects
# directory on host b (this is the remote host)
root       = ssh://host-b//mnt/data/projects
# which directories to sync?
include projects_files.prf
# options
include options.prf
ignorecase = false
# unison executable on the server
servercmd  = /usr/local/bin/unison

We setup the root directories on both machines, including the configuration file for the project target and some generic option file. We also overwriting the default unison location, because this is a self compiled version. The file options.prf looks like this:

# No staled nfs and mac store files
ignore  = Name .nfs*
ignore  = Name .DS_Store
# options
log     = true
rsrc    = true
auto    = true
#debug   = verbose
#logfile = ~/.unison/unison.log

This just set some generic options which are valid for all my targets. For the specific target projects the file projects_files.prf contains mainly the directories and files which should be ignored:

# No ISOs
ignore    = Path vms/ISO
# Ignore VBox branches
ignore    = Path vbox-*
# No binary output from the other platforms
ignore    = Path vbox*/out/*
# One exception:
ignorenot = Path vbox/out/linux.amd64.additions
# No wine stuff
ignore    = Path vbox*/wine.*
# Tools
ignore    = Name vbox*/tools/{FetchDir,freebsd*,os2*}

So in general, you configure the directory to synchronize and later define directories or files which should be ignored. As you see, you can include or exclude paths as you like. Even simple bash wildcards are possible. As shown in this example I exclude all binary files of a VirtualBox build, because they are useless on another platform. Understanding how Unison decide which directories or files should be synchronized is sometimes difficult. So I suggest to carefully read the documentation and just use the "try and failure" approach . Another reason for splitting up the configuration files is you can synchronize these files as well. I have another target which synchronize several configuration files, e.g. .bashrc, .profile, .vim* and the sub-project files of Unison like the projects_files.prf. You can't synchronize e.g. default.prf, cause the root directories are different from host to host, but the general configuration is always the same. My home target looks like this:

# Which directories/files to sync?
path = .bashrc
path = .ion3
path = .gdbinit
path = .cgdb
path = .valgrind-vbox.supp
path = .vim
path = .vimrc
path = .gvimrc
path = .Xdefaults
path = .gnupg
path = .unison/options.prf
path = .unison/home_files.prf
path = .unison/projects_files.prf
# Do not sync:
ignore = Path .vim/.netrwhist
ignore = Path .ion3/default-session*
ignore = Path .cgdb/readline_history.txt

One of the strengths over other synchronization tools is, you can do this for others host as well. So if you synchronize between host a and host b you can also synchronize between host c and host b. However, a little bit of discipline is necessary. There should be one host which all other host synchronize again.
If you now execute unison the project target will be used. If you execute unison home the files of the home target will be synchronized.

Conclusion

Unison is a very powerful tool. You can synchronize between more than two hosts (OS independent), in a secure way and uni-directional. Currently there is no better tool and I use it on a daily basis.

Let the kernel manage the graphical modes

As most people are working under X11 they don't see the output of an kernel panic. When a kernel panic happens the kernel prints the reason for the panic and a kernel backtrace to the console window and stops immediately its own execution. It is not written into a log file or somewhere else. In consequence you don't have the ability to look into the panic text, cause the graphical mode is still on. Historically the mode settings are done by the graphic driver of the X11 system. So the kernel has no idea that or which graphic mode is currently in use. Fortunately the kernel hackers invented a new infrastructure which let the kernel do the mode switch. This subsystem is called Kernel-Mode-Settings (KMS). As the kernel do the mode settings, he can switch back to the console on a panic, regardless which graphical mode is currently configured. Beside this, KMS has other improvements like Fast User Switching or a flicker free switch between text and graphic mode. On the other side is this highly hardware dependent and even if it was introduced with version 2.6.28, not all today available hardware can make use of it. If you are an owner of an Intel graphic card you are in good shape. Radeon and NVidia cards have limited support through the in kernel drivers radeonhd and nouveau. For an Intel i915 card you need to enable the following kernel options:

CONFIG_DRM_I915=y
Location:
-> Device Drivers
-> Graphics support
-> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) (DRM [=y])
-> Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G ( [=y])
 
CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS=y
Location:
-> Device Drivers
-> Graphics support
-> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) (DRM [=y])
-> Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G ( [=y])
-> i915 driver (DRM_I915 [=y])

The kernel line in your favorite boot loader needs the following additional parameter:

i915.modeset=1

X11 should have this minimal configuration for the device section:

Section "Device"
 Identifier    "i915"
 Driver        "intel"
 Option        "DRI"   "true"
EndSection

Please note that you need of course some recent kernel, X11 version and Intel X11 driver to make this work. After a compile, install and boot of the new kernel, KMS should be in use. You will notice it, cause the boot messages will be printed in a much higher graphical resolution, than the usual text mode provide. The next time a kernel panic occurs, the kernel will switch back to the console before the panic is printed. This allows you to see the info printed and maybe you get a useful hint for the reason of the panic.

Post the panic

If you can't use KMS or don't want transcribe the panic text by hand into the bugtracker, it would be nice if the text could be made available on another computer. Kernel hackers usual use the serial port for that. Unfortunately most modern computers doesn't have such a serial port anymore. Also you need two hosts with a serial port and the setup is complex (you have to know about baud-rates, parity and stuff like this). But there is a simpler solution: netconsole. Netconsole is a kernel module, which sends kernel messages anywhere to the net using UDP. The setup is really simple. In the kernel configuration you need the following setting:

CONFIG_NETCONSOLE=m
Location:
-> Device Drivers
-> Network device support (NETDEVICES [=y])

I prefer to compile it as module, which allows me to turn it on only when I need it. Load it with the following command:

modprobe netconsole netconsole=@/,@192.168.220.10/

The ip has to be replaced by the one of your target computer. You can of course tune it much more, like setting source and target ports or even let netconsole send the text to more than one host. On your client you need a network tool which can read from a socket and print the read text to stdout. Netcat or nc are two tools which are able to do just that. The call for nc looks like the following:

nc -l -u 6666

Now if a kernel panic will happen you will see an output like this:

BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at (null)
IP: [] rb_erase+0x15c/0x320
PGD 6942f067 PUD a1e4067 PMD 0
Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
last sysfs file: /sys/devices/virtual/block/md1/dev
CPU 3
Modules linked in: vboxnetadp vboxnetflt vboxdrv netconsole ...
 
Pid: 18887, comm: VirtualBox Tainted: G        W   2.6.36-gentoo #4 DG33TL/
RIP: 0010:[]  [] rb_erase+0x15c/0x320
RSP: 0018:ffff8800b430db58  EFLAGS: 00010046
RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff880069557a68 RCX: 0000000000000001
RDX: ffff880069557a68 RSI: ffff880001d8ed58 RDI: 0000000000000000
RBP: ffff8800b430db68 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 000000008edcb5d6
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: ffff880001d8ed58
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 000000000000ed00 R15: 0000000000000002
FS:  00007fffde457710(0000) GS:ffff880001d80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 0000000000000000 CR3: 00000000064f9000 CR4: 00000000000026e0
DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Process VirtualBox (pid: 18887, threadinfo ffff8800b430c000, task ffff880091e227f0)
Stack:
 ffff88000a03ba18 ffff880001d8ed48 ffff8800b430dba8 ffffffff8105bf06
<0> ffff8800b430dba8 ffffffff8105c97c ffff8800b430dbc8 ffff88000a03ba18
<0> 00004ff8a86ba455 ffff880001d8ed48 ffff8800b430dc48 ffffffff8105ce77
Call Trace:
 [] __remove_hrtimer+0x36/0xb0
 [] ? lock_hrtimer_base+0x2c/0x60
 [] __hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x2b7/0x3c0
 [] ? rtR0SemEventMultiLnxWait+0x250/0x3d0 [vboxdrv]
 [] ? RTLogLoggerExV+0x12f/0x180 [vboxdrv]
 [] hrtimer_start+0x13/0x20
 [] rtTimerLnxStartSubTimer+0x60/0x120 [vboxdrv]
 [] rtTimerLnxStartOnSpecificCpu+0x21/0x30 [vboxdrv]
 [] rtmpLinuxWrapper+0x23/0x30 [vboxdrv]
 [] RTMpOnSpecific+0x99/0xa0 [vboxdrv]
 [] ? rtTimerLnxStartOnSpecificCpu+0x0/0x30 [vboxdrv]
 [] RTTimerStart+0x2a6/0x2e0 [vboxdrv]
 [] ? g_abExecMemory+0x33665/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
 [] g_abExecMemory+0xc678/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
 [] g_abExecMemory+0x328d7/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
 [] supdrvIOCtlFast+0x6a/0x70 [vboxdrv]
 [] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl+0x47/0x1e0 [vboxdrv]
 [] ? pick_next_task_fair+0xde/0x150
 [] do_vfs_ioctl+0xa1/0x590
 [] ? sys_futex+0x76/0x170
 [] sys_ioctl+0x4a/0x80
 [] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
Code: 07 a8 01 75 9d eb 81 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 48 3b 78 10 0f 84 ...
RIP  [] rb_erase+0x15c/0x320
 RSP
CR2: 0000000000000000
---[ end trace 4eaa2a86a8e2da24 ]---

Normally only kernel panics are sent to the console. You can increase the verbosity level by executing dmesg -n 8 as root.

Conclusion

To continue with the story from the beginning: With the shown methods you can hope your colleague get enough information to find the reason for the kernel panic. To be more helpful, the next step would be to try to debug the problem yourself. Even if the KGDB was merged into the kernel in version 2.6.35, it is not really usable for me. The reason is that it seems kernel hackers usually have really old hardware which either has a serial port, a PS/2 keyboard or both. Otherwise I can't find a reason why USB keyboards don't work. I asked on the mailing list of KGDB about the status of USB keyboard support and I can only hope support will be integrated soon.

Adding a softphone to the FRITZ!Box

The FRITZ!Box fully supports softphones in its basic configuration. Adding new softphones is done in the web frontend in the extended configuration section. There is a wizard for this, where you have to answer some question about your new device. Select phone as device, LAN/WLAN (IP-Phone) for the connection type, choose a name and a password. You get a new internal phone number which usually starts at 620 for the first created device. The FRITZ!Box try's than to connect to the new device. You can skip this for now. After that you have to select which official phone number the new device should use. This is important cause this will be displayed as the caller id when you make a call. Now you could choose if the new softphone should react on all incoming calls, regardless of the phone number called, or only on a specific one.

Configuring the client software

I will explain the client setup with the help of a free VoIP software called Telephone. It's only available for Mac OS X, but there are many other VoIP clients out there which also works for other operation systems. After downloading and installing it you have to create a new account. Select a descriptive name for the account. For the domain use fritz.box, as username you have to use the internal number the FRITZ!Box selected above. Lets use 620 for now. The password is the one you chose previously. After the account is created, I had to select Substitute "00" for "+" in the advanced settings, cause the phone numbers in my address book are all saved with the international phone prefix of Germany which is +49. Assuming you are working in your home network right now, you should be able to connect with Telephone to your FRITZ!Box. Some simple tests like making an outgoing and incoming call with an additional mobile phone should verify a working setup. Some nice features like the Mac OS X Address Book integration, which also transfers incoming caller id's to real names if they are found in the address book, making Telephone a really useful application. For further phone call management functionality on Mac OS X, I can advice you to take a look at the also free software Frizzix.

Allowing calls from everywhere

All the previously isn't any magic, cause it uses build in support of the FRITZ!Box. But this article is about allowing connections to the VoIP part of the FRITZ!Box from everywhere. To make this happen we have to edit an internal configuration file of the FRITZ!Box. This time we aren't change the ar7.cfg file, but a file called /var/flash/voip.cfg. As the name suggest there is most of the VoIP configuration included. Use nvi to edit it and search for a section called extensions. There should be a newly created one which have a value extension_number with 620. Change the value reg_from_outside from no to yes. This section should then look like the following:

extensions {
    enabled = yes;
    username = "$$$$SSFSDFSOPKSFDOPK;LWE§REWSDFMKFSLDF3232SDFSDFSDF";
    authname = "";
    passwd = "$$$$DFS342ASDFSDFDSFDS§344WLKKHMSJHAJHASDAHQASLKADJSA";
    extension_number = 620;
    reg_from_outside = yes;
    tx_packetsize_in_ms = 0;
}

Save the file and reboot your FRITZ!Box by typing reboot. Next we have to tell Telephone to use a proxy when connecting to the FRITZ!Box. Go to the advanced settings and add your DynDNS name, in this example it would be xtestx.dyndns.org, to the proxy field. That's all. Now you should be able to make calls from every network you are currently logged in.

Conclusion

This simple change to the internal configuration of the FRITZ!Box allows you to use your VoIP account from everywhere over the world. As nice this feature is, I like to add some words of caution at the end. First you need a good download and especially a good upload connection speed in your home setup, cause all phone calls are routed over the FRITZ!Box. Secondly I didn't know if VoIP transfers are encrypted in any way, so be aware that there is the possibility someone monitor your calls. And as last note you should understand that you opened a port on your FRITZ!Box for everyone, which in the case your password is stolen, could be abused. In the worst case someone use your account to SPAM other people or call expensive service numbers.

The agony of choice

OpenVPN could be configured in many different ways. So first of all we have to decide which features of OpenVPN we will use. In its simplest variant OpenVPN could be used with one preshared static key. The advantage of this setup type is the easy configuration. The disadvantage is that only one client could be connected at the time. That is not what we want, so we will configure our setup to be using a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). This allows more than one client to be connected at the time and it is possible to mark single keys invalid without affecting other client keys. The second question which has to be answered is, if we want use routing or bridging in our setup. Again, routing is simpler to set up and also a little bit faster than bridging. Bridging on the other side allows the tunneling of non IP protocols such as IPX, tunnel all the IP broadcast and make it possible to use the same subnet on the client side as on the server-side. Especially the last point is a nice feature as with routing all hosts on the server-side needs a routing table entry to find the connected clients. But my main reason for preferring bridging over routing is the broadcast feature of the first one. In my home network works a NAS station as a file server. This includes of course simple filesystem sharing with AFP and NFS, but also serves this box audio data with the Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP). DAAP is used by Apple in iTunes to share music with other clients in the network and that is what my NAS station does. This protocol, as well AFP, using broadcast messages (ZeroConf) to find some potential clients. So now it should be clear why I want bridging, it allows me to hear music or to simply connect to my file station without any interaction.

Building up a PKI

To create all necessary certificates and keys we are using the easy-rsa scripts from OpenVPN. They are located under /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa. First we change the vars file. On the bottom of the file are personal information defined which should be changed to fit to your environment. The entries looking as follow on my side (with a pseudo email address).

export KEY_COUNTRY="DE"
export KEY_PROVINCE="Sachsen"
export KEY_CITY="Dresden"
export KEY_ORG="64k"
export KEY_EMAIL="you@yourdomain.org"

You could also increase the KEY_SIZE from 1024 to 2048 within that file. This should make your keys unbreakable for the next few decades years. Now we are ready to create the master-key and the master certificate of the Certificate Authority (CA) by executing:

source vars
./clean-all
./build-ca

Please be aware that this will delete all previously created keys. Answering all questions with the default values should be sufficient. Next the key for the server has to be created.

./build-key-server server

You can again accept all default values. A challenge password is not necessary, but you have to sign the certificate. Now its time for our first client key and certificate. You could the following repeat again and again, for every new client you want allow to access the OpenVPN server.

./build-key client

Again, don't forget to sign the key. If you ever have to mark a client certificate invalid you could do it with the following command:

./revoke-full client

This will create or update a Certificate Revocation List (CRL) file which will be later used by the server to verify the certificate integrity of a connecting client. For now we create an empty one with

KEY_CN="" KEY_OU="" KEY_NAME="" $OPENSSL ca -gencrl -out keys/crl.pem -config $KEY_CONFIG

The last step in this key building marathon is to create a Diffie-Hellman key. This key will be used to initiate the secure channel between the two parties. Its created by:

./build-dh

Creating the server and client configuration

We start with the configuration of the server:

# set the path to the tap device
dev tap
dev-node /var/tmp/tap0
mssfix
tun-mtu 1500
 
# TCP or UDP server?
proto udp
port 1194
 
# CA and key files
ca /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn/keys/ca.crt
cert /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn/keys/server.crt
key /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn/keys/server.key
crl-verify /keys/crl.pem # this is opened after the chroot
 
# Diffie hellman parameters
dh /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn/keys/dh1024.pem
 
# bridge setup
server-bridge 192.168.220.1 255.255.255.0 192.168.220.50 192.168.220.99
mode server
tls-server
push "dhcp-option DNS 192.168.220.1"
 
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt
client-to-client
 
# compression?
comp-lzo
 
# The maximum number of concurrently connected clients we want to
# allow.
max-clients 20
 
# It's a good idea to reduce the OpenVPN daemon's privileges after
# initialization.
user nobody
group nobody
 
# Put openvpn in a jail.
chroot /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn
 
# The persist options will try to avoid accessing certain resources on
# restart that may no longer be accessible because of the privilege
# downgrade.
persist-key
persist-tun
 
# where to log
log-append /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/openvpn/log/openvpn.log
 
# verbose level for debugging
;verb 4
 
# make sure the connection is kept alive
keepalive 10 120

For bridged mode it is essential that OpenVPN uses a TAP device and not the TUN device mode (see here for the reason). We use UDP as the transport protocol and enable compression. Also we want that OpenVPN drops its privileges after the initialization and chroot into a jail to make it a little bit more secure. As the subnet for clients 192.168.220.0/24 is used. That is the same as my internal network uses. OpenVPN is allowed to use addresses ranging from 192.168.220.50 to 192.168.220.99. You have to make sure that the FRITZ!Box (or any other DHCP server in your network) doesn't serve addresses from that range. Of course you could change some of the settings to your needs, but then you have to make sure they match the configuration of the client.

Next we create the client configuration, which looks as follow:

# Specify that we are a client and that we will be pulling certain
# config file directives from the server.
client
 
# The hostname/IP and port of the server.
remote xtestx.dyndns.org 1194
 
proto udp
dev tap
 
pull
 
mssfix
tun-mtu 1500
 
# SSL/TLS parms.
tls-client
ca keys/ca.crt
cert keys/client.crt
key keys/client.key
 
ns-cert-type server
 
# Keep trying indefinitely to resolve the host name of the OpenVPN
# server. Very useful on machines which are not permanently connected
# to the Internet such as laptops.
resolv-retry infinite
 
# Don't enable this; It must be disabled for iTunes to find the iTunes
# server and for AFP broadcast in general.
#nobind
 
# Downgrade privileges after initialization (non-Windows only)
user nobody
group nobody
 
# Try to preserve some state across restarts.
persist-key
persist-tun
 
# Enable compression on the VPN link.
comp-lzo
 
# debug level
;verb 4
 
mute-replay-warnings
mute 20

You have to change the remote hostname to your needs. You may also add the full path to the certificates and keys depending on your client OpenVPN installation.

Next we pack all files up for the server and the client respectively. The server needs the following one:

server.conf
keys/ca.crt
keys/crl.pem
keys/dh1024.pem
keys/server.crt
keys/server.key

The client needs this one:

client.conf
keys/ca.crt
keys/client.crt
keys/client.key
keys/server.crt

Customizing the FRITZ!Box

Connect to your FRITZ!Box and copy all the server files to the usbstick. I created a directory openvpn under the /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons path. Next we need the OpenVPN binary for the FRITZ!Box. You can get it here. Unpack the file and copy the openvpn binary to /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/bin on the FRITZ!Box. Make sure the file mode has the executable bit set for the user. All files are now on the right places, so we can adjust our start script. Add the following code to the startup.sh file.

# Add a nobody user
echo 'nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/:/bin/false' >> /var/tmp/passwd
 
# Add some groups
echo 'root:x:0:' > /var/tmp/group
echo 'nobody:x:65534:' >> /var/tmp/group
 
# Create a tap device for openvpn
mknod /var/tmp/tap0 c 10 200
 
# Start openvpn
${BASE}/openvpn/bin/openvpn --config ${BASE}/openvpn/server.conf --daemon

As you see, we add a new nobody user to the Linux system. Then the device node for the TAP device is created and at the end the OpenVPN server is started. As we using the bridged setup, we have to add the new device to a bridge. Fortunately we haven't to create one, cause the FRITZ!Box itself is working in bridged mode. You can confirm this by executing:

brctl show lan

To let the system automatically add our TAP device to the lan bridge, we change the internal FRITZ!Box configuration. Edit the /var/flush/ar7.cfg file with nvi and search for the string brinterfaces. There should be one section with the name lan. Simply add the new tap0 interface to the interfaces value. The section should then look like this:

brinterfaces {
     name = "lan";
     dhcp = no;
     ipaddr = 192.168.220.1;
     netmask = 255.255.255.0;
     dstipaddr = 0.0.0.0;
     interfaces = "eth0", "ath0", "tap0", "wdsup1", "wdsdw1",
                  "wdsdw2", "wdsdw3", "wdsdw4";
     dhcpenabled = yes;
     dhcpstart = 192.168.220.100;
     dhcpend = 192.168.220.200;
}

Now, as soon the tap0 interface is created it will be added to the bridge. The last important point in the server setup is to change the internal firewall to allow connections to port 1194 from the outside. Search for forwardrules in the ar7.cfg file and add this new rule:

forwardrules =
               "tcp 0.0.0.0:7777 0.0.0.0:22 0 # SSH-Server",
               "udp 0.0.0.0:1194 0.0.0.0:1194 0 # VPN-Server";

Thats all for the server. A reboot of the FRITZ!Box should start the new OpenVPN server. If you have trouble you should manually start the OpenVPN server and increase the debugging level, as shown in the above configuration with the keyword verb.

Setting up the client

On the client side we need the files we packed above. On Gentoo the OpenVPN configuration is located at /etc/openvpn. Copy the configuration, the certificates and the key file to that place. The OpenVPN start script of Gentoo looks for the configuration file, based on the start script name. So we have to create a link like this:

cd /etc/openvpn
ln -s client.conf openvpn.conf

By the way, this lets you configure more than one OpenVPN connection at the time. Just create a link in /etc/init.d with the new configuration name and link it to the openvpn start script.

To make a first attempt to start the OpenVPN connection type

/etc/init.d/openvpn start

If all goes well you should have a new device tap0 when you execute ifconfig. Also there should be a route set, which point to the tap0 device when the 192.168.220.0/24 subnet is the target. Of course now you should be able to connect to any host in your home network by the IP. I didn't experiment enough with the pushing of the name server from the OpenVPN server, instead I just added the FRITZ!Box as an additionally name server to my /etc/resolv.conf. So here is room for further experiments.

To let the OpenVPN client start at boot time add it to the default runlevel by executing:

rc-update add openvpn default

Also note that with the above configuration the client always try to reconnect to the server, even if the FRITZ!Box is rebooted, which is a nice feature.

Conclusion

This setup allows you to connect to your home network in a very secure way without loosing any functionality. You are able to browse network shares on the local network or using services like DAAP without any further interaction.  The public key infrastructure make this setup a candidate for small business installations. If an employee leave the company his certificate is simply revoked without affecting the access of other employees.

Preparing the FRITZ!Box

First of all you should register an account at http://www.dyndns.com or any other service for dynamic IP resolution. You can then add this information to the "DynamicDNS" tab of the Internet settings in the FRITZ!Box web frontend. This will allow you to connect to your FRITZ!Box without knowing the IP after a reconnect. Lets use us xtestx.dyndns.org in the following examples. Next you need telnet access to the FRITZ!Box to make the initial configuration for the ssh server. Enabling telnet is as simple as calling #96*7* with a local connected phone. To disable the telnet daemon later you call #96*8*. Now you need a usbstick where all the software will be installed on and which have to be connected to the FRITZ!Box all the time. In principle the size doesn't matter, around 5 MBytes free space should be enough. Time to connect to the FRITZ!Box for the first time. A simple telnet fritz.box should do it.

Installation and configuration of the ssh server

For the ssh server software dropbear is used. You can get a prepared version for the FRITZ!Box from the spblinux server.

cd /var/tmp
wget http://www.spblinux.de/fbox.new/cfg_dropbear
chmod u+x cfg_dropbear

After downloading, the server has to be installed on the usbstick by executing

./cfg_dropbear usb_install

In my case the software is installed into /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons. Now we will create a host key which will be reused even after a reboot of the FRITZ!Box.

cd /var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons
dropbear/bin/dropbearkey -t rsa -f dropbear/etc/sshd_rsa_host_key

The FRITZ!Box has initial no root password entry. We have to create one and save the password hash for later usage.

passwd
cat /etc/passwd

You have to note the part between root: and the next colon.

Putting all together

The initial starting point for all modifications on the FRITZ!Box is a file called /var/flash/debug.cfg. Its executed on every boot after all the other services are started. We will use it only to start a script which is located on the usbstick. This makes sure that even after a firmware upgrade our changes are not lost. The content looks like the following:

# execute the start script which is on the usb stick
/var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons/startup.sh

Please note that you have to use the nvi to edit files on the flash device from the FRITZ!Box, cause all files there are marked as non regular. The startup.sh will do all the work necessary for preparing and starting the ssh server. The content is:

#!/bin/sh
# whats the base usb directory
BASE=/var/media/ftp/FLASH-DISK-01/addons
 
# change to a temporary directory
cd /var/tmp
 
# install and start dropbear with our host key
${BASE}/cfg_dropbear usb_install
/bin/dropbear -E -r ${BASE}/dropbear/etc/sshd_rsa_host_key
 
# set passwords
echo 'root:XXXXXX:0:0:root:/var/tmp/:/bin/sh' > /var/tmp/passwd
echo 'ftpuser:any:1000:0:ftp user:/var/media/ftp:/bin/sh' >> /var/tmp/passwd
 
# add fritz box itself in resolv.conf to resolv dhcp attached machines in your network
echo "nameserver 192.168.220.1" >> /var/tmp/resolv.conf

You have to replace XXXXXX by the password hash you created above. In my case the network is in the 192.168.220.0/24 subnet and the FRITZ!Box has the IP 192.168.220.1. You have to adjust the name server entry to your environment. After a reboot which could be initiated with reboot you should be able to access your FRITZ!Box over ssh.

To allow connections from the outside of your home you need to change the forward rules of the internal FRITZ!Box firewall. Unfortunately you can't add this rule using the web frontend cause it isn't allowed to add rules which targeting the FRITZ!Box itself. Most of the settings for the FRITZ!Box configuration are located in a file called /var/flash/ar7.cfg. Use nvi to edit it and search for the string forwardrules. If this string is missing you could temporary create a rule in the web frontend, which will you later remove again. You have to change the line so that it looks like this:

forwardrules =
               "tcp 0.0.0.0:7777 0.0.0.0:22 0 # SSH-Server";

Here the connection port is 7777, but of course could you use any valid port number. You could also add more rules by separating them with a comma. To make the configuration change happen the execution of ar7cfgchanged is sufficient.

Conclusion

With this setup its possible to connect to the FRITZ!Box with the very secure ssh protocol from inside of your home environment and from the outside. This makes it easily possible to change parameters without manually starting the telnet daemon which is in addition very insecure. Don't forget to remove any temporary rules from the ar7.cfg file and to disable the telnet daemon with the procedure explained above. Stay tuned for the next post about going one step further and making the FRITZ!Box an OpenVPN connection point for your internal network.

Update

There is a new article about installing ssh on the FRITZ!Box. If you are interested have a look at this post.