Office: 247 Gortner Laboratory | Phone: 612-624-2918 | Campus Mail: 123 Snyder Hall

Chad Walstrom's UMN Homepage

CookieAuth Image

UMN Cookieauth

I've been contributing to the Apache2 port of the UMN Cookie Authentication module, a collective effort amongst some of the IT professionals on campus. Please consult the official web page at http://www.umn.edu/is/cookieauth for pre-released code and information about the project.

My tarballs can be found in the cookieauth2 directory. Patches are in the "patches" sub-directory. Latest version: cookieauth2-3.0b2 (2006-10-09). The second Beta! To see it in action, visit https://lysine.cbs.umn.edu/protectedfiles.

Debugging this with gdb is interesting. Make sure you have a locally compiled copy of apache2 so that you can reference the source files inside gdb (or ddd). Follow the instructions on the Debugging link below.

Useful Apache 2 Links: Docs, On-line Cross-Reference, Module Development Tutorials, File Descriptor Use, Debugging. Debian Logo

Debian

Debian is a Free GNU/Linux distribution. Custom packages for Debian can be found here. Currently, this apt-get enabled pool contains "broken" modules for the UMN Cookie Authentication modules for Apache 1.3.x. They are broken in the fact that the version of Apache 1.3 shipped with Debian is not compiled with libmm support. I have not found the time to make custom Apache 1.3.x packages yet, since we're hoping to have the Apache 2.x cookie authentication modules finished in the near future.

Debian-related Pages: Installing Debian on a Dell Latitude D620.

Gnupg Logo

GnuPG Key

You can retrieve my public key from the key server network, or download it from this link directly: D55BA35B.gpg. Note, I added my new email address to this: ccw@umn.edu.

pub   1024D/D55BA35B 2004-01-26 [expires: 2009-01-24]
uid                  Chad C. Walstrom <ccw@umn.edu>
uid                  Chad Walstrom <walst005@umn.edu>
sub   2048g/9CCB285F 2004-01-26 [expires: 2009-01-24]

Firefox Search Engine Plugins for UMN!

Mozilla Firefox has a convenient search engine box in the upper right corner of the window. I have created a couple plugins that search for people or Internet ID's using the U's search engine. They have been dedicated to the Public Domain and submitted to http://mycroft.mozdev.org.


Companies Doing Stupid Things

Here are a few interesting (stupid) things companies are (have been) doing lately.

libverisignfix.c

In the not too distant past, Verisign, Inc. decided to launch a controversial service for Domain Name Resolution (DNS) of misspelled .com domains. Instead of returning a "Domain not found" error, Verisign returned an IP address that would direct a web browser to an advertisement to purchase the domain or suggest possible matching domains. It was intended as a convenience service for web browsing, but it ended up breaking a lot of SPAM prevention techniques. This directory contains a glibc preload library module, written by Dwayne C. Litzenberger, that blacklists that IP address and correctly returns a "Domain not found" error. This only works for applications that are dynamically linked against the glibc library.

HTTP == Microsoft?

Apparently as a result of some nefarious means, Microsoft has managed to get top page ranking on Google for "HTTP". Firefox apparently routes invalid URL's in the form of "http//site/" to Google's first ranking page using the invalid URL as input for the search. Take HTTP back from Microsoft![1] (2006-03-08)