Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

RSA SecurID Appliances

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Okay, so I had with me over the weekend a SecureID Appliance from RSA. Not one of the software versions, but the RSA-based hardware appliance running a bad version of grub to boot up.

This particular device had a range of issues not withstanding failure on access to the web interface. It’s been a bit of a journey, but figured I may as well note some items down here for future reference.

* Local Administrator account for such devices is always rsalocaladmin
* Interface is accessible on TCP port 8098, SSL access
* RDP access can sometimes break on the interface. You can RDP directly to the box using TCP port 8198 (thanks, RSA)
* Host file is important – ensure its correct either manually through SYSTEM32 or through the web interface
* Backup of the database is kept on C:\authmgr\backup – it runs a backup once a week, and is triggered by an AT script rotatebackup.bat in C:\authmgr\scripts
* The authentication manager and authentication service need to be syncronised – sdconf.rec is stored in C:\authmgr\data and needs to be copied to C:\windows\system32

I had two main issues in the logs, which prevented login to any RSA required system:

* Agent Host Not Found – This was due to a Agent Host entry not being there for the RSA Appliance itself. I re-added the entry as an UNIX agent and configured OK

* Node Verification Failed – This was due to the fact that the sdconf.rec files were not identical.

The web interface that operates on 8098 can’t be accessed via rsalocaladmin, unfortunately. Following the changes above, I created a password only temporary user to test and was successful.

I also had another issue which related to the ACE Client indicating that the authentication managers were not available. These were due to agent secrets being present when they shouldn’t have been. These were cleared up, and the appliance restarted.

Installing Windows Server 2003 on an A-bit IC7 (or IC7-G) motherboard

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Unfortunately due to the absence of SATA drivers en-masse when Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 came out, a vast majority of residential (aka consumer) motherboards fail to detect the hard drive when attempting to install these operating systems.  This issue isn’t new, it’s quite common and there are various ways of dealing with it.

One method I have found effective since the first time I tried it was using nLite.  This program will extract the good bits from your Windows CD (which unfortunately is the entire lot) and give you a set of dialog boxes to allow you to inject drivers into the CD installation.

You will need to ensure that you have a version of Microsoft .Net 2.0 (preferably the latest service pack for it) in order to use the software.

Essentially, you need to perform the following:

1.  Obtain from either your motherboard manufacturer (e.g. A-bit, Asus) or hardware vendor (e.g. Intel, AMD) the drivers for your storage controller.  For the IC7 (or IC7-G), you just need to find a version of the Storage Matrix drivers for the ICH5.  Extract the contents of these drivers somewhere on your hard drive (C:\Temp\Drivers) and ensure it contains the usual .sys, txtsetup.oem and equivalent files.

2.  Install nLite and configure it to capture your Windows CD.  It will cache (copy) the contents of it to a local folder, so nominate a drive with space.

3. Ensure that you tick the Drivers button as well as Bootable CD

4. On the Drivers page, you will need to insert the folder where you stored your files (hint: click insert!).

5. Press Finish, and it will begin burning your new CD.

That’s all there is to it.

You can check this site out if you need a graphical walkthrough.