Author: H Walker Jones, Esq

A professional programmer with a sordid past involving sysadmin, tech support, and cooking.

Watching the Sox

To thank me for doing a great job on a gruelling project at work, I was offered tickets to see the Red Sox play at Fenway.  I don’t normally watch sports but hey, game on!  We live so close I should watch at least one game.  The game was played back on September 23.

I took my mother-in-law Joan, because she’s a fan-in-the-literal-fanatic-sense of the Sox.  It was also a way to thank her for all the times she’s helped us out.  She thought it was a hoot.

Fenway Park
Fenway, mid-game

I had an ‘oh-thats-so-quaint’ moment when I realized that the score board along the back of the field is updated by hand.  There’s a jumbotron too, but in between innings some dude goes out and hangs little panels on the scoreboard to provide scores for other games being played nationally.  The current score is updated by hand, too, but they stay inside to do that.

The Sox lost, in the end, but Joan and I had a great time!  I’m planning to take the girls next year for an afternoon game.

The downside to moving

A quick “downer” note to our adventures in the north.

I realized today that one thing I actually miss is running into people I know.  We were back in Mystic for a couple of hours today and we ran into three people who know us and we hadn’t planned to see while we were in town, while in a huge crowd of tourists.  I haven’t lived there for over a decade but there were some smiling faces.  I wonder who else I knew in that crowd and just happened to miss?

Here, in our new home, I go weeks without meeting a friend out and about – even at the local grocery store.  I feel out of step with the people around me, I haven’t found a common rhythm with my neighbors.  It’s probably common for people who move to a completely new area but it sucks all the same.

Pirate Invasion!

Mystic, CT has an annual Pirate Invasion, where people dress up as pirates, the shops give away swag to the kids, and the Argia sails into the local dock and “invades” Mystic River Park.

My niece, whom I recently set up with email through jonesling.us, invited us down to enjoy the event.  She’s been so very excited about email, about chatting with me, and about the invasion, that we couldn’t say “no,” even though Megh had a ton of work to do by Monday.

Sadly, I didn’t get any photos of the event – I was watching all four Joneslings (ours, plus our nephew and the aforementioned niece) and Butter.

Email for Joneslings

At my brother’s request, I recently set up an email address for my niece through jonesling.us, just like our own kids do.

She’s so excited about email.  She checks it multiple times per day and sends me emails as fast as I can reply.  We’ve been having a very slow conversation for a couple of weeks now, which is really pretty cool because I didn’t get a chance to talk with her much before.

Now, if I could just get my own kids interested in email again.  They mostly ignore it, probably because the used to sign up for everything under the sun and they now experience the scourge of the internet: spam.

Adventures in WiFi

Apple and hostapd

The problem

I set up my fileserver to be a router and wireless gateway using hostapd and dnsmasq, after I got fed up with Verizon’s crappy Actiontec router.  Works great, except for Apple products.  Neither Megh’s Mac nor my iPad would connect.

The various Linux boxes, Android devices, Nintendo Wii, and HP printer connected to it without a problem, so I held out hope that this was a solvable configuration problem and not some fundamental hardware incompatibility.  I’ve been running both routers for weeks while I tried to figure this out.

My iPad has been prompting for a username and password to log into wifi, even though I’m only using WPA Personal.  Megh’s Mac refused to connect at all.

Logging hasn’t been much help, as it fills with messages like this, over and over:

Oct  3 21:30:02 dandelion hostapd: wlp3s6: STA 01:02:03:04:05:06 IEEE 802.11: authentication OK (open system)
Oct  3 21:30:02 dandelion hostapd: wlp3s6: STA 01:02:03:04:05:06 IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Oct  3 21:30:02 dandelion hostapd: wlp3s6: STA 01:02:03:04:05:06 IEEE 802.11: association OK (aid 2)
Oct  3 21:30:02 dandelion hostapd: wlp3s6: STA 01:02:03:04:05:06 IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Oct  3 21:30:11 dandelion hostapd: wlp3s6: STA 01:02:03:04:05:06 IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to local deauth request

Not much indication of what’s wrong there.

The Server

Wireless is provided by an Ralink RT61-based card.  I’ve used the same hardware to set up wireless networks before, because I know this chipset can enable master mode.  Not all wireless chipsets can.  This is the first where I know Apple hardware is in use, though.

Googling gave me some ideas, but nothing that I found solved the problem.  Various posts pointed fingers at hostapd’s integrated EAP server, AES, the wireless hardware itself (oh noes!), and more.

I started with a basic hostapd config file, no encryption, to rule out hardware issues.

/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

driver=nl80211
logger_syslog=1
logger_syslog_level=0
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=2
dump_file=/tmp/hostapd.dump
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0
ssid=My crappy wifi name
country_code=US
hw_mode=g
channel=1
macaddr_acl=0
deny_mac_file=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.deny
auth_algs=3
wmm_enabled=0
ap_max_inactivity=600
ieee8021x=0
eap_server=1
own_ip_addr=127.0.0.1

/etc/conf.d/modules

Apparently, the hardware crypto can be a little flaky with rt61 cards so it’s safer to load it as a module (instead of compiling it into the kernel, so you can unload/reload it) and disabling hardware crypto at run time.

modules="rt61pci"
module_rt61pci_args="nohwcrypt=1"

Like that, everything connected.  Hallelujah.

Now came the fun (if tedious is fun) process of enabling and modifying options until we get an encrypted signal that everything can connect to.  The linux-based devices, bless their little electronic souls, seem to be very tolerant about network settings and kept reconnecting no matter what the encryption config was.

Here’s my final configuration:

interface=wlp3s6
driver=nl80211
logger_syslog=1
logger_syslog_level=0
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=2
dump_file=/tmp/hostapd.dump
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0
ssid=My crappy wifi name
country_code=US
hw_mode=g
channel=1
macaddr_acl=0
deny_mac_file=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.deny
auth_algs=3
wmm_enabled=0
ap_max_inactivity=600
ieee8021x=0
eap_server=1
own_ip_addr=127.0.0.1
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=My crappy wifi password
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=CCMP

Notes:

  • wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK WPA-EAP does NOT work with Apple devices, though it does work in general
  • wpa_pairwise=TKIP DOES seem to work, but AES probably provides safer encryption

Canobie Lake

One of Beta’s friends invited us to join her (and her parents Nick and Valerie) at Canobie Lake Park over Labor Day weekend.  It’s a bit like Six Flags or Walt Disney Land, but smaller.  (WDL != WDW).

The rides are good, the lines were relatively short (not like the last time we went to WDW where the fast pass system was a must), and it’s only a 20 minutes away.  What a deal.

I got Alpha to ride with me on the “Corkscrew Coaster“, which flips you upside-down; she got me to ride on “Wipe Out” which left me dizzy (it spins — fast).  She rode it a couple of times by herself, too.

Megh rode on the Boston Tea Party a couple of times, once with each child, and was soaked.  Making her do that was my revenge for making me sit in front of the log flume.  The splash when the “boat” hits the water goes up and out probably fifty feet.

There was a carousel ride, some kids-only rides, lunch, and water slides in there too.  We did probably a third of the park by nightfall.  We ended the day out with the ferris wheel and a sky ride, and left as the dark was falling with some rain to boot.

Fortune

“The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.”

— quotation from a 1972 Supreme Court ruling, and redacted from a US Supreme Court document by the Ashcroft Justice Department in the name of national security.

Cape 2014 – Day 6

We started the day with swimming at Harding Beach. The water was decently warm today, the sun was bright, and the seaweed wasn’t overwhelming. Megh and I declined to repeat past mistakes and left after an hour. Tim and Kelly stayed a little longer.

After lunch, while Delta napped, Megh, Kelly, Beta, and I went back to Chatham to shop. Beta and I investigated the toy shops (again) and a book store; I’m not allowed to know everywhere Megh and Kelly went. We hit Buffy’s Ice Cream Shop on our way out.

Alpha child had started feeling poorly during the day – sore throat, swollen tonsils, slight fever. Megh took her to a clinic to rule out strep throat and everyone else headed to Nauset Beach.

The beach is notable for its fine sand and strong surf. We had a great time body surfing.

There was a seal that continually cruised the surf a few yards further offshore than the body surfers dared to go. No pictures, we were too busy playing in the surf to grab a camera. No sharks, either.

We turned a bunch of disparate leftovers into a fine feast for dinner. While eating on the deck a bunny paid us a visit.

After the kids went to bed we enjoyed Star Wars Episode II, MST3K style.

Cape 2014, Day 5 – Whale Watch!

We started the day with some mini-golf to kill time. I had forgotten how expensive mini-golf is on the Cape. The kids had fun, but Tim, Kelly, and Delta bailed part-way through to enforce a nap for Delta.

The whale watch was with the Dolphin Fleet out of Provincetown. We were scheduled to leave port at 2:30. Tim and Kelly, by leaving early, were sure to arrive the requisite one-hour early to find parking (even after picking up Joan at the house). They did, which was lucky for them because parking was difficult to find and they had to park a mile away.

Megh and I, by finishing our game of mini golf and stopping by the house and grocery store to pick up supplies and snacks, were guaranteed to be barely on time – and we were. We arrived about fifteen minutes early (traffic was snarled on Route 6, no surprise there, but it didn’t help us make up lost time) so I valiantly offered to drop off the family and wander the town for a few hours. They got out, and the parking lot next to the pier started letting cars in again. So by arriving late we parked right next door. Lucky for us.

The whale watch itself was great.

Highlight: a group of four whales repeatedly surfaced and sounded right by the boat.

Personal highlight: Alpha spent the majority of the cruise talking with a boy.

After returning to dry land, we struck out in search of victuals – it was 6:00 and the kids needed to eat. The Lobster Pot was recommended, but the wait was over an hour. The Governor Bradford was available, though. Unfortunately, in retrospect. The food tasted good, the food presentation was mediocre (to be generous – the kitchen did make an attempt, though they might have done better by skipping it), and the service was slow, slow, slow – we took over two hours to get out of there. At least we a) ate outside and b) there’s a little grassy area in back where the kids could play.

After dinner Tim and I took off to fetch the cars – first to ours, since it was close, and the I dropped Tim off at his and we jetted back.

While waiting, Kelly and Megh decided to go shopping. When Tim and I returned we had no idea where they had gone. If you know Provincetown then you know that navigating to the piers and trying to wait for someone can be… distressing. No place to park and falling darkness.

It took twenty-five minutes (not that I was counting…) but we got on our way home. Bed came soon after we got in the door.