Blake Anthony Johnson

This process is not as hard as one would expect.  Once it’s completed, there is a big performance increase.   (At least in my case there was.)  I did this in XP, but I see no reason why it won’t work in Windows 2003, Vista, 7, etc.

A requirement is to have the Viostor drivers on your virtual machine before you continue.  They can be downloaded on the KVM Driver Download page.

Before I explain anything, my configuration in the beginning looks as follows…
qemu-kvm \
-drive file="./WindowsXP.qcow2",if=ide,boot=on \
-m 1024M \
-smp 1 \
-soundhw ac97 \
-vga std \
-name "Windows XP Professional" \
-net nic,model=virtio \
-net user \
-usb

1. To start off, we need to create an empty disk image file, or temporarily link an existing one to the XP virtual machine.  That can be done by adding -drive file="./temp.qcow2",if=virtio,boot=off \ to the configuration.
2. Launch the VM with that configuration option added, and once Windows XP loads, it will ask for the drivers for the SCSI controller, which is Viostor.  Point it to the directory that you extracted the drivers to, and it should install.
3. After Windows XP installs the drivers, shut down Windows XP.
4. Remove that temporary line that you added in Step 1 and change your real drive to say “if=virtio” instead of “if=ide”.
5. After making that change, startup Windows XP again, and when Windows loads, it will reinstall the Viostor driver for that hard drive.
6. Reboot, and you are finished.

In the end, my configuration looks like:
qemu-kvm \
-drive file="./WindowsXP.qcow2",if=virtio,boot=on \
-m 1024M \
-smp 1 \
-soundhw ac97 \
-vga std \
-name "Windows XP Professional" \
-net nic,model=virtio \
-net user \
-usb

This guide will explain how to create a SSH tunnel to use with Firefox.  Creating an SSH tunnel will create an encrypted connection to an outside machine to visit websites that may be inaccessible from a specific location.  (Work, School, etc.)   If my web site gets blocked at some point, it will probably be because of this article.  The idea of this is not exactly to circumvent filters, but it works perfectly for that too.

Part 1: Create an SSH Tunnel
Unix / Linux / OS X:

1. In the terminal type: $ ssh <SERVER> -D <PORTNUMBER> -l <USERNAME> -C

With the above command, <SERVER> is the remote server running the SSH service you will be using to create the tunnel.  <PORTNUMBER> is any number between 1025 and 65535, and <USERNAME> is the username you will be using to connect to the remote server.  After issuing that command, if you don’t get any errors, jump to Part 2.

Windows:

1. Download PuTTY.
2. Launch PuTTY.  On the initial screen, enter the remote address of the server you will be connecting to in the “Host Name (or IP address)” field.
3. In the ‘Category’ list, expand the ‘SSH’ option, and select ‘Tunnels’.
4. In the ‘Source port’ field, type in any number between 1025 and 65535.  Select ‘Dynamic’ under the ‘Destination’ field, and click on the ‘Add’ button.
5. Click ‘Open’ at the bottom of the window to start the connection.
6. A new window will open up and prompt you for your user credentials.  Enter your username and password.  While entering your password, nothing will show up on the screen.
7. After submitting your credentials, if you don’t get any errors, you should be successfully connected to the remote SSH server.

Part 2: Configure Firefox

1. First of all, if you don’t have Firefox, go to GetFirefox.com and download yourself a copy of it.  If you are on a Windows machine that is not your own, consider grabbing yourself a copy of Portable Firefox for this guide and throwing it on a flash drive.
2. After your copy of Firefox is up and running, whether it be Firefox or Portable Firefox, it’s time to install FoxyProxy.  Add the add-on to Firefox, and restart Firefox when asked.
3. Launch the FoxyProxy options.  From the ‘Tools’ menu, hover over FoxyProxy and jump down to ‘Options’.  From the status bar, right click on the FoxyProxy icon, and select ‘Options.’
4. Click the “Add New Proxy” button.
5. A new window will appear.  “Proxy Details” will be the tab initially selected.  If not already selected, select “Manual Proxy Configuration”.  In the “Host or IP Address” field, enter ‘127.0.0.1′ and in the ‘Port’ field, enter the port number you used in Part 1.  Make sure the check box for “SOCKS proxy” is checked.  We will be using “SOCKS v5,” so select that.
6. Click on the ‘General’ tab, and in the “Proxy Name” field, give the proxy a name that summarizes what this proxy will do for you, or where it will connect you to.  You could even keep it as generic as “SSH Tunnel.”
7. Click the “OK” button in the “Proxy Settings” window.  You will be prompted with a message about not adding any web addresses to the domain white-list.  That’s fine, just click “OK” again.  Once back on the main “FoxyProxy Options” window, just click the ‘Close’ button to close it.
8. Time to activate the proxy.  From the ‘Tools’ menu, hover over FoxyProxy and select “Use Proxy <PROXYNAME> for all URLs.”  From the status bar, right click on the FoxyProxy icon, and select “Use Proxy <PROXYNAME> for all URLs.”
9. At this point, any web site you visit will be proxied through your SSH tunnel.  If something is not working for you, go back and check all of your settings from Part 1 and 2.
10. When you are finished using your proxy, be sure to disable FoxyProxy.  If you don’t disable FoxyProxy and your connection from Part 1 is not running in the background, your connection to the internet is going to appear dead.  To do so, from the ‘Tools’ menu, hover over FoxyProxy and select “Completely disable FoxyProxy.”  From the status bar, right click on the FoxyProxy icon, and select “Completely disable FoxyProxy.”

Today, the web server was down for about 4-5 hours as there was maintenance being done to it. It started off as just me wanting to upgrade the software, but it turned out that the hard drive was failing in it. I took a emergency trip to my local computer store, picked up a couple hard drives, installed them, set them up as a RAID, installed the updated software, and restored all the data. Everything should be back to normal.

This output was grabbed with the dvbscan (aka scan) utility under OpenSUSE. Anyone who does not feel like searching all the frequencies themselves can just use this list.

tptLife:485028615:8VSB:81:84:5
tpt Wx:485028615:8VSB:97:100:6
WFTC-DT HD Minneapolis, St. Paul:515028615:8VSB:49:52:3
WFTC-DT SD Minneapolis, St. Paul:515028615:8VSB:65:68:4
WUCW-HD:521028615:8VSB:49:52:3
WUCW-SD:521028615:8VSB:65:68:4
K25IA-D-TBN:539028615:8VSB:49:52:3
K25IA-D-TCC:539028615:8VSB:65:68:4
K25IA-D-JCTV:539028615:8VSB:81:84:5
K25IA-D-SOAC:539028615:8VSB:97:100:6
K25IA-D-Enlace:539028615:8VSB:113:116:7
WCCO-DT:581028615:8VSB:49:52:1
tpt 2:593028615:8VSB:49:52:3
tpt MN:593028615:8VSB:65:68:4
KSTPDT1:599028615:8VSB:49:52:3
KSTPDT2:599028615:8VSB:65:68:4
Worship:629028615:8VSB:97:100:6
KPXM ION Life:629028615:8VSB:81:84:5
KPXM qubo:629028615:8VSB:65:68:4
ION:629028615:8VSB:49:52:3
KSTCDT1:659028615:8VSB:49:52:1

• My plane from Wuhan to Shanghai was canceled, so I was rescheduled on a different one.
• When a taxi cab driver drove me to the bus station, as soon as he pulled up, some homeless guy opened my door and was begging for money.
• When I was walking up to the bus station, a couple guys kept on trying to get me to take their taxis instead.  One of them had a pretty firm grasp on my arm, but I just kept on walking.  I just repeating “I already have a bus ticket” over and over again.
• Neither Wuhan or Shanghai make you take off your shoes.  The security is a lot simpler and relaxing.  If you walk through and set off the metal detector, they just wave the wand around you and let you pass.
• Boarding the flight from Shanghai to Newark, they perform a manual inspection of carry-on bags (probably for liquids).  When checking mine, I just said “It’s all electronics” and they let me go.
• US Customs was pretty easy.  For some reason, most everyone else had to get their finger prints taken, but I was just allowed to get my passport stamped and walk through.
• Could have used some extra time between the Newark to Minneapolis connection.  I really did not have much free time there after going through US Customs.
• Once again, the food in American airlines is pretty lame in comparison to Chinese airlines.
• On my long flight back to Newark from Shanghai, I used the in-flight entertainment for most of it.  I broke out my Nintendo DSi towards the end though.
• New York looks awesome at night from the sky.  I just wish I could have broken out my camera during the take-off.  Sunset looks amazing from the plane too.
• The Wuhan bus station feels like a mini-airport.  The buses feel like a plane.
• The girl next to me on my China Southern flight from Wuhan to Shanghai putted a netbook out of her purse.  Those things fit anywhere…
• On my flight to Newark, they reassigned my seat.
• The bag that I checked in did not make the flight back to MN.   I’ll get it tomorrow apparently.