A couple of years ago I wrote a post about a dual ISP config with a Juniper SRX firewall. At the time I ran into some challenges regarding the DHCP client functionality of the SRX. For some reason it couldn't get a lease from the Ziggo ISP DHCP servers. Any other DHCP server on my local network worked just fine. Since I created a work-around at the time (by using an additional NAT router and static IP addresses) I didn't give it much thought.... Until last week.
Last week I ran into a networking challenge that kinda freaked me out. For some reason my Apple TV wouldn't connect to my NAS, but it could connect to the Internet. For some reason my Apple TV got a public IP address while it was located on my internal network. The public IP address was completely unknown to me. So, WTF was giving my Apple TV a public IP address?
NGINX (pronounced as engine-x) is a versatile (reverse) proxy service for Linux which can be used for many purposes. This post gives a relative small and easy example that I use at home for accessing insecure web services in my home. These are:
- Domoticz
Free and opensource Domotica software - SabNZBd
Free and opensource software for downloading binaries from usenet. Available for multiple operating systems - Sonarr
(former NZBDrone) is a so-called PVR (personal video recorder) for Usenet users, which checks multiple RSS feeds (also called Indexer) for new episodes of the shows you're following.
These services run on different platforms and are not protected by username/password or encryption. Something that's not done if you want to access this over the Internet.
To get secure access to these services you might want to use a VPN solution into your home, but you can also achieve this by using a reverse proxy that 'protects' these services.
I run my NGINX reverse proxy on Ubuntu Linux, but it will also run on the average Raspberry Pi.
We have a lab which we can access by using a VPN (Cisco ASA and Cisco AnyConnect). This setup has a so-called split DNS configuration, which means that only resources in the lab are accessed through the VPN tunnel. Regular Internet traffic uses my local DSL connection.
At my house I (like most folks) rely on DHCP for providing me with IP address, gateway and DNS servers. My local subnet uses 192.168.10.1 for DNS and 192.168.10.254 is my default gateway. So my clients are in the same subnet as my DNS server (directly-connected).
All these things considered I should be able to browse the Internet while I have a VPN running. Well, that's where you're wrong.
This post is about something that bothers me a lot. Especially, because it originates from a place where you think they should know better. It's about Dots-Per-Inch (DPI) and JPEG (the popular digital image/photo format).
It all starts, when I read the requirements of certain online photo contests. The criteria for entering the contest contain the following: The photo entering the contest must be in JPEG with maximum quality (least compression), AND 300 DPI.
