[ale] OT: What the hell is XSS in Comcast land?

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> wrote:

>On 8/12/2013 13:23, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>
>> I see what you're saying.  I don't know why, but commercial consumer
>> routers just seem to get dodgy periodically.  They all had their
>> firmware updated when I bought them, and then again if I know there's
>> a reason to.  Otherwise, there they sits.  I have it on my list to
>> tinker with alternate firmware, but for now have neither the time nor
>> available compatible devices to mess with it.  I hesitate to add yet
>> more devices that I have to learn to configure and patch.  Dealing
>> with the periodic changes to several pc's and several vm's keeps me
>> quite busy.  I do appreciate the suggestions though, and find it
>> interesting that the alternate firmwares are that much more stable.
>> The comcast box doesn't seem to be quite as flaky as the routers, but
>> it too seems to like a reboot on occasion.
>
>Consumer firmware is exactly why I replaced the firmware in the router 
>the moment I bought it.  It's especially important considering I use 
>features that Linksys' own firmware does not support (changing port 
>number when mapping, supporting multiple IPs on WAN, etc.)  Installing 
>is fairly trivial now, plenty of tools for multiple operating systems 
>and OpenWRT now has Lua scripts to give you a web configuration system 
>so you technically don't have to fiddle with terminal access.  It took 
>me almost as much time to set up the wiring for the firmware as it did 
>to install the firmware itself.  Customizing took a little time but for
>
>most applications it's not bad.
>
>> By the way, my whole HOUSE cycles it power 1 - 3 times / month due to
>> electrical storms, at least in the summer.
>
>That's called a very bad provider.  When I lived in south Florida
>(which 
>is Florida Power and Light across most of the state), power outages in 
>the summer were rare.  Maybe one per summer but more likely one every 
>other year.  Brownouts were a bit more common and I get them where I am
>
>now, too.  But full outages 1-3 times per month is beyond reasonable. 
>Then again, it's Southern Company/GA Powerless so you get the shaft.
>

I'm actually with Sawnee EMC, but I think they buy some power from Southern Co.

The glitches I'm talking about may be only a second or two.  But that's enough to bother anything not on a ups, including my dehumidifier.  More rarely, the outages are longer.  Maybe a couple of times per year, they may be 30 minutes or more, usually only if there is a severe lightning strike on the system, or someone hits a pole with a car, or trees or ice take lines down, etc.  Ice storms here can be quite bad.  We're too far north to miss them and not far north enough that we get mostly snow instead of freezing rain.

The routers are on an apc backups 750, so they theoretically could run for hours without power.  The load is light.  My desktop is also on a 750 va apc smart ups, but the load is heavy enough that the backup power only lasts 3 - 10 minutes.  During a short power failure, I might continue working with my laptop or tablet.  But after 15 minutes or so, I usually just shut everything down and conserve the battery power in the pc's, tablet, and ups's in case I need it later for sporadic usage.  At night, working without lights is hard on the eyes too if even if your pc is on.

Recently, a regional (ie several neighborhoods) outage took out my internet service from whatever connects down the road to my house.  So, in that case, it didn't matter whether my equipment was still working or not.

>
>> Not directly related to what you said, but I find it helpful to cycle
>> power to UPS's about once a month to let them do their self test (if
>> so equipped) on the batteries.  You don't want the SLA batteries to
>> get stale and die prematurely.  They need some discharging and
>> recharging on occasion.  The self test may drain 5% from the battery.
>> I think it's a good idea to periodically drain them substantially as
>> well.  From what I've read, a used lead acid battery, but not abused,
>> is a happy lead acid battery.
>
>Decent UPSes self test automatically without user intervention.  All 
>three of mine self-test weekly (I hear the click when it switches to 
>battery) and I don't need to pull the plug on them to do it.
>

I've never noticed my apc ups's self triggering a self test, but maybe they do so when I'm not looking.  I don't actually pull the plug for a short test.  I just turn the ups off, then back on.  It will test for about a minute automatically.  I do a pull plug test about once per year.

Ron



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Ron Frazier
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