Simple proxy server for NTLM

I was never successful in getting maven run at office due to the proxy setup, which supports NTLM authentication.  While looking a proxy server that supports NTLM auth, I was also looking if they support modifying request/response headers etc. or act as a caching proxy.  Here is the list so far:

• cntlm - developed in C, still active (Last Update: 2012-04-07).
• Java NTLM Proxy - developed in Java (1.5), seems no one is maintaining (
  Last Update: 2009-07-17).
• NTLM Authorization Proxy Server - developed in Python, no activity since an year (Last Update: 2011-03-23)

Above servers work and work silently in the background offering NTLM auth support.  Features include support for multiple external proxies, choice to select external proxy vs direct internet connection etc.  With one of these running you are no longer tied to use IE for browsing those sharepoint sites on intranet.  FF/Chrome/Opera work as seamlessly as IE.

Another interesting set of proxy servers:

• fiddler2 -  developed in .net and has two versions, one runs with .net ver 2 and other with ver 4.  Project seems to be active as of today.  Integrates well with FF also inaddition to IE.  Tested with FF 16.0.2.  Sports a nice UI displaying timings per each request, headers info, body as raw text etc.  There is a way to debug as well after modifying the request headers.
• The Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) - sports similar features as above, but developed in Java.

Both these are meant more for testing application vulnarebilities rather than server as general purpose proxy servers.

Finally yet another category of proxy servers are for the purpose of having your own intranet and to be able to restrict users, block ads etc.  Here are few:

• Polipo
• Privoxy
• Squid

Of these I tried only Privoxy and it has support for customizing filtering/blocking based a set of rules.  Could not find any developed in Java.  Please let me know if you have come across of any.

Misc CMD commands

net start : lists all running services
net config workstation : to get the logged on user info
net stop "service name" : to stop a particular service
net use drive_letter: \\computername\sharename : to map a share with a drive name
net use drive_letter: /delete : to unmap the mapped share
sc query type= service state= active : to get all active services
sc query type= service state= inactive : to get all stopped/inactive services
sc query type= service state= all : to get all services

Sources
Services Query
CMD optons

git setup - windows

Chronologically this post should come before the git command quick ref, but was too lazy to write this down at that time and struggled again when time came to move to a new laptop.  So here are the steps I followed:

1. Download the msysgit (exe/zip) whichever you prefer,  I usually go for the zip version always.  I have not yet tried, but you may choose to use the GUI as well.  The default gui that comes with msysgit is good enough also.
2. Do not add the bin folder to your path if using any unix utils port or cygwin as there will be lot of conflicts.  Just add the upto the git folder to the path, which contains a batch file git-bash.bat.  Once you run this, you will get a shell prompt and all the git commends will be available from here.
3. git will store all settings to %HOME% folder, which will not be defined usually on windows and will default to your profile directory C:\Documents and Settings\user on XP.  Thanks to VonC, he mentions a nice setting.  Change the %HOME% to whatever folder you want in the file profile within etc folder.  Search for the line "# Set up USER's home directory".  Once in the git-bash shell, / (forward slash) aka root is pointed to the git setup folder.  If you prefer to have your settings stored within this, just set HOME to /yourname.
4. Minimally we just need to setup user name and email to start using git and there are 3 scopes available - system, global and local.  You can refer to the freely available Pro Git book to learn about them and more about Git.

I wanted to try open office 3.3 after a long gap.  I used it when it was 2.0, but later to install it you need admin privileges, which I do not have.  I found below entries, which explain clearly how to install with out admin rights.  They do work:

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426&sid=6ca36398e6f4881f3bcc689f27fcc9cc

http://www.oooninja.com/2009/03/openofficeorg-3-install-portable-how.html

 

Quick review of GIT commands

List of commands for a quick recap:

Initializing a repository in current directory
git init

start version-controlling existing files
git add *.java
git add

Commit message inline with the commit command
git commit -m "comment"

Checking the Status of Your Files
git status

Ignoring Files
.gitignore

To see what you’ve changed but not yet staged
git diff

diff between two branches
git diff..<name>

diff from common ancestor
git diff...<name>

compare your staged changes to your last commit
git diff --cached

compare working directory to your last commit
git diff HEAD

compare your current working directory to the state in another branch
git diff <branch>

limit the comparison to a specific file or subdirectory by adding a path limiter
git diff -- <file/folder>

output the files that have changed along with a little text graph depicting how many lines changed in each file
git diff --stat

Skipping the Staging Area
git commit -a -m "comment"

Removing Files
git rm <file>

keep the file on your hard drive but not have Git track it anymore
git rm --cached <file>

Moving Files
git mv <old> <new> (equivalent to mv <old> <new>, git rm <old>, git add <new>

Cloning an Existing Repository
git clone <url>

Viewing the Commit History
git log

diff introduced in each commit
git log -p

limit the output to only the last two entries
git log -p -2

abbreviated stats for each commit
git log --stat

prints each commit on a single line
git log --pretty=short/full/fuller/oneline

adds a nice little ASCII graph showing your branch and merge history
git log --graph

Changing Your Last Commit
git commit --amend

Unstaging a Staged File
git reset HEAD <file>

Unmodifying a Modified File
git checkout -- <file>

Create a branch
git branch <name>

Switch to branch
git checkout <name>

create a branch and switch to it at the same time
git checkout -b <name>

merge back into master branch
git checkout master
git merge <branch>

Delete the branch
git branch -d <name>

graphical tool to resolve merge conflicts
git mergetool

listing of your current branches
git branch

To see the last commit on each branch
git branch -v

branches that are or are not yet merged into the current branch
git branch --merged
git branch --no-merged

Windows Up Time

systeminfo command generates lots of information like processor, bios, os, hostname including system up time.  At the command prompt enter systeminfo | find "Up Time" to get the required info.

Goto google.com

Recently on lifehacker I saw that google has enabled instant results, but didn't work for me.  With quick googling what I found is that this feature is enabled only for www.google.com.  Whenever I try to open this, it always takes me to www.google.co.in with a link to www.google.com at the bottom.  To go to directly to www.google.com one has to type in www.google.com/ncr (No Country Redirect) !