Running openvpn without it hanging the terminal

Whilst messing around with HackTheBox, I attempted to connect to the VPN from an Ubuntu VM I have with Google.

The annoying part was that after it ran, it would hang at "Initialization Sequence Completed", and required a second terminal connection to continue. If I Control+C'd, it would kill the VPN connection.

After a bit of searching, I found that I could run it then background it by going

> sudo openvpn Reelix.ovpn &

In which case it would still hang at "Initialization Sequence Completed", but I could Control+C it without it killing it. Close... But the hanging annoyed me.

After a bit more searching, I found that OpenVPN had a --daemon parameter, but going

> sudo openvpn Reelix.ovpn --daemon

Threw up an error

> Options error: I'm trying to parse "Reelix.ovpn" as an --option parameter but I don't see a leading '--'
> Use --help for more information.

After much searching, I eventually discovered the trick!

> sudo openvpn --config Reelix.ovpn --daemon

Success!

To kill the connection, I could either go

> sudo pkill -f "openvpn --config Reelix.ovpn"

Or

> ps aux | grep openvpn
> sudo kill -2 processIdHere

Starcraft 2 AI Battles!

Whilst going through my daily news, I found an article about how an AI Bot in Starcraft 2 managed to beat the hardest native SC2 AI. In my search for the videos of these battles (Which I couldn't find), I managed to find the SC2 API for bots, and with a little more searching - The SC2 AI Ladder.

Browsing their Wiki, I came across a SC2 Bot writted in C#. So, I did what any awesome developer would do - I downloaded it, customized the daylights out of it, and entered it into the AI Ladder (Without expecting to actually get anywhere - Only a few hours work after all). After a few problems with uploading (Which the Site Admin helped me out with on Discord!), I managed to get a working bot onto their ladder.

The initial results amazed me!

Not only was my bot not absolutely terrible - It was winning almost every match it entered! In fact, it had a 78% Win Rate (And a 22% Crash Rate which was destroying my rating...) - And that was just the first version!!! I fixed some crashes, optimized some code, fiddled with the gameplay, and re-entered my Bot - Eager to see how the new changes affected the ratings!

Tiny C# Remote SSH Version Detector

Whilst doing some NetSec stuff, I needed a quick way to get the SSH version of a remote target, so I coded the following.

Demo (No Connection, Open Connection via Netcat, Actual SSH Server, Actual SSH Server on a custom port)



Download: Here (5kb)

Source

Configuring MPC-HC for easy Anime watching

Whilst watching some Anime recently, I got a bit annoyed that the default language was always set to English, so I had to change the language, and fixed the subtitles every 20 minutes or so which got super annoying.

I eventually found a fix.

Right Click -> Options -> Playback -> Default track preference

Set the number to the "Subtitles" number to the order of the option you prefer at the bottom of the Right Click -> Subtitle Track list, and the "Audio" option to "jpn"

Simple C# Command-Line Twitch Bot

Got bored one evening, so decided to create a basic Twitch bot in C#

It can't really do anything besides watch the chat, count the users, parse Twitch user tag data (Oh gawd why...) and have the user send messages to the chat, but the basic infrastructure is there for anything more complex.

Code: Here

Sample Screenshot

Ready Player One - Audio Book (Free)

It seems that the Audio Book for Ready Player One has become free. It's read by Wil Wheaton, and it's an awesome listen!

Go here to see and sample, or just download the entire thing in .ogg format here (480MB)

My Chrome Theme

This is the Fluttershy-themed Chrome theme I use.

This post is here because I had a few people asking me which it was.

Theme link: Here

NetSec - A simple .zip dictionary attacker

I couldn't find a simple app to dictionary attack .zip files on Windows for a NetSec challenge, so I coded one.

Download Link: Here (106kb)
Github Repo: Here

If you're looking for something more intensive, try John the Ripper

Sample Screenshot

JavaScript - Sum of the first X prime numbers

I recently had a programming challenge where I had to find the sum of the first X prime numbers in JavaScript in a slightly compressed format, and couldn't find anything decent online.

So I coded this.


It could be far better, although the challenge was timed :P

Thanks to The Polyglot Developer for their "isPrime" function :)

A Textbox that only allows numbers

Since this seems so hard to do... An actual working example :)

Usage HTML: <input type="text" onkeypress="return isNumericKeyPress(event.keyCode);" onpaste="isNumericPaste(this);" />

OR

ASP.NET: <asp:textbox ID="txtNumsOnly" runat="server" onkeypress="return isNumericKeyPress(event.keyCode);" onpaste="isNumericPaste(this);"></asp:textbox>

Demo Type or paste something:

Samples
- 1!2@3#
- Test
- Test1
- 1a2b3c