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By admin, January 22, 2013 10:27 am

Important HKIX Announcement on New Charging Model

HKIX was established in April 1995, using spare resources of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  At the onset, HKIX could be offered as a free-of-charge service to the early participants with moderate network traffic.  But over the years, with the growth in the demand for Internet traffic exchange and e-business, we have now grown into a critical Internet infrastructure covering 190+ autonomous systems and exchanging 250+ Gbps of data at peak time.  To support such a huge network, the configuration of HKIX has also evolved from a primitive coaxial cable to Ethernet switches and to the now top-end equipment and technologies.

Obviously, it is not possible to leverage the network economy of the whole Hong Kong with virtually no cost.  In 2005, we introduced the penalty-based cost-recovering model with a hope to curb abuse and to recover most of the cost.  After eight years, we find that this extremely conservative model is not sustainable in front of the exponential growth in network traffic volume and growth in the demand for new connections.  Together with the higher expectation of all the participants in the service, it calls for a continuous upgrade of the HKIX infrastructure in capacity and resilience.  This requires substantial periodic capital investment and operating expenses.  It is unfair and impossible for the university to subsidize the operation indefinitely.  In fact, we have to do a major upgrade in 2013 to cope with the ever-increasing demand and to improve our resilience further with site resilience at the core.

In order to make the HKIX operation truly self-sustained in long term and to prepare for the continuous growth in the future while we could keep HKIX as a not-for-profit service, we have no choice but to implement a full-cost-recovery model, i.e. simple port charge model.  This charging mechanism is actually the industry norm, which is fair and consistent for all participants.

Simple port charge model will be implemented starting 01-JAN-2013 for all new participants and new connection requests. For existing participants with no change of connections, the existing terms and conditions will not change until 30-JUN-2013.  To further ease the transition, we shall still provide to each participant up to 2 free FE/GE ports in total (counting all ports at all HKIX sites) until 30-JUN-2014.  After 30-JUN-2014, all ports will be chargeable.

The new port charges (applied to all HKIX sites) will be:

FE/GE: US$120/port/month (no one-time connection charge) 10GE: US$1,000/port/month (plus one-time non-refundable connection charge: LR – US$2,300; ER – US$7,000)

(Exchange Rate: US$1=HK$7.8)

We strongly believe the charges laid down are on the low side when compared to other parts of the world.  Nevertheless, we shall review the charges periodically and uphold our principles of fairness and consistency.

If you have any queries regarding this new arrangement, please feel free to contact our core team at hkix-core at itsc.cuhk.edu.hk.

We thank you for your understanding and wish you’ll have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

HKIX Team

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By admin, January 17, 2013 12:38 pm

這幾天在看林青霞的”窗里窗外”，意外的看到了以下這麼一段:

在圣嚴法師生前，青霞寫了記述法師重要的開示与箴言。其中最發人深省的是：”面對它、接受它、處理它、放下它”。青霞說：”在我生命里最不可承受的痛時，因為用了它而順利過度。人世無常， 不如意事十之八九，我經常把這些話送給朋友，他們也因為渡過內心的難關而感激我。

昨天忘記講，其實我覺得最難的還是最後那句”放下它”，因為肯定會有沒有辦法解決的問題(死局)，到時就一定要學會Let Go，有時放低某些事情事實上真的很難，比坦然面對要難得多，所有都在乎你的心態，我仍然在學習中。。。

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By admin, January 15, 2013 9:03 pm

“山重水複疑無路，柳暗花明又一村。”

Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst!

今天又再一次深深地體會到，天無絕人之路原來是真的，重點是一定要對前路充滿信心才能夠大步欖過!

當中細節已經不再那麼重要，生活壓力而已，現在已經解決，重要的是我想分享面對困難時的心態。

突然而來的困局，徬徨導致立刻想放棄，然後漁翁散網式地去尋找解決方案，面對困難重重再次出現了放棄的想法，想不到最後關刻突然出現了轉機。

其實人生經歷了這麼多年，峰迴路轉，很多時候都是危機中有時機，時機中又隱藏著殺機。

漫漫人生路似乎一早就有人幫你安排了一切，不到最後一刻也未必知道輸贏。

不要放棄，心態很重要，謹此而已。

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By admin, January 13, 2013 6:49 pm

一九九四年我結婚當天，多想把手上捧着的香檳色花球拋給她，因為我認為她是最適合的人選，我想把這份喜氣交到她手上，可是我不知道她在哪裏。

婚後不久和朋友在君悅酒店茶敍，接到她打來的電話，「你在哪兒？我想把花球拋給你的，你……」我一連串說了一大堆，她只在電話那頭輕輕的笑，「我在清邁，我有一套紅寶石首飾送給你。」那是我和她最後的對話。

一 九八○年她在洛杉磯，我在三藩巿，她開車來看我，我們到Union Square逛百貨公司，其實兩人也並不真想買東西。臨出店門，她要我等一下，原來她跑去買一瓶香水送給我。我們喝了杯飲料，她晚飯都不吃就趕着開車回 去。那是我們第一次相約見面，大家都不太熟悉，也不知道該說些甚麼，但是我卻被她交我這個朋友所付出的誠意深深的打動。

和她的交往不算深。她很神 秘，如果她不想被打擾，你是連絡不到她的。我們互相欣賞。對她欣賞的程度是──男朋友移情別戀如果對象是她，我決不介意。跟她見面的次數並不多，一九九○ 年到巴黎旅遊，當時她住在巴黎，這段時間是我跟她相處較長的時段。因為身在巴黎，沒有名氣的包袱，我們都很自在的顯出自己的真性情。我會約她到香榭麗舍大 道喝路邊咖啡，看往來的路人，享受夜巴黎的浪漫情懷。她也請我去法國餐廳La Tour d’Argent吃那裏的招牌鴨子餐。記得那晚她和我都精心的打扮，大家穿上白天shopping回來的新衣裳，我穿的是一件閃着亮光的黑色直身 Emporio Armani吊帶短裙，頸上戴着一串串Chanel珠鏈。她穿的那件及膝小禮服，雖然是一身黑，但服裝款式和布料層次分明。下襬是蕾絲打摺裙，腰繫黑緞 帶，特點是上身黑雪紡點綴着許多同色繡花小圓點，若隱若現的。最讓我驚訝的是，她信心十足地裏面甚麼都不穿，我則整晚都沒敢朝她胸前正面直望。我們走進餐 廳，還沒坐定，就聽到背後盤子刀叉噹啷噹啷跌落一地的聲音，我想，這waiter一定為他的不小心而感到懊惱萬分。她卻忍不住竊笑，「你看，那小男生看到 我們驚艷得碗盤都拿不穩了。」

有幾次在餐廳吃飯，聽到鋼琴師彈奏美妙的音樂，她會親自送上一杯香檳，讚美幾句。她對所有服務她的人都彬彬有禮，口袋裏總是裝滿一兩百法朗紙鈔，隨時做小費用，我看她給得次數太多，換一些五十的給她，她堅持不收。

有 次在車上她拿出一盒卡帶（那時候還沒有碟片）放給我聽，裏面有她重新錄唱的三首成名曲，原來那段時間她在英國學聲樂，她很認真的跟我解釋如何運用舌頭和喉 嚨的唱法令歌聲更圓潤。對於沒有音樂細胞的我，雖然聽不懂也分辨不出和之前的歌有甚麼不同，但對她追求完美和精益求精的精神深感敬佩。

有一天到她 家吃午飯，車子停在大廈的地下停車場，那裏空無一人，經過幾個迴廊，也冷冷清清。走出電梯進入她那座落於巴黎高尚住宅區的公寓，一進門，大廳中間一張圓木 桌，地上彩色拼花大理石，天花好像有盞水晶燈。那天吃的是清淡的白色炒米粉，照顧她的是一名中國女傭。我一直以來的夢想就是在巴黎有個小公寓，她在巴黎這 所公寓比我的夢更加完美。可是我感受到的卻是孤寂。

那些日子，我們說了些甚麼不太記得，只記得在巴黎消磨的快樂時光。

結束了愉快的巴黎之旅，我們一同回港，在機上我問她自己孤身在外，不感到寂寞嗎？她說算命的說她命中注定要離鄉別井，這樣對她較好。

飛機緩緩的降落香港，我們的神經線也漸漸的開始繃緊，她提議我們分開來下機，我讓她先走。第二天全香港都以大篇幅的頭條，報道她回港的消息。

二○一三年來臨的前夕，我在南非度假，因為睡不着，打開窗簾，窗外星斗滿天，拱照着蒙上一層薄霧的橙色月亮，詩意盎然，我想起了她，嘴裏輕哼着「月亮代表我的心」。

她突然的離去，我悵然若失，總覺得我們的友誼不該就這樣結束了。這些年她經常在我夢裏出現，夢裏的她和現實的她一樣──迷一樣的女人。奇妙的是，在夢裏，世人都以為她去了天國，唯獨我知道她還在人間。

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By admin, January 13, 2013 8:36 am

此劇追了近1個月，昨晚終於觀看完畢首3季和最後的那集Downton Abbey 2012 Christmas Special。想到又要等一年才有完整的第4季，真有點欲罷不能的感覺。

Downton Abbey是近年少見的出色British Drama，那個年代的人和事物都很Decent，就如最近看過的另一傑作Brideshead Revisited般精彩。

很喜歡這些英國的古堡大宅和它們背後的文化背景故事，有機會一定會去Highclere Castle與Castle Howard看看。

Highclere Castle

Castle Howard

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By admin, January 5, 2013 4:26 pm

This is probably the very first song introduced by my mum when I was very young.

How Much is That Doggie in The Window

When I am older now, I like the following two:

I Went To Your Wedding

Tenessee waltz, but somehow I like Norah Jones’s version more.

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By admin, December 28, 2012 12:30 pm

It’s a very common scenario that a server/PC maintained by careless keeper got hacked, which often leads to high CPU usage due to Trojan process running in background.

The followings two are the most useful tools to quickly determine which are the bad nuts.

netstat -nop tcp

- This is very useful to find out if a Trojan service has opened an incoming port, often the status shows “ESTABLISHED”

- netstat can be also used to find out the DDOS IP as those status often ends with “LAST_ACK”

- From the output PID, then you can determine which process from the task manager, but what if it’s a svhost.exe? Problem is you still can’t tell exactly which service as there are several svhost.exe running most of the time, so keep reading.

tasklist /svc |find “Process_ID”

Bingo! This cmd does exactly the trick to find out which is the bad nuts, Process_ID or PID is the one you got in netstat.

Is that so simple? I am afraid not, I’ve seen recently Trojan/DDOS tools have becoming more sophisticated and difficult to catch as they embedded themselves as web scripts utilizing UDP ports as the protocol, either acts as a bot waiting to be activated via URL strings and then send UDP DDOS to the target IP (ie attack others) or exhausts the entire server CPU by issuing UDP commands to fill up Events Logger (ie, attacked the server itself).

What you will find is w3wp.exe (or IIS Service) is using a lot of CPU as well as System (which is the disk activity) being very busy, so you got to use other methods to track down those bad scripts.

Finally, a single svchost.exe can contain many individual services, so the only way to find out which service is responsible is to configure them to run in its separate svchost.

For example, lets start with wuauserv (Windows Update Service) which is often the cause of high CPU, open command prompt and run the following commands:

net stop wuauserv

sc config wuauserv type= own

net start wuauserv

This will isolate wuauserv in its own svchost and then you can check the effect on CPU and identify the PID with tasklist /svc, you are already familiar with the process.

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By admin, December 26, 2012 9:47 pm

Onion Soup with Parmesan Cheese
Spanish Iberian Pork with Fries from McDonald
Red Wine from Bordeaux
French Lemon Tart

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By admin, December 13, 2012 6:53 pm

This is so strange when I typed in “18 Mulsanne” in Taobao today and suddenly the result page turns into raw PHP code, it must be a serious security hole somewhere, probably it’s server got hacked. However, consequence searches all return normal result, just wired!

<?php

include "common.inc.php";
include "{$ROOT}/common/base32.inc.php";
$location_url = "/search?";
if ((isset($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]) && $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] ===
"/browse/search_auction.htm") || isset($_GET["taoke_from"])
&& $_GET["taoke_from"] === "search_auction") {
    foreach ($_GET as $k => $v) {
        if (!empty($v) && array_key_exists($k, $PARAMS)) {
            if (in_array($k, array('q', 'loc'))) {
                if (isset($_GET["_input_charset"]) && $_GET["_input_charset"]
=== 'utf-8') {
                    $v = urlencode(iconv('UTF-8', 'GBK', $v));
                } else {
                    $v = urlencode($v);
                }
            }
            $location_url .= $k . "=" . trim($v) . "&";
        }
    }
    $location_url = rtrim($location_url, '&');
    header("Location:$location_url");
    exit();
}
if (($_GET["cat"] <> "
...