Carl Johan Crafoord

Watching hulu.com from Sweden

2009-03-18T03:21:28Z

When I've been visiting my wife in the US we've been watching some series and movies on hulu.com, sitting in bed and snacking on something. I like the presentation of it, it's cute. It's sort of the same feeling i've had with spotify. Finally content providers are starting to provide good experiences on the internets.

Back in Sweden, me and my wife spend most of our free time together connected through skype. Sometimes it's nice to both of us be watching the same thing at the same time, sort of mimicking the experience of actually being in the same bed next to each other watching the same thing.

Before we'd tried hulu, we'd just google around the internets looking for some shoddy, seedy, backalley website where movies can be streamed. But after trying out something smooth, cute, polished like hulu.. it's really hard going back.

That's the kind of thing that motivates me to learn about tools like amazons ec2/s3, openvpn and routing :)

So. let's talk about that.

Using a VPN to route hulu traffic through Amazon EC2 to make it look like i'm surfing from the US (or at least from a Cloud) on Mac OS X.

Step one; Setting up the Amazon EC2 tools.

Pretty much taken from: Starting Amazon EC2 with Mac OS X

Get an account at http://aws.amazon.com/ and sign up for Elastic Compute Cloud

Once signed up, follow the link to Create a New X.509 Certificate and when they ask you if you're sure, say yes. This generates two key-files, a private and a public one.

Download both files

Download the EC2 Command-Line Tools from here.

Open Terminal, create an .ec2 directory in your home directory and open it


cd ~
mkdir .ec2
cd .ec2
open .

Copy the public and private key-files into the new .ec2 directory

Unzip the EC2 Tools, and copy the unzipped bin and lib directories into the .ec2 directory

Edit your .profile to set some ec2 environmental variables. Using nano (or some other text editor), open your .profile


nano ~/.profile

At the bottom of the file, add


# Setup Amazon EC2 Command-Line Tools
export EC2_HOME=~/.ec2
export PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=`ls $EC2_HOME/pk-*.pem`
export EC2_CERT=`ls $EC2_HOME/cert-*.pem`
export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home/

Reload it for the the changes to take effect


. ~/.profile

Step two: Setting up a Debian image in EC2

Start by creating a keypair. We need this to log into the instances we create. It'll be printed to the commandline, and you'll need to copy & paste it, including the —–BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—– and —–END RSA PRIVATE KEY—– lines into a new file named ec2-keypair in the .ec2 directory and then change the permission of the file


ec2-add-keypair ec2-keypair

Time to start up your instance. Remember, at this point amazon starts charging you for their time and bandwidth.


ec2-run-instances ami-67fe190e -k ec2-keypair

While it's booting up you can check it's status by running, this will also show you the domain name we'll use to connect to the instance later on


ec2-describe-instances

Now we need to open up the ports for ssh and openvp to our instance


ec2-authorize default -p 22
ec2-authorize default -p 1194

And now, connect to your instance over ssh using your keypair


ssh -i ~/.ec2/ec2-keypair root@ec2-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Step three: Configuring openvpn, NAT and IP forwarding

This part mostly from: Install OpenVPN on Ubuntu, Hulu Outside the US and Network Security

Start by updating the package system, optionally running any needed upgrades, then install openvpn and openssl


aptitude update
aptitude upgrade
aptitude install openvpn openssl

Prepare the scripts we'll use to create private and public keys for the vpn


cd /etc/openvpn/
cp -r /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/easy-rsa/2.0/ easy-rsa
cd easy-rsa

Open the script called vars and edit the lines at the bottom according to your location


nano vars


# These are the default values for fields
# which will be placed in the certificate.
# Don't leave any of these fields blank.
export KEY_COUNTRY="US"
export KEY_PROVINCE="CA"
export KEY_CITY="SanFrancisco"
export KEY_ORG="Fort-Funston"
export KEY_EMAIL="me@myhost.mydomain"

Run the script you just edited, and clean up the key generation environment


. ./vars
./clean-all

Build the openvpn keys used for connecting a client to the server


./build-ca
./build-key-server server
./build-key client
./build-dh

You'll end up with three files in the keys folder. Copy the files back to your client computer, for example with scp


cd keys
scp ca.crt client.crt client.key me@myip

Create a configuration file /etc/openvpn/openvpn.conf


dev tun
proto tcp
port 1194

ca /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/server.crt
key /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/server.key
dh /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/dh1024.pem

user nobody
group nogroup
server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0

persist-key
persist-tun

#status openvpn-status.log
#verb 3
client-to-client

# hulu / akamai
push "route 77.67.0.0 255.255.128.0 vpn_gateway"
push "route 80.128.0.0 255.224.0.0 vpn_gateway"

# p.hulu.com
push "route 208.91.157.10 255.255.255.255 vpn_gateway"

# t.hulu.com
push "route 209.130.205.38 255.255.255.255 vpn_gateway"

log-append /var/log/openvpn
comp-lzo

Edit /etc/default/openvpn and add this line


AUTOSTART="openvpn"

Create another configuration file /etc/network/if-up.d/iptables


cd /etc/network/if-up.d
nano iptables

Add these lines to it, to enable IP forwarding and NAT


#!/bin/sh

# configure IP forwarding and IPTables NAT
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

Change the permissions of it and run it


chmod +x iptables
./iptables

Start the openvpn server


/etc/init.d/openvpn start

Step four: Configure your mac to connect to the vpn, with Tunnelblick

Download and install Tunnelblick

Put the files we downloaded from the keys directory into ~/Library/openvpn/

Create a new configuration file for the connection in Tunnelblick. Don't forget to change the remote server from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the address to your ec2 instance


client
dev tun
proto tcp
remote x.y.z.w 1194
resolv-retry infinite
nobind

user nobody
group nogroup

persist-key
persist-tun

ca ca.crt
cert client1.crt
key client1.key

comp-lzo
verb 3

Tell Tunnelblick to connect, and you the rest should sort itself out.

You can verify that the routes have been added to your computer by running:


netstat -r -n

(optional) Step five: Saving your instance for later, powering it down, and starting it back up

This mostly taken from Saving a Customised Linux Amazon Instance (EC2 and S3)

Start by going back to http://aws.amazon.com/ and signing up for the Simple Storage Service

Copy over your keys to the instance


scp -i ~/.ec2/ec2-keypair ~/.ec2/pk-*.pem ~/.ec2/cert-*.pem root@ec2-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:/mnt

SSH to the server, and create a bundle out of your customized instance


ec2-bundle-vol -d /mnt -k /mnt/pk-*.pem -c /mnt/cert-*.pem -u XXXXXXXXXXXX

Copy over the bundle to the Simple Storage Service


ec2-upload-bundle -b [your-s3-bucket] -m /mnt/image.manifest.xml -a [aws-access-key-id] -s [aws-secret-access-key]

Now, go back to your client machine and register your bundle on S3 as an AMI with EC2.


ec2-register [your-s3-bucket]/image.manifest.xml

And, you're done. Now you can shut down the instance when you're not using it. And then just start it back up using your new AMI


ec2-terminate-instances i-xxxxxxxx

And that should be it! :D

I will come back and look at this entry tomorrow when i'm not sleepy and can think straight again :3

Setting up your Mac OS X terminal

2008-11-19T23:39:54Z

Spending a lot of time in the mac terminal, I always make a lot of tweaks and settings because the defaults are pretty crap. What a good thing to put in a blag.

Colors

When I'm lazy and don't have the time to set up a color theme, I just go with the Pro theme. The basic white-text-on-black-background is good. It does have some serious issues with the readability of the ansi colored text on the black background though.

To remedy this, we first install SIMBL and then put this bundle into ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/. There's more to read about that in this blag post and the comments to it.

After restarting the terminal and bringing up its preferences, there should now be a More... button under the selection color picker.

Click it to change your ANSI colors.

I like my terminals a bit blue and desaturated. So I made some settings and I call them Blueberry, you can download them here:

sun, sun, sun

2008-06-28T17:19:38Z

So, we got back from Florida late on Wednesday and we've both been working.. Ollie's got her 12 hour shifts and I've been picking up on work in sweden from here. Skype is a pretty amazing tool. My skin's peeling like mad today from the sunburn I got when we were down there.. heh.

We set off early in the morning so we could go all the way in one straight drive. Just getting used to driving in the US, and really liking long drives I was looking forward to this one :)

We arrived at Ollies grandparents house and they were nowhere to be found! :O But they were pretty much right around the corner, coming home just a few minutes after we got there. We relaxed for a bit after the drive and then Ollies grandpa showed us the way down to a nice hotel closeby, which was nie because we were stopping by their place everyday for a bit while we were down there.

First day was rainy all day long, we were driving around looking for neat restaurants for a bit (we did that every day though :D heh) and got settled. Second day was bright and sunny so we went to the beach!

That ended up with both of us getting pretty severe sunburns :D I'm amazed we even got out of the hotel room the other days, but we did it and we got around to some shopping and hanging out and seeing St Petersburg and the grandparents. Nice stuffs. When it eventually was time to go back to Tennessee Ollies grandmum had gotten admitted back into the hospital and and Ollie wasn't feeling too good herself either, so the entire trip back she was pretty much sleeping, except when she woke up to give me directions just in time. Pretty magical.

Yesterday we went to see wall-e which was a gorgeus movie of robot goodness.

Now I'm gonna go look see if I can find something mountainbike:y to ride on!

waiting for my luggage

2008-06-19T17:19:36Z

last night my luggage finally arrived, because apparently it's always lost for a few days when it's supposed to go from atlanta to kingsport. so we had to wait for that before going off on roadtrips southwards.

while waiting, i've accustomed myself to driving an automatic (first time i did the same thing i did first time i was learning to drive with my mom, put reverse in and stepped on the gas and wrooom back we go. didn't run over anything this time though) and going places always by car, never by walking, and shopping clothes and waving at people and drinking sweet ice teas and ice mochass. it's way warm. i haven't bothered with sunburns or short pants in ages, but we're working on that now. i've got funny red-and-white patterns all over.

but yesss. now the luggage finally arrived so today we'll probably get going towards florida. we've got a compass and it can show you what way south is, and that's the way we're going :D

oh and i have to find a converter plug thing. i want to power my computer D:

i'm going already

2008-06-16T06:00:09Z

Waiting to board at Arlanda.

And apparently meeting up with people before i left wasn't really happening on saturday. It was friday. Big secret planning since long? Bathing and getting a new haircut (a wee bit on the short side) and all sorts of crazy things. I got to see some people I hadn't seen in.. forever. Amazing :) Some of us did get too much to drink, in the end, but I hope everyone's feeling better today. Saturday was just me and the friends from Mariefred watching the game :) it was very nice to be able to cool down and relax after fridays craziness.

Andreas+Diana, your blue blanket is in my apartment. Tanja has the keys to it. Thanks for bringing my gameboy :)

Check back in a bit, eh!

Nu på lördag i kungsträdgården

2008-06-12T23:42:29Z

det är em-fest (läs: tv4-jippo) i kungsträdgården och på måndag åker jag till usa. kom och kramas, titta på fotboll, heja, kalasa, dansa, trixa, fixa, osv. det vore kul att ses innan jag åker!

saxat från info om em-festen på lördag:
Öppettiderna för EM-festen är 11.00 – 24.00.

12:00 Utmana allsvenska spelare i fotbollskunskap och teknik
12.30 Reprisering av gårdagens match på storbildsskärmen
14.15 Lattjo Lajban med Mallan och Jojo som spelar Staraoke med barnen
15.00 Gästframträdande av Frida
16:00 Ungefär här tänkte jag att vi skulle börja ses?
16.30 Talang med Peppe Eng
17.00 Fotbollsfrågesport. Segraren vinner biljetter till EM
18.00 Sverige-Spanien visas på storbildsskärmen
20.00 Gästframträdande av Robert Wells
20.45 Grekland-Ryssland visas på storbildsskärmen
22.45 Livemusik på scen
23.00-24.00 Fotbollskanalen: EM-magasinet med Peter Jihde sänds på storbildsskärmen
??:?? Vi hänger så länge vi bara kan!

<3

2008-05-19T05:29:02Z

recipe for a successful day

2008-05-04T19:11:11Z

this made my morning. fredrik recited it from memory :D

one cup of kind words
two brimming cups of understanding
four teaspoons of time and patience
one dash of warm personality
a sprinkle of humor

religious handouts just keep getting better.

gröndals café

2008-04-28T09:49:56Z

eniro

play! music

2008-04-26T23:50:59Z

so, after stepping on my brand new skypephone while stumbling out of the shower, it was sent for repairs and came back a while ago. yay! but all this switching of phones and firmwares and whatnot has left me without content on the phone. a lack of numbers and pictures and music! numbers i can figure out usually, so that's not a big problem. pictures i put there on my own :D and music.. well i made some and i figured it could be interesting to others as well, so this is what i did:

1. found some music that i like, that i thought "hey, this would be neat as a ringtone/alarm signal/etc" about
2. fire up audacity and select a ~1 minute part of the song
3. export as mp3 and move it over to the phone
4. ???
5. downloads! :D (you thought i was going to say profit, didn't you? shame on you)

(or you could go to: http://calle.pansarvagn.net/krimskrams/mobil/ )

cubismo grafico - ave maria
devolve - can i have it like that sweet child of mine
dizzee rascal - stand up tall
example - so many roads
example - you cant rap
familjen - det snurrar i min skalle
final fantasy - this lamb sells condos
final fantasy - this modern love cover
hellogoodbye - i saw it on your keyboard
imogen heap - hide and seek
jack johnson - better together
jack johnson - sitting waiting wishing
jamie t - if you got the money
jamie t - so lonely was the ballad
justice - dance
kate nash - merry happy
kate nash - pumpkin soup
kings of convenience - id rather dance with you
maskinen - alla som inte dansar
my darling you - please dont talk to me remix
owl city - designer skyline
owl city - hello seattle
paris hilton - screwed
perfume - game
playradioplay - mr brightside
regina spektor - better
regina spektor - fidelity
regina spektor - on the radio
the streets - could well be in
the streets - dreams
the streets - empty cans
to my boy - eureka
vapnet - kalla mig

gosh, livejournal. don't be such a bitch about letting me use javascript.

one step at a time

2008-04-22T10:52:46Z

i'm gangsta. yup, yup. (previously)

apartment tetris

2008-03-27T01:34:57Z

right, so when i started moving furniture around, the clock was at a sane hour. not so much any longer. sorry, neighbors.

i guess i got caught up in the moment and it was a pretty relaxing experience, moving things around. still not perfectly happy with it but it's better. hmm. i'll have to try and keep it up. works in progress.

still need to take care of the 30+ glasses and coffee cups i unpacked from the boxes from the gothenburg move. lol. what am i going to do with that many glasses, the apartment would never fit that many guests.

bonus
i totally forgot, the best part of faux cleaning an apartment is lighting candles afterwards and watching things go way calm.

right, so what have i been procrastinated/avoided tonight, then?

bonus too
still no sight of my 3g internets ;___;

mornings

2008-03-26T06:41:57Z

this was a perfect morning for staying in bed.

just making a note of it so that whenever a morning when i do get to stay in bed comes along, i am going to stay in bed even if it's not the perfect morning for it.

ha.

starfighter @ 2008-03-25T15:08:00

2008-03-25T14:11:13Z

just cleaning up my desktop. these were there and i was supposed to do something with them, but i can't remember what, exactly. so i'll just put them here for the time being. found here.

yawn

2008-03-25T07:56:59Z

mornings. i don't really make an effort to be on my way well in time. even when i'm running a bit late everything works out in the end anyway and i end up arriving just a little bit early.

what are you trying to tell me, life. don't make an effort?

i know how much fun denmark is(n't).. atlanta?

2008-03-05T13:23:27Z

flight!

MON 16JUN      STOCKHOLM SE        COPENHAGEN DK          0825     0935
MON 16JUN      COPENHAGEN DK       ATLANTA GA             1100     1445
MON 16JUN      ATLANTA GA          BRISTOL TN             1845     1953

SUN 20JUL      BRISTOL TN          ATLANTA GA             1635     1758
SUN 20JUL      ATLANTA GA          STOCKHOLM SE           2025     1140

Atlanta! Entertain me for four hours!

Kom och lek burken!

2008-03-04T19:55:05Z

Var?: Vid högalidskyrkan, hornstull
När?: Varje tisdag 19:00

Premiär var ikväll med buller, bång och skrubbsår.

single minded

2008-03-03T13:11:32Z

2005

2007

i didn't realise i was this repetitive, unimaginative and single minded. taking the same picture two years later. i must've really run out of ideas.

crap.

random

2008-03-03T01:20:09Z

music is on random and i am falling asleep.

mixtape:
John Parr vs Tommyknockers - New horizon
Halcali - Oboroge copy view
The Postal Service - Sleeping in
Perfume - Perfect star perfect style
Owl City - Hello Seattle
VNV Nation - Standing
Anamanaguchi - Power supply
The Sounds - Living in america
Bo Kaspers Orkester - Vi kommer aldrig att dö

updates!

2008-02-06T09:25:02Z

computers

i'm a total dork, posting (thumbnails behind a cut, mind you) of my desktop. but i'm so happy with the jungle pics i found for desktops (also featured on my myspace, yo) so i just have to. also, the geektool text i've got going in the background probably isn't very comprehensible from the thumbs, but there's a syslog tail on top and then a top in the bottom left, and when there are net connections (aren't any in the screenshot) there's a netstat showing established connections in the bottom right. geeky! i should just do a post on how to set that up cause it's pretty nifty, or you could just google it.

also, i'm trying out using mercurial to distribute my personal configuration files (.rc's etc) across the different computers i regularly log in to and i think that's going to prove quite genious.

work
i'm a horrible procrastinator. or, well. i'm trying to come to terms with the fact that you can't be 100% productive 100% of the time. i used to be really stressed out about getting things done, and there always seems to be an endless pile of things to do! however, ever since christmas / new years i've been filled with this.. non-stressed mindset, and i actually tell people "no, i can't do that" or "well, i can't do it immediately but i'll be able to do it then and then" which is a first, sort of. i love helping people out and making plans but the idea of having nothing in my to-do list is actually really appealing.

also i guess i'm growing tired of always getting handed projects and having things to do that needs to be done now, or even better yesterday! all of the time. sure it's fun every once in a while.. but last year it felt like that was how i was rolling 24/7, pretty much.

life
i was on the phone with mom's friend carina (she's pretty much my 2nd mom, and i speak more to her on the phone than my actual mum) and she was commenting how i seemed to be in my apartment a lot more of the time than before. i didn't really think about it until then, but yeah. mostly it's because i get to hang out and bother ollie with skypes and iming, but it's also because i'm finally not so restless when i'm at home. i guess when i'm working in an office with buddies i'm hanging out there as much as i can, and probably eating out with them after work instead of rushing home.. and now that i'm doing the teaching gig that's not happening. i wonder if it'll change when i get back in the office.

and things have really taken a few unexpected turns with ollie. her mother is no longer with us (check her journal for the particulars) and that's affected her and everyone close to her i bet :x for me, i've had to think a bit more about summer. the original plan was to go there and hang out and see if this internets infatuation had the real life spark to back it up for sure - i couldn't just have her travel to sweden with the possibility of her or me ending up realising we couldn't stand each other. also, i want see america. i'm still going there in june (getting tickets now in feb/march) but if things work out i won't immediately go back, (originally i was going to stay a month or so) instead i'll stay and help her with everything she needs to take care of before coming to sweden. and then we could go back here together. is this a really crazy and insane thing to do? i'll have to see if i can get a fiancee visa, and then i'll have to tell my boss i'll be on leave and don't really know when i'll be back, and then i'd have to find a job in the us on pretty short notice. i'm not sure it'll be doable but i'm set to try. turns out this girl from the internets that i used to stalk is really important to me :x however i realise i'm infatuated and totally lovestruck and that i could be making decisions that a sane person perhaps wouldn't make.. so.. friends, please do comment with some sanity and/or tips and own experiences.

facebook
i made my first facebook application and i'm super proud! :D if you haven't already (17 of my friends and 426 strangers already added it), consider adding the excellent Push Button - a button that you can push ;)

russian spam
what does it say!! (and why there?)

starfighter @ 2008-01-22T12:27:00

2008-01-22T11:29:23Z

i need the sun.

someone put this graffiti up around newyears.
i took the pics for the pano back then,
like the day after newyears?

i found them when i was bluetoothing things over from my phone.

i really wish spring would take off. :x why can't it be may already.

edit: i guess they cleaned it up already. noticed on the way home today.

spam?

2008-01-15T12:01:44Z

seriously, what is with this entry and totally weird comment spam?

you spin me round

2008-01-03T07:46:30Z

it's snowing!

yesterday i started the painful cleaning upping and remodeling of the apartment space that has to happen because of getting a new bed and soon getting a new kitchen :O cause how are we going to put a new kitchen in here if there's no room to work, etc etc. so i stuck the new bed in a corner and shielded it from the window with hangers for clothes.

and now i made this qnd panorama! :D
i am so in love with this bed. even though i've only slept in it like.. not even a week, and i've been mostly sick, but still.

so anyway, still lots of work with throwing crap out and such :P i was never good with letting crap go (i keep finding old receipts and random paper that is junk but somehow i thought it was golden at the time?) ugh. getting better, getting better.

burr

2008-01-03T00:12:33Z

this weather absolutely calls for a thirty minute sit in a hot shower after coming home, every day. sunshine! where are you. i'll have to buy oranges and citruses and make my own sunshine. hah.

starfighter @ 2007-12-24T20:34:00

2007-12-24T19:34:27Z