Here goes a quick and valuable tip people don't usually know, or at least a couple of friends of mine were not aware of. The two keywords will be SOCKS and SSH.

Connecting over to a remote server, one can bypass unauthorized access blocked by usually our network firewall. The most common examples given are restricted access to Facebook, MSN or torrents. We can also have unlimited access to all kinds of contents thanks to the nice sysadmin managing the network who puts no barriers whatsoever, but we may not trust him or the network users to permit unencrypted data flowing openly. Having some way to establish an encrypted connection to a known network who we trust, or distrust less, and tunneling over it would be safer. This is where SOCKS and SSH can be much of helpful!

SOCKS is an Internet protocol that routes network packets between a client and server through a proxy server. -- via Wikipedia

I'm certain as most, if not all, of our daily applications implement themselves some way of proxying (mostly HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS) or use the system-wide configured network proxy server. Now all we need is a remote and secure server to proxy and tunnel. This is the part where SSH enters:

What this means is if we have a SSH-enabled server we can take advantage of it because typically no further configurations or tweaks are needed. Let's take a look at the SSH client manual:

-D [bind_address:]port

Specifies a local ``dynamic'' application-level port forwarding. This works by allocat-

ing a socket to listen to port on the local side, optionally bound to the specified

bind_address. Whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded

over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to determine where to

connect to from the remote machine. Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are sup-

ported, and ssh will act as a SOCKS server. Only root can forward privileged ports.

Dynamic port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file.

ssh -C2qTnN -D <PORT> <USER>@<IP>

I will not provide the details of what each option features - run 'man ssh' and find by yourself. The result is a SOCKS proxy over SSH. Now let's wrap it in a bash script:

Replace <USER>@<IP> by your username and IP address. This bash script, in case you are a Mac user, will automatically turn SOCKS on upon execution and turn it off when shutting down (Mac users using an OS X version prior to Lion should replace "wi-fi" by "airport"). Other Unix users (Linux, BSD, etc) should set SOCKS host as "localhost" and SOCKS port "9999" in either your system network configurations or in each application you want to tunnel over.

If you ever wanna talk about it with me - I'd be happy to be on the show..."

A conference with  600 participants and 100 open-source companies...something very interesting  and for me the first conference outside of my country...
I leave and study in Madrid but i thought it would be a good idea taking part in the LSWC'11..let's see what happened in the conference and which presentation i saw...


I woke up very early so as to take the bus and go to "Ayutamiento de Zarogoza's building". I arrived about  8 o'clock for  the "Accreditations" so i had free time to enjoy a coffee in  "Cafeteria el Seminario" .  At 9 o'clock i got into  Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, so as to be accredited . The truth is that it wasn't difficult to find the conference cartel  (poster) and the "Accreditations place"  because nearby there were 3 conference posters. ([1] , [2] , [3] ). About  10 o'clock  took part the  "Conference Opening".  During the Opening  speech , Juan Alberto Belloca (Alcade de Zaragoza) presented the adoption and use of FLOSS in Aragon the last years. Afterwards , an interesting presentation took place "Firm and digital identity with Sinadura Suite" . This suite it's a free software product (builed in Java) offered by  Zylk, has to do with the firm and digital identity in Spain (DNI). At  11.30 was the right moment for the (Coffee Break). After the Coffee Break  another presantation took place , "Web development  using  express.js (node.js + MVC)" . Express.js offers a very clever way to programm in Javascript. I really enjoyed this conference because there have been presentations not only of commercial interest although presentations of general interest like   "The social networks in web 2.0" (Ana Frede). After this interesting presentation , as usually the lunch time begun. I attended another presentation,which in my opinion was important enough,such as the others "Migrasion from  Google Apps to Zimbra OSE (Consorci Lleidatá)" . I believe that right now,there is a lack of applications that could replace Google Apps. At 17.00 in Salon Actos,started another speach of legal interest  "Software patents : the empire strikes back"   (by Alberto Barrionuevo). Though,I insist that this subject is not only of legal interest,as the informatics people have to be aware of what is up with software patents. After this speech, Alberto Barrionuevo, gave another one, of commercial interest  "OpenERP Plus : the most complete implementation of free empresial management " ,over a version of OpenErp,more commercialized,that OPENTIA    gave out in the last years. This was how the first day in the conference passed.

At night,I went out for a beer

Some videos of the first day of the conference are available here:

"Conference Openening " [vid1]

" Software Patents"  [vid2]

" OpenERP Plus " [vid3]


The second day was slightly different from the first one. at 10.30 the most important speech for me,started in Aula 3. Certifications is something many people want to obtain,that's why  "Que es la Certificacion LPI" gave us all, all the needed information. Henry Chalup Dergam , the Director Manager of  LPI in Spain , presented the certification and all the connected information. During the presentation in aula 3, I saw smth that made me happy. in the city hall of zaragoza,they use a distribution, based upon openSUSE 11.2, named AZLinux.  The last presentation I attended was in AZLinux. After the Coffe Break, at 12.00, I started the Merengue. The subject of the presentation was "Merengue : CMS based on Django" .Merengue is a CMS based on Django, and despite the fact that I don't know much of Django, it seemed easier to use and program with Merengue than with Django. The last speech I attended was "AZLinux. Functional Characteristics" " . AZLinux  is based on openSUSE 11.2. The Ayutamiento de Zaragoza now uses free software in all its computers and I loved the fact that it was a policy of the Aragon Government, this use of free software in the public sector.For this, AZLinux uses the Migasfree Package Manager, a package manager very useful and easy-to-use.In the Ayutamiento de Zaragoza they inserted a  migration from propietary software into free software.

Some videos of the second day are available here :

" Merengue : CMS based on Django " [vid4]

Also all the videos of the conference are available here :

[Videos]

Finally,LSWC'11 was a conference I liked. I met many people passionate with FreeSoftware.Not only company members but also persons like me,simple individuals.As Francisco Javier Solans Benedi (President of Cesla) in [ vid1 ]  (13:00), "It's a fact that Free Software is an axioma,that came to stay", that's why many autonomous communities in Spain use FreeSoftware. It's sure that in the future,I will participate in more conferences and events like this,during my stay in Spain.

Rousinopoulos Athanasios-Ilias