23 Jan 2006
Securing the Server

As if SPAM wasn't enough of a problem, my server has been putting up with dozens of malicious script-kiddies trying dictionary attacks. I counted 23,412 'Illegal user' login attempts in a day and a half - that's gotta be a load on the server, even if all of the logins ultimately fail. So I spent a couple of hours this morning and installed DenyHosts, which is really an excellent tool - it's already stopped three attacks today, before they could get started. It's flexible, too, and can run as a cron job or a daemon. If you run a Unix style server, get this installed. You'll sleep better...

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Elmer

Well, sad news to report: our senior barn cat, Elmer, has traveled to Folkvanger - which is Freyja's hall. For my non-Heathen readers, Freyja is (among other things) the Goddess of Cats. And she has gained a mighty mouser, indeed.

We 'inherited' Elmer from Kevyn, at whose home he lived his first few years as an indoor house cat. But then Elmer decided that the furniture needed marking, despite being neutered, and would not desist. Since Kevyn had more than enough barn cats at the time, and we were short handed in the mousing department, Elmer made the trip to Hammerstead. That was almost three years ago - he had to have been at least five and maybe as many as seven years old. Which is a pretty good life span for a barn cat.

He had the most annoying habit of treating people like trees, and climbing them, perching on shoulders as often as he was allowed. His favorite spot to catch some rays was on the roof of the mud porch, braced against a vent.

How he died, I'm not sure. I found the body in the back lot at the evening feeding - our sole remaining barn cat, Yeti, was going slightly crazy, and I saw Elmer laying the mud. Not a good thing. He wasn't quite stiff yet, so he hadn't been gone long, but there were no obvious marks of trauma - if he'd been stepped on by a cow he would've been buried in place, as the back lot is exceptionally muddy right now. He didn't have any apparent broken bones - who knows? Perhaps it was just his time to go, and so he went. He was a bit overweight - rare for a barn cat, but he was a truly prolific rodent eating machine.

He certainly wasn't a pet, but he was a friend, and he will be missed. Except by the mice in the barn ...

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