Ian Mackinnon's questions

I'm trying to connect via IPsec L2TP to a Windows Server 2012 server. Both the clients and the host are behind a NAT.

I can connect from a Windows 7 machine without any problems, but when trying to connect using the same password from an Ubuntu 14.10 machine running StrongSwan I receive an AUTHENTICATION FAILED error message.

Having administrator access to the server and the client, where can I find more information about what is causing the authentication failure?

Given that the password is definitely correct, what other factors could cause an authentication error (rather than other sorts of connection errors)?

We have a bandwidth limit between a Linux server and a NAS, created using 'tc' with an IP filter.

When writing to an NFS mount of the NAS, rsync claims a very high transfer speed for each file and then waits a long time before acknowledging that everything has finished.

The total time taken is consistent with the QoS limit and the time taken by the same transfer over FTP.

Why does the write to the NFS mount report higher transfer speeds than are actually happening over the network?

How can I monitor the actual bandwidth of the transfer?

What's an efficient way to view the last N lines of a large log file in Windows XP?

Would it be possible to then associate this method with .log files when double-clicked in Explorer?

I'm trying to create a connection to an SQL Server database from the ODBC Data Source Administrator using "Windows NT authentication using the network login ID". Both server and client are running Windows XP.

It appears that any account with administrator privileges can add the data source on the server*, though connection attempts from the client result in error messages that suggest it is trying to authenticate using a guest account.

I found a Microsoft support page that says:

For SQL Server...: connect using the impersonated user account.

But it doesn't offer advice about how to do that.

How do I impersonate a user account on the server?

or (since it sounds like that would lead to an unfortuante squashing of privileges and loss of accountability):

How do I give an account on the client privileges on the server database and then ensure the client attempts authentication with the privileged account and not with a guest account?

I'm aware that I'm providing rather sparse information. This is because I'm in unfamiliar territory and don't know what's pertinent. I'll attempt to add any requested information as quickly as possible.

*I'm planning on tightening privileges straight after I get it working as it stands.

I've just discovered a computer serving sensitive data from MS SQL Server that appears to have virtually no security protection. I would like to protect this box as quickly as possible.

My problem is that I'm a Linux admin with no experience of Microsoft databases helping out in an remote office with no IT staff. (Also the installation is in Spanish so please forgive me if I'm mangling any names).

So I found a program called SQL Server Enterprise Manager (There's no version number in the 'about' dialog, but the copyright in the help files says '1988-2000') which lets me read all the data, create accounts and change passwords of any existing accounts. It doesn't ask me for a password.

How can I close this gaping hole in security?

Does this situation suggest the existence of other vulnerabilities that I should check for?