My First Post Through Mail

WordPress facilitate option of posting the blog over mail only. This particular feature might be very handy, if you are wishing to post the article on the go by your cellphone, in which your IMAP or POP3 account might been already configured. I am just trying out my first post through it.

My Handsome little brother in sketch

My Handsome Brother
My Handsome Brother
My Brother's Sketch
My Brother's Sketch

I know, he will not find me up to the mark and wants me to be like professionals. But … I am not professional and happy with it. Sorry 😛

Love Aaj Kal: How practical we can be to handle what we call Love?


We use all the logic to explain things and try to be ‘in all the way composed’, controlled and logical, but the Almighty-Love remains unexplained and defines its way as “No Reason Reasoning”, no matters how much literatures have been spend on it or how much we might have learned from our experiences or other’s stories. The time has got just another more realistic expression: The discovery of Love in present context.

Love Aaj Kal

When his girlfriend asks: “Do you love me”, Jai, the protagonist of Love Aaj Kal, played by Saif Ali Khan, replies: “Love, who knows what that is?” So, are we? Do we really know what Love is and why we fall in? Let’s read something about a movie, which I am going to call The Best Romantic Movie ever seen by me till now. Not because, it’s emotional, not because it’s modern, not because it’s practical, but because its real, very very real. You will regret, as much you delay watching the same. Mind my words, I have never used such praise.

Title: Love Aaj Kal
Release Date: 31st July 2009
Banner: Eros International
Producer: Saif Ali Khan , Dinesh Vijan , Sunil Lulla

Director: Imtiaz Ali
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Giselle Monteiro, Shweta Gulati, Neetu Singh, Rishi Kapoor, Rahul Khanna, Vir Das.

Story Writer: Imtiaz Ali
Music Director: Preetam

Lyrics: Irshad Kamil

Words of mouth, disappointments on getting All-Booked Status after reaching Multiplexes (that too in Delhi, where you can’t find enough good hospital but Multiplexes always nearby), I was sure that Love Aaj Kal was going to bang, after all today’s stars Saif and Deepika were looking fantastic in all posters and there was no recent good movie since Dev D, I guess. Film Industry and even the movie goers should have got a sigh of relief with this release, which is sure going to get a reasonable place in all time good romantic movies. The special thing, I noticed was a glimpse of Jab We Met, in the song “Chor Bazari” and a little googling given me the obvious connection, when got to know the name of writer/ director Imtiyaz Ali.

Imtiyaz Ali; it will be the next name after Anurag Kashyap, I will be waiting for watching out. His first movie was Socha Na Tha; A couple, who didn’t thought that they are made for each other, the second one was Jab We Met; discovering the commitment of love and now Love Aaj Kal.

Perhaps he knows to pick the best and then get the best from them. The common link between all these movies was the crisp-n-short dialogues and use of bold modern language mixed with traditional cultural hints still scattered between this All-New-Generation. He seems to be in process of silently creating an era like once Yash Chopra created.

Coming over movie, Jai and Meera; a modern age couple meets in London, the first meet clicks enough to share the first romantic kiss and the days pass on figuring out if they are, like, together. That entails mugs of black coffee and lots of smart chatter, and eventually, a parting of ways, because they can’t quite get a handle on their feelings. Meera has to India and Jai to US and both of them feel that they are now ahead of the best time they had and now the long distance relationship will only suck. A perfect and logical mutual decision; breaking up with a Breakup Party (Interesting thing na? it was in the movie as well.)

As small para, I have taken here about telling their initial story, the same course of events happened in the same quicker way on the screen; just 15 mins and all above part of story is over, can you believe? Still given a glimpse of many little things as mentioned below.

  1. Many things they don’t like, but still like to be with. Like Black Coffee of Jai.
  2. Friends tell them whether they are pair and indeed only friends define that its love. They just accept.
  3. Jai’s best aim to reach Golden Gate and Meera’s best intrest Fresco; No common interest.
  4. Level of understanding and way of giving space; Boy could expect the girl being understanding that dropping her to home in not the only way to show care.
  5. Common irritation of boys on being girls sometimes too much choosy and concuss while shopping. *That was most interesting point in a way mentioning many things, which were not on screen.

  6. The loss of interest in being committed/ answerable but still coming out in a mutual and outstandingly relaxed and pleasant way for keeping all the good memories intact.

It was nice, but was not the best part of the movie. Movie just started growing up from here and get mixed with another piece of story narrated by now old Veer (Rishi Kapoor), his old age love Harleen and the context of the same with story of Jai and Meera.

Jai feels himself out of sync with Veer’s philosophy of Love, where he traveled hundreds of miles for just a sight of his love Harleen. He was also out of sync with Veer’s complaints over their mutual “perfectly logical and practical decision”. Laughs over Veer that how one could has a Pratigya of having the same girl for next many lives, when he might have not even talked to her for just once till now. But Veer along with changing things in Jai and Meera’s life in later days, slowly steps in to mentor this adolescent love story of Jai and Meera.

Will not mention much about the part of Veera and Harleen’s story as the same is most beautiful part of the movie and it would be preferable to watch yourself. But the same part really reminded me of many beautiful moments, which each of us might have passed through once and this ‘once’ will remain the same. Will never be back.

Jai and Meera could be even this much frank that could control even a fraction of jealousy and suggest their ‘past partner’ to be involved with someone else after breakup, but still the feeling gets its place slowly in, when we know that the other one could take interest in someone else in ‘much more way’.

It was really touching to me, when Meera asks Jai about her pairing with her boss and going out for dinner and Jai started feeling the pain even when try hard to ignore. What option we have to answer, when she asks you in the way? You know that your feelings already don’t matter or being ignored or she started feeling in another way, a way; where you are not around/ together. You already were feeling the same and preparing yourself, so that she might be happy in whatever, with whomever, but still… perhaps selfish we are. Why we feel pain? Why we cry? I really could have cried. But the same thing, defective piece, practical tough guy, me 😉

If I proceed further, then it will lengthen the review and more over spoil the entertainment of movie, but still can’t bear the greed of mentioning the expression, which was beautifully shown on screen that how one looses interest in each thing of life without any logical reason even after achieving best things he ever thought. We rule over career, we hang out with friends, we enjoy now days hi-tech life, but it don’t take long that how alone everyone and why we miss someone. I really felt the number “Mai Jo Chahoo Wo Paun”. There are many around us, who were brilliant in their lives earlier and now fading up due to reasons even they don’t know. Could everyone get the mystery solved?

Heads off to Imtiyaz Ali to engrave the expressions so beautifully on the screen.

The two lovely and meaningful dialogues from the movie were:

“It’s very hard to surprise someone after two years.”

“Why its so that how many times, you might have said Bye, but it remained always a due; meeting for the last time.”

Performances:

We call it perfect, when we find everything matching and it was like the same. We couldn’t have imagined the success of movie with such refreshing music of Preetam, we couldn’t have imagined any other smile brightening the screen than Deepika’s (really reminds me someone), Saif’s evolvement as a package, who could really take the whole movie as a Solo now with even taking the part of younger version of Rishi Kapoor and the so beautiful and lovely new girl Giselle Monteiro (Harleen). It’s a real treat to have such performance on screen on friendship day.

Reminding you again, you will regret as much you delay watching it. If have watched then re-watch it and if not, then I apologize for taking your precious time in reading this article. Go and watch it.

Edited on 9th August 2009 again to add the lines given below:

As one of my friend asked me about a few things I missed in the article, so I thought to add up a few points again. First of all, I didn’t introduced that character of “Jo” was played by Florence Brudenell Bruce. Wait, wait, wait!! Who is this Jo? Sorry, I didn’t mentioned anything about. She was the girl, Jai fall for after Meera, while Meera falls for her boss. I really feel sorry about both of them. Jo and Vikram. Specially Vikram; just being confused in what we want, doesn’t give us right to hurt someone in a way that he will never fall in love again and will be asking himself that why he deserved that?

Could have written much about, but … … let’s keep it short. There was a reason that I skipped to write on the same.

How to: (Linux router utilizing multiple uplink providers)

Utilizing Multiple DSL Gateways to get combined into Single Gateway

Multiple DSL connection often exist in corporate scenario due to higher gap in prices between DSL plan and Leased Line plans and we also find people struggling with connectivity issues due to downlink with any of the DSL connection, while other connections of them might be working due to failover shifting etc. After struggling with the same issue for a while, few internet resources helped us to devise a solution for the same. A Linux based Software router utilizing all the connections at the same time. Before the implementation details, let’s put a FAQ over here.

Que: Why we need a Linux based router, when already our DSLs are acting as hardware based router from our service provider?

Answer: There are multiple reasons for the same:

  1. Connection Reliability & Failover handling: You might be having multiple connections to internet, but still might be struggling due to downlink with any of the uplink as switching mechanism from one uplink is sure going to cumbersome in any environment. Automatic failover handling makes it extremely attractive solution for any demanding environment. Somewhere it scores higher over a dedicated leased due to its failover handling.
  2. Firewall/ Proxy: The same solution could provide us a mechanism to utilize our uplink connection as no more transparent to our inner network (as each request with pass through Linux router) henceforth could control the way traffic get utilized. It would be a central gateway for outgoing request.
  3. Better throughput & Load balancing: Theoretically and practically, if one has say three modems of strength 512 Kbps each, then this solution doesn’t provide the combined strength of 1.5 Mbps, but one could attain a better throughput for multiple connections like torrents and multiple applications utilizing and enjoy connections through each of the DSL at the same time.

Hardware/ Software requirements:

Minimum requirements might vary, but here I am providing the requirements, which I felt as somewhat standard.

  • Processor: P4 2.4 GHz or more.
  • RAM:
    512 MB or more.

There are additional benefit of engaging two or more Ethernet card over the same machine, say two; one handling the requests and the other one communicating with DSLs.

For security reasons, one may wish to isolate the DSLs from the inner network and in that case, you will need a separate Switch having only DSLs and this router connected to the same and no more connection to rest of the network. Rest of the network will be connected to other Ethernet card configured in preferably different subnet.

Step-By-Step Procedure :-

Here I am presenting the way, we did the things in most simplest and layman way, without going into far technical details. Sure there might be better or alternate or customized ways suiting your own environment. One may always tweak over any solution.

Here are the steps:

  1. Machine: Get a machine ready with Either of Latest Fedora, RHEL or latest of CentOS with standard installation covering all the important packages.
  2. IP Forwarding: The OS need to has IP forwarding enabled. Its disabled by default. For checking the same, you may type the following:

    cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

    If output is 1, then nothing to do and if output is 0, then it needs to be ON.

    For permanently putting IP Forwarding as ON, you need to change the value of net.ipv4.ip_forward to 1 from 0 in the file

    /etc/sysctl.conf. The changes could take affect by either a reboot or by the command

    sysctl –p /etc/sysctl.conf

  3. Configure IPs for both the Ethernet cards. I am keeping mine in the same subnet. Keeping all the IPs in same subnet.

    Say my DSL IPs are [MY_DSL1_IP], [MY_DSL2_IP], [MY_DSL3_IP] and two IPs of this router are [Ethernet1_IP] and [Ethernet2_IP]. I am keeping my subnet as 172.16.x.x/16

  4. In next, you need to create multiple profiles of one Ethernet card (take eth1) to communicate with each of DSL (in our case three different profiles with three different IPs).

    Make copies of file ifcfg-eth1 as ifcfg-eth1:0, ifcfg-eth1:1 and ifcfg-eth1:2. [Location /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts]

    cp ifcfg-eth1 ifcfg-eth1:0
    cp ifcfg-eth1 ifcfg-eth1:1
    cp ifcfg-eth1 ifcfg-eth1:2

    Make changes in files as given below:

    Content of ifcfg-eth1

    # Accton Technology Corporation SMC2-1211TX

    DEVICE=eth1
    ONBOOT=yes
    BOOTPROTO=none
    HWADDR=00:10:b5:fd:7f:e7
    NETMASK=255.255.0.0
    IPADDR=[Ethernet2_IP]

    TYPE=Ethernet
    USERCTL=no
    IPV6INIT=no
    PEERDNS=yes

    Content of ifcfg-eth1:0

    # Accton Technology Corporation SMC2-1211TX

    DEVICE=eth1:0
    ONBOOT=yes
    BOOTPROTO=none
    HWADDR=00:10:b5:fd:7f:e7
    NETMASK=255.255.0.0
    IPADDR=[Profile0_IP]

    TYPE=Ethernet
    USERCTL=no
    IPV6INIT=no
    PEERDNS=yes

    Content of ifcfg-eth1:1

    # Accton Technology Corporation SMC2-1211TX

    DEVICE=eth1:1
    ONBOOT=yes
    BOOTPROTO=none
    HWADDR=00:10:b5:fd:7f:e7
    NETMASK=255.255.0.0
    IPADDR=[Profile1_IP]
    TYPE=Ethernet
    USERCTL=no
    IPV6INIT=no
    PEERDNS=yes

    Content of ifcfg-eth1:2

    # Accton Technology Corporation SMC2-1211TX

    DEVICE=eth1:2
    ONBOOT=yes
    BOOTPROTO=none
    HWADDR=00:10:b5:fd:7f:e7
    NETMASK=255.255.0.0
    IPADDR=[Profile2_IP]

    TYPE=Ethernet
    USERCTL=no
    IPV6INIT=no
    PEERDNS=yes

  5. Add the entries in your rt_tables file for your DSLs

    Just do vi /etc/iproute2/rt_tables and put enties, so that the file contents will look like something as given below:

1 dsl1
2 dsl2
3 dsl3

#
# reserved values
#
255    local
254    main
253    default
0    unspec
#
# local
#
#1    inr.ruhep

Now most important step, place the routes in the rc.local file. Just do vi /etc/rc.d/rc.local and put enties, so that the file contents will look like something as given below:

#!/bin/sh

#

# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don’t
# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.
touch /var/lock/subsys/local
/sbin/ip route add 172.16.0.0/16 dev eth1:0 src [Profile0_IP] table dsl1
/sbin/ip route add 172.16.0.0/16 dev eth1:1 src [Profile1_IP] table dsl2
/sbin/ip route add 172.16.0.0/16 dev eth1:2 src [Profile2_IP] table dsl3
/sbin/ip route add default via [MY_DSL1_IP] table dsl1
/sbin/ip route add default via [MY_DSL2_IP] table dsl2
/sbin/ip route add default via [MY_DSL3_IP] table dsl3
/sbin/ip rule add from [MY_DSL1_IP] table dsl1
/sbin/ip rule add from [MY_DSL2_IP] table dsl2
/sbin/ip rule add from [MY_DSL3_IP] table dsl3
/sbin/ip route add default scope global nexthop via [MY_DSL1_IP] dev eth1:0 weight 1 nexthop via [MY_DSL2_IP] dev eth1:1 weight 1 nexthop via [MY_DSL3_IP] dev eth1:2 weight 1
/usr/bin/nohup usr/local/bin/gwping >>/var/log/gwping.log 2>&1

As about the last line and gwping, then it will come in later step.

  1. The next part is to place a script, which will take care of failover shifting and logging. What it basically do is to ping some public website through each of DSL, determining that when any of DSL went down and switching routing rules accordingly.

    Here is our customized script saved as /usr/local/bin/gwping:

    GWCMD="/sbin/ip route replace default scope global"

    # Conventionally 0 indicates success in this script.

    # Time between checks in seconds

    SLEEPTIME=10

    #IP Address or domain name to ping. The script relies on the domain being

    #pingable and always available

    TESTIP=http://www.yahoo.com

    #Ping timeout in seconds

    TIMEOUT=2

    # External interfaces

    EXTIF1=eth1:0

    EXTIF2=eth1:1

    EXTIF3=eth1:2

    #IP address of external interfaces. This is not the gateway address.

    IP1=[Profile0_IP]

    IP2=[Profile1_IP]

    IP3=[Profile2_IP]

    #Gateway IP addresses. This is the first (hop) gateway, could be your router IP

    #address if it has been configured as the gateway

    GW1=[MY_DSL1_IP]

    GW2=[MY_DSL2_IP]

    GW3=[MY_DSL3_IP]

    # Relative weights of routes. Keep this to a low integer value.

    W1=1

    W2=1    

    W3=1

    # Broadband providers name; use your own names here.

    NAME1=dsl1

    NAME2=ds12

    NAME3=dsl3

    #No of repeats of success or failure before changing status of connection

    SUCCESSREPEATCOUNT=4

    FAILUREREPEATCOUNT=1

    # Do not change anything below this line

    # Last link status indicates the macro status of the link we determined. This is down initially to force routing change upfront. Don’t change these values.

    LLS1=1

    LLS2=1

    LLS3=1

    # Last ping status. Don’t change these values.

    LPS1=1

    LPS2=1

    LPS3=1

    # Current ping status. Don’t change these values.

    CPS1=1

    CPS2=1

    CPS3=1

    # Change link status indicates that the link needs to be changed. Don’t change these values.

    CLS1=1

    CLS2=1

    CLS3=1

    # Count of repeated up status or down status. Don’t change these values.

    COUNT1=0

    COUNT2=0

    COUNT3=0

    while : ; do

    /bin/ping -W $TIMEOUT -I $IP1 -c 1 $TESTIP > /dev/null 2>&1

    RETVAL=$?

    if [ $RETVAL -ne 0 ]; then

    echo $NAME1 Down

    CPS1=1

    else

    CPS1=0

    fi

    if [ $LPS1 -ne $CPS1 ]; then

    echo Ping status changed for $NAME1 from $LPS1 to $CPS1

    COUNT1=1

    else

    if [ $LPS1 -ne $LLS1 ]; then

    COUNT1=`expr $COUNT1 + 1`

    fi

    fi

    if [[ $COUNT1 -ge $SUCCESSREPEATCOUNT || ($LLS1 -eq 0 && $COUNT1 -ge $FAILUREREPEATCOUNT) ]]; then

    echo Uptime status will be changed for $NAME1 from $LLS1

    CLS1=0

    COUNT1=0

    if [ $LLS1 -eq 1 ]; then

    LLS1=0

    else

    LLS1=1

    fi

    else

    CLS1=1

    fi

    LPS1=$CPS1

    /bin/ping -W $TIMEOUT -I $IP2 -c 1 $TESTIP > /dev/null 2>&1

    RETVAL=$?

    if [ $RETVAL -ne 0 ]; then

    echo $NAME2 Down

    CPS2=1

    else

    CPS2=0

    fi

    if [ $LPS2 -ne $CPS2 ]; then

    echo Ping status changed for $NAME2 from $LPS2 to $CPS2

    COUNT2=1

    else

    if [ $LPS2 -ne $LLS2 ]; then

    COUNT2=`expr $COUNT2 + 1`

    fi

    fi

    if [[ $COUNT2 -ge $SUCCESSREPEATCOUNT || ($LLS2 -eq 0 && $COUNT2 -ge $FAILUREREPEATCOUNT) ]]; then

    echo Uptime status will be changed for $NAME2 from $LLS2

    CLS2=0

    COUNT2=0

    if [ $LLS2 -eq 1 ]; then

    LLS2=0

    else

    LLS2=1

    fi    

    else

    CLS2=1

    fi

    LPS2=$CPS2

    /bin/ping -W $TIMEOUT -I $IP3 -c 1 $TESTIP > /dev/null 2>&1

    RETVAL=$?

    if [ $RETVAL -ne 0 ]; then

    echo $NAME3 Down

    CPS3=1

    else

    CPS3=0

    fi

    if [ $LPS3 -ne $CPS3 ]; then

    echo Ping status changed for $NAME3 from $LPS3 to $CPS3

    COUNT3=1

    else

    if [ $LPS3 -ne $LLS3 ]; then

    COUNT3=`expr $COUNT3 + 1`

    fi

    fi

    if [[ $COUNT3 -ge $SUCCESSREPEATCOUNT || ($LLS3 -eq 0 && $COUNT3 -ge $FAILUREREPEATCOUNT) ]]; then

    echo Uptime status will be changed for $NAME3 from $LLS3

    CLS3=0

    COUNT3=0

    if [ $LLS3 -eq 1 ]; then

    LLS3=0

    else

    LLS3=1

    fi

    else

    CLS3=1

    fi

    LPS3=$CPS3

    # Changeover Logic here

    if [[ $CLS1 -eq 0 || $CLS2 -eq 0 || $CLS3 -eq 0 ]]; then

    if [ $LLS1 -eq 0 ]; then

    echo Adding $NAME1

    GWCMD="$GWCMD nexthop via $GW1 dev $EXTIF1 weight 1"

    fi

    if [ $LLS2 -eq 0 ]; then

    echo Adding $NAME2

    GWCMD="$GWCMD nexthop via $GW2 dev $EXTIF2 weight 1"

    fi

    if [ $LLS3 -eq 0 ]; then

    echo Adding $NAME3

    GWCMD="$GWCMD nexthop via $GW3 dev $EXTIF3 weight 1"

    fi

    echo "Change execute now \n $GWCMD"

    $GWCMD

    GWCMD="/sbin/ip route replace default scope global"

    fi

    sleep $SLEEPTIME

    done

  2. The last place is to make DNS entries. Just do a vi /etc/resolv.conf and type the following:

    nameserver 208.67.222.222

    I am using OpenDNS IP as DNS here. One may wish to have any other reliable one.

  3. Oops!! forgot one more thing, do a chmod 777 /var/log/gwping.log

    Now, you just need to reboot the same machine and then use [Ethernet1_IP] as Gateway in your production machines/ Proxy/ Firewall and here you go.

Waiting for your comments. Soon will post the HowTo, if one wishes to get the same thing done without putting one additional ethernet card in action means with one card only.

PDF Version