..:: seize the day ::..

We finished the work in Bakornas by the end of August 2007. It meant that we should continue to Banda Aceh (Capital of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province) and Padang (Capital of West Sumatera Province). Banda Aceh call came first. It is the one of the outermost province in Indonesia, 2 hours and 50 minutes direct flight from Jakarta where I live, and 4 hours if we use the non direct flight. This province was hit by tsunami in 2004, at least 150,000 people died by that disaster (no one knows the exact number). In Banda Aceh city alone 60,000 people died. When tsunami happened almost a month we in Jakarta speechless every time we saw the news about it.  Everybody in Indonesia donate something for them. It was a great example of how citizen/people can joint together, doing good thing for humanity. It was very touching moment, many people went there as volunteer by their own money to help other fellow citizen, although at that time the situation in Aceh was not safe. There was a war there. Tsunami, in the positive side, cause every party to cease the war and finally signed a peace treaty. Now it is time to rebuild Aceh.

Indonesia is a country with a lot of natural disaster, living with disaster is the way we live. We are sitting on top of ring of fires. No other country in the world is like Indonesia. There are a lot of volcanoes here. This one a capture from the google earth.

As for the Crisis Center location it is reside on the part of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Governor Office. The location is approximately on 5º34′15.68" N, 95º20′27.19" E with elevation 9m.

For you who never visit Banda Aceh after the 2004 tsunami here are some pictures during my visit at the end of August and beginning of September 2007.

Ibnu team (the civil/interior contractor) already two weeks before us in Banda Aceh. And he assured me with his phone called that the room would be ready in two weeks. I can understand if there were missing thing here and there, but at least the room has carpet, electricity, and air conditioner in server room and I will go to Banda Aceh. So I booked non refundable airline ticket. This time I brought Darma, my fellow worker in office. He is young and a big guy, so it would be a big help to have him lifting heavy server upstairs in Banda Aceh he..he..he.. Anyway, since he is much younger than me, it would be a great experience for him under my coached as an "old networker guy" during this project.

Then I emailed Hilarion (EADS Astrium) said that I will go to Banda Aceh in August 28, 2007. He returned the email and said he would be in Jakarta by the time I arrived in Aceh, then he will ask the situation whether he should go or not go to Banda Aceh based on my report. I thought he was unsured that the room would be finished on August 28. I sent all the goodies a week before August 28, then I went there. When I arrived in Banda Aceh what I’m affraid is happened, the room did not ready. No carpet, no air conditioner, and the biggest problem server room was not ready. Below are some picture at that time.

I quickly decided that I will stayed there not more than one week but Ibnu successed to hold me almost 2 weeks supervising his staff worked. When leaving Jakarta I was already on fire and ready to implement in this site because I knew everything better after implementation on DKI province and Bakornas. After saw the room status in Banda Aceh, I should change the plan. It would be giving some instruction to Ibnu and his member about electricity and grounding, position for tv satellite antenna, UHF radio antenna and the LAN cabling position. Also I should move all the goodies from the warehouse to crisis center location, considered that Ibnu team would be there to keep those goodies. I also reported to Hilarion that he did not need to come to Banda Aceh, better still in Jakarta and wait if the room can be finished in the next two week, which was actually did not.

One of the worst thing was that there are no internet connection in the room. The nearest switch was around 150 m away. So I decided to ask Aceh Governor IT staff to get an IP address and permission to put the cable from crisis center to that switch. Of course I should add one switch in the middle, simply for amplify the ethernet signal.

After 2 weeks in Banda Aceh I decided to go back to Jakarta on September 9, 2007. In Jakarta I discussed the situation with Hillarion which would be went back to Toulouse on the next day. I plan to visit Banda Aceh again by the end of September 2007. By that time Bruno Maestracci and his team from Civipol also conducted a training. They conducted it without the server because we behind the schedule caused by the late of room preparation. Ibnu and his team already put the furniture, desk and some temporary chair for the room. Karine de Ponteves, my colleague as part of implementation team, went to Banda Aceh also with Bruno as trainer. She unpacked all the PC and several printer, but without LAN and server. It was my duty and Darma to prepare all the LAN cable and configuring the server.

Then  I went again to Banda Aceh with Darma at the end of September 2007. I remember it was on Ramadhan (fasting month for Moslem people) last year. At that time I changed our work-rhythmic, start at 11.00 AM up until midnight because we were fasting at the day. This time we finish LAN installation, server configuration, VPN and VOIP installation to Jakarta and testing all RiskFrame application which was already installed in the PC and server by Surjanto and Ericjoe in Jakarta before it was sent to Banda Aceh, also configuring radio and satellite TV. This time we were here for 2 weeks again. Below are some pictures of our worked back then.

By October 8th, 2007 our worked in Aceh is considered finished. I knew that I should be here again after Padang implementation for Site Acceptance Test with Civipol and EADS Astrium team. It was not decide yet at that time, but it will be on December 13-15, 2007. On October 9, 2007, me and Darma went back to Jakarta. It was an exciting experience worked in Banda Aceh for this project.

That’s it for Aceh. In the next post I will tell the story of implementation in Padang, West Sumatera province. 

One comment of my post about Internet Connection with Nokia E51 a couple weeks ago said that my setup is too complicated. Actually there is no "too complicated" thing there for me. Maybe this guy is a bit lazy to understand something in different ways or type the script in his computer (he..he..he.. just kidding my friend). But anyway I will show you here a more simple way to connect your Nokia E51 using bluetooth and then dialing your access point to get your internet connection works.

1. I’m using openSUSE 11.0 in my laptop. Basically my bluetooth device is already running when I boot my laptop, and I will not explain how to configure the bluetooth service, please refer to your distibution documentation. Also make sure that you already installed wvdial package.
2. Turn on your bluetooth on your Nokia E51. Make pairing with your laptop as well.
3. as root (do sudo if you like "the brown thing") run  # sdptool search dun, mine is like below
4. 
5. pay attention to the dun and channel (the channel is used to make a connection to the handphone)
6. Now, modify /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf. After modification mine is like below
7. Bind the bluetooth address of your handphone to rfcomm device. As root (off course you can use sudo if you prefer "the brown thing") type in konsole # rfcomm bind 0 00:1D:FD:EE:79:96. Change the addrress with your handphone bluetooth address.
8. We just bind bluetooth address of the handphone to rfcomm0. Now check the device # ls /dev/rfcomm0, mine is like
9. Restart the bluetooth service # rcbluetooth restart
10. Now it’s time to modify /etc/wvdial.conf. I left my Dialer Default untouch and I add Dialer e51. Please change the AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet" , with your prefer setting from your provider, but I think the pattern is not much different. Usually the APN (Access Point Name) is different, here I use "internet". Also put the name and password that match with yours. Mine is look like this one below
11.  
12. Finally run the wvdial, # sudo wvdial e51 (now I done it "the brown thing way")
13. To make sure that the connection running we can check the connection status with # ifconfig 

Like I said a couple weeks ago, this setting is not only working with Nokia E51. It will work also in any handphone you may have. Just follow the steps and don’t be afraid to test different setting. Anyway Google is always your friend.

I hope this short post can help you. Please give comment if you feel something wrong with this article. Till then keep safe and stop global warming.

Some friends ask me how to make VPN connection between site. In Linux it is quite easy, because as far as I know point-to-point tunneling as well as GRE already supported. As for mobile VPN, openVPN should be an interesting choice. This post will explain how to make site-to-site VPN using Linux. It is actually based on my experience setting-up a VPN link between two sites.

In setting up a tunnel we should setting it up from two sides. Don’t forget that tunnel increase the overhead. Usually it is 20 bytes per packet, so if the maximum MTU is 1500 per packet then with tunnel running it become only 1480 bytes per packet maximum. But actually this is not a big problem. For you who have time please read the chapter 3 of lartc document from here.

Supposed we have site A and B with configuration:

A: eth0 123.234.123.1 netmask 255.255.255.0, eth1 10.1.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

B: eth0 210.123.234.2 netmask 255.255.255.0, eth1 10.2.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

We need to add another ip in eth0 on both site to make sure that the forwarding happens. See the picture below

Now just create one script, something like this one for site A

#!/bin/sh

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -I FORWARD 1 -i TunnelAST -j ACCEPT
#
#Site A <——> to Site B
#
ip tunnel add TunnelA mode gre remote 210.123.234.2 local 123.234.123.1 ttl 255
ip link set TunnelA up
ip addr add 10.1.15.5/32 dev TunnelA
ip route add 10.2.2.0/24 dev TunnelA
route add -net 10.2.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.1.15.5

And for site B:

#!/bin/sh

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -I FORWARD 1 -i TunnelAST -j ACCEPT
#
#Site B <——> to Site A
#
ip tunnel add TunnelB mode gre remote 123.234.123.1 local 210.123.234.2 ttl 255
ip link set TunnelB up
ip addr add 10.2.15.5/32 dev TunnelB
ip route add 10.1.2.0/24 dev TunnelB
route add -net 10.1.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.2.15.5

We can put this on rc.local on fedora and clone, or for openSUSE create a script based on /etc/init.d/skeleton then register it with insserv, so it can running on boot.

Try the configuration and see if it works

Ok that’s it for now. Keep safe and stop global warming.

Back in Indonesia, I felt so excited. Only two days after arrived from Toulouse, I met with one of Deputy of Badan Koordinasi Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana (Bakornas PB). We discussed about the readiness of all site. And almost all sites except DKI were not ready yet. I started to worry because my work cannot be started unless the room are ready, and it will cause the delay of the project. Bruno Maestracci, the CIVIPOL person, really pushed hard to the Bakornas about room preparation. Sometimes I felt that the way he did the pressure can cause the friction to the Indonesian site. Anyway, without his pressure contribution, this project will never be finished.

Waiting the readiness of the room for DKI and Bakornas, I finished all necessary preparation including buying all the necessary equipment. Also I should went to Soekarno-Hatta Airport to ask the permit for all the goods coming from France. It was also the frustating task, because Indonesian official asked for import duty, which was I cannot fullfiled because it was a grant. So I ask Bakornas to handle this issues, as they are government bodies.

In the beginning of May 2007 all the goods are ready to distribute to DKI and Bakornas. So I send the goods to this two locations first. I worked on DKI first considering that the room is ready. In Bakornas the room is not ready yet. Below are some of the pictures at DKI office at that period. 

In DKI I felt the excitement of young staff. They were eager to use all the systems. There we are working very fast, me, Surjanto, Karine, Hilarion, Marc, Eric and anybody else worked so quickly to finish this site. By the end of May 2007, almost all the server, pc, peripheral already installed and configured in DKI.

Meanwhile in Bakornas, finishing of the room is running so late. I thought we were behind the schedule. In the end of May the room still not finish yet. Here are some of the pictures back then. These pictures was taken on May 15th and May 30th, 2007. According to Bruno from Civipol who provide the grant, he introduce the project since the end of 2005, so it should be aware by Bakornas staff that the room should be ready by the beginning of May 2007. I can Imagine how complicated the decision has to take on Indonesia Central Government body. I couldn’t imagine if they choose the same way to take the decision if the real disaster is coming, maybe it is too late to save the human life. 

Behind the schedule, we should wait for another one month. In the beginning of June 2007, my colleague from Toulouse, Hilarion would be on Jakarta. Even I already told him that the room is not ready yet, he insisted to go to Jakarta. So in the mid of June 2007, even that the room was not ready in Bakornas we should install everything that we can install, and by doing this we hope the civil contractor will speed up the finishing of the room. Below are some pictures taken between 13 to 25 June 2007.

After discussed with Hilarion Raobadia and Patrice Pessah from EADS Astrium, we finally decided to do installation for the server and routine room, while waiting the civil contractor to finish all the other room. Basically we installed and configured all the necessary item, because in this project Bakornas system will be the heart of the system. From here we managed the voip system using asterisk for all the other sites, make ftp server for the "RiskFrame" application and also setting the vpn to the other 3 sites. We also need the installation of PC in Bakornas routine room so we can simulate some situation better. At that time the DKI site installation almost finished, only radio and satellite TV is not configure. By installing the server in Bakornas we also can check the communication between DKI and Bakornas, by doing this we can also simulate some problem that probably happen before we implement the system to Banda Aceh and Padang which is reside thousands km on the other island. 

Here are some pictures of us at the time we installed the Bakornas system at the end of June 2007.

We needed more time in Bakornas because we need to wait the finishing of the room. Also we should simulate some condition that we found could influence the implementation in other site. After almost 2 months, thank God, finally the implementation in Bakornas is finished at the end of August 2007. The team from EADS Astrium and Infoterra also came from Toulouse to help the implementation ready on time (it is behind the schedule anyway). Here are some pictures of us at that the end of August 2007.

We also set up several training on how to use the system and also the RiskFrame software. Here are some pictures during that activities in Bakornas. Some people are so eager to follow the training and some people are not. Anyway we told them that we try hard to fullfil the requirement of the crisis center, and now it depends on them on how to use and to implement it to help them in their work.

At the end of August 2007, our team consider that all the work in DKI and Bakornas were finished. I should move to Banda Aceh and then Padang to implement the crisis center for that two provinces. It was also very exciting experience. We should worked on unfinished environment, in Banda Aceh I can not patience so I should went there twice. Learn by Aceh experience I only came to Padang after all the civil works is done, which is actually unfinished.

I will write the experienced in the next post, till then keep safe and stop global warming. 

I promised in my last column that I will write my worked in 2007 as flash back. For you who really impatience to read my story can directly go to EADS Astrium Press Release here. For the patience, here we start…….

Around mid-year 2006 I got the news from PASCO that we should help them for the upcoming project in Indonesia. The project will be from French Government and handle by EADS. My impression at that time is, it should be an important project. As far as I know EADS is a big company specialize in high-technology, they have rocket/launcher unit, satellite, Airbus, weapon and everything you can imagine.

Basically the project is a grant from French people for Indonesian people to help Indonesian Government to save human live in case of disaster. There are some areas they want to improve (hmm sound to good to be true for me ….), some training to increase the human (read public servant) capacity, some tools and equipment to improve the reporting and communication.

In December 2006 some EADS guys come to my office and have meeting with me and my director. To make it short, in February 2007 I should make survey in Jakarta, Banda Aceh and Padang with EADS staff and finally I should go to Toulouse France to EADS Astrium to do Factory Acceptance Test in 3 weeks on March 2007. The project it self should finish in September 2007.

I’m so excited. Working for the community is my passion, knowing that people use my work to improve the quality of human life making me very happy.

The schedule is very tight. In February 2007 I made survey to 4 location, 2 in Jakarta which is Badan Koordinasi Penanggulangan Bencana and Governor Office. Also 1 in Banda Aceh and 1 in Padang which is their Governor Office. I went to those location with Bruno Maestracci from Civipol who provide the grant, Hilarion Raobadia from EADS Astrium and Feni Rani who works for Bruno. This survey is to made sure that the infrastrucutre will be ready for the upcoming project which is included some computers and electronic equipment. The project is planning to start in Bakornas around Mei and follow by implementation in every regional center.

This is the picture of us on Padang and Banda Aceh

On March 2007, I went to EADS Astrium premises in Toulouse to do the factory acceptance test. I went there with my colleague Surjanto who will be concentrated on software. Meanwhile, I will concentrate on network and system. The network and system are consist of several server providing samba server, asterisk server, recorder server, ftp server, database server, as well as vpn and ip phone. The system is built on Linux machine with High Availabilty implementation using vrrpd. On software site there is a custom-made software which is called "RiskFrame" which will be provided spatial database for disaster and risk management.

Here are some picture of us on Toulouse:

After a month there, finally Civipol, the owner of the project can accept all the factory test. Now we are ready to implement the project. It is just the preliminary, the project itself will be in Indonesia. And the interesting, sometimes frustating moment just have to begin. It is all in my head when I was in plane from Europe to Jakarta. Can everything going well so I can finish the project on time?

I will continue the story in the next post.

Till then keep safe and stop global warming.