This upgrade will allow you to play homebrew software that requires the 6.xx Sony OFW.

Requirements:

Fat PSP (My PSP is version PSP-1001 Mobo TA-081)
Previous custom firmware, not sure if this works from the OFW (original firmware)
Battery charged above 80%, I kept mine plugged in aswell.

It clearly states when the upgrader loads up that you will need a Fat version PSP, if you do not have this type of PSP this firmware is not for you!

Step 1:

Download the firmware package here xgen-550gen-d3.zip.

Step 2:

Uncompress the .zip file you just downloaded.

Step 3:

Hook up your PSP via the USB cable, and copy all the files and the PSP directory to the root directory of your PSP’s memory stick. At this point the PSP folder you are copying will be merged with the current PSP folder on your memory stick.

Step 4:

Go to the games menu, select the upgrader and press x. Say “Enter” at the first screen that comes up.

Step 5:

Select “Flash Install CFW 5.50 GEN-D3″ and watch it. Once the upgrade is complete, you will be prompted to restart or turn off your PSP. I chose to restart mine.

Step 6:

Reconfigure your settings. The PSP will revert back to factory settings because the nvram gets wiped during the installation.

Step 7:

Enjoy

I am going to try and release something new every week. This first week I am going to link you to my Kurenai, Wintersaber Trainers, and Sporeggar tutorials.

These factions do require a considerable amount of grinding to become exalted, so you may want to work out a schedule and work on these over a couple of weeks, or a month.

You are going to need your own server running linux. A shell account will not do, the admin will probably disable your account, and most likely you won’t have access to enough resources to run a dedicated game server. So I am going to assume you either have a computer sitting beside you running linux, or a virtual machine either on your pc, or hosted on a server somewhere. You will not be able to run the dedicated server on your own machine, without changing some of the server flags.

The first thing you will need to do is download the latest version of the OpenArena, which can be done here. Any download link will do, the windows and the linux binaries are both packaged together.

I recommend uploading the archive to your server, then uncompressing it, instead of uncompressing it on your computer then uploading it, just to save some time and bandwidth.

Once you have everything uploaded and uncompressed on your server, you will need to go into the baseoa directory and create a file called server.cfg

Your server.cfg file is going to look something similar to this:


sv_hostname "My OA server"
sv_maxclients 16
sv_master1 "dpmaster.deathmask.net"
sv_maxPing 150
sv_minPing 0
sv_pure 1
sv_maxRate 25000
sv_fps 20
sv_allowdownload 1

sv_privateClients "2" // slots substracted from sv_maxclients
sv_privatePassword " "

capturelimit 8
timelimit 15
fraglimit 35

set rconPassword "" // for remote ingame servercontrol

g_motd ""
g_quadfactor 4
g_inactivity 0
g_allowvote 1

//If you want to use unlagged functionality (since 0.7.6)
g_delagHitscan 1

//Special modes since 0.7.6:
//g_instantgib 1
//g_rockets 1
//g_vampire 0.25 //25%
//g_regen 5 //5 health per sec.

//Gametypes
// 0 = Free For All
// 1 = Tourney
// 3 = Team Deathmatch
// 4 = Capture The Flag
// 8 = Elimination
// 9 = CTF Elimination
// 10 = Last Man Standing
// 11 = Double Domination
// 12 = Domination
g_gametype 0

set d1 "map aggressor; set nextmap vstr d2"
set d2 "map oa_dm1; set nextmap vstr d3"
set d3 "map oa_dm2; set nextmap vstr d4"
set d4 "map oa_dm3; set nextmap vstr d5"
set d5 "map oa_dm4; set nextmap vstr d6"
set d6 "map kaos2; set nextmap vstr d7"
set d7 "map oa_dm5; set nextmap vstr d8"
set d8 "map oa_rpg3dm2;set nextmap vstr d9"
set d9 "map oa_shouse; set nextmap vstr d1"
wait
vstr d1 // start loop at d1


The main portions you are going to want to worry about are:

sv_hostname – Sets your viewable hostname in the serverlist
sv_maxclients – Sets the maximum ammount of clients allowed to connect to your server
sv_privateClients – Sets the ammount of slots held for private use (sv_maxclients – sv_privateClients = total clients)
sv_privatePassword – Sets the password for the private slots
capturelimit – Sets the capture limit in CTF
timelimit – Sets the time limit
fraglimit – Sets the frag limit
set rconPassword – Sets the rcon passsword for admin usage
g_motd – Sets the message of the day
g_gametype – Sets the gametype, the current option is 0, Free for All aka Deathmatch

The last portion is the confusing bit. This is where you setup the actual map rotation.


set d1 "map mapname1; set nextmap vstr d2"
set d2 "map mapname2; set nextmap vstr d3"
set d3 "map mapname3; set nextmap vstr d1"
wait
vstr d1 // start loop at d1


Basically what you are doing here is setting up a loop. d1 is set, with the next map being d2 and so on. You can do this with as many levels as you want, you just have to make sure to make the last map link to the first map, or the loop will not work.

Once you have your server.cfg file saved, go back into the root OpenArena directory and start up your server like this:

./oa_ded.i386 +set dedicated 2 +exec server.cfg


You may want to run this process inside of a screen session. There are alot more things you can do, this is just the basics for getting your own OpenArena dedicated server setup. Enjoy

The package I am going to be using is called fail2ban. Fail2ban scans log files and bans IP addresses that produce too many failed login attempts. It then updates firewall rules to reject the attackers IP address.

Step 1: Installing the fail2ban package

Type or copy and paste the following into your server.

apt-get install fail2ban

Once this is done, you are now setup and now you have to setup the configuration files.

Step 2:

Edit /etc/fail2ban/fail2ban.conf

nano -w /etc/fail2ban/fail2ban.conf

Your fail2ban.conf should look something like this (the commented lines have been removed)

[Definition]
loglevel = 3
logtarget = /var/log/fail2ban.log
socket = /tmp/fail2ban.sock

Step 3:

Edit /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf

nano -w /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf

Your jail.conf should look something like this (again comments have been removed)

[DEFAULT]
ignoreip = 127.0.0.1
bantime = 18000
maxretry = 3

backend = polling
destemail = youremail@domain.com
action = iptables[name=%(__name__)s, port=%(port)s]
mail-whois-lines[name=%(__name__)s, dest=%(destemail)s, logpath=%(logpath)s]

[ssh]

enabled = true
port = ssh
filter = sshd
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6

[apache]

enabled = false
port = http
filter = apache-auth
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*access.log
maxretry = 6

[apache-noscript]

enabled = false
port = http
filter = apache-noscript
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
maxretry = 6

[vsftpd]

enabled = false
port = ftp
filter = vsftpd
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6

[proftpd]

enabled = false
port = ftp
filter = proftpd
logpath = /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log
maxretry = 6

[wuftpd]

enabled = false
port = ftp
filter = wuftpd
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6

[postfix]

enabled = false
port = smtp
filter = postfix
logpath = /var/log/mail.log

[couriersmtp]

enabled = true
port = smtp
filter = couriersmtp
logpath = /var/log/mail.log

[courierimap]

enabled = true
port = imap2
filter = courierlogin
failregex = imapd: LOGIN FAILED.*ip=\[.*:\]
logpath = /var/log/mail.log
maxretry = 5

[courierpop3]

enabled = true
port = pop3
filter = courierlogin
failregex = courierpop3login: LOGIN FAILED.*ip=\[.*:\]
logpath = /var/log/mail.log
maxretry = 5

[sasl]

enabled = true
port = smtp
filter = sasl
failregex = warning: [-._\w]+\[\]: SASL (?:LOGIN|PLAIN|(?:CRAM|DIGEST)-MD5) authentication failed
logpath = /var/log/mail.log

Please change the email section if you are going to directly copy and paste this config. Right now, when someone attempts a bruteforce attack, fail2ban will firewall the ip address, and send an email to that email address with the whois information, and the log information from the attack.

You can now start/restart fail2ban, I recommend using a restart just in case fail2ban is already running.

/etc/init.d/fail2ban restart

Please don’t use this as your only security measure. This is just one step you can take to protecting your servers.

I’m sure there are many ways to prevent these people from harvesting your bandwidth, if you use apache with mod_rewrite, just by adding a couple lines of text to a file called .htaccess will do wonders.

What is Hotlinking?

Straight from Wikipedia:

Hotlinking aka. Inline linking is the placing of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site. The second site is said to have an inline link to the site where the object is located. Inline linking is also known as leeching, direct linking or bandwidth theft.

Let’s start by opening up a text editor and creating a file called .htaccess In this file you want to put something like this:


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?attackofthegamer.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gz|zip|rar|gif|jpg|js|css)$ - [F]


Basically what this does is check if a request to any file with a .gz .zip .rar .gif .jpg .js .css extension comes from the referring URL http://www.attackofthegamer.com If the request comes from a referral that isn’t http://www.attackofthegamer.com it’s rejected. You will want to swap the domain for your own to make it work.

If you are just protecting images. You can mess with the culprit and change the image on them to something of your choice, with a comical outcome. Just create a .htaccess file that looks like this.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(png|gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/badimage.gif [R,L]

Just change the domain name, and the url to the image you want to swap with and you are set. Once you have the .htaccess file created use your FTP program and upload it to each directory you want to protect.

Voila, you should now be protecting against bandwidth pirates. Happy Hunting.

Sony has released a couple firmware versions since my last posting, but here is a tutorial for getting the OE version of 3.40 running on your PSP. I am going to structure this HOWTO a little bit as a test, if you like this structure, let me know.

*NOTE* You will need atleast 75% battery charge. You may also want to have your PSP plugged into the wall just in case. You will also need a larger memory stick, the 32mb one doesn’t cut it. 1 gig sticks are uber-cheap now.

Step 1:

Download the 3.40 OE-A Firmware, uncompress it, then copy the uncompressed files as follows:

PSP 1.50 Firmware: You will place the uncompressed files in /PSP/GAME

PSP 3.XX OE Firmware: You will place the files in /PSP/GAME150

Step 2:

Goto the game menu and run the 3.40 OE-A Update Maker. This will take a couple of minutes to create the DXAR file.

Step 3:

You will need to access the USB menu on your PSP go into the oeupdmaker directory and copy the newly generated data.dxar file to the 340oeflasher directory.

Step 4:

Once again go back to the game menu and now run the 3.40 OE-A Firmware Install. You will need to agree by pressing X. This will check the integrity of the DXAR file before attempting to flash the firmware to prevent bricking. Once this is complete, press X to turn off your PSP. Turn your PSP back on, and you are now running 3.40 OE-A!

This is the easiest way to upgrade your PSP. I upgraded mine in under 10 minutes following these exact steps.

3.10 OE-A and OE-A’ boasts an impressive list of feature updates including:

3.10 OE-A Changes

  * Change from 3.03 firmware to 3.10.
  * 4th level of brightness (aka battery eater) can now be selected also without ac adaptor.
  * Changes in hen core:
    - Static user elf’s can now be executed in the 3.10 kernel. (this includes snes user version between other programs)
    - Tyranid’s patch (added in 3.03 OE-C) consequences was not explained very well in the changelog of 3.03 OE-C:
      o For programmers: it allows kernel modules to have user imports, making kernel programming in 3.03/3.10 less strict.
      o For users: plugins and applications that worked in 2.71 SE, but not in OE, *may* now work in 3.03OE-C and 3.10 OE-A.

Note 1: the installer will disable all plugins to avoid incompatibilities when booting. You can enable them again in the recovery menu.

Note 2: the plugin to load 3.02 pops won’t work anymore in 3.10 OE, due to some changes in pops modules structure (meaudio fused with popsman, idcanager/idmanager behaviour slightly changed). A new plugin for 3.10 could be written next week.

3.10 OE-A’ Changes:

  * Corrected a bug that caused Metal Slug 6 (from Metal Slug Anthology), and other umd/iso games containing a static elf to show error 0×80020148.

To upgrade to firmware 3.10 OE-A’ you must first be running 3.10 OE-A, so we will start by upgrading to that firmware first.

Step 1. The first thing you will have to do is download all of the files needed for the upgrade.

310oe_a.rar
310_a2update.rar

Step 2. First you will need to upgrade to 3.10 OE-A before you can go to OE-A’. Uncompress the 310oe_a.rar and copy the contents to /PSP/GAME150 on your PSP using the USB file transfer mode. *NOTE* If you are upgrading from PSP 1.50 firmware just copy the directories to /PSP/GAME.

Once these directories are copied, go to the game menu and run the 3.10 OE-A Update Maker. This step will take a little bit, so be patient. Now would be a good time to make sure your PSP is plugged into the power and not running off battery mode. You will need to have your battery at, at least 75% for the upgrade to be a success.

Step 3. After the Update Maker is complete, initiate USB file transfer mode again and go into /PSP/GAME150/oeupdmaker and copy the data.dxar file to /PSP/GAME150/310oeflasher. Once this file is copied over, exit the USB file transfer mode, go back to the GAME menu, and run the 3.10 OE-A Firmware Install.

Once the installer loads up press the X button to continue with the upgrade. It will now verify the data.dxar file and proceed with the upgrade. Once the upgrade is complete you will then press X again which will turn off your PSP. Turn the PSP back on manually.

You are now running the 3.10 OE-A firmware.

Step 4. Now proceed with uncompressing 310_a2update.rar. Go back into USB file transfer mode and copy over the 310_a2update folder to your /PSP/GAME150 folder. Exit USB file transfer mode, go into the GAME menu and run the 3.10 OE-A’ Updater. This will quickly update your firmware and exit back to the XMB. You are now running the 3.10 OE-A’ firmware.

Step 5. To clear up space on your memory stick you can now go back on your PSP and delete all of the files we copied over.

Enjoy your updated firmware!

Any questions or concerns? Please post them in the comments section.

Step 1:

You will first have to upgrade to 3.02 OE-A then to OE-B before you upgrade to 3.03 OE-B. So the first thing you have to do is download 1 of the following files:

For 1.50 firmware download 3.02 Basic Installer for 1.50
For 2.71SE firmware download 3.02 Basic Installer for 2.71SE

You will not need both files, so download 1 of them. Once you have the installer downloaded to your computer, plug your PSP in and activate USB file transfer mode.

*NOTE* I backed up and formatted my memory card before installing the firmware updates, you may want to do this aswell. You will also have to have atleast 75% of the battery remaining or you will not be able to upgrade.

After activating USB file transfer mode, run the installer, choose the drive your PSP is setup as, and hit next. The installer will do everything for you. You may notice the installer stop at 37%, but let it copy all files, so sit back and relax. Once all the files are copied, exit USB file transfer mode, goto the game menu, access the memory card and you will see the Launcher for the 3.02 updater. Execute this.

You will have to agree to the agreement, do this by pressing X and the update will now start. Once the update is running DO NOT turn off your PSP, or remove the memory card! When the update is complete, it will advise you to restart your PSP manually, you can now do so.

When you restart your PSP you will get a message saying the configuration is corrupt and has to be rebuilt, dont worry, press O and re-configure your PSP.

Congratulations you have no updated too 3.02 OE-A!

Step 2:

You will now have to upgrade 3.02 OE-A to 3.02 OE-B, which is easy, just download oeb.rar which is the upgrade file. Again, reactivate USB file transfer mode on your PSP and extract the contents of oeb.rar to GAME\GAME150 on your PSP memory stick.

*NOTE* You may have to create the GAME150 folder in the GAME folder.

Once everything is copied, run the updater from the Game menu on your PSP.

Easy enough, you are now upgraded to 3.02 OE-B!

Step 3:

Now to actually upgrade to 3.03 OE-A.

First you will have to download 3.03OE-A.rar Once the files are downloaded, initiate USB File Transfer mode on your PSP and extract 3.03OE-A.rar to GAME150 in the GAME folder on your memory stick. Once all the files are copied, close down the USB File Transfer Mode, and goto the Game Menu, and run the 3.03 OE-A Updater.

Again, you will have to agree to the agreement by pressing X and the update will now start. Once the update is running DO NOT turn off your PSP, or remove the memory card! When the update is complete, it will advise you to restart your PSP manually, you can now do so.

This time I didnt receive an error stating that anything was corrupt, and everything booted up just fine.

You are now running firmware 3.03 OE-A!

Step 4:

Now you are good to update to 3.03 OE-B. Download OEB_UPDATE.RAR. Once the files are downloaded, once again initiate USB File Transfer mode, and uncompress the contents of MS_ROOT to the root folder of your PSP.

Once this is complete, exit USB File Transfer mode, and execute the 3.03 OE-B updater from the Game menu. As soon as this is complete you will be fully updated to the 3.03 OE-B Firmware. You can confirm this by going to the settings menu on your PSP and looking inside of the System Information menu.

Step 5: (Optional)

You may want to now format your memory stick again before copying any of your old files back. If you do this step, you must then initiate USB File Transfer mode once more, then go into the GAME folder, and create GAME271 and GAME150.

All of your old homebrew software can now be placed inside of the GAME150 folder and will still run. Ultimately GAME271 is for stuff that runs on the 2.71 firmware.

If you have any questions/concerns or comments. Feel free to comment below!

The installation is almost the same as the DevHook 0.50 installation however a couple of the steps are different. For instance, the supplied .bat file didn’t do its job properly so each step will be explained here.

Connect your PSP to your computer using the USB port and initiate the USB file transfer mode. I recommend making a backup of your memory stick first. I went as far as backing up my memory stick then formatting it to install DevHook 0.51 on a fresh stick. Follow the on-screen instructions. You will be prompted to choose which version to install. I chose the Full Install.

Accept the license agreement, then select whichever drive your PSP is. The files will now be copied to your PSP.

The files are now copied to your PSP, you can hit the circle button on your PSP and exit out of USB file transfer mode. Now head over to the GAME menu, and select the PSAR Dumper. This will load a program that decrypts everything that is needed. Once the dumper loads, press the X button.

Once everything is complete, fully turn off your PSP. Don’t just put it into power saver mode, turn it right off.

Okay, you can now turn your PSP back on. Once again go and initiate the USB file transfer mode. Access your PSP through My Computer, you will see alot of files and directories. Some of these files and directories your going to move, or delete, some you won’t touch at all.

The first thing you want to do is access the folder labeled “f0″ and you will then find a folder labeled “kd” go inside of this folder aswell. Once you are inside of the folder labeled “kd” delete the file “audio.prx”

Now copy audio.prx from the “x:\temp” folder and put it back inside of “kd” folder inside of the “f0″ folder.

Now access the folder labeled “dh” and create a folder labeled “301″. Now move select the “f0″ folder and completely move it to the newly created “301″ folder, inside of the “dh” folder.

Now go back into the “temp” folder and move everything inside of it to “x:\dh\301\f0\kd”.

Now access the folder in “x:\dh\301\” labeled “f1″ and create the following folders: “dic”, “gps”, “net”, “net\http”, “vsh”, and “vsh\theme”.

You can now go back to the root folder and delete the “temp” folder, the “DH_README” folder, and the file labeled “DevHook Setup.bat”. Also while you are deleting stuff, you may go into the “x:\psp\game” folder and delete the PSAR dumper, as it is no longer needed.

Turn off USB file transfer mode and go back into the GAME menu. Now you can Launch DevHook 0.51.

Once you are inside of DevHook 0.51 go to the “FIRMWARE” menu and select the 3.01 firmware. You can now start DevHook 0.51 and watch your PSP boot into the 3.01 firmware.

Enjoy

The first thing you will want to do is download the Ultimate Installer 1.5.1 file. This is the DevHook files and the firmware files.

Now connect your PSP to your computer using the USB port and initiate the USB file transfer mode. I recommend making a backup of your memory stick first. I went as far as backing up my memory stick then formatting it to install DevHook 0.50 on a fresh stick. Follow the on-screen instructions. You will be prompted to choose which version to install. I chose the Full Install.

Accept the license agreement, then select whichever drive your PSP is. The files will now be copied to your PSP.

The files are now copied to your PSP, you can hit the circle button on your PSP and exit out of USB file transfer mode. Now head over to the GAME menu, and select the PSAR Dumper. This will load a program that decrypts everything that is needed. Once the dumper loads, press the X button.

Once everything is complete, fully turn off your PSP. Don’t just put it into power saver mode, turn it right off.

Now hook up the USB cable, turn your PSP on, and initiate USB file transfer mode again. Now access your PSP through My Computer on your computer and run the DevHook Setup.bat. After this whole process completes you may delete DevHook Setup.bat.

Turn off USB file transfer mode and go back into the GAME menu. Now you can Launch DevHook 0.50.

Once you are inside of DevHook 0.50 go to the “FIRMWARE” menu and select the 2.82 firmware. You can now start DevHook 0.50 and watch your PSP boot into the 2.82 firmware.