Even though we all know that alcohol can lead to hangovers, the cause of a hangover is something we don’t know. Alcohol does have some positive effects on the body, although it can also lead to negative effects such as hangovers. Some doctors will actually recommend it, while others will tell you never to drink it. Even though drinking is good, moderation is the key. The easiest way to avoid hangovers is to drink in moderation – and never get drunk.

As many of us already know, whisky, bourbon, and wine can result in a much harder hangover than vodka or beer. For many people, chemicals in wines or yeast found in unfiltered beers can result in headaches. Beer, wine, and liquor can be fun and relaxing to drink, although if you aren’t careful you can easily get a headache or a hangover.

Even though the cause for hangovers is unknown, it has been proven that the headaches associated with hangovers stem from dehydration. With alcohol being a diuretic, it will make you urinate quite often. Therefore, if you drink alcohol or beer on a daily basis, your body will remain dehydrated. When you wake up in the morning with a bad headache and turn to coffee, which is also a diuretic, the process of dehydration actually gets worse.

You’ll also need to do something with the alcohol that has been left in your body. Even though a hangover can make you want to stay in bed, the secret to getting yourself back on track is movement. To rid your body of the alcohol, you’ll need sweat. Sweating gets the toxins out of your body, and helps you feel better. You can exercise or have sex to get over a hangover, as the heat your body emits will be too much for alcohol toxins to handle.

Although a hangover can be a bit of a pain, it can be prevented. The first rule of drinking any type of alcoholic beverage is to never drink on an empty stomach. If you eat a good meal before you start drinking, you’ll find that the food can help you digest the alcohol much better. When the alcohol starts to attack your stomach, you should consider eating foods that are high in fat, such as cheese. You can also sip some olive oil or drink some water. The secret to making sure that you don’t get a hangover when drinking is to drink in moderation and never let yourself get too drunk.

Beer is digested very fast by your body, which is why you should always drink beer first if you plan to mix drinks. Beer is digested the fastest, and will also help your body to absorb any other drinks you have faster. You should always keep in mind that when you drink alcohol, your body will get dehydrated. Any type of alcohol that you consume is a diuretic, therefore you should always drink water with your alcohol. Alcohol can dehydrate your body very fast – which is why you’ll need water to ensure that you stay hydrated.

Snow in Malvern

Medibuntu

Medibuntu is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons, usually it is down to patent issues, geographical patent issues or they are just perverted (there is an app which shows a woman in various states of undress depending on system load).

To install:
sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list
sudo apt-get --quiet update
sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring
sudo apt-get --quiet update
sudo apt-get install app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu

TorProject
One of my favourite applications, Tor can be installed through Apt. In this example I am using Oneiric.

Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:
(If you dont know how, open a terminal window, sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list)

deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org oneiric main

Then add the gpg key used to sign the packages and update apt by running the following commands at your command prompt:

gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89
gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
apt-get update
apt-get install tor tor-geoipdb

There are many, many more repositories. If you are feeling brave, take a look here:

http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/

This site will generate a bespoke sources.list file for any Ubuntu distribution. Keep a backup of your original config just in case…!

IPTables

A simple IPTables rule is this, replacing **PORT** with the port you wish to protect. Replace the 15 for the maximum numbrer of connections per IP:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –syn –dport **PORT** -m connlimit –connlimit-above 15 –connlimit-mask 32 -j REJECT –reject-with tcp-reset

Apache
Apache can be set up with mod_evasive, which will help limit connections to hosts in which it believes are attempting a DoS attack.

To install:
aptitude install libapache2-mod-evasive

Once its installed, try this:
a2enmod mod-evasive
You should then see:
Module mod-evasive already enabled

Next thing to do, is add this either to a vhost file for each site you want to protect, or into the httpd.conf file found in /etc/apache2/conf/

<IfModule mod_evasive20.c>
DOSHashTableSize 3097
DOSPageCount 2
DOSSiteCount 50
DOSPageInterval 1
DOSSiteInterval 1
DOSBlockingPeriod 10
</ifModule>


These can be tweaked:
DOSHashTableSize
Size of the hash table. The greater this setting, the more memory is required for the look up table, but also the faster the look ups are processed. This option will automatically round up to the nearest prime number.

DOSPageCount
Number of requests for the same page within the ‘DOSPageInterval’ interval that will get an IP address added to the blocking list.

DOSSiteCount
Same as ‘DOSPageCount’, but corresponds to the number of requests for a given site, and uses the ‘DOSSiteInterval’ interval.

DOSPageInterval
Interval for the ‘DOSPageCount’ threshold in second intervals.

DOSSiteInterval
Interval for the ‘DOSSiteCount’ threshold in second intervals.

DOSBlockingPeriod
Blocking period in seconds if any of the thresholds are met. The user will recieve a 403 (Forbidden) when blocked, and the timer will be reset each time the site gets hit when the user is still blocked.