In 2010, I posted a couple of articles regarding videos and subtitles. Today I submitted a feature request to smplayer so they include within the player the ability to save in the subtitle file the custom delay we may have selected.
Basically, it would implies for smplayer to simply do something like with libsubtitles-perl‘s subs:
subs -i -b 00:00:16.5 Boardwalk.Empire.S01E10.480p.HDTV_en.srt
I sure hope they’ll implement that soon. Should not be too complicated while at the same time very convenient as, most of the time, issues with downloaded subtitles are delay-related.
Most users are probably fine with their ISP modem/box that even provides an hard disk. But having it’s own home server gives full control over the process and it’s not something utterly frivolous: no storage space real limit (except budget), finely tuned firewall, etc. In the past, it was at the expense of silence, energy consumption and space, but no longer, as described here.
Hardware setup:
The hardware is the following:
- board (APU) Intel DN2800MT
- RAM: 2 x 2 Go PC8500 DDR3 SODIMM
- Hard drive: Western Digital WD Green 3,5″ – SATA III 6 Gb/s – 2 To (Caviar)
- Secondary ethernet: StarTech.com ST1000SMPEX (Mini PCI-E)
- Wifi: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 (PCI-E)
+ a laptop adapter (16V, 4A)
+ a small case
The APU itself have a thermal design power (TDP) inferior to 10W. The hard drive is of the “Green” typen (RPM is lower than usual, etc). It’s important to note the RAM is of the SO-DIMM type (usually for laptops) PC8500 (max frequency supported by this board/CPU) and an laptop power charger/adapter is necessary instead of a regular power supply unit. Any case designed for the mini-ITX form factor could do. Low energy consumption, silent and small.
I was, actually, looking towards Sapphire Mini xxxx hardware at first, but it’s quite painy to get it shipped. So I went instead for the Intel Nano based hardware, despite its obvious drawbacks, which are supporting SATA II instead of 3, the SODIMM 4Gb RAM max and being known to be poorly supported on the target system, which is Debian GNU/Linux. I actually don’t care much for the GPU support, 4 Gb is more than enough for a home server and SATA II acceptable enough, so it should be fine anyway.
(Obviously, you should plug a hub on the secondary ethernet otherwise you’ll only be able to connect one box over ethernet)
Software setup:
Picking softwares:
Most obvious: we’ll run Debian stable on it, so to say Wheezy, the about-to-be-released-and-frozen one. The stable model in itself makes this distro the best choice for a server: this is stable and kept secure over time.
It’s supposed to work with an heterogenous network: GNU/Linux, MS Windows, over ethernet or wireless. So we’ll want:
- OpenSSH as secure shell, for the administrator
- any dhcpd server to provide IPs on the fly
- Samba for networked filesystems – and only, as we want each box to keep it’s original setup and not getting specific
- Bind to act as DNS cache and manage the domain
- Nginx as http server to provide basic sysinfo (phpsysinfo) and basic sysadmin (mostly: reset Samba passwords and connected wireless devices surveillance)
- transmission-daemon plus my torrent-watch.pl script to provide a networked BitTorrent client
- minidlna to make files available to non computer networked devices
Start with Debian netinst base install:
Obviously we’ll want some SWAP space. 2 Gb should be more than enough. Then we’ll want three ext4 filesystems. One for user data, one for the system, one for a system copy, as fallback. If we had two different disk, obviously the system copy would be the second one.
We’ll start the basic debian installation with that in mind: we’ll anyway just install the debian base stuff with OpenSSH.
/etc/default/rcS:
FSCKFIX=yes
/etc/default/grub:
GRUB_FALLBACK=2
Setting up basic functionalities/networking after reboot:
First, we’ll install some useful utilities:
apt-get install lm-sensors hddtemp cpufrequtils debfoster etckeeper localepurge ethtool emacs23-nox ntp wget
Regarding sensors, you should configure hddtemp to run as a daemon listening on 127.0.0.1 and run:
sensors-detect
At this point, network devices should be known to the system. We have quite usual hardware so correct modules should already be loaded. lspci should return:
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection 02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9300 Wireless LAN adaptor (rev 01) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
Edit the NAME strings in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules in order to have eth0 being the internet device, eth1 and wlan1 the intranet ones, for clarity sake. You may unload and reload modules of these devices in order for them to get their definitive name.
We’ll use hostapd to provide Wifi access.
apt-get install hostapd
/etc/default/hostapd:
DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"
/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf:
## base interface=wlan1 ssid=whatever channel=3 ## wifi mode hw_mode=g ieee80211n=1 ## access with WPA PSK wpa=2 wpa_passphrase=WHATEVERYOUWANTSOFAR wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK #wpa_pairwise=TKIP rsn_pairwise=CCMP auth_algs=1 # hw address filter (relaxed, as it is not real security) macaddr_acl=0 deny_mac_file=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.deny # EOF
touch /etc/hostapd/hostapd.deny
(this enable WPA2 access, if you want also WPA1, you must set wpa=3 and uncomment wpa_pairwise)
Then we’ll configure the network, defining a different subnet for wired and wireless connectivity. Some tutorials on the web propose to bridge the wireless to the wired. We won’t do that, we actually want to be able to easily distinguish the source of any request. Regarding security, the safe bet is to assume that wireless is always on the verge of getting cracked, so it must be kept confined.
editing /etc/network/interface:
# internet auto eth0 iface allow-hotplug eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp # intranet (wired) auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.0.255 network 10.0.0.0 # intranet (wireless) auto wlan1 iface wlan1 inet static address 10.0.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.1.255 network 10.0.1.0 # EOF
We need a working dhcp daemon, able to dynamically register new boxes:
apt-get install isc-dhcp-server
In /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server:
INTERFACES="eth1 wlan1"
In /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf:
option domain-name "mynetworkname.ici";
option domain-name-servers 10.0.0.1;
option routers 10.0.0.1;
log-facility local7;
authoritative;
# wired
subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 10.0.0.25 10.0.0.125;
}
# wireless
subnet 10.0.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 10.0.1.125 10.0.1.225;
option routers 10.0.1.1;
}
(it’s best to add, as fallback, to the domain-name-servers option the defaults DNS provided by your ISP, as shown in /etc/resolv.conf)
The dhcp client must be tuned a bit, /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf:
prepend domain-name-servers 10.0.0.1; supersede domain-name "mynetworkname.ici";
We obviously need ip forwarding, editing /etc/sysctl.conf:
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
and also immediately doing a:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
We also need iptables
apt-get install iptables-persistent iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE /etc/init.d/iptables-persistent save
(I actually reused a perl script that also does some nice firewalling instead of simply doing this)
ifup eth1 ifup wlan1 invoke-rc.d hostapd restart invoke-rc.d isc-dhcp-server restart
At this point, you should be able to log in with SSH on a distant box.
Provide local (dynamic) domain name server:
apt-get install bind9
Set up forwarders with your ISP’s DNS (as in /etc/resolv.conf) in /etc/bind/named.conf.options. Don’t bother doing that, /etc/bind/named.conf.options will be automatically generated by a script installed at the latest step. Instead, remove it so the script will make sure it is set proper at its first run:
rm -f /etc/bind/named.conf.options
You need to create zones (named as you like) in /etc/bin/named.conf.local:
zone "mynetworkname.ici" {
type master;
notify no;
file "/etc/bind/db.mynetworkname.ici";
allow-update { key dhcpupdate; };
};
zone "0.10.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
notify no;
file "/etc/bind/db.10.0.0";
allow-update { key dhcpupdate; };
};
cd /etc/bind && cp db.local db.mynetworkname.ici
db.mynetworkname.ici:
$TTL 64800 @ IN SOA gate.mynetworkname.ici. root.mynetworkname.ici. ( 2 ; Serial 604800 ; Refresh 86400 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL IN NS nano.mynetworkname.ici. mynetworkname.ici. IN A 10.0.0.1 mynetworkname.ici. IN MX 10 10.0.0.1 nano IN A 10.0.0.1 gate IN CNAME nano
cp db.255 db.10.0
db.10.0:
; ; BIND reverse data file ; @ IN SOA nano.mynetworkname.ici. root.mynetworkname.ici. ( 1 ; Serial 604800 ; Refresh 8600 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL 0.10.in-addr.arpa. NS nano.mynetworkname.ici. 1.0 PTR nano.mynetworkname.ici.
Now we add support for dynamic updates:
cd /etc/dhcp dnssec-keygen -a hmac-md5 -b 256 -n USER dhcpupdate
/etc/bind/named.conf:
key dhcpupdate {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret "YOURKEYGOESHERE";
};
(the secret being the latest string of .key file we’ve just generated)
/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf:
ddns-domainname "mynetworkname.ici";
ddns-rev-domainname "in-addr.arpa.";
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;
update-static-leases on;
key dhcpupdate {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret "YOURKEYGOESHERE";
}
zone mynetworkname.ici. {
primary 127.0.0.1;
key dhcpupdate;
}
zone 0.10.in-addr.arpa. {
primary 127.0.0.1;
key dhcpupdate;
}
Restrict read access to files containing the secret key and restart all:
chmod o-r /etc/bind/named.conf.local chmod o-r /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf rm /etc/dhcp/Kdhcpupdate.*.key /etc/dhcp/Kdhcpupdate.*.private invoke-rc.d isc-dhcp-server restart invoke-rc.d bind9 restart
Put user data in place:
User data will go in /srv. So we’ll add a few symlinks, after mounting the partition.
mkdir /srv/home /srv/common rm -r /home && ln -s /srv/home /home
We then add default dirs:
mkdir /srv/common/torrents /srv/common/download /srv/common/musique /srv/common/films /srv/common/temp cd /srv/common && chmod a+w * -R
We’ll also make sure any new user get a ~/samba directory.
mkdir /etc/skel/samba
Make it accessible over Samba:
Users will access files with Samba: anonymous in r+w in common, user only in their ~/samba (we don’t allow direct access to ~/ to block any tampering with directories like ~/.ssh)
apt-get install samba libpam-smbpass
/etc/samba/smb.conf:
workgroup = MYNETWORKNAME.ICI interfaces = eth1 wlan1 bind interfaces only = yes security = user invalid users = root unix password sync = yes pam password change = yes map to guest = bad user [homes] comment = Données protégées path = /srv/home/%S/samba writable = yes [commun] comment = Commun path = /srv/common browseable = yes public = yes force group = users force user = nobody guest ok = yes writable = yes [media] comment = clef USB, etc path = /media browseable = yes public = yes force group = users force user = nobody guest ok = yes writable = yes
We also want to use unix passwords for Samba instead of having two passwords databases.
/etc/pam.d/samba:
@include common-password
Make it accessible with UPnP-AV/DLNA:
apt-get install minidlna
/etc/minidlna.conf:
media_dir=/srv/common network_interface=eth0 friendly_name=nano inotify=yes
Once set up, we regenerate the database properly:
rm -f /var/lib/minidlna/files.db invoke-rc.d minidlna restart
We add relevant iptables rules where SRC is the IP of your dlna client (you may want to alter this, for instance by using –source-range IP-IP instead of –src IP):
apt-get install iptables-persistent iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 --src SRC -p udp --dport 1900 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 --src SRC -p tcp --dport 8200 -j ACCEPT /etc/init.d/iptables-persistent save
Provide torrent client:
apt-get install transmission-daemon libtimedate-perl invoke-rc.d transmission-daemon stop mkdir /home/torrent ln -s /srv/common/torrents /home/torrent/watch usermod -d /home/torrent Debian-transmission cd /usr/local/bin && wget https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/raw/master/usr/local/bin/torrent-watch.pl && chmod +x torrent-watch.pl cd /etc/cron.d && wget https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/raw/master/etc/cron.d/torrent cd /etc/cron.weekly && wget https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/raw/master/etc/cron.weekly/torrent
Edit /etc/cron.d/torrent (uncomment, check pathes – you may want to add ~/watch/ instead of ~/watch if symlinks are involveed, etc).
Edit /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
"alt-speed-down": 120, "alt-speed-enabled": false, "alt-speed-up": 1, "blocklist-enabled": true, "download-dir": "/srv/common/download", "message-level": 0, "peer-port-random-on-start": true, "port-forwarding-enabled": true, "rpc-authentication-required": false,
invoke-rc.d transmission-daemon start
And log rotation /etc/logrotate.d/torrent:
/srv/common/torrents/log {
weekly
missingok
rotate 2
su debian-transmission users
nocompress
notifempty
}
Provide basic info and management:
The following will provides reminders of upgrades to be performed.
apt-get install libapt-pkg-perl cd /etc/cron.daily && wget https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/raw/master/etc/cron.daily/apt-warn && chmod +x apt-warn
phpsysinfo : basic system infos
We’ll use phpsysinfo to provide an overview of the system and a homemade script to allow distant administration.
apt-get install nginx phpsysinfo php5-cgi spawn-fcgi libfcgi-perl mysql-server libemail-sender-perl cd /etc/init.d && wget https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/raw/master/etc/init.d/php-fcgi && chmod +x php-fcgi && update-rc.d php-fcgi defaults wget http://nginxlibrary.com/downloads/perl-fcgi/fastcgi-wrapper -O /usr/bin/fastcgi-wrapper.pl && wget http://nginxlibrary.com/downloads/perl-fcgi/perl-fcgi -O /etc/init.d/perl-fcgi && chmod +x /usr/bin/fastcgi-wrapper.pl /etc/init.d/perl-fcgi && update-rc.d perl-fcgi defaults mkdir /srv/www ln -s /usr/share/phpsysinfo/ /srv/www/sysinfo
/etc/nginx/sites-available/default:
listen 10.0.0.1;
listen 127.0.0.1;
root /srv/www;
index index.html index.htm index.php index.pl;
autoindex on;
server_name localhost nano nano.mynetworkname.ici;
# restrict to local wired network
allow 10.0.0.0/24;
allow 127.0.0.1;
deny all;
# pass the scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1
location ~ ^/sysinfo/(.*)\.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
# # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location /sysadmin/index.pl {
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:8999;
fastcgi_index index.pl;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_na\
me;
include fastcgi_params;
}
/etc/php5/cgi/php.ini:
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;
/etc/phpsysinfo/config.php:
define('PSI_ADD_PATHS', '/bin,/usr/bin,/sbin,/usr/sbin');
define('PSI_BYTE_FORMAT', 'auto_binary');
define('PSI_SENSOR_PROGRAM', 'LMSensors');
define('PSI_HDD_TEMP', 'tcp');
define('PSI_SHOW_MOUNT_OPTION', false);
define('PSI_HIDE_FS_TYPES', 'tmpfs,usbfs,devtmpfs');
define('PSI_HIDE_DISKS', '/dev/disk/by-uuid/8f7f616e-9140-4876-890a-cd6abfde837\
f');
define('PSI_HIDE_NETWORK_INTERFACE', 'lo,mon.wlan0');
define('PSI_SHOW_NETWORK_INFOS', true);
sysadmin : admin unix/samba passwords and watch wifi connections
Follows the specific sysadmin web interface:
apt-get install passwdqc liburi-encode-perl libdata-password-perl libdbd-mysql-perl libemail-send-perl
cd /srv/www
mkdir sysadmin
cd /srv/www/sysadmin && wget https://raw.github.com/yeupou/calaboose.sysadmin/master/index.pl
cd /usr/local/bin && wget https://raw.github.com/yeupou/calaboose.sysadmin/master/sysadmin-update.pl
chgrp www-data /srv/www/sysadmin/index.pl
chmod +x /srv/www/sysadmin/index.pl /usr/local/bin/sysadmin-update.pl
chmod o-rwx /srv/www/sysadmin/index.pl /usr/local/bin/sysadmin-update.pl
mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE sysadmin"
mysql -e "CREATE TABLE sambaclients (ip_address varchar(32) NOT NULL default '0', user_name text NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (ip_address))" sysadmin
mysql -e "CREATE TABLE wificlients (hw_address varchar(32) NOT NULL default '0', status varchar(32) NOT NULL default 'S', PRIMARY KEY (hw_address), ip_address varchar(32), hostname varchar(128))" sysadmin
mysql -e "CREATE USER 'www-data'@'localhost'"
mysql -e "SET PASSWORD FOR 'www-data'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('kdkadkda')"
mysql -e "GRANT ALL ON sysadmin.* TO 'www-data'@'localhost'"
/srv/www/sysadmin/index.pl:
my $db_password = "kdkadkda";
/usr/local/bin/sysadmin-update.pl:
my $db_password = "kdkadkda";
It requires a cronjob to be set up in /etc/cron.d/sysadmin:
* * * * * root /usr/local/bin/sysadmin-update.pl
invoke-rc.d nginx restart invoke-rc.d php-fcgi restart invoke-rc.d perl-fcgi restart
Both http://nano/sysinfo and http://nano/sysadmin should work. The sysadmin script allows to change, on-the-fly UNIX passwords, by sending random ones by mail. It means that anyone within the intranet could sniff them out. That obviously won’t do if your legit users aren’t trustworthy.
(note : the sysadmin interface is in French but the strings can easily be translated in English. Adding gettext support would have been overkill here)
Create backup system:
With only one disk, having a redundant system is not optimal. But it’s still an okay failsafe.
The following assumes you gave a label to your root partition, something like wd2Tdebian64 here. Create a filesystem on the backup partition:
mkfs.ext4 -L wd2Tdebian64bak /dev/sda7 mkdir /mnt/sysclone
Add /etc/cron.weekly/backup-system (based on https://github.com/yeupou/stalag13/blob/master/etc/cron.weekly/stalag13-backups):
if [ `hostname` != "nano" ]; then exit; fi ## system cloning sys=wd2Tdebian64 bak=wd2Tdebian64bak mount=/mnt/sysclone ignore="dev lost+found media proc run sys tmp srv" # determines which partition is currently / by reading /etc/fstab orig=`cat /etc/fstab | grep $sys | cut -f 1 | cut -f 2 -d = | sed 's/ //g'` case $orig in $sys) dest=$bak ;; $bak) dest=$sys ;; *) echo "Unable to determine whether we are currently using $sys or $bak, we found $orig. Exiting!" exit ;; esac # then proceed # easy reminder of the last cloning run date > /etc/.lastclone echo "$orig > $dest" >> /etc/.lastclone etckeeper commit "cloning system from $orig to $dest" >/dev/null 2>/dev/null # mount clone system if [ ! -d $mount ]; then exit; fi mount -L $dest $mount # set up ignore list for dir in $ignore; do touch /$dir.ignore done # do copy for dir in /*; do if [ -d $dir ]; then if [ ! -e $dir.ignore ]; then # update if not set to be ignored /usr/bin/rsync --archive --one-file-system --delete $dir $mount/ else # otherwise just make sure the directory actually exists if [ ! -e $mount/$dir ]; then mkdir $mount/$dir; fi rm $dir.ignore fi fi done # update filesystem data sed -i s/^LABEL\=$orig/LABEL\=$dest/g $mount/etc/fstab # make system bootable (use --force: gpt partition table) /usr/sbin/grub-mkdevicemap 2>/dev/null /usr/sbin/update-grub 2>/dev/null /usr/sbin/grub-install --force `blkid -L $orig | tr -d [:digit:]` >/dev/null 2>/dev/null # (sleep to avoid weird timeout after rsync) sleep 10s # then cleanup umount $mount fsck -a LABEL=$dest > /dev/null ## EOF
Final tuning: set mails, restrict SSH access, etc:
We activate exim4 for direct SMTP (and make sure the ISP does not block the relevant traffic) with the command:
dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
Then we want some specific SSH access model. We already set up the sysadmin interface to change users password – both Samba and unix. But we actually have only one admin here. He’s own account will be the only one given SSH access. No root direct access. And he’ll be able to connect with a password only from wired intranet (eth1). Otherwise, internet (eth0) or wireless intranet (wlan1) will require a pair of SSH keys. To achieve this, we’ll actually restrict SSH to members of the staff unix group (just in case, at some point, we want to add a second one).
To achieve this easily, will plug OpenSSH into xinetd.
We have a few terminals open on the server. We shut SSH down (opened sessions wont be affected) and forbid the init script to start it anymore:
invoke-rc.d ssh stop touch /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run
We change a bit the default configuration in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
PermitRootLogin no X11Forwarding no AllowGroups staff PasswordAuthentication no
We add the relevant user to the group:
adduser thisguy staff
Then we set up xinetd to run it:
apt-get install xinetd
Edit /etc/xinetd.d/ssh_intranet:
# To work, sshd must not run by itself, so /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run
# should exists
# only from local wired network
service ssh
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
bind = 10.0.0.1
only_from = 10.0.0.0/24
server = /usr/sbin/sshd
server_args = -i -o PasswordAuthentication=yes
log_on_success = HOST USERID
}
# from local wireless network
service ssh
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
bind = 10.0.1.1
only_from = 10.0.1.0/24
server = /usr/sbin/sshd
server_args = -i
log_on_success = HOST USERID
}
# EOF
This set up only access for intranet interfaces (eth1 and wlan1 if you named them as recommended in this page). Internet interface IP is obtained with DHCP so it would be a pain in the ass to keep it up to date, especially if we’re behind a dynamic IP. However, xinetd does not allow to set interface by device name but wants an IP. So we need to script this. And, at the same time, we’ll deal with Bind DNS forwarders so it does proper caching. So we’ll add /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/xinetd-bind:
XINETD_CONFFILE=/etc/xinetd.d/ssh_internet
BIND_CONFFILE=/etc/bind/named.conf.options
# SSH over xinetd requires the IP to be hardcoded
if [ -n "$new_ip_address" ]; then
# change only if we have a new ip and if this one mismatch the old
if [ "$new_ip_address" != "$old_ip_address" ] ||
[ ! -e $XINETD_CONFFILE ]; then
echo "# DO NOT EDIT, automatically generated by $0
# (IP changed from $old_ip_address to $new_ip_address)
# `date`
service ssh
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
bind = $new_ip_address
server = /usr/sbin/sshd
server_args = -i
cps = 30 10
per_source = 5
log_on_success = HOST USERID
}
# EOF" > $XINETD_CONFFILE
# now reload xinetd
invoke-rc.d xinetd restart >/dev/null 2>&1
fi
fi
# Bind DNS cache need forwarders similar to the content of resolv.conf
if [ -n "$new_domain_name_servers" ]; then
# change only if we have DNS
if [ "$new_domain_name_servers" != "$old_domain_name_servers" ] ||
[ ! -e $XINETD_CONFFILE ]; then
echo "// DO NOT EDIT, automatically generated by $0
// (IPs changed from $old_domain_name_servers to $new_domain_name_servers)
// `date`
options {
directory \"/var/cache/bind\";
// If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
// to talk to, you may need to fix the firewall to allow multiple
// ports to talk. See http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113
// If your ISP provided one or more IP addresses for stable
// nameservers, you probably want to use them as forwarders.
// Uncomment the following block, and insert the addresses replacing
// the all-0's placeholder.
forward first;
forwarders {" > $BIND_CONFFILE
# add valid forwarders
for server in $new_domain_name_servers; do
# (verbose) skip local ips
if [ ! -n "`ifconfig | grep ":$server "`" ]; then
echo " $server;" >> $BIND_CONFFILE
else
echo " //SKIP THIS LOCAL IP! $server;" >> $BIND_CONFFILE
fi
done
echo " };
auth-nxdomain no; # conform to RFC1035
listen-on-v6 { any; };
};
// EOF" >> $BIND_CONFFILE
# now reload bind
# (this may be useles because another script may do that already)
invoke-rc.d bind9 restart >/dev/null 2>&1
fi
fi
It should modify conffiles and restart daemons only if there is an actual change. You can test that it works properly doing:
ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0
Then you can make a few SSH login test and see results in /var/log/auth.log.
At this point, you should realize that this perfectly working setup has an obvious drawback: if you’re wirelessly connected (subnet 10.0.1.0) `ssh nano` will, thanks to the DNS, actually do a `ssh 10.0.0.1`. And per our xinetd rules, you’ll get kicked out, as we accept on this IP only clients from the same subnet (10.0.0.0). So you’ll have to manually type ssh 10.0.1.1 to be able to connect. We’ll add an iptable rule to fix this: we’ll say that whenever we try to connect to 10.0.0.1 over ssh from wireless interface, we’ll redirect to 10.0.1.1 same port. So we’ll do:
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -i wlan1 --destination 10.0.0.1 --dport 22 -j DNAT --to 10.0.1.1:22 /etc/init.d/iptables-persistent save
Updates/Quickfix:
Update 1: Yeah, just published and already patched. Ahem. I noticed that, on reboot, sometimes hostapd is not working as expected. Users can connect but never get an IP. The LSB init script of hostapd looks odd to me, since it actually makes it starting before dhcpd. I modified /etc/init.d/hostapd so isc-dhcp-server $network gets in Required-Start and then ran rc-update.d hostapd.
Update 2: /media was configured to be served over Samba but no automount was set for USB mass storage devices. Here it is, (not thoroughly tested as I don’t use such devices much), edit /etc/udev/rules.d/80-removable-usb.rules:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}!="", SYMLINK+="usb%k"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}!="", RUN+="/bin/mkdir /media/usb%k"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}=="vfat|ntfs", ENV{mount_extra_options}="dmask=0000,fmask=0111,"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}!="", RUN+="/bin/mount -t auto -s -o $env{mount_extra_options}noatime,nodiratime,noexec,nodev /dev/usb%k /media/usb%k", OPTIONS="last_rule"
ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}!="", RUN+="/bin/umount /media/usb%k"
ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}!="", RUN+="/bin/rmdir /media/usb%k", OPTIONS="last_rule"
Update 3: I added /srv to the list of directories to be ignored by the backup script, as it contains data.
Update 4: Now /etc/xinet.d/ssh is split between ssh_intranet and ssh_internet, the later being generated by a script in /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/. This avoids us to hardcode IPs by hand. Still, it implies hardcoding IP in conffiles, so it must be kept in mind when doing major software upgrade that may imply conffile syntax change, etc.
Update 5: I noticed auto eth0 was missing in /etc/network/interfaces. I added it (and maybe Update 1 was related to that).
Update 6: I added sample firewall rules for minidlna.
Update 7: In case you have no static IP from your ISP, you may want to create a free account on no-ip and install a client:
apt-get install ddclient
And configure /etc/ddclient.conf
protocol=noip use=web server=dynupdate.no-ip.com login=youremail@provide password='yourpassword' hereitis.servebeer.com
invoke-rc.d ddclient restart
Reminder, needs to be changed checked whenever the server is relocated:
(obviously you should not use any sample password provided in this page)
We avoided hardcoding IPs but it was not always possible. Yes we did. However, in case of an ISP/main network change, which usually implies IP changes, make sure the following are properly updated by the dhclient:
/etc/bind/named.conf.option: ISP DNS IPs as in /etc/resolv.conf
/etc/xinetd.d/ssh_internet: internet IP as provided by ifconfig
Disclaimer: this whole setup has been made to be maintainable by people that have not much experience in computer system administration – but enough to log in via SSH without being completely lost in limbo. As such, you’ll probably notice I made some tradeoff between security and easiness, for instance by providing in clear text the Wifi passphrase on the web sysadmin page. Anyway I think most important pieces are rock solid and secondary one does not matter much (Wifi is insecure by design, by concept I would even dare to say, using it is itself such an obvious tradeoff).
(this is still being tested, I may update this page soon; it’s likely I forgot to mention a few apt-get of perl packages required by the scripts; please mail me if you find any flaws or obvious issues with what is proposed here)
A few month ago, I provided my setup using pxelinux, isc-dhcpd and tftdp-hpa in order to make possible boot on lan. I improved this setup to chainload iPXE instead. I’m not interested in overwrite ROMs of ethernet devices I have so I still use PXE but only in order to get to iPXE that is way more powerful, as it allows direct access over http and much more.
The README in the my PXE directory explains the whole (quite short actually) install from scratch process. If you had the previous version running, note that the DHCPD configuration and update script changed (and the case of subdirectories changed too).
I’m not exactly proud about this one in many regards (security, for instance) by was actually something needed by a relative that, from time to time, go to some random shop to print PDFs. Having to put them on a device like a USB Key or hard disk is some kind of a nuisance, especially when your own workstation is behind a static IP.
The way it works is that it asks you for a password. If you have none, then it’ll send you a random one by mail. This password will be erased after an hour.
Security notes: this could be subject to packet sniffing so I don’t suggest to use it as it is for any sensitive data. It can easily be improved in regards of security depending on the end user you’re targetting, in my case it had to remain as basic as possible. It logs everything so fail2ban and other tools can easily be set in motion.
It’s composed a perl script, a cronjob and a nginx example config file. The perl script will ask the user for a valid user name and set up the temporary access accordingly. The cronjob will be used to reset passwords. The sample nginx shows how to run the perl script as appropriate error page and provided access either by basic auth or IP.
Install guide from the README :
1) It assumes your nginx supports perl like in
http://nginxlibrary.com/perl-fastcgi/:
apt-get install nginx libfcgi-perl wget wget http://nginxlibrary.com/downloads/perl-fcgi/fastcgi-wrapper -O /usr/bin/fastcgi-wrapper.pl wget http://nginxlibrary.com/downloads/perl-fcgi/perl-fcgi -O /etc/init.d/perl-fcgi chmod +x /usr/bin/fastcgi-wrapper.pl chmod +x /etc/init.d/perl-fcgi update-rc.d perl-fcgi defaults insserv perl-fcgi
2) Copy and edit the nginx sample and crontab sample into the appropriate places:
- something like /etc/nginx/site-available/transit symlinked to /etc/nginx/site-enabled
- /etc/cron.d/transit
3) Then you must create a group named transit and add to it users that
are entitled to use this.
4) You must also make sure nginx (www-data?) can write to the directory where
you store the .passwd file. In the default case here, it’s /etc/nginx/passwd/
Not really a very informative post, but I thought you’d be interested into the following:
I moved most of my computers to systemd. On most of them, the boot process is tremendously faster. I haven’t noticed any problem (with somehow heterogenous hardware – but all i686/IA64/AMD64 though). Plus logs got more relevant messages. Have a try!
Also, I finally understood what KDE activities are for. It’s, contrarily to what I assumed beforehand, not a bigger subset of virtual desktops. It’s some kind of mini-session instead. For instance, each morning, I usually browse 5 or 6 news websites. Before KDE activies, either I typed their URL in my Konqueror page or I used bookmarks. I only created an activity “News” with a Konqueror open on each news website. And, now, I just fire and shut down this activity whenever I want to read news and that’s it: it’s fast to start and shut down and it saves me lot of clicks or keystrokes. Other example? I also created an activity to watch vidéos. I fire it up and, tada!, I get plasmoids that give me direct access to the relevant directories where I store such files. Really neat. It’s fast. It just lack a bit of polishing/KDE integration. But I’m sure that a work in progress.
Nowadays, you would think having a network device like a TV box accessing data from your unix-based system easy going. I mean, we have NFS, Samba all-right, how hard could that be to devise an interface to access at least one of the many network shares, provided a user/password or based on it’s IP?
But no, it won’t work that way. It’s supposedly too complex, so instead, people promotes zeroconf and such, stuff supposed to work out-of-the-box that actually may not work at all. For instance, to access movies/music from your computer with your Freebox HD (TV box) v5, and I assume it’s the same with many similar boxes from others ISP, you can forget about using NFS/SMB/http or whatever protocol you already had working or think easy to put in motion. No, you’ll have to use UPnP, standing for Universal Plug and Play, words that truly often refers to Plug and Pray instead.
From the computer…
So, let’s go getting our hands dirty. The setup I’m working with is quite simple: a Freebox HD v5, a single computer with a single user having some videos, some with subtitles (mostly .srt), and audio files. It’s basic but it took me a while to figure it out.
I did test plenty of UPnP servers. I tried Mediatomb but it did not work – plus the gothic interface seemed weird. I tried XBMC and it worked nicely but only to show empty folders, and no obvious way to have it up without the CPU consuming interface. Then I installed MythTV and I did not even understood how it is supposed to work in regard of UPnP.
So I tried minidlna, the lightweight one I avoided from the start because it’s not known to properly support subtitles files. And, tada!, it actually works almost out-of-the-box. Yeah, almost. That’s the funny thing, even if you claim to aim zeroconf, when it comes to share files, at some point you’re still in need to list what you actually wanna share. Whatever. So I did apt-got minidlna. Then I edited /etc/default/minidlna:
START_DAEMON="yes" USER="thisguy" GROUP="thisguy"
As there’s only one legit user on this box, I wanted the daemon to be able to access his files with no specific consideration for privileges/ownership. I implied doing then:
chown thisguy.thisguy /var/lib/minidlna -Rv
Then I modified /etc/minidlna.conf as follows:
media_dir=V,/home/thisguy/Films media_dir=A,/home/thisguy/Musique media_dir=P,/home/thisguy/Photos log_level=info network_interface=eth0 friendly_name=thisserver inotify=yes
… to the box
I restarted the daemon (and made sure it’s included in /etc/rc2.d). And that’s all (I modified also the firewall setup but I’m not sure that’s relevant considering that UPnP implies that it advertises itself to other devices when it’s up and not the other way around – so firewall is an issue only if you have one that blocks connections from the inside to the outside).
By that’s all, I meant: it was enough to get access to movies on the Freebox HD for the first time; but not with the subtitles.
I googled around: the minidlna version I had was supposed to properly give access to .srt along with videos. The Freebox HD itself supports .srt files with the same name of the video, when you access video over an USB device. But apparently plenty of implementations of UPnP have no consideration for subtitle files and the Freebox’s one is probably one such. So having separate .srt or .sub or whatever is a no-go.
Then, I gave a try to Matroska files (.mkv) despite the fact that I always had bad experience with it. Most notably, I usually implies videos costing tons of CPU time to decode and render and videos players usually fail to properly keep video in sync with audio – yeah, that’s really nasty. But Matroska allows to embed subtitles in the file without touching the video stream, which is neat. So I did that. Long story short, Matroska files, 9 times out of 10, freeze the Freebox HD: and I’m talking about Matroska files that are not bigger than the original .avi that run well on the very same Freebox, and I’m talking about Matroska files that run well on the computer with VLC or mplayer. So that’s a no-go too.
So I ended with the worse solution: altering original files, with mencoder to incrust subtitles within. Yeah, it’s kind of definitive and if you don’t want to spend hours of CPU time to do it, it implies quality loss. But, at least, it works. So here it goes, I wrote the following script to ease the process, assuming that video files along with .srt where originally on an USB device called HERMES and then copied to thisguys home:
#!/bin/bash
DEST=/home/thisguy/Films
ORIG=/media/HERMES
# go thru the list of videos
find $ORIG -name "*.avi" -or -name "*.mpg" -or -name "*.mp4" |
while read video; do
# find out basename
basename=${video%.*}
format=${video##*.}
endname=`basename "$basename"`-WS.$format
echo $endname
# use french subtitles in priority over english
subtitle=0
if [ -r "$basename"_en.srt ]; then subtitle="$basename"_en.srt; fi
if [ -r "$basename"_fr.srt ]; then subtitle="$basename"_fr.srt; fi
if [ -r "$basename".srt ]; then subtitle="$basename".srt; fi
# no valid subtitle found at this point? skip the video
if [ ! -r "$subtitle" ]; then continue; fi
# now create to relevant directory if missing
enddir=`dirname "$basename" | sed "s@${ORIG}@${DEST}@g;"`
if [ ! -d "$enddir" ]; then mkdir -pv "$enddir"; fi
# proceed only if the file is missing
if [ -r "$enddir/$endname" ]; then continue; fi
# if we reach this, go for it
mencoder "$video" -subpos 92 -sub "$subtitle" -o "$enddir/$endname" -oac copy -ovc lavc
done
# EOF
Yeah. Plug and play my ass.
(Not talking about the whole desktop environment, just the desk, actually) You have plasmoids and a consistent layout. Nice. Then you have end-users, a bit clueless. And after a few month, their desktop is an absolute mess and they don’t even know why, it’s not even like they wanted to change anything to it. But you had set “lock plasmoids”. So you’re obviously locking for a way to remove the “unlock plasmoid” option.
You can do so following this advice:
you’ll have to add [$i] in the first (blank) line into the plasma-desktop-appletrc
Great! Except it looks like a dirty hack so I wonder if it will still work in the long run. I’d gladly take any further advice.
