SSH Stuff

I've just managed to install a load of stuff onto my desktop as I didn't realise I wasn't connected to a remote machine via ssh.

G+ gave me a suggestion about changing the login colours on the remote machine so a bit of searching came up with this.

Connect via ssh and run

nano .bashrc

Add this lot in just above the last fi

#Make prompt colored when logged in remote
export NON_LOCAL_LOGIN=`env | grep SSH`
if [ "$NON_LOCAL_LOGIN" != "" ]; then
       PS1="\033[33m[\u@\h:\w]#\033[0m "
fi;

Save and close and you're sorted

Original answer came from here

Spotweb on Bionic Beaver

Wanted to get Spotweb running on a local machine to do some newsgroup indexing, lots of instructions out there for Raspberry Pis and older versions of Ubuntu with php 5. I've decided to go and install it on a virtual server running Bionic Beaver, it was a lot easier than I expected.

Start off with installing the OS and then updating it.


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y
sudo shutdown -r now

Then install the required apps:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-cli nginx openssl php-fpm git zip mc php-mbstring php-xml -y

Change a couple of files:

sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/fpm/php.ini

Change these lines

date.timezone = Europe/Copenhagen
memory_limit = 512M


And do the same here:

sudo nano /etc/php5/cli/php.ini



Make the webserver config file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/spotweb

Copy and paste this into the file:

server {
listen 80;
server_name htpcguides.crabdance.com, 192.168.40.120;
root /var/www;
index index.html index.htm index.php;

location /spotweb {

        satisfy any;

        if ($uri !~ "api/"){
                rewrite /api/?$ /spotweb/index.php?page=newznabapi last;
        }
location ~ \.php$ {
                try_files $uri =404;
                include fastcgi_params;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME    $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
}
}

Save it and then close nano

Activate the configuration

sudo -i

unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/spotweb /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/spotweb


Install Spotweb:

git clone https://github.com/spotweb/spotweb /var/www/spotweb

Sort out the permissions:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/spotweb

Create the database, replace the word password with your password but leave the ' ' in place:
mysql -u root -p
CREATE USER spotwebuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
CREATE DATABASE spotwebdb;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON spotwebdb.* TO spotwebuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;


Go for a reboot

sudo shutdown -r now

And now finish the configuration off with your browser.

Go to http://ip.address/spotweb/install.php

Do an initial download and then setup a cron job to run:

php retrieve.php from the /var/www/spotweb directory.

Nextcloud install, the easy way.

Here's an easy way to setup a NextCloud server, a bit less customisable than installing it the manual way.

In the past, I've messed round with installing, SQL, Apache and so on, I thought I'd give the Ubuntu snap package a go.

I've run up Ubuntu 20.04 server, installed SSH onto it so I can manage it from command line and next it was time to install NextCloud.

sudo snap install nextcloud

That's it, it's done and installed, just a few more things to get it working properly and securely with ssl enabled.

Adjust the memory limits with:

sudo snap set nextcloud php.memory-limit=-1

Tell it which ports to listen to with:

sudo snap set nextcloud ports.http=80 ports.https=443

Restart Apache with:

systemctl restart snap.nextcloud.apache

Configure https and install lets encrypt with:

sudo nextcloud.enable-https lets-encrypt

Finish off the configuration by pointing your web browser at the dynamic domain you have set up for it.

https://domaine.name or https://ipaddress

The final configuration is done via web browser.

It really was that easy

Shell Script stuff in Linux

I've wanted to make up a simple script that runs an update on my desktop and then either shuts down, reboots or continues depending on what parameters I add to the end.

Something like;

update reboot

update shutdown

or just update to install the updates and do nothing else.

I managed this with good old DOS many years ago and started to look up how to do this with Linux, I have to say that the vast majority of instructions are based up using foo and bar and are not the easiest things in the world to understand, here's one of the easier examples:

 $ mytest foo bar quux
   There are 3 arguments to mytest: foo bar quux
   first argument: foo
   second argument: bar
   third argument: quux
   here they are again: foo bar quux

I really can't work out how that helps me but it gave me a starting point.

So in plain language here's what I want to do, I've created a script with:

sudo nano /bin/mtupdate

The main part of the script checks for updates and installs the updates:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y

It then goes onto check what additional parameters have been passed and this is the bit that caused me heartache.

So if I run mtupdate shutdown it does the above and then this bit

# checking for shutdown parameter
if [ "$1" = "shutdown" ]; then
echo "Shutting Down in 10 seconds"
# gives you a chance to change your mind
echo "Press CTRl+C to abort"
sleep 10
echo "Shutting Down"
# shuts down
shutdown -h now
else
if

Then it became harder as I wanted to check for a reboot parameter, to get it all in I had to do the following;

# checks for reboot parameter
if [ "$1" = "reboot" ]; then
echo "Rebooting in 10 seconds"
echo "Press CTRl+C to abort"
sleep 10
echo "Rebooting"
shutdown -r now
else

# checks for shut down parameter
if [ "$1" = "shutdown" ]; then
echo "Shutting Down in 10 seconds"
echo "Press CTRl+C to abort"
sleep 10
echo "Shutting Down"
shutdown -h now

else
# no parameters
clear
echo .
echo.

echo "Updates Completed, please reboot as soon as you can"

fi fi

You have to have a fi at the end for every if in the list


The end product looks like this:

# mtupdate reboot or shutdown
echo "Running Update"
apt-get update
echo "Running Upgrade"
apt-get upgrade -y
echo "Running Dist Upgrade"
apt-get dist-upgrade -y
echo "Running Cleanup"
apt-get autoremove -y
apt-get install -fy

# checking for reboot parameter
if [ "$1" = "reboot" ]; then
echo "Rebooting in 10 seconds"
echo "Press CTRl+C to abort"
sleep 10
echo "Rebooting"
shutdown -r now
else

# checking for shutdown parameter
if [ "$1" = "shutdown" ]; then
echo "Shutting Down in 10 seconds"
echo "Press CTRl+C to abort"
sleep 10
echo "Shutting Down"
shutdown -h now

else
# no parameters entered
clear
echo .
echo .
echo "Updates Completed, please reboot as soon as you can"
fi fi

To finish it off I ran 

sudo chmod +x /bin/mtupdate 

To make it executable

My suggestion to the people that write help stuff is to use a proper example, don't use foo bar quux as this means bugger all to people like me.

My next bit of scripting is going to revolve around taking two parameters and running something based on them, such as

mtbackup source destination

Where mtbackup runs something like rsync or cp or mv

I'll come to that next time round

OpenVPN Server on Debian Jessie

It was time to setup a way of getting secure access to my network while away and also to get a secure connection to the Interwebs while away from home, it also means that I can watch BBC Iplayer as if I'm at home.

I'm installing this on an old machine running Debian Jessie, it should work on a Raspberry Pi too, the only things I have installed during the initial setup process as the standard Debian utilities and ssh server so I can do everything remotely.

I've found lots on instructions out there but the one from this website was the easiest to follow, I've modified it slightly to make it easier to get at the keys.

I've modified a few things myself

First thing is to ensure we are up to date, lets switch to root for the install

su

then

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade


Time to start installing stuff

apt-get install openvpn easy-rsa

Then copy some example files over to make the job easier

cp -r /usr/share/easy-rsa/ /etc/openvpn

mkdir /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys

Now we edit the certificate variables

nano /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/vars

# These are the default values for fields

# which will be placed in the certificate.

# Don't leave any of these fields blank.

export KEY_COUNTRY="changeme"

export KEY_PROVINCE="changeme"

export KEY_CITY="changeme"

export KEY_ORG="example"

export KEY_EMAIL="changeme@example.com"

export KEY_OU="changeme"

# X509 Subject Field

export KEY_NAME="server"

Time to generate some stuff and go and have a coffee, on a Pi, this may take some time

openssl dhparam -out /etc/openvpn/dh2048.pem 2048

Now we make the server certificate keys:

cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
. ./vars
./clean-all
./build-ca
./build-key-server server

Let's copy them to where they belong

cp /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/{server.crt,server.key,ca.crt} /etc/openvpn

Now time to make some changes to the network settings:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

And let's make the changes permanent with:

nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Look for the following bit:

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
# net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Then remove the # from the second line so it looks like this:

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Now we make the server config file:

nano /etc/openvpn/server.conf

Paste this lot into the empty file, this will run the VPN server on port 1194.


port 1194
proto udp
dev tun
ca ca.crt
cert server.crt
key server.key 
dh dh2048.pem
server 10.90.10.0 255.255.255.0
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt
push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp"
push "dhcp-option DNS 8.8.8.8"
client-to-client
duplicate-cn
keepalive 10 120
cipher AES-128-CBC
comp-lzo
user nobody
group nogroup
persist-key
persist-tun
status logs/status.log
log-append logs/openvpn.log
verb 3

Now we make the log files:

mkdir -p /etc/openvpn/logs
touch /etc/openvpn/logs/{openvpn,status}.log


And let's do some firewall configuration:

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.90.10.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables-save

Now let's restart the server to put the changes into place:

systemctl restart openvpn@server.service

Now the original instructions came with a script file to help you create new keys for each user and device, pointless changing it.

nano /etc/openvpn/gen-client.sh

Paste this lot in:

#!/bin/bash

username=$1

# Generating key

echo "Generating key for user ${username}"

cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/

source vars && ./pkitool ${username}

cp /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/.tmp.ovpn /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "Done"

# Adding ca certificate to ovpn client configuration file

echo "Adding ca certificate to ovpn client configuration file"

echo "<ca>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

cat /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ca.crt | grep -A 100 "BEGIN CERTIFICATE" | grep -B 100 "END CERTIFICATE" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "</ca>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "Done"

# Adding user certificate to ovpn client configuration file

echo "Adding user certificate to ovpn client configuration file"

echo "<cert>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

cat /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/${username}.crt | grep -A 100 "BEGIN CERTIFICATE" | grep -B 100 "END CERTIFICATE" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "</cert>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "Done"

# Adding user key to ovpn client configuration file

echo "Adding user key to ovpn client configuration file"

echo "<key>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

cat /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/${username}.key | grep -A 100 "BEGIN PRIVATE KEY" | grep -B 100 "END PRIVATE KEY" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

echo "</key>" >> /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn

mkdir -p /etc/openvpn/clients/${username}

mv /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/${username}.ovpn /etc/openvpn/clients/${username}/${username}.ovpn

cp /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/${username}.{crt,key} /etc/openvpn/clients/${username}

cp /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ca.crt /etc/openvpn/clients/${username}

cd /etc/openvpn/clients; tar -jcf ${username}.tar.gz ${username}/

chmod 0777 -R /etc/openvpn/clients

echo "Done"

echo "

=========================================================================================

            Configurations are located in /etc/openvpn/clients/${username}

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        Download friendly version with:

         'scp root@`hostname -f`:/etc/openvpn/clients/${username}.tar.gz .'

=========================================================================================

"

exit 0

Save it and then make it executable with:

chmod +x /etc/openvpn/gen-client.sh

Next we have to create the template file for this to use:

mkdir -p /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/

nano /etc/openvpn/clients/.tmp/.tmp.ovpn


Paste this in, change example.com for your external IP or server address

client
verb 1
dev tun
proto udp
port 1194
remote example.com 1194 udp
remote-cert-tls server
resolv-retry infinite
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun
comp-lzo
cipher AES-128-CBC

Now, let's make some keys:

cd /etc/openvpn/

replace username with your username, I'm going to install this onto an S5 so it will be freds5 or something.

./gen-client.sh username

To make it easy to get the files off the server and onto my device, I've decided to install Samba and setup the client keys folder as a Windows share, this is how this is done.

apt-get install samba samba-common

Once it's finished we edit the Samba config file:

nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Change the workgroup name at the top of the file and you can also add:

netbios name = servername under it if you want.

Add the bottom add the following


[VPNKeys]
        path = /etc/openvpn/clients/
        browseable = yes
        public = yes
        writeable = no

Restart the server with:

service smbd restart

Just got to change the folder permissions to make sure we can get the files off:

chmod 0777 -R /etc/openvpn/clients

Onto my phone now, I've installed OpenVPN Connect from the play store, then I've copied the files from the Windows share into dropbox, then saved them into a folder on the phone called VPN, you could just install a file browser and do the same.

Then import the .ovpn file into OpenVPN connect and click on connect.

One last thing, make sure you give the server a static IP and forward port 1194 on the router.

SabNZB setup on Ubuntu

To be honest, this is really very easy. we start by opening a terminal onto the machine we are going to install the package onto and type:

sudo apt-get install sabnzbdplus

Now we edit one of the config files:

sudo nano /etc/default/sabnzbdplus

USER=root

# The Host one can be 0.0.0.0 if you only have one IP address

HOST=0.0.0.0

# Change this to another port if 8080 is already in use.

PORT=8082

Then we make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/sabnzbdplus

Then we restart the service

sudo service sabnzbdplus restart

Once this has finished point your browser to http://ipaddress:8082 and finish setting it up, you will need a usenet provider, I use newsdemon myself.

Clementine and High CPU Usage

I've used Clementine as my music manager for quite a while now but for some reason it's been causing some high cpu utilisation lately with the cooling fan sounding like a hovercraft. A bit of research seems to indicate that it's a bug Clementine and my Nvidia drivers.

This is the article that pointed out the problem to me:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/65099/clementine-has-high-cpu-usage-even-after-shutting-it-down

Effectively you use the following command to start Clementine.

Exec=env __GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER=1 clementine

Now we don't want to have to type in this line every time we want to start the app up, in KDE it's quite simple, just right click on the start button and select Edit Applications, find Clementine and replace Clementine &U with the above line.

Simples