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It is a rather old PC, 4th Gen intel at best, I have this motherboard with an Intel Xeon XPU, and 64GB of ram, so it is worth a try, I will start by ordering this TPM module from Amazon (here)
Once i receive it, I will come back and explain the whole experience, and if this works out of the box with windows 11, or if i need to fiddle with anything
The original firmware based on debian did come with a DLNA server, in this post, I am only dealing with openWRT (You need to change the firmware due to a serious security issue on the NAS drive as shown here)
In openWRT, i recommend you install libffmpeg-full before miniDLNA, since miniDLNA will install libffmpeg-mini which will conflict
opkg update opkg install libffmpeg-full opkg install minidlna luci-app-minidlna
Once the above are done, you can setup your DLNA server from the web interface of openWRT
I would recommend that the database and log files be on the data partition to save space, something you can manually set from within the web interface
to rebuild that database (re-index the files), you will need to stop miniDLNA, run the update and then start the server again
service minidlna stop minidlnad -R service minidlna start
After an apt-get upgrade, phpmyadmin stopped working, I would see a blank page that sets a session cookie but does not show a login screen , just a blank page and the source of the page is also blank
So, i added the following line to my config.inc.php
$cfg['environment'] = 'development';
An right after, the following appeared
Array ( [type] => 1 [message] => Uncaught TypeError: PhpMyAdmin\ConfigStorage\Relation::__construct(): Argument #1 ($dbi) must be of type PhpMyAdmin\DatabaseInterface, null given, called in /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Twig/RelationExtension.php on line 22 and defined in /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/ConfigStorage/Relation.php:62 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Twig/RelationExtension.php(22): PhpMyAdmin\ConfigStorage\Relation->__construct() #1 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/ExtensionSet.php(426): PhpMyAdmin\Twig\RelationExtension->getFunctions() #2 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/ExtensionSet.php(411): Twig\ExtensionSet->initExtension() #3 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/ExtensionSet.php(385): Twig\ExtensionSet->initExtensions() #4 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Environment.php(810): Twig\ExtensionSet->getUnaryOperators() #5 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Lexer.php(457): Twig\Environment->getUnaryOperators() #6 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Lexer.php(108): Twig\Lexer->getOperatorRegex() #7 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Environment.php(466): Twig\Lexer->__construct() #8 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Environment.php(516): Twig\Environment->tokenize() #9 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Environment.php(348): Twig\Environment->compileSource() #10 /var/www/html/pma2/vendor/twig/twig/src/Environment.php(309): Twig\Environment->loadTemplate() #11 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Template.php(123): Twig\Environment->load() #12 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Template.php(156): PhpMyAdmin\Template->load() #13 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Core.php(145): PhpMyAdmin\Template->render() #14 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Config.php(684): PhpMyAdmin\Core::fatalError() #15 /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/Common.php(169): PhpMyAdmin\Config->checkPermissions() #16 /var/www/html/pma2/index.php(48): PhpMyAdmin\Common::run() #17 {main} thrown [file] => /var/www/html/pma2/libraries/classes/ConfigStorage/Relation.php [line] => 62 )
Turns out, this is an incompatibility (related to session storage) that has only been fixed in the 5.2 snapshot, download that version of phpmyadmin and everything should be fine
This is probably very easy to use on windows, but i could not find a windows machine,
A quick solution that was not very clear at first was as follows, before you do this, make sure you have unmounted the SD card !
apt-get install exfat-utils
And then run the command
sudo exfatfsck /dev/mmcblk0p1
Got a few of the following error, and answered yes to all
ERROR: unknown entry type 0xc1. Fix (Y/N)? y
And that was that
This is a somewhat old problem, since Debian moved to systemD, instead of editing the file in /etc/default/varnish, you will need to create a file in /etc/systemd/system/ named varnish.service, the contents of such a file should look like this, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP varnish is listening on, one of the IPs of your varnish server
So to run the following command
systemctl edit varnish.service
[Unit] Description=Varnish HTTP accelerator Documentation=https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/6.1/ man:varnishd [Service] Type=simple LimitNOFILE=131072 LimitMEMLOCK=82000 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/varnishd -j unix,user=vcache -F -a xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:80 -T localhost:6082 -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl -S /etc/varnish/secret -s malloc,256m ExecReload=/usr/share/varnish/varnishreload ProtectSystem=full ProtectHome=true PrivateTmp=true PrivateDevices=true [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Once you have added the file execute the following
systemctl daemon-reload systemctl restart varnish
Reload
firewall-cmd --reloadDealing with zones
* firewall-cmd --get-zones <- Show all zone names * firewall-cmd --list-all-zones <- Detailed info about all zones * firewall-cmd --zone=zone-name --list-all <- show everything about a certain zone * firewall-cmd --get-default-zone <- What is the current default zone * firewall-cmd --set-default-zone zone-name <- set new default zone * firewall-cmd --get-active-zones <- List the active zones and the interfaces assigned to them * firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --change-interface=enp1s0 <- connect the public zone to eth0, REQUIERS RELOAD
I haven’t played any games in 20 years, up until early this month, I played a simple game on my phone, nice, but I’m not addicted, no urge to pick up the phone
So, having no windows PC of my own, i decided to install the open source supertuxkart on my debian (gnome) machine
the game is a joke compared to modern day graphics and physics, but it is fun, with things like bombs and banana skins and stuff, i don’t think i will be playing it often, but there you have it
Like the name implies, this is a cheat sheet to quickly find the command you need, they are ordered by the frequency a command is used, or at least what i think is going to be needed more frequently, I have also grouped them by function
The container name in the examples is mycontainer, it is just a name that you will need to replace with your own container name, the container ID here is always 12345abcdef
| Command | Arguments | What it does |
| ============> | Containers – list | |
| docker container ls | Display running containers | |
| docker container ls -a | a: also show containers that are not running | Display all containers, running or not |
| docker ps | Show running containers | PS is the same as LS but older |
| ============> | Containers – Run | |
docker run --name mycontainer -i -t imagename | 1- The name of the container to run (mycontainer)2- The i flag indicating you’d like to open an interactive SSH session to the container. The i flag does not close the SSH session even if the container is not attached.3- The t flag allocates a pseudo-TTY which much be used to run commands interactively.4- The base image to create the container from ( imagename). | Runs the container, and leaves you on a shell prompt that executes commands on that container (As if you have ssh-ed into it) |
docker run --name | -d for running the container in the background | |
docker stop my_container | Stop the running container | |
docker exec -it | -it flag allows you to run a container in interactive mode | If this doesn’t work, you may not have bash installed, you can try the next command Gives you access to the shell, much like opening an SSH session to the container |
docker exec -it username/ | ||
| ctrl+p followed by ctrl+q | Detach from container |
Sometimes, accessing a container throght the command line may not be enough, there is a chance you want to access it for file transfer for example, in that case, you want port 22 exposed, and you want to be connected to it like you would connect to a virtual machine
As usual, I will start by getting to the bottom of it, then explain everything
first, you need to first shrink the file system, then the partition where the filesystem resides, replace /dev/sda4 with whatever you partition is named
Unmount the partition to be resized,
umount /mountpoint
otherwise you will get a message such as
Filesystem at /dev/sda4 is mounted on /mountpoint; on-line resizing required On-line shrinking from 30453104 to 98098 not supported.
The following commands are relevant to the program resize2fs, they are hands on examples of use, take a close look at the description of what each does before you proceed by picking how you want to use the command.
* Show the minimum size we can squeeze this partition to without losing data resize2fs -P /dev/sda4 * do the filesystem resize to the MINIMUM possible size (the number you ended up with in the previous command) resize2fs -M /dev/sda4
The command above moves all data to the beginning of the filesystem/drive, then shrinks it to the smallest possible size.
2.1- Find the boundaries of the file system with fdisk
If this is it, why is there much more in this tutorial, Simply put, what is above does very little explaining, if you want to understand what we did, you will need a bit more
the assumption, I have a partition that only has 5% data, I would like to shrink the partition to ten percent of it’s size.
Unlike windows, where your luck of where the data resides, you can always shrink a Linux partition to whatever size fits the data that is on it (without losing data)
in this tutorial, I will assume the partition is /dev/sda4, you will need to replace that with whatever your partition is.
1- collecting information about our partition
fdisk /dev/sda
then the p command for print
df -h
this should show you all the partitions, info about them and where they are mounted and how much space is used
the file system can be shrunk with resize2fs
the command “resize2fs -M” should first move the data to the beginning of the drive, then shrink it
first, how large is the file system ATM
tune2fs -l /dev/sda2 then multiply by block size
The WD My Book Live is a NAS device based on Debian Linux, Since Debian stopped supporting this processor (APM82181), the device has received no updates and will probably never, so the next best thing to do in my opinion is to install openWRT.
1- Only the first few paragraphs of this tutorial (STEPS 1 THROUGH 6) are the instructions you need, the remaining is just for extra reference and in short you don’t need to read it to have your device running, but I do recommend YOU SKIM THE WHOLE THING BEFORE YOU START.
2- This procedure requires you to take the disk out and install it on a PC to switch the firmware, then put it back
3- The upgrade will delete all your data, You will need to move your data that is already on your WD NAS drive somewhere else while the upgrade is ready.
Move any data you may have on the drive to a temporary location outside the NAS drive. this has to be done before taking the drive apart as the unconventional 64 kB block size of the disk will be nothing but trouble if you want to extract the data while mounting the disk to a linux PC for example.
I have included photos to help you do that, it is not rocket science.
and mount it to a linux PC (Windows might work with software such as etcher, but i have no guarantees).
Go to the drive’s page on the openwrt website (Here), and download it to your Linux (Or windows) PC
Decompress the file, then copy it to the drive with a command similar to the command below, but make 100% sure to replace sdx with your own drive designation
dd if=/root/wdsata.img of=/dev/sdx bs=64k
Write the firmware to the disk, overwriting it, and effectively loosing any data you did not backup in step 1
Nothing to say here, this is the reverse of step 2
Once it is in the enclosure, you can not just connect it to your router as it in itself has this port defined as 192.168.1.1 and is serving dhcp !
At this stage, your device will boot, but you will need to create/expand the data partition, the partition that should not be overwritten when you upgrade the firmware for example.
opkg update opkg install gdisk blkid openssh-sftp-server gdisk -i /dev/sda
As soon as gdisk opens, you may be presented with the following message, if so
Found valid MBR and corrupt GPT. Which do you want to use? (Using the GPT MAY permit recovery of GPT data.) 1 - MBR 2 - GPT 3 - Create blank GPT
Chose 1 to maintain the 2 partitions we have, Now hit the command (w) to write and confirm, then quit, gdisk has just switched your disk to GPT from MBR, now run gdisk again the same way (gdisk -i /dev/sda)
n for new partition, accept the (3) for partition number, use the number (2097152) for alignment with 4K sector advanced format nearest to the 1GB mark
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3 mkdir /share blkid /dev/sda3
in my case, the UUID was as follows UUID="9643bd00-f117-4074-a252-7ea30a5174e2" yours will certainly be different, so in my fstab i added the following lines near the end
config mount
option target '/share'
option uuid '9643bd00-f117-4074-a252-7ea30a5174e2'
option enabled '1'
Now, network sharing is what i was originally interested in when i got this unit, and it is why I am replacing it’s firmware, so to installing samba
opkg update && opkg install samba4-server luci-app-samba4
Now, add the following line to /etc/passwd to add me as a user to the system
yazeed:*:1000:65534:yazeed:/var:/bin/false
Now, run the command
passwd yazeed smbpasswd -a yazeed
Yes it is, I have found many people asking if the hardware supports drives over 2TB, the answer is yes, but you will have to use the GPT rather than the MBR (See steps above)
it comes from WDs cloud service, bottom line is that many devices were completely wiped remotely by malicious users and it is unknown if the data itself leaked, so yes, it is very serious
Quick factory restore is probably what you are looking for, the later seems to do a zero fill on the hard drive after performing a factory restore to disallow data retrieval (For example before you sell it), you can verify this by logging in using SSH, and by the fact that the tool tips state something to that effect.
To begin with, I logged in via SSH and inspected some stuff, to enable SSH access on the My Book Live original firmware, you will need to visit a page at a URL such as http://mybooklive/UI/ssh or http://192.168.2.116/UI/ssh (Replace the IP with your own)
the system is based on the following CPU
CPU processor : 0 cpu : APM82181 clock : 800.000008MHz revision : 28.130 (pvr 12c4 1c82) bogomips : 1600.00 timebase : 800000008 platform : PowerPC 44x Platform model : amcc,apollo3g Memory : 256 MB
With that out of the way, A look at /etc/apt/sources.list revealed that it is a Debian Distro, the only problem with this is that debian stopped supporting this CPU some time ago, so you can’t go past Debian 8 (Jessie)
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main #deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main #deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main
Checking the disk info with hdparm revealed that the disk is a WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0, which is as i expected a Caviar Green (SMR disk)
parted (The new fdisk so to speak) shows the following partition scheme for the existing system.
Model: ATA WDC WD20EARX-00P (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 3 15.7MB 528MB 513MB linux-swap(v1) primary 1 528MB 2576MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid 2 2576MB 4624MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid 4 4624MB 2000GB 1996GB ext4 primary
And a “df -h” reveals
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/md0 1.9G 555M 1.3G 31% / tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /lib/init/rw udev 10M 6.7M 3.4M 67% /dev tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 100M 4.6M 96M 5% /tmp ramlog-tmpfs 20M 4.5M 16M 23% /var/log /dev/sda4 1.9T 2.1G 1.9T 1% /DataVolume
A good alternative for this Gigabit Lan network attached storage might be openWRT, the same firmware I use for my routers !
there are things you need to know in advance though, first of which is that changing the firmware will require you to delete everything on the drive ! as Western Digital have used an unconventional bunch of things such as a 64 kB block size !
With that out of the way, you can skip down to the installing openWRT about the upgrade process step by step (Including backing up your system), then come back to why etc…
That is indeed a good question, and to make it easy to do that, I have already backed up the entire disk to another while I am sure that i don’t want to go back. Also worth mentioning that the latest firmware on the WD website dates back to 2015 ! which is at the time of writing 6 years ago !
OpenWRT has a page dedicated to this drive, both the single and the Duo here (https://openwrt.org/toh/western_digital/mybooklive)
The Western Digital My Book Live has a super low power CPU, and when the disk is spun down, it consumes very little energy (Not a significant load to your UPS for example), It is also fan-less, so it is with the exception of the spinning drive when it is spinning silent, which is also a nice thing, So i would argue that keeping it by updating it’s software is a good idea
Another reason is the amount of relevant software provided through openWRT packages, covering many more things than the original firmware (miniDLNA included).
If you come from a debian background, you would normally apt-get update then apt-get upgrade and that is that, in OpenWRT, there is no such upgrade command, the upgrade command in openWRT is meant to upgrade 1 package specified by name, so the solution is the following line
opkg list-upgradable | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | xargs -r opkg upgrade