https://mindlesstux.com/ MindlessTux A wandering IT journal of things 2023-10-21T15:43:32-04:00 MindlessTux https://mindlesstux.com/ Jekyll © 2023 MindlessTux /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png Updating Chirpy Jekyll Theme 2023-10-14T10:00:00-04:00 2023-10-14T10:00:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/10/14/update-chirpy-jekyll-theme/ MindlessTux From time to time it is nessary to update the Chirpy theme I use here on my site. I end up failing to recall my steps everytime so I figured I better write them out and maybe someone might find it interesting. Joplin 2023-09-19T10:00:00-04:00 2023-09-19T11:15:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/09/19/Joplin/ MindlessTux I have been looking for a cross os and cross platform note taking software. In my searches I found several that would do for basic needs but I wanted something that really works for me. So my requirements were markdown formatting, syncing of notes with ease, and of course free with preference of being open source. Live Blogging via Matrix 2023-08-27T21:00:00-04:00 2023-08-27T21:01:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/08/27/live-blogging-via-matrix/ MindlessTux Sometime ago I wanted something that could be used to be liken a stream of my thoughts. Later I saw a blog post on the Matrix.org blog talking about Matrix Live Blog. I saw it as the perfect thing to be the conduit for my random thoughts that have no purpose in being toot’s or blog posts. I have been poking it for some time and still have tweaks I want to do to the code to fit what I want. What makes it great is if you use a static site like I do, you only need javascript and a matrix server and chatroom. So nothing server side unless you count the Matrix chat server. I have a chatroom and have a link on the left that demos the live blog. You can find the Matrix chat room that backs the page here. Install RACADM on Rocky 9 2023-06-27T09:00:00-04:00 2023-06-27T09:00:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/06/27/install-racadm-on-rocky-9/ MindlessTux I just recently put some effort into rebuilding my server(s) host os for my VMs. One of the things I dreaded was loosing racadm just in case I needed it when upgradeing from CentOS 7 to Rocky LInux 9. Spent some time going down the wrong rabbit holes among other things. I ended up stumbling on a posting/faq(?) to install racadm on ubuntu. In it held some keys to getting what I want done. IPv6 Token 2023-06-27T08:00:00-04:00 2023-06-27T08:00:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/06/27/ipv6-token/ MindlessTux In rebuilding my servers with a newer os, I had to review how to set an IPv6 token. First thing that you may be asking yourself is what is an IPv6 token exactly? To keep it very simple it allows for the first part/half of the address to be dynamic while the second part/half is something you can assign statically. This is helpful for me as I can have shorter addresses for the server systems and full length ipv6 addresses for systems and devices that have no interface to them. So how does one do this in Rocky Linux 9? Updating NodeJS 2023-05-21T00:45:00-04:00 2023-05-21T00:45:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/05/21/updating-nodejs/ MindlessTux In my efforts to update the theme to my site (this site) I ran into issues of upgradeing NodeJS. So I just wanted to make a quick post of a soltion I used. Switching to Mastodon 2023-05-17T12:00:00-04:00 2023-05-17T12:00:00-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/05/17/switching-to-mastodon/ MindlessTux This will be a short post. With everything that has been going on with twitter, to me it just has become a toxic waste dump. I am switching from even really looking at twitter as a viable news source option. While I will maintain an account there, I will not use it for interactions if at all possible. Instead I would urge people to move to Mastodon. I would also suggest if you are able to, stand up their own instance. This way people can do what they want and I can isolate the shit from actually reaching me and the bots that I will eventually stand up. Perhaps that is a future posting of how to stand up a mastodon server. For now if you need me: @mindlesstux@mindlesstux.com Ty 2023-03-03T05:00:00-05:00 2023-03-03T05:00:00-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/03/03/Ty/ MindlessTux This week was terrible for me, as I watched one of my favorite pets waste away. Ty, passed away this morning and he will be missed in my home. Despite his blindness it did not stop him from being a very happy and active cat. The last couple of years of his life were full of ups and downs with many trips to the vet to help him. In the end now, I hope he is at peace and is able to rest on the rainbow bridge in the sky. May we meet again in someway. Using Cactus Comments with Jekyll 2023-02-13T10:36:00-05:00 2023-02-13T10:36:00-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/02/13/using-cactus-comments-with-jekyll/ MindlessTux With my switching to using Jekyll and wanting to still have a comment system on my posts. I set out looking at my options. There were many options out there and some were better in ways than my final choice. Such as Disqus. My friend and ex-coworker uses it on his blog. While it offers a nice little interface and allows for logins from popular services, it just did not feel right for me to use. Most of the ones I found all controlled the data, aka I would not host it. Switching from Wordpress to Jekyll 2023-02-12T19:00:00-05:00 2023-02-12T19:00:00-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2023/02/12/switching-from-wordpress-to-jekyll/ MindlessTux So my constant need/want to find the perfect means to managing my website has driven me from WordPress over to Jeykll. Why am I doing this jump? There are a few reasons that I am doing this. Setting up CloudFlared in docker 2022-01-27T20:48:53-05:00 2022-01-27T20:48:53-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2022/01/27/setting-up-cloudflared-in-docker/ MindlessTux This is a follow up to my “Docker and cloudflared” post. I wanted to take it a step further. I wanted for the cloudflared to come up via docker-compose or as a stack in the swarm. Turns out it is not that hard to do so. Just need a bit more lifting to get there with a couple more steps. Read more to see how to. Cloudflare tunnels and Cockpit 2022-01-16T21:54:23-05:00 2022-01-16T21:54:23-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2022/01/16/cloudflare-tunnels-and-cockpit/ MindlessTux I have been continuing to play with Cloudflare tunnels and teams and wanted to put cockpit on a tunnel. I found out it is not as straightforward as one would think. I found a small web of things to do and an undocumented disability/bug in Cloudflare tunnels. It is not as simple as throwing it into the configuration and expecting it to work. No, you have to configure cockpit, tweak the tunnel and have a URL of a certain (loose) format. I am not certain I needed to get a LetsEncrypt cert for it so I am skipping that in this write-up. If anyone does find that it is needed, drop me a message and I will add it at a later date. For quick and dirty setup read after the break. My tweak to the ‘Blogstream’ wordpress theme 2022-01-15T02:08:15-05:00 2022-01-15T02:08:15-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2022/01/15/my-tweak-to-the-blogstream-wordpress-theme/ MindlessTux So I got tired of looking at the theme that I had on this site, one of the wordpress out of the box from a few years ago. Out of curiosity I started browsing themes and I came across this one. It is called “Blogstream” by Alexander Agnarson. I spent a little time tweaking the settings from the GUI but knew in a short time I would need to dig into the code for it to add some code for what I call “Reference URLs”. These are pages that I consulted about what I may have written. I just want to make sure they get the credit for part of my writing so I made it a custom field. I liked how the tags look so I was hoping I could steal its CSS rather clumsily and have each URL be a little bubble. I also only wanted it to show on a full page of a post only. With those restrictions in mind after the break is the code to make it happen. Fix for ping socket operation not permitted 2022-01-15T00:27:01-05:00 2022-01-15T00:27:01-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2022/01/15/fix-for-ping-socket-operation-not-permitted/ MindlessTux Just a little while ago I checked my kuma status page and noted that several checks were failing. In troubleshooting, I found that at least the ping command had a problem. Docker and cloudflared 2022-01-13T01:53:02-05:00 2022-01-13T01:53:02-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2022/01/13/docker-and-cloudflared/ MindlessTux Some time ago Cloudflare opened up tunneling traffic from origin servers to theirs negating the need for nat punches or breaking out the credit card. This is great for say home use or someone behind a cg-nat that wants to self-host. Not so good for solving gaming issues. I found that you can run their software fairly easily on most systems but I have had one nagging thing that I wanted to try. I finally sat down and figured some of it out. I wanted to run the docker container of cloudflared. My problem has been that there has been kinda poor documentation on the how to get it going. Not saying it does not exist, it’s just not obvious on the steps. Today I will demystify some of this below: Rant: IRS Scam Phone Calls 2020-09-29T13:48:34-04:00 2020-09-29T13:48:34-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2020/09/29/rant-irs-scam-phone-calls/ MindlessTux Normally I ignore these calls as they are the scum of the earth and don’t deserve my time. Today however I am expecting a call from a service tech from any possible phone number and thus I have to listen to any calls that come in today to make sure I don’t miss the call. Sadly this has me trolling through the voicemails that I just ignored entirely. I am just amazed that people fall for these types of calls all the time that makes these scams popular. Follow up: Docker + Synology 2020-09-15T21:24:52-04:00 2020-09-15T21:24:52-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2020/09/15/follow-up-docker-synology/ MindlessTux As a follow up to my previous post as curiosity got the better of me. I decided to see how difficult it would be to set up MariaDB/Grafana/NodeRED on my Synology 1815+. Come to find out it is not that difficult to do so once you figure out the quirks of the UI you have to use. Here is how to setup docker like I have but in a Synology system. Monitoring my cable modem signal levels for problems 2020-09-11T20:33:51-04:00 2020-09-11T20:33:51-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2020/09/11/monitoring-my-cable-modem-signal-levels-for-problems/ MindlessTux Recently I got the itch to learn something new and I chose to explore Grafana. Of course, I needed something to graph or make a dashboard out of. So I pondered for a while and during that time I had some trouble with my internet connection. This of course had me looking at my cable modem stats page and that’s where I found my inspiration. So many numbers that are a point in time snapshot that I wished I had a historical graph of. So I set about figuring out how to install Grafana in docker and pull the data in. I quickly found that grafana is a display thing and not a collector and display. This meant that I had to collect the data and store it so that grafana could display it. For this, I figured I could store it in MariaDB, as using that in grafana looked simple enough. The problem I had was getting the data off of the modems stats page. I plinked around with a bash script and a python script, neither did that great for me. About this time I remembered that nodered has some power to it and tried that. I managed to pull the data and store it into MariaDB via nodered. I then managed to display the data via grafana and was rather satisfied with myself. SELinux – From Disabled to Enforcing and fixing the headache with it 2019-05-08T17:24:47-04:00 2019-05-08T17:24:47-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2019/05/08/selinux-from-disabled-to-enforcing-and-fixing-the-headache-with-it/ MindlessTux I ran into an issue re-enabling SELinux on my little fleet of CentOS 7 boxes in my home lab. Basically when I installed them I had disabled SELinux at install and thus enabling SELinux was causing all the systems to freeze up after a reboot. Part 5: Bonus! Use ZeroTier as mobile VPN. 2018-12-07T22:19:54-05:00 2018-12-07T22:19:54-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/12/07/part-5-bonus-use-zerotier-as-mobile-vpn/ MindlessTux Here is a bonus post. I am not going to go into deep details but should be enough to give a good idea on how to do this. Part 4: Test everything including breaking it! 2018-12-07T21:10:55-05:00 2018-12-07T21:10:55-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/12/07/zerotier-multsite-lan-part-4-test-everything-including-breaking-it/ MindlessTux At this point if everything works you should be able to ping between the networks. If that isn’t working then you need to troubleshoot what is breaking down communication wise. This could be anything from the two local routers not sharing routes to the routers not talking over zerotier. The point I am trying to push across is that there is no simple gotchas I can offer troubleshooting steps for. Setup your own DNS over TLS 2018-12-07T19:37:46-05:00 2018-12-07T19:37:46-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/12/07/setup-your-own-dns-over-tls/ MindlessTux So I have gone a little crazy lately in my home lab. I have created a anycast address in the LAN of 10.10.10.10 that goes to the nearest pihole. (Local, Datacetner 1 or Datacenter 2) While that was nice I still wanted a way to have pihole while on the go. I thought about a VPN, that works but is not perfect for what I want. A little more pondering and I found that Android 9 supports “Private DNS”. Turns out that it is a simply DNS over TLS. (DoT) That just makes this so much easier now. Part 3: Setup router to use the routing VM(s) 2018-09-23T22:04:29-04:00 2018-09-23T22:04:29-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/09/23/zerotier-multsite-lan-part-3-setup-router-to-use-the-routing-vms/ MindlessTux With the VM building out of the way, on to configuring the VMs. Part 2: Build the router VM(s) 2018-09-23T22:02:19-04:00 2018-09-23T22:02:19-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/09/23/zerotier-multsite-lan-part-2-build-the-router-vms/ MindlessTux To bring us into part 2, the next thing is to create the routing VMs. Part 1: ZeroTier and making a multi-site LAN (MAN?) 2018-09-23T22:00:07-04:00 2018-09-23T22:00:07-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/09/23/zerotier-multsite-lan-part-1-zerotier-and-making-a-multi-site-lan-man/ MindlessTux Recently I have come across an interesting little software tech that lets me do some fun things that normally one would only see in the data center or large companies. That software is called ZeroTier. Series about ZeroTier 2018-09-19T22:12:20-04:00 2018-09-19T22:12:20-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/09/19/series-about-zerotier/ MindlessTux Currently, I am writing a little series involving a product I recently discovered, ZeroTier. Many people seem interested in how I am using it for personal use. So spending a few nights writing up my thoughts, the how to’s, and grabbing some screenshots along the way. Xbox One Audio Issue 2018-08-16T20:37:40-04:00 2018-08-16T20:37:40-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/08/16/xbox-one-audio-issue/ MindlessTux So the girlfriend and I just tried to watch an episode of Stargate SG-1 on DVD on the Xbox One. During playback we have an interesting audio issue. We heard more background sounds than speech. A short Google search later and the problem was resolved. To solve this we simply had to open settings, go to display and sound. From there edit the audio output from 7.1 surround to stereo. I think this is the simplest to date of problems that I have run into. Fix for Java 8+ & iDRAC 6 Connection Failed 2018-06-21T18:00:23-04:00 2018-06-21T18:00:23-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/06/21/fix-for-java-8-idrac-6-connection-failed/ MindlessTux For work I recently had to stand up a temporary system that has the old iDRAC 6 in it. Many will know that Java 8+ (from my testing) seems to have a disliking for that version of iDRAC. I spent a day grumbling at the error while standing next to the offending system in the data center watching the OS hang on install. After doing some digging this morning I found the key that kills the connection. SSLv3. Reset lost iDRAC pass from OMSA 2018-04-04T19:35:28-04:00 2018-04-04T19:35:28-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/04/04/reset-lost-idrac-pass-from-omsa/ MindlessTux I was recently playing around with EM7 and various Dynamic Apps around Dell hardware. I came to find that my remote server (hosting this site) had storage in a ‘nonCritical’ state. I promptly tried logging into my idrac for the system and was having issues getting in. I had forgot what I had set for the password on the root and personal accounts. (For those that leave it root/calvin, shame on you!) This set off a “fear” if you will of having to shut down several VMs and get the datacenter hosting it to attach a remote KVM so I could change the drac password. I hate this thought. I spent 30 seconds here and there trying every password I could think of but nothing worked. I finally started googling around to see if there was any other method. I struck a winner. iDRAC 7 – LetsEncrypt Wildcard Cert 2018-03-13T23:03:26-04:00 2018-03-13T23:03:26-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/03/13/idrac-7-letsencrypt-wildcard-cert/ MindlessTux So I have a few “hand me down” dell servers. The ones I use right now have iDRAC 7 in them. I have always been annoyed at the SSL warning that comes up. I thought about rolling my own CA and generating my own certs. I shot that down though as some times I pull up the iDRACs remotely from systems where I don’t want to install the custom root cert. I finally took the time to figure out how to take the Let’s Encrypt free SSL cert and apply it to the iDRACs. This is mainly due to they started issuing wildcard certs as of today. Setting up a TF2 server – Part 1 2018-02-08T20:32:16-05:00 2018-02-08T20:32:16-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/02/08/setting-up-a-tf2-server-part-1/ MindlessTux So I also host a small set of game servers for me to test plugins and maps out. Not to mention its also a simple way for me to say to a group of friends lets go play this and have a place to go without the hassle of looking for a server. Normally I would tell people to install LGSM when they want to setup a gameserver. I though have run into a few issues where LGSM is a tad constricting for my needs now. So off to setting the server up from scratch and trying to replicate a couple of features from LGSM. Shitty Idea: Change webserver storage up 2018-01-28T13:10:49-05:00 2018-01-28T13:10:49-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/01/28/shitty-idea-change-webserver-storage-up/ MindlessTux Most likely will never public but here is a shitty idea I just had for hosting my website. New Category: Shitty Ideas 2018-01-28T13:08:35-05:00 2018-01-28T13:08:35-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/01/28/new-category-shitty-ideas/ MindlessTux So I have some ideas from time to time that I tend to forget or deem to crappy to execute. So I figure I would at least write them down as sometimes the crappy ideas will still bear a fruit of some sort. Thus I will write them crib note style and password protect them with the password “shitty idea”. This way they do not get indexed by search engines but still allow the random visitor to view the idea. Install Dell OpenManage on Ubuntu 16.04 (and up?) 2018-01-08T23:36:13-05:00 2018-01-08T23:36:13-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/01/08/install-dell-openmanage-on-ubuntu-16-04-and-up/ MindlessTux So with this new server I am setting up I wanted to install the Dell OpenManage software but got a headache from doing so. Just about everything I was finding was pointing me to CentOS based info and I am using an Ubuntu based system. Hence my headache. After hours of googling I finally found the page I did and it helped me get Dell OpenManage installed. Of course I had to mangle their instructions some but it was not to bad. Below is what I used and a link to the page that was helpful. Reducing swap partition on lvm on ubuntu server 2018-01-06T02:46:48-05:00 2018-01-06T02:46:48-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/01/06/reducing-swap-partition-on-lvm-on-ubuntu-server/ MindlessTux So the server I have hosted at Dacentec is starting to show its age and limitations. Luckily I can get my hands on some decent hardware thanks to ebay and other methods. So the past few days when time allows I have been working on building a replacement 1u server to what I currently have. In doing so I am taking the RAM from 16GB to 196GB. With that said the system is installed with a stock ubuntu 17.10 server using guided lvm partitioning. Which thinks like days of old where total ram equals the swap size needed. Disable Systemd DNS resolver 2018-01-06T02:13:22-05:00 2018-01-06T02:13:22-05:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2018/01/06/disable-systemd-dns-resolver/ MindlessTux I ran into an issue recently where I tracked back that the systemd resolver was trying to be a tad to helpful and causing me pain through DNS. So I set out to kill and keep it disabled across reboots. In some quick googling I found a good answer on askubuntu.com. Disable Add App Icon To Home Screen 2017-09-19T15:34:24-04:00 2017-09-19T15:34:24-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2017/09/19/disable-add-app-icon-to-home-screen/ MindlessTux The newer version of the play store on Android phones moved the check box from what I would call a ideal location to one that while makes sense is the last place I would check. Nexus 6P: Turn on WiFi Automatically 2017-09-19T13:52:41-04:00 2017-09-19T13:52:41-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2017/09/19/nexus-6p-turn-on-wifi-automatically/ MindlessTux I use a Nexus 6P as my day to day driver despite my phone having the early shutdown bug with the battery. (Currently working on getting an RMA, come on google I am at 4wks now waiting for outbound shipment.) I stumbled upon something that I just wanted to bookmark for use just in case I ever needed to find this again. Instead of a regular bookmark I figured it would be better if I made a public posting and linked the original artical. Observium 2016-10-21T02:39:47-04:00 2016-10-21T02:39:47-04:00 https://mindlesstux.com/2016/10/21/observium/ MindlessTux What I do for my job is maintain a monitoring system for all the data centers for work and ensure it is getting good data. One thing I have found is many people tend to emulate work and personal lives together. So a bit over a month and a half ago for home use I went on a venture to figure out how can I monitor my home devices and network like I do for work to help identify problems before they begin. Now what I use for work is EM7 (by ScienceLogic) would be perfect to use. Only problem is it costs money to have a license for it. I did not want to spend money or hassle the work contacts (to much, I have already prodded them about the idea) to get a license for it. This left me looking to setup something free. So whats free out there? Nagios, Cacti, OpenNMS, LibreNMS, The Dude, and more. Those mentioned I have heard of or have tried to use, and that is not a complete list but those were the ones that stood out to me.