JTK – Notes and Ramblings Things we have found …

8/14/2016

mythbuntu 16.04 on the NUC

Filed under: General,MythTV,Router/PC Config — taing @ 1:33 am

The Gigabyte NUC GB-BXBT-1900 and Mythbuntu 16.04 have a few minor issues.

The first and biggest problem is the HDMI port shuts down after the monitor powers down. When the monitor is turned back on there is no display. Yikes.

The first part of the solution is a short shell script ~/screenfix.sh :

#!/bin/sh

export DISPLAY=:0
export XAUTHORITY=/home/taine/.Xauthority
sleep 8
/usr/bin/xrandr --verbose --display :0 --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080

Be sure to make the script executable with chmod u+x screenfix.sh

The second step is to make this a keyboard shortcut in the Keyboard Settings Shortcut tab. I chose Windows-S for my shortcut. The short cut command is:

xrandr --verbose --display :0 --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080

The final step is to automate this based a UDEV rule triggered when the display connects. Create /etc/udev/rules.d/95-monitor-hotplug.rules :

ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", ENV{DISPLAY}=":0", ENV{XAUTHORITY}="/home/youruser/.Xauthority", RUN+="/home/taine/screenfix.sh"

The sleep line in the shell script was required to give the display time to actually be seen as “connected”.

The connected status of the display can be found with cat /sys/class/drm/card0-HDMI-A-1/status

The triggering UDEV event can be seen with udevadm monitor

Use xrandr -d :0 to display current display info.

Another minor annoyance was the failure of the CTRL-Escape keyboard shortcut to bring up the application menu. The shortcut appears to be set for xfce4-popup-menu. This has been around for quite a while. Change CTRL-Escape to run xfce4-popup-applicationsmenu in the Keyboard Settings Shortcut tab.

5/7/2016

Ubuntu 14.04LTS and Dropbox

Filed under: General,Router/PC Config — taing @ 11:08 pm

After recent update to 14.04LTS the dropbox status icon was gone. The installed version of dropbox is 2015.10.28.

After reading http://askubuntu.com/questions/732967/dropbox-icon-is-not-working-xubuntu-14-04-lts-64 I decided to use the option of editing /usr/bin/dropbox.

I added the line
os.environ['DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'] = ""
after the “import os” line.

Also of note is the dropbox command line interface. Simply type dropbox at the shell prompt for more info.

4/10/2016

NUT for Windows

Filed under: General,Router/PC Config — taing @ 1:27 am

I use NUT for all of my UPS on Linux machines. There is a beta Windows port available. I have it working for two Windows 7 Pro 64 bit boxes.

Documentation on getting it working under Windows is sparse.

Downloaded NUT Windows MSI installer 2.6.5-6. Installed.

Copy libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll from bin to sbin. it is required for upsmon to run.

Grabbed a copy of libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll from my Nmap install and copied these to the bin and sbin folders. Without these two files upsc, upsd and upsmon throw error (0xc000007b).

Downloaded libusb-win32-bin-1.2.6.0.zip from SourceForge.

Used usb-lib bin/inf_wizard.exe to create the proper .inf file for the UPS and installed.

You can use bin/nut-scanner.exe to see is the UPS is detected.

Edit the config files: nut.conf, ups.conf, upsd,conf, uspd.users and upsmon.conf.

To fully integrate into the network, I edited(on the appropriate systems):
/etc/nut/host.conf to add the new system to the list displayed in the web status display.
/etc/nut/upsmon.conf to add the system to the list monitored for status with email/text warnings.

2/6/2016

Openhab zwave

Filed under: General,Home Automation — taing @ 11:44 pm

I added the zwave binding:
sudo apt-get install openhab-addon-binding-zwave

For the Aeon Labs Z-Stick Series 2 which appears as /dev/ttyUSB0 I had to add the openhab user to the dialout group:
sudo adduser openhab dialout

To bind devices I used Habmin – https://github.com/cdjackson/HABmin. I chose the complied release version – https://github.com/cdjackson/HABmin/releases. The alternative is to install source from the git and compile.

So far I have linked a RadioThermostat CT-80 with Z-wave interface and a Aoetec Home Energy Meter(2nd edition).

For the HEM it was necessary to set the mode properly for periodic updates.

The RadioThermostat only sends changes and only works in “dumb” mode when using zwave. I have not yet been able to read the humidity from the thermostat. The definition in the openhab zwave binding is imcomplete.

Radio Thermostat WiFi Module : http://ndgeek.com/ct-50/RTCOAWiFIAPIV1_3.pdf. The radio module I had was very unreliable and disconnected frequently. I did find some interesting discussions on using the WiFi module with Openhab – https://community.openhab.org/t/binding-radio-thermostat/5480 & https://community.openhab.org/t/how-to-return-current-temp-from-my-thermostat/3141

Radio Thermostat zwave Module: http://products.z-wavealliance.org/MarketCertification/File?folder=&filename=MarketCertificationFiles/1046/RTZW-02_module_IB_9jun14.pdf. The Openhab wiki does have some good examples for the zwave interface – https://community.openhab.org/t/collection-of-working-z-wave-configs/1407

Aoetec Home Energy Meter(2nd edition): https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MDM3NTIwMDUwMTA4OTkyOTEwNDQBMTc2Mjg0MjUxOTM5MzgwNTU2ODABYXZNMEo0RUZVcllKATAuMQEBdjI.

iPhone Locator for Openhab

Filed under: General,Home Automation — taing @ 5:00 pm

This is based on the work by many others.

Firstly, pyicloud – https://github.com/picklepete/pyicloud

For this you need:
sudo apt-get install python-pip
sudo apt-get install python-dev libffi-dev
sudo pip install pyopenssl ndg-httpsclient pyasn1
sudo pip install pyicloud

As the pyicloud documentation mentions, the first time you use this you will get a message from Apple letting you know your iCloud account was accessed.

To test I created location.py :
from pyicloud import PyiCloudService
api = PyiCloudService('myaccount@icloud.com','password')
print(api.devices)
print(api.devices[1])
print(api.devices[1].location())

python location.py

The second part of this is iphone-locator-bridge

I modified this a bit for my specific site. The includes changing the openhab items defined, passing back the actual longitude/latitude and distance and only running on demand.

I found the POST syntax in the original was giving me issues so I converted to the GET syntax:
url = '%s/CMD?%s=%s' % (gConfigurationOH['ohserver'], gConfigurationOH['ohitemdist'], dist)

It was necessary to add complete path info for the log file and the config file in roder for these to be found correctly when the script is called by an Openhab executeCommandLine().

The iPhone and home locations are then plotted on Google Maps using the info found at https://github.com/openhab/openhab/wiki/GoogleMap.

6/20/2015

MythTV mythlink.pl

Filed under: General,MythTV — taing @ 12:38 pm

mythlink.pl replaces the old functionality of mythrename.pl. It is far more useful once setup.

See https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythlink.pl for the details.

For me this meant creating a folder as a peer to /var/lib/mythtv/recordings. My choice was /var/lib/mythtv/show_names. For this to work from Samba it was necessary to add “unix extensions = no” to the [Global] section of /etc/samba/smb.conf and “wide links = yes” to the specific share section. Without this the links will not be properly traversed when you access the share.

I then added two system events:

mythfilldatabase ran: /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/user_jobs/mythlink.pl --link /var/lib/mythtv/show_names

recording started: /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/user_jobs/mythlink.pl --link /var/lib/mythtv/show_names --chanid "%CHANID%" --starttime "%STARTTIMEUTC%"

Notice the %STARTTIMEUTC% as opposed the wiki suggested %STARTTIME%. This solution comes to us from http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/564185.

I decided to attach to the mythfilldatabase event instead of recording deleted or instead of adding to crontab. It will run daily and keep things clean.

6/11/2015

Brother HL-L2380DW

Filed under: General,Router/PC Config — taing @ 2:19 am

Linux Printer:

You will need two packages from the Brother website. The lpr and the CUPS .deb files. Install the lpr package first. After installing both, restart cupsd. The Printers dialog should now show the printer. You may want to confirm the IP settings and print a test page.

Ignore the instructions to edit /etc/printcap.This file is auto generated and it makes no sense to edit it.

The installable .deb packages can be downloaded from http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2380dw_us_as&os=128. As of today the current version 3.2.0-1 dated 2015-02-12.

Linux Scanner:
Instructions

This can be summarized as:

brsaneconfig4 -a name=(name your device) model=HL-L2380DW ip=xx.xx.xx.xx

Once installed the scanner should show up in simple-scan or xsane.

Note the links on the instruction page does not point to the latest driver and the instructions on the download page do not mention network scanning.

The driver and brsaneconfig4 can be downloaded from http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2380dw_us_as&os=128. As of today the current version is 0.4.3-1 dated 2015-05-19.

4/3/2015

HomeAutomation

Filed under: General,Home Automation — taing @ 6:27 pm

Raspberry Pi with Rasbian

MQTT

Updated 2/2016

wget http://repo.mosquitto.org/debian/mosquitto-repo.gpg.key
sudo apt-key add mosquitto-repo.gpg.key
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
sudo wget http://repo.mosquitto.org/debian/mosquitto-wheezy.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mosquitto mosquitto-clients libmosquitto-dev

wiringPi

(from http://wiringpi.com/download-and-install/)
For the first time: git clone git://git.drogon.net/wiringPi
For updates:
cd wiringPi
git pull origin

To Build:
cd wiringPi
./build

Java 8

sudo su
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-java.list
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys EEA14886
apt-get update
apt-get purge openjdk* (to remove previously installed lower versions)
apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
exit

OpenHab

(from https://github.com/openhab/openhab/wiki/Linux—OS-X)
Add repo signature: wget -qO - 'https://bintray.com/user/downloadSubjectPublicKey?username=openhab' | sudo apt-key add -
Add sources to list: echo "deb http://dl.bintray.com/openhab/apt-repo stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openhab.list
Update apt data and install:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openhab-runtime

Install optional Addons:
sudo apt-cache search openhab
sudo apt-get install openhab-addon-binding-xy

Gateway code

start with the code from https://github.com/abouillot/HomeAutomation/tree/master/piGateway

git clone https://github.com/abouillot/HomeAutomation
cd ~/HomeAutomation/piGateway
g++ Gateway.c rfm69.cpp -o Gateway -lwiringPi -lmosquitto -DRASPBERRY -DDEBUG

9/10/2013

PPTP – route UDP

Filed under: General,Router/PC Config — taing @ 10:13 am

Quick notes on adding BCP Bridging to PopTop PPTP server:

• We are using pptpd version 1.2.1 since it has better support for broadcasting than the earlier 1.1.4 version.
• When building pptpd use the following configure option: ./configure –with-bcrelay to enable the bcrelay module.
• In /etc/pptpd.conf, add bcrelay eth0 (replace eth0 with the name of your internal interface) This will enable broadcast forwarding between the ppp interfaces as well as the interface you specify.
• In /etc/ppp/options-pptp, make sure that the mppe required option is commented. Since we will be playing games over this VPN connection, encryption is not necessary.

More can be found at http://non-standard.net/freebsd/game-vpn/vpnfaq.html.

VMWare vs Multicast

Filed under: General,Router/PC Config — taing @ 10:02 am

Found this discussion where the problem of no multicast is solved by disabling the VMware adapters in the host.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsdesktop/en-US/4e5a4725-e1b7-4ea3-a1db-be8ad1a19f34/why-cant-vista-receive-multicast-but-xp-can

1/5/2013

Mythbuntu / XFCE and CRTL-ESC

Filed under: General,MythTV — taing @ 8:45 pm

After the latest upgrade to Mythbuntu 12.04 we found the previous keyboard shortcut to open the main menu was no longer working. Our solution was to remove the shortcut for CTRL-ESC from

/etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml
/etc/xdg/xdg-mythbuntu/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml

We then adjusted

~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml

to include the line

<property name=”&lt;Primary&gt;Escape” type=”string” value=”xfce4-popup-applicationsmenu”></property>

in the <property name=”custom” type=”empty”> section.

This can be confirmed in the keyboard section of xfce4-settings-manager. xfce4-settings-manager is not to be run remotely. If you run it with “sudo” you will adjust the wrong settings file.

12/30/2012

Mythbuntu Autologin

Filed under: General,MythTV — taing @ 11:34 pm

After upgrading to 12.04LTS we found autologin no longer worked. The secret was to add:

autologin-user=username
autologin-user-timeout=20

to /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.

Refer to the post at http://www.mattfischer.com/blog/?p=343 for more info. Or look in /usr/share/doc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.gz.

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