Posts

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LetsEncrypt update failures

As the server is hosted from home, sometime the droning of the Hard Drive and fans annoys me and as I only host this for fun and self learning it occasionally gets turned of. This meant it missed the Cron Jobs that that should have replaced the cert long before renewal date.

Added to that, when I moved I locked down the router config and only allowed port 443 thru to the webserver to only permit TLS/SSL traffic and not plain HTTP. In the main this has worked well, but also meant the certbot script failed to renew the cert on demand as it could not write to the .wellknown folder on port 80.

So, now port forwarded port 80 to the server and the certificate has updated as required.

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Clearing up disc space

my ports \distfiles directory had grown to over 30Gb in the 4 years since I last did a complete clean fresh build and as its something of a test rig for trying stuff out, it had grown rather large.

by running the following commands I regained c22Gb of disc space, ready for which ever pet project I choose to tinker with next.

sudo portmaster --check-depends 
sudo portmaster --check-port-dbdir 
sudo portmaster -s 
sudo portmaster -y --clean-distfiles

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Python27, LLVM and CLI for OneDrive

One of the most useful features I use the Freebsd box for is to cache a copy of my MS OneDrive that is only periodically synced, so that is MS has a problem I have a full offline copy or if I manage delete a file from the cloud that I really didn’t want to do and hopefully I still have a copy in the unsynced cache.

All was fine until the OneDrive port for FreeBSD insisted on reinstalling the long deprecated Python27 libraries. No matter how much cleaning and checking dependencies prevented Python27 being rebuilt from ports each time.

I managed to spend some time today looking at each of the OneDrive dependencies and found that LLVM70 and LLVM10 are both listed. Oddly LLVM10 supersedes LLVM70 and calls in the more modern Python37. So by building LLVM10 first so the dependency is met, when I rebuild OneDrive I no longer get the obsolete version installed.

The Metaport of LLVM is not clear which version is built, I already have LLVM90 installed but does not seem to satisfy the OneDrive dependencies. Not sure if this is OneDrive maintenance issue, or a LLVM issue. but thankfully now resolved and the box can get back to doing what it should. –

Update – LLVM was not the issue, but LDC which calls in LLVM. When the next port update to OneDrive came out, LDC rebuilt LLVM70. So now looking at LDC as the culprit.

The OneDrive CLI client is not unique to BSD and the default GitHub page for Linux version can be found here.

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Alexa and multiple lights/objects in one room

Alexa and her sister Echo have developed an annoying habit at the moment of grouping all the objects in a room and turning then all on or off, even when just want to command one object.

“Alexa, turn on the lounge light” now turns of the Xbox, the lounge lamp and the lounge TV, Trying to turn on the “night lights” she informs me that the garden lights do not support that function and which lights do I mean.

I have gone back thru Kasa and Tapo settings, renamed a few devices and even swapped their rooms but group mode seems to be all Alexa can handle at the mo. I assume this an Amazon issue, but continue to look for a resolution.

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Not much going on

Been rather busy with work, and when I am done, not wanted to sit in front of a different laptop and while away even more hours. Therefore updates to the site and various tech around the house has been rather slow.

I guess biggest success was retrieving the old Atari 800XL from the loft with the 1050 5.25″ Floppy Drive and seeing the thing boot up 1st time in over 10 years. Almost 25 year old tech… Been meaning to dig out the old games and play, but both joysticks seem worse for wear and not survived the many years of inaction.

Dropzone – more practice recommended…

Atari800XL

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re-build world again….

might not be full lockdown, but the vaccines are here so time to rebuild both the virtual and IRL world.. Updated FreeBSD to 12.2 which had probably been one of the simplest OS updates. I usually get caught out with merging the updated config files but guess the second point update to 12.x probably was not a major change to get wrong. Also made easier by stripping off MATE and most of the desktop apps that I occassionally dabbled with as its back to running as as Headless Server with all access over SSH or Web Interface.

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Slow time

Have been working on other projects so not much time to update the server or other things lately. But have been looking at Fing as another option for network security.

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Apple Watch 6 fails to install data plan

Was lucky enough to order and take delivery of the new Apple Watch 6 on launch day, but joy slightly tempered by ongoing issues to transfer my 4G data plan from the old Series 3 to the new device.

Various calls to EE, my network provider so far have been unable to resolve, despite various resetting of the watch and phone settings to get it working.

Only really a pain when out running, as I don’t take my phone so missed SMS and other alerts. Apparentlty a known issue, but not helping me much….

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AppleTV – new toys

Sorting out the house over the summer I came across an old AppleTV Gen 2 box. Its long since gave up getting updates and logging into the damn things proved a trial as its too old to recognize 2FA logins.
Some googling threw up the fact you can still do this, but have to append the generate 2FA code to your password in the password field.

This unlocked my iCloud so I could bring up my Camera Roll and finally accessed all the photos I have taken over the years from my phone. Too many don’t make it into proper albums or printed, but watching them back brings back happy memories of holidays and days out.


A bonus byproduct of this trial of viewing old photos, which I had hooked into the AV AMP under the telly, was the music quality that was being pumped out alongside the pictures. Being a Gen2 AppleTv, though the pictures although good did not match the audio quality, being a max of 720 lines.. not even full HD.

A quick trawl of Amazon turned up the AppleTV 4K 64Gb model on a next day delivery with payments spread over 5 months.. Not quite an impulse purchase, but now I have access to all of the Apple content and HQ music and easy access to all the family photos for not much more that a good quality digital photo frames of not so long ago.

the TvOS has come along way since the original device, so will probably penlty of playing with the new apps and settings to get things just right.