Miscellaneous Notes

Twingate is not Tailscale and vice versa

Just throwing that out there because I cannot seem to remember that.


Creating Header Images for the web site

I choose an image.  For the text, I go to www.cooltext.com, find a font I like, and create the text with a transparent background.  140 point or higher is usually how large it needs to be.

I download the text image to my PC and then head to https://pixlr.com/editor, where I load the graphic image and then open a new layer and select the text image that goes over top the graphic image.  I’m still not the best at moving it around; it’s a work in progress.  I save the combined image to my PC and then upload it to the web site for use.

Creating/extracting zip files with 7-Zip

Create or add to an archive:

7z a -p <zipfile name> <file(s) to add>

Create an archive, recursing the directory specified:

7z a -rp <zipfile name> <file(s) to add>

Extract the archive:

7z x <zipfile name>

Resurrecting a USB Stick

Connect your flash drive to the computer at first, and make sure it can be detected.

1. Click “start” and type “command prompt”.

2. Then, right click “command prompt” and select “run as administrator”.

3. After that, type “diskpart” and press “Enter”. Then execute the below commands in turn:

  • list disk
  • select disk n
  • clean
  • create partition primary
  • format fs=fat32 quick: If you want to format to NTFS, type “format fs=ntfs quick”.

Ubuntu Installation checklist

Information on how to bypass Google Fiber’s Network Box

Monitor Mount Possibilities

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

See site for further options

Creating an HTTP redirect in LetsEncrypt/nginx on Unraid

Determining the properties of a video

SuperPuTTY

Migrating VMs from VirtualBox to UnRAID

Setup a Raspberry Pi as a backup server

Plex/OTA stuff to look into

tvheadend
argus tv
IceTV

A high level example of interfacing with Nextcloud

##Open terminal in container
docker exec -it nextcloud bash

##Turn on maintenance mode
sudo -u abc php7 /config/www/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --on

##Backup current nextcloud install
mv /config/www/nextcloud /config/www/nextcloud-backup

##Grab newest nextcloud release and unpack it
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.tar.bz2
tar -xvf latest.tar.bz2 -C /config/www

##Copy across old config.php from backup
cp /config/www/nextcloud-backup/config/config.php /config/www/nextcloud/config/config.php

##Now Restart docker container
exit
docker restart nextcloud

##Open terminal in container
docker exec -it nextcloud bash

##Perform upgrade
sudo -u abc php7 /config/www/nextcloud/occ upgrade

##Turn off maintenance mode
sudo -u abc php7 /config/www/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --off

## Now Restart docker container
exit
docker restart nextcloud

Installing a Windows 10 VM on UnRaid

BIOS – OVMF
Installing Windows 10 in a VM on UnRaid requires installing 3rd party drivers. When the install
process gets to the point of specifying the hard drive to install on, there will be no selections
available. At this point, install the following drivers from their respective “amd64” folders:

  • Balloon
  • NetKVM
  • vioserial
  • viostor

Install and Update All Your Programs at Once at www.ninite.com

Cookbook for passing client IP address to systems behind a reverse proxy

On the reverse proxy:

  • Ensure that websockets support is enabled

On the host:

1. Create /etc/apache2/conf-available/remoteip.conf with the following contents:

RemoteIPHeader X-Forwarded-For
RemoteIPTrustedProxy x.x.x.x (replace w/ IP address of trusted proxy)

2. ln /etc/apache2/conf-available/remoteip.conf /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/remoteip.conf

3. ln /etc/apache2/mods-available/remoteip.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/remoteip.load

4. Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and find the LogFormat lines.
    Change each occurrence of %h to %a.

5. Restart apache.

Upgrading Nextcloud running in a docker container:

Login to the console of the docker host and execute:

docker exec -it nextcloud updater.phar

Disable IPv6 in Nextcloud:

Edit the file /config/nginx/site-confs/default.conf and comment out the IPv6 listeners.

Manipulating/deleting “default files” in Nextcloud

Place any default files (or remove unwanted files) in the /app/www/public/core/skeleton directory within the docker container.

Converting OTA DVR recordings to .MP4

OTA DVR recordings are saved as .ts files, which are not compatible with DaVinci Resolve (my video editor of choice).  For this reason, we must convert the files into a format that “DR” can comprehend.  We can do this on linux using the ffmpeg package:

ffmpeg -i <inputfile.ts> -vcodec copy -acodec copy <outputfile.mp4>

ProxMox Stuff

Command line

qm is your friend.

Package updates fail after ProxMox install

The automatic package update script will fail, because ProxMox “assumes” you will have a subscription (silly ProxMox).  To fix this, the process must run at least once (and fail) and then it can be flipped to the “no-subscription repository” as follows…

  1. Select “Repositories” underneath “Updates”
  2. Disable the ceph-quincy and pve repositories
  3. Click “Add”
  4. In the Repository drop-down box, select “No-Subscription” and click Add.

“No Active Subscription” alert when logging in to the GUI

Unless one has a paid subscription to ProxMox, there will be an alert posted in the GUI at each login, which must be clicked on to dismiss.  To eliminate this annoyance…

  1. Edit the file /usr/share/javascript/proxmox-widget-toolkit/proxmoxlb.js (making a backup is encouraged)
  2. Find the following two lines:
    if (res === null || res === undefined || !res || res
    .data.status.toLowerCase() !== 'active') {
  3. Replace them with the following:
    if (false) {
  4. Save the file.  Refresh the browser.

Enable remote VNC login ability to ProxMox guests

  1. Edit the file – /etc/pve/local/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf
  2. Add args: -vnc 0.0.0.0:77 to the end of the file (choose a unique number after the : for each guest)

A VNC connection to the guest is now possible by specifying the host IP address and the port chosen (“5977” in the example above).

Updates to new Nextcloud install to handle large files

1. Update /config/nginx/nginx.conf – make sure ‘client_max_body_size’ equals 0 (zero).
2. Update /config/nginx/site-confs/default.conf – make sure ‘client_max_body_size’ equals 16G.

Ansible Stuff

Generate password hashes

mkpasswd --method=sha-512