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October 30, 2016December 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Getting Started with RabbitMax Flex IoT and Automation Hat for Raspberry Pi

At the beginning of the month I showed how to assemble RabbitMax Flex, a Raspberry Pi HAT compliant add-on board for Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header, that targets IoT and home automation project with its relay, IR transmitter and receiver, I2C headers for sensors, buzzer, RGB LED, and more. Since I’ve already described the hardware, I’ve spend some time this week-end following the user’s guide to play around with the board using a Raspberry Pi 2 board, and try various features. The user’s manual explains that you need the latest version of Raspbian, but I’d not played with my Raspberry Pi 2 board for a while, so the kernel and firmware were quite old:

uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 4.1.7-v7+ #817 SMP PREEMPT Sat Sep 19 15:32:00 BST 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Sep 23 2015 12:12:01 
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version c156d00b148c30a3ba28ec376c9c01e95a77d6d5 (clean) (release)

uname -a

Linux raspberrypi 4.1.7-v7+ #817 SMP PREEMPT Sat Sep 19 15:32:00 BST 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version

Sep 23 2015 12:12:01

version c156d00b148c30a3ba28ec376c9c01e95a77d6d5 (clean) (release)

So the first thing I had to do was to upgrade Raspbian. There are basically two options to upgrade, either downloading and dumping the latest Raspbian firmware image to your micro SD card, and […]

October 25, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Canonical Livepatch Service Automatically Updates Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (and later) with the Latest Kernel without Rebooting

Installing or upgrading packages in Linux distributions does not normally require rebooting your system, except for the Linux kernel and drivers. But since Linux 4.0 kernel, Live Kernel patching is possible, meaning Linux kernel updates can be performed without having to reboot your server or computer. Canonical is now taking advantage of this new feature with their Livepatch Service available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and greater. If you want to enable it on your machine, you’ll have to authenticate to Livepatch portal to get a key / token for the service as shown in the screenshot above. Now you can install the service:

sudo snap install canonical-livepatch

1	sudo snap install canonical-livepatch

and enable it with your token:

sudo canonical-livepatch enable [your-token]
Successfully enabled device. Using machine-token: [your-token]

1 2	sudo canonical-livepatch enable [your-token] Successfully enabled device. Using machine-token: [your-token]

That’s it. Your can check Livepatch service status with the command:

canonical-livepatch status --verbose
client-version: "5"
machine-id: [your-machine-id]
machine-token: [your-machine-token]
architecture: x86_64
cpu-model: AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor
last-check: 2016-10-25T19:35:55.009247615+07:00
boot-time: 2016-10-25T09:00:09+07:00
uptime: 10h52m7s
status:
- kernel: 4.4.0-45.66-generic
  running: true
  livepatch:
    state: nothing-to-apply
    version: ""
    fixes: ""

canonical-livepatch status --verbose

client-version: "5"

machine-id: [your-machine-id]

machine-token: [your-machine-token]

architecture: x86_64

cpu-model: AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor

last-check: 2016-10-25T19:35:55.009247615+07:00

boot-time: 2016-10-25T09:00:09+07:00

uptime: 10h52m7s

status:

- kernel: 4.4.0-45.66-generic

running: true

livepatch:

state: nothing-to-apply

version: ""

fixes: ""

In my case, an update was not necessary, but if there’s one you should see something like:

livepatch:
    state: applied
    version: "12.2"
    fixes: '* CVE-2012-6828'

livepatch:

state: applied

version: "12.2"

fixes: '* CVE-2012-6828'

That way you can make sure your system always […]

October 7, 2016October 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

How to Write ESP8266 Firmware from Scratch (using ESP Bare Metal SDK and C Language)

CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Alexander Alashkin, software engineer in Cesanta, working on Mongoose Embedded Web Server. Espressif’s ESP8266 had quite an evolution. Some may even call it controversial. It all started with ESP8266 being a WiFi module with a basic UART interface. But later it became clear that it’s powerful enough for embedded system. It’s essentially a module that can be used for running full-fledged applications. Espressif realized this as well and released an SDK. As first versions go, it was full of bugs but since has become significantly better. Another SDK was released which offered FreeRTOS ported to ESP. Here, I want to talk about the non-OS version. Of course, there are third-party firmwares which offer support for script language to simplify development (just Google for these), but ESP8266 is still a microchip (emphasis on MICRO) and using script language might be overkill. So what we […]

October 4, 2016November 3, 2018 by Ray - 26 Comments

Xtream Codes IPTV Panel Review – Part 2: Movie Data Editing, Security, Resellers, Users and Pricing Management

Dear readers, after part 1 of Xtream Codes Panel v.2.2.0 EVO review, here is part 2. I tried hard to get all in two parts, but “to be exhaustive” there will also have to be a part 3… Movie Editing Section As we can see, it’s only possible to assign a movie into a single category, a SELECT BOUQUET Option under the Category would be more then useful. So while Movie Editor Section is useful right now, it still needs improvement. Also taking each movie by hand for editing, after, for example, a Main server crash or changing the Main, is really something, a waste of time. Some of the issues / possible improvements include: No mass edit of movies to bouquets If changing the category of a movie, I found no working method to change in a bulk.. Even if I tried to delete the “content” of a bouquet, […]

October 3, 2016October 3, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

How to check HTTP Header and Connection Stats from the Command Line

A few days ago, I discussed with somebody whether a file was cached by Cloudflare or not, and this involved getting the HTTP header, and checking for CF-RAY field to see if data is going through one of Cloudflare data centers. This can be done with curl:

curl -svo /dev/null http://www.cnx-software.com
* Rebuilt URL to: http://www.cnx-software.com/
*   Trying 104.28.19.95...
* Connected to www.cnx-software.com (104.28.19.95) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: www.cnx-software.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.47.0
> Accept: */*
> 
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 09:57:17 GMT
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Connection: keep-alive
< Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d90ff49c11865e8fda1331c2977559f521475488637; expires=Tue, 03-Oct-17 09:57:17 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnx-software.com; HttpOnly
< X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.19
< Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT
< Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0
< Pragma: no-cache
< X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge
< Link: <http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-json/>; rel="https://api.w.org/"
< Server: cloudflare-nginx
< CF-RAY: 2ebf876da273114d-SIN
< 
{ [2307 bytes data]
* Connection #0 to host www.cnx-software.com left intact

curl -svo /dev/null http://www.cnx-software.com

* Rebuilt URL to: http://www.cnx-software.com/

* Trying 104.28.19.95...

* Connected to www.cnx-software.com (104.28.19.95) port 80 (#0)

> GET / HTTP/1.1

> Host: www.cnx-software.com

> User-Agent: curl/7.47.0

> Accept: */*

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK

< Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 09:57:17 GMT

< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

< Transfer-Encoding: chunked

< Connection: keep-alive

< Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d90ff49c11865e8fda1331c2977559f521475488637; expires=Tue, 03-Oct-17 09:57:17 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnx-software.com; HttpOnly

< X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.19

< Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT

< Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0

< Pragma: no-cache

< X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge

< Link: <http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-json/>; rel="https://api.w.org/"

< Server: cloudflare-nginx

< CF-RAY: 2ebf876da273114d-SIN

{ [2307 bytes data]

* Connection #0 to host www.cnx-software.com left intact

In the command above, -s stands for silent so that curl does not show the progress meter, -v stands for verbose to show the header, and -o /dev/null is used to discard the packet load. You can also use -I option (fetch the HTTP-header only) with curl, which – if all you need is the HTTP header – provides a cleaner output:

curl -I http://www.cnx-software.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 10:06:51 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d4dda8a9ec8370cf0950d26e5faf37cc21475489211; expires=Tue, 03-Oct-17 10:06:51 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnx-software.com; HttpOnly
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.19
Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: bb2_screener_=1475489211+1.1.174.2+1.1.174.2; path=/
X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge
Link: &lt;http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-json/&gt;; rel="https://api.w.org/"
Server: cloudflare-nginx
CF-RAY: 2ebf9574c129081d-SIN

curl -I http://www.cnx-software.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 10:06:51 GMT

Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Connection: keep-alive

Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d4dda8a9ec8370cf0950d26e5faf37cc21475489211; expires=Tue, 03-Oct-17 10:06:51 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnx-software.com; HttpOnly

X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.19

Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT

Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0

Pragma: no-cache

Set-Cookie: bb2_screener_=1475489211+1.1.174.2+1.1.174.2; path=/

X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge

Link: <http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-json/>; rel="https://api.w.org/"

Server: cloudflare-nginx

CF-RAY: 2ebf9574c129081d-SIN

I also came across httpstat Python script recently via n0where, doing much of the same thing, except it also adds transfer statistics. It can be installed by downloading httpstat.py, or better using pip:

sudo pip install httpstat

1	sudo pip install httpstat

Let’s try it with this very […]

September 20, 2016September 20, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

How to Download YouTube 4K Videos with Youtube-dl Script

Many Android devices can now support 4K VP9 and/or H.264 video decoding, but for some reasons, Google only serves 4K videos to devices running Android TV OS, as opposed to just Android, with the latter limited to 1080p videos. If for some reasons you want to watch a YouTube 4K video on a capable device, you could download it with youtube-dl script written in Python, and available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. I’ve been using the script for a while to download various video or audio files from YouTube, and other website, but for the purpose of this post, I made sure to update it to the latest version:

sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

1 2	sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

If you have already installed the script, it can also be updated with:

sudo youtube-dl --update

1	sudo youtube-dl --update

I’ll use one of the most popular 4K videos on YouTube as example, namely: COSTA RICA IN 4K 60fps (ULTRA HD) w/ Freefly Movi. The […]

September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Receive Android SMS & Call Notifications in Ubuntu 16.04 with KDE Connect (or Not?)

I often miss calls, and I may be slow to answer SMS on my Android phone, but I’m often in front of my computer, so I decided to look for solutions to show SMS and call notifications on my computer running Ubuntu 16.04. I first found LinConnect, but it does not seem to be developed anymore, and after some more research I discovered that KDE Connect should do the job. The developer just released KDE Connect 1.0 a few weeks ago with add encryption, the ability to reply to SMS from your computer and more… One person posted instructions for Kubuntu 16.04. There’s just a problem it won’t work with Unity desktop, only KDE Plasma, due to a lack of support for Qt 5.6. You can still use the older version without encryption and other new features by “simply” running:

sudo apt install kdeconnect-plasma

1	sudo apt install kdeconnect-plasma

However the installation failed for me:

Unpacking kde-cli-tools-data (4:5.5.5-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-cli-tools-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu1_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/kmimetypefinder.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Preparing to unpack .../libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking libkf5sysguard-data (4:5.5.5-0ubuntu2) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/processui.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Preparing to unpack .../plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking plasma-workspace (4:5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/plasma_runner_recentdocuments.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-cli-tools-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu1_all.deb
 /var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb
 /var/cache/apt/archives/plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Unpacking kde-cli-tools-data (4:5.5.5-0ubuntu1) ...

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-cli-tools-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu1_all.deb (--unpack):

trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/kmimetypefinder.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1

dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)

Preparing to unpack .../libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb ...

Unpacking libkf5sysguard-data (4:5.5.5-0ubuntu2) ...

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb (--unpack):

trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/processui.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1

dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)

Preparing to unpack .../plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...

Unpacking plasma-workspace (4:5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1) ...

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):

trying to overwrite '/usr/share/locale/th/LC_MESSAGES/plasma_runner_recentdocuments.mo', which is also in package kde-l10n-th 4:4.10.97-0ubuntu1

dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)

Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3) ...

Errors were encountered while processing:

/var/cache/apt/archives/kde-cli-tools-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu1_all.deb

/var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5sysguard-data_4%3a5.5.5-0ubuntu2_all.deb

/var/cache/apt/archives/plasma-workspace_4%3a5.5.5.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

An “apt […]

September 3, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

How Fix Apps Crashing at Launch in Android 6.0 (in Mediatek Phones) ?

I’ve recently received a new Android 6.0 Marshmallow smartphone powered by Mediatek Helio X20 processor, namely Vernee Apollo Lite, and one of the issues I encountered is that some applications such as Firefox and MAPS.ME would crash when I tried to launch them. The problem was reproducible 100% of the time, and occurred from the very first time I tried to start the app. I’d get a message like “Unfortunately MAPS.ME has stopped” with two buttons: REPORT or OK. So I asked on Vernee forums to report the issue, and see if other people had the same problem. One replied had the same problem, but a simple reboot would fix the issue, while the other proposed to clear the cache. I had not considered that option since the crash occurred from the very first time, but I tried anyway. Go to the App list, drag and drop the problematic app […]