grub2 for Windows 10 after installing Rocky 8.5

So, I came into a hiccup, and the amount of time it took to diagnose and resolve seemed like it should be something I documented.

In doing the initial installation of Rocky 8.5 on the computer that my kids sometimes use that runs Windows 10 I wasn’t really given the opportunity to configure a multiboot. Instead, the system happily booted Rocky 8.5 and nothing else.

Additionally, running os-prober didn’t really find another operating system, so I had to do some manual work.

Read More

xmrig with cuda for Rocky Linux 8.5

The wife wants to get into Cryptocurrency, so we get into Crypto.

She picked out a couple: VeChain(c), Stellar(c), and Bitcoin(c)

I picked out a couple: Ethereum(c), Monero(c), and Dogecoin(c)

None of them intersect, so I’ll start with my list first 🙂

First thing is to build a miner, and we’ll use an old Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 with 8GB RAM and an nVidia GeForce GT710 that I scrounged together from old parts.

Second thing is to choose a cryptocurrency to see how we can optimize it. Monero looks ezpz.

Third thing is to get familiar with xmrig and xmrig-cuda built and running. We’ll plan and build this in a Virtual Machine to make sure we have all our dependencies ironed out before committing this to an actual machine. We’ll steal some guidance from Litaiem Moatez and their first linkedin article to help us out.

Read More

ssh port forwarding / ssh tunneling

I’ve always been curious on ssh port forwarding enough to experiment and learn it to be deadly enough. I currently have two machines that I’d like to test this with, both -L (local) and -R (remote).

I have a C7 host behind a router and a C8 host on the internet that I’ll be testing with.

Our set up is the following:

192.168.2.222:22 (c7 Host) <-> 192.168.2.1:* (router) <-> 159.203.99.198:22 (c8 host)

Local Forwarding

What I’m going to do is forward port 4444 on my c7 machine to connect to the c8 host on port 22 by launching the following on 192.168.2.222:

$ ssh -L 192.168.2.222:4444:159.203.99.198:22 localhost

At this point I can start a SSH session to 192.168.2.222 at port 4444. I’m prompted to log in at 159.203.99.198, and i’m good to go. As long as the command is running I maintain a connection.

To remove the login necessity I added ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys for passwordless local log in.

Remote Forwarding

Remote forwarding allows world-accessible hosts to provide access to internal hosts. In our previous scenario we forwarded from an intranetwork host to a world host. Now we’re gonna use that intranetwork host and make it so that if we SSH to the world host at port 4444 that we will be ssh-ing to our intranetwork host, bypassing the router.

On 192.168.2.222 I execute the following:

$ ssh -R 4444:localhost:22 159.203.99.198 -ldiffuser

On my world-accessible host I log in with “diffuser”, and the forwarding is set up.

On 159.203.99.198 I can ssh to localhost:4444 and connect as internaluser with ease:

$ ssh localhost -p 4444 -linternaluser

Due to how /etc/ssh/sshd_config has GatewayPorts set up by default I cannot connect with my home computer to my world-accessible host. I would have to restart sshd service after setting GatewayPorts=yes (by default it’s no)

Flash Flashcard to HTML5

One of the awesome things about hoarding old images and video from the “good old” days is having the ability to bring new life to them. In 2018 I had re-released a friends work that he did for me in April 2013 by re-posting the flash videos that were made. Little did I know that flash would go the way of the dodo bird and browsers would shun files.

As an 8th-year “octoversary” I decided to dig down into my old files and grab the original images and audio and bring new life to them. I spent a small, but worthwhile, amount of time generating some reusable code to convert flashcard-style flash presentations to HTML5. This is now done over on T.C. in 2013, and the result is somewhat magnificent.

Earlier in the course of the project we happened across a person who did voicework. She went by the name of “Shawty Luv” and was able to provide us some starter voicework with our fairs. It was initially proposed to her to do our “tutorials”, and she happily did it for 2500 rays ($175 USD at the time). She subsequently delivered goods in zip fashion on 26 Feb 2013.

I decided to compile them together and bring them new life here:

Read More

How I made Plex work for me

As I’ve written before, I run a Plex Media Server at my home, and have run many different configurations of set ups for almost 4 years. We originally ran the client off of our XBox 360 until the App was obsoleted, and now we enjoy it on desktops, mobiles, and on our Samsung TV, delivering high-quality content to our family.

Our current Plex Media Server is run on a 4-core/4GB laptop with an external USB-attached 6TB hard drive complete with a library of 1708 Movies and 111 TV Shows. It’s not an expensive set up and has paid itself off time and time again.

For the longest time i’ve used plex.tv to access my Plex Media Server remotely, and painfully have had to endure poor quality streaming because I wasn’t really aware about how Plex works behind the scenes. After some time I’ve learned the “why” and the “repairs” to be able to take my remote Plex Viewing up a notch.

Read More