1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Hvordan enkelt laste ned filmer fra NRK med den
"nye
" løsningen
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon,
16 Jun
2014 19:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Jeg har fortsatt behov for å kunne laste ned innslag fra NRKs
15 nettsted av og til for å se senere når jeg ikke er på nett, men
16 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK.html
">min
17 oppskrift fra
2011</a
> sluttet å fungere da NRK byttet
18 avspillermetode. I dag fikk jeg endelig lett etter oppdatert løsning,
19 og jeg er veldig glad for å fortelle at den enkleste måten å laste ned
20 innslag er å bruke siste versjon
2014.06.07 av youtube-dl. Støtten i
21 youtube-dl
<a href=
"https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/
2980">kom
22 inn for
23 dager siden
</a
> og
23 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/y/youtube-dl.html
">versjonen i
24 Debian
</a
> fungerer fint også som backport til Debian Wheezy. Det er
25 et lite problem, det håndterer kun URLer med små bokstaver, men hvis
26 en har en URL med store bokstaver kan en bare gjøre alle store om til
27 små bokstaver for å få youtube-dl til å laste ned. Rapporterte
28 problemet nettopp til utviklerne, og antar de får fikset det
31 <p
>Dermed er alt klart til å laste ned dokumentarene om
32 <a href=
"http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23005014/usas-hemmelige-avlytting
">USAs
33 hemmelige avlytting
</a
> og
34 <a href=
"http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23005114/selskapene-bak-usas-avlytting
">Selskapene
35 bak USAs avlytting
</a
>, i tillegg til
36 <a href=
"http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID20005814/et-moete-med-edward-snowden
">intervjuet
37 med Edward Snowden gjort av den tyske tv-kanalen ARD
</a
>. Anbefaler
38 alle å se disse, sammen med
39 <a href=
"http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/
2013/
30C3_-_5713_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312301130_-_to_protect_and_infect_part_2_-_jacob.html
">foredraget
40 til Jacob Appelbaum på siste CCC-konferanse
</a
>, for å forstå mer om
41 hvordan overvåkningen av borgerne brer om seg.
</p
>
43 <p
>Takk til gode venner på foreningen NUUGs IRC-kanal
44 <a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/%
23nuug
">#nuug på irc.freenode.net
</a
>
45 for tipsene som fikk meg i mål
</a
>.
</p
>
50 <title>Free software car computer solution?
</title>
51 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html
</link>
52 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html
</guid>
53 <pubDate>Thu,
29 May
2014 18:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
54 <description><p
>Dear lazyweb. I
'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
55 in my car, connected to
56 <a href=
"http://www.dx.com/p/
400a-
4-
0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-
1440x272-
12v-dc-
57776">a
57 small screen
</a
> next to the rear mirror. I plan to hook it up with a
58 GPS and a USB wifi card too. The idea is to get my own
59 "<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer
">Carputer
</a
>". But I
60 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
61 such car computer.
</p
>
63 <p
>This is my current wish list for such system:
</p
>
67 <li
>Work on Raspberry Pi.
</li
>
69 <li
>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
70 fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
71 or make a sound). This could be done either using either data from
72 <a href=
"http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">Openstreetmap
</a
> or OCR
73 info gathered from a dashboard camera.
</li
>
75 <li
>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
76 and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
79 <li
>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.
</li
>
81 <li
>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
82 to home server. Try IP over DNS
83 (
<a href=
"http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/
">iodine
</a
>) or ICMP
84 (
<a href=
"http://code.gerade.org/hans/
">Hans
</a
>) if direct
85 connection do not work.
</li
>
87 <li
>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
88 or some standard car mesh protocol.
</li
>
90 <li
>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
91 (speed calculated between two cameras).
</li
>
93 <li
>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
94 run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.
</li
>
98 <p
>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
99 some or all of these features, please let me know.
</p
>
104 <title>Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release
</title>
105 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html
</link>
106 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html
</guid>
107 <pubDate>Tue,
29 Apr
2014 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
108 <description><p
>I
've been following
<a href=
"http://www.getgnash.org/
">the Gnash
109 project
</a
> for quite a while now. It is a free software
110 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
111 plugin. Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
112 newer AVM2 format - see
113 <a href=
"http://lightspark.github.io/
">Lightspark
</a
> for that one),
114 allowing several flash based sites to work. Thanks to the friendly
115 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
116 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
117 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
118 support, but it has not happened yet. If you install both Lightspark
119 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
120 so you can get both handled as free software. Unfortunately,
121 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
122 sites do not work yet.
</p
>
124 <p
>A few months ago, I started looking at
125 <a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/
">Coverity
</a
>, the static source
126 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
127 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
128 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
129 the projects I decided to check out. Coverity is able to find lock
130 errors, memory errors, dead code and more. A few days ago they even
131 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
132 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
133 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
134 code checkers I have tested over the years.
</p
>
136 <p
>Since a few weeks ago, I
've been working with the other Gnash
137 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity. I was quite happy
138 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the
777 issues
139 detected so far,
374 are marked as fixed. This make me confident that
140 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
141 the previous one. Most of the reported issues were and are in the
142 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.
</p
>
144 <p
>If you want to help out, you find us on
145 <a href=
"https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev
">the
146 gnash-dev mailing list
</a
> and on
147 <a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash
">the #gnash channel on
148 irc.freenode.net IRC server
</a
>.
</p
>
153 <title>Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram
0.7)
</title>
154 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html
</link>
155 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html
</guid>
156 <pubDate>Wed,
23 Apr
2014 14:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
157 <description><p
>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
158 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
159 So I implemented one, using
160 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram
">my Isenkram
161 package
</a
>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
162 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
163 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
". When you
164 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
165 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p
>
167 <p
>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
168 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
169 packages to install. The first part is in
170 <tt
>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt
> and look like
173 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
176 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
177 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
179 Test-new-install: mark show
181 Packages: for-current-hardware
182 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
184 <p
>The second part is in
185 <tt
>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt
> and look like
188 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
193 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
195 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
197 <p
>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
198 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
199 have installed on our machines. I
've not been able to find a way to
200 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
201 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
202 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p
>
204 <p
>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
205 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
206 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
207 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
208 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
209 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
719837">#
719837</a
> and
210 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
730704">#
730704</a
>). The cause is in
211 the python-apt code (bug
212 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
745487">#
745487</a
>), but using a
213 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
214 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
215 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
216 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
217 unstable today.
</p
>
219 <p
>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
220 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
221 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
222 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
223 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-
11">DEP-
11</a
>, and
224 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects
.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream
.2FDEP-
11_for_the_Debian_Archive
">GSoC
225 project
</a
> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
226 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
227 start using the information when it is ready.
</p
>
229 <p
>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
230 add a
"Xb-Modaliases
" header to your control file like I did in
231 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile
">the pymissile
232 package
</a
> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
234 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/
">all my
235 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a
> for details on the notation. I expect
236 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
237 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p
>
242 <title>FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid
</title>
243 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html
</link>
244 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html
</guid>
245 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Apr
2014 22:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
246 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
247 project
</a
> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
248 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
249 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
250 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
251 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p
>
253 <p
>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
254 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
255 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
256 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
257 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
258 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
259 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p
>
261 <p
>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
262 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup
">freedombox-setup
</a
>,
263 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth
">plinth
</a
>,
264 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite
">pagekite
</a
>,
265 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor
">tor
</a
>,
266 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy
">privoxy
</a
>,
267 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud
">owncloud
</a
> and
268 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq
">dnsmasq
</a
>. There
269 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
270 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
271 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie
">check out
272 the manual
</a
> and help us improve it.
</p
>
274 <p
>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
275 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
276 become root:
</p
>
279 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
280 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
282 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
284 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
285 </pre
></p
>
287 <p
>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
288 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
289 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
290 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
291 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
292 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
293 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
294 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p
>
296 <p
>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
297 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
298 the preseed values:
</p
>
301 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a
>
302 </pre
></p
>
304 <p
>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
305 it still work.
</p
>
307 <p
>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
308 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
309 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
310 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
311 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
312 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
313 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p
>
315 <p
>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
316 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
317 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC (#freedombox on
318 irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
319 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
320 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>
325 <title>Språkkoder for POSIX locale i Norge
</title>
326 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Spr_kkoder_for_POSIX_locale_i_Norge.html
</link>
327 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Spr_kkoder_for_POSIX_locale_i_Norge.html
</guid>
328 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Apr
2014 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
329 <description><p
>For
12 år siden, skrev jeg et lite notat om
330 <a href=
"http://i18n.skolelinux.no/localekoder.txt
">bruk av språkkoder
331 i Norge
</a
>. Jeg ble nettopp minnet på dette da jeg fikk spørsmål om
332 notatet fortsatt var aktuelt, og tenkte det var greit å repetere hva
333 som fortsatt gjelder. Det jeg skrev da er fortsatt like aktuelt.
</p
>
335 <p
>Når en velger språk i programmer på unix, så velger en blant mange
336 språkkoder. For språk i Norge anbefales følgende språkkoder (anbefalt
337 locale i parantes):
</p
>
340 <dt
>nb (nb_NO)
</dt
><dd
>Bokmål i Norge
</dd
>
341 <dt
>nn (nn_NO)
</dt
><dd
>Nynorsk i Norge
</dd
>
342 <dt
>se (se_NO)
</dt
><dd
>Nordsamisk i Norge
</dd
>
343 </dl
></p
>
345 <p
>Alle programmer som bruker andre koder bør endres.
</p
>
347 <p
>Språkkoden bør brukes når .po-filer navngis og installeres. Dette
348 er ikke det samme som locale-koden. For Norsk Bokmål, så bør filene
349 være navngitt nb.po, mens locale (LANG) bør være nb_NO.
</p
>
351 <p
>Hvis vi ikke får standardisert de kodene i alle programmene med
352 norske oversettelser, så er det umulig å gi LANG-variablen ett innhold
353 som fungerer for alle programmer.
</p
>
355 <p
>Språkkodene er de offisielle kodene fra ISO
639, og bruken av dem i
356 forbindelse med POSIX localer er standardisert i RFC
3066 og ISO
357 15897. Denne anbefalingen er i tråd med de angitte standardene.
</p
>
359 <p
>Følgende koder er eller har vært i bruk som locale-verdier for
360 "norske
" språk. Disse bør unngås, og erstattes når de oppdages:
</p
>
362 <p
><table
>
363 <tr
><td
>norwegian
</td
><td
>-
> nb_NO
</td
></tr
>
364 <tr
><td
>bokmål
</td
><td
>-
> nb_NO
</td
></tr
>
365 <tr
><td
>bokmal
</td
><td
>-
> nb_NO
</td
></tr
>
366 <tr
><td
>nynorsk
</td
><td
>-
> nn_NO
</td
></tr
>
367 <tr
><td
>no
</td
><td
>-
> nb_NO
</td
></tr
>
368 <tr
><td
>no_NO
</td
><td
>-
> nb_NO
</td
></tr
>
369 <tr
><td
>no_NY
</td
><td
>-
> nn_NO
</td
></tr
>
370 <tr
><td
>sme_NO
</td
><td
>-
> se_NO
</td
></tr
>
371 </table
></p
>
373 <p
>Merk at når det gjelder de samiske språkene, at se_NO i praksis
374 henviser til nordsamisk i Norge, mens f.eks. smj_NO henviser til
375 lulesamisk. Dette notatet er dog ikke ment å gi råd rundt samiske
377 <a href=
"http://www.divvun.no/
">Divvun-prosjektet
</a
> en bedre
380 <p
><strong
>Referanser:
</strong
></p
>
384 <li
><a href=
"http://www.rfc-base.org/rfc-
3066.html
">RFC
3066 - Tags
385 for the Identification of Languages
</a
> (Erstatter RFC
1766)
</li
>
387 <li
><a href=
"http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-
2/langcodes.html
">ISO
388 639</a
> - Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages
</li
>
390 <li
><a href=
"http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg20/docs/n897-
14652w25.pdf
">ISO
391 DTR
14652</a
> - locale-standard Specification method for cultural
392 conventions
</li
>
394 <li
><a href=
"http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg20/docs/n610.pdf
">ISO
395 15897: Registration procedures for cultural elements (cultural
397 <a href=
"http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg20/docs/n849-
15897wd6.pdf
">(nytt
398 draft)
</a
></li
>
400 <li
><a href=
"http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg20/
">ISO/IEC
401 JTC1/SC22/WG20
</a
> - Gruppen for i18n-standardisering i ISO
</li
>
408 <title>S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software
</title>
409 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html
</link>
410 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
411 <pubDate>Wed,
9 Apr
2014 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
412 <description><p
>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
413 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
414 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
415 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
416 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
417 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
418 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
419 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
420 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
421 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
422 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
423 have looked at a system called
424 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/
">S3QL
</a
>, a locally
425 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p
>
427 <p
>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
428 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
429 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
430 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
431 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
432 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
433 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
434 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
435 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
436 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
437 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
438 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
439 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p
>
441 <p
>It is simple to use. I
'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
442 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt
>apt-get
443 install s3ql
</tt
>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
444 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
445 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/
44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy
">how
446 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a
>, because I trust the laws
447 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
448 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
449 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
450 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage
">S3QL
451 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a
> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
452 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
453 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
454 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
457 <p
>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
458 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
459 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
460 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
461 I
'll refer to it as
<tt
>bucket-name
</tt
> below. In addition, one need
462 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
463 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
465 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
467 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
468 backend-login: API-login
469 backend-password: API-password
470 fs-passphrase: local-password
471 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
473 <p
>I create my local passphrase using
<tt
>pwget
50</tt
> or similar,
474 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
475 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
476 details and password to create it:
</p
>
478 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
479 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
480 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
481 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
483 Enter backend password:
484 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user
's guide, especially
485 the
'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data
' section.
486 Enter encryption password:
487 Confirm encryption password:
488 Generating random encryption key...
489 Creating metadata tables...
499 Compressing and uploading metadata...
500 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
501 #
</pre
></blockquote
></p
>
503 <p
>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
505 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
506 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
507 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
508 Using
4 upload threads.
509 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
519 Mounting filesystem...
521 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
522 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
524 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
526 <p
>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
527 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
528 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
529 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
530 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
531 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
533 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
536 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
538 <p
>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
539 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
540 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the
"already
541 mounted
" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
542 file system:
</p
>
544 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
545 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
546 Using cached metadata.
547 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
548 Checking DB integrity...
549 Creating temporary extra indices...
550 Checking lost+found...
551 Checking cached objects...
552 Checking names (refcounts)...
553 Checking contents (names)...
554 Checking contents (inodes)...
555 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
556 Checking objects (reference counts)...
557 Checking objects (backend)...
558 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
559 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
560 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
561 Checking objects (sizes)...
562 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
563 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
564 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
565 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
566 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
567 Checking inodes (sizes)...
568 Checking extended attributes (names)...
569 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
570 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
571 Checking directory reachability...
572 Checking unix conventions...
573 Checking referential integrity...
574 Dropping temporary indices...
575 Backing up old metadata...
585 Compressing and uploading metadata...
586 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
588 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
590 <p
>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
591 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
592 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
593 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
594 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
595 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
596 Both were measured using
<tt
>dd
</tt
>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
597 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
598 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
599 working set.
</p
>
601 <p
>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
602 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
605 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
606 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
607 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
608 Using
8 upload threads.
609 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
611 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
613 <p
>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
614 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
615 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
616 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
619 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
620 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
621 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
623 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
625 <p
>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
626 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
627 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
630 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
632 Directory entries:
9141
635 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
636 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
637 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
638 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
639 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
641 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
643 <p
>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
644 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
645 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/
">Greenqloud
</a
>,
646 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/
">Google Drive
</a
>,
647 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a
>,
648 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/
">Rackspace
</a
> and
649 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/
">Crowncloud
</A
>. The latter even
650 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
651 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
652 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
655 <p
>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
656 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
657 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
658 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
660 "<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf
">An
661 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
662 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a
>" by Hsing-Bung
663 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
664 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.
</p
>
666 <p
>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
667 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
668 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
669 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
670 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
671 test code to check file system semantics
</a
>, I was happy to discover that
672 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
673 directories, if one chooses to do so.
</p
>
675 <p
>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
676 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
677 <a href=
"http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service
</a
>, which also
678 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
679 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
680 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
681 only read from it.
</p
>
683 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
684 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
685 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
690 <title>EU-domstolen bekreftet i dag at datalagringsdirektivet er ulovlig
</title>
691 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/EU_domstolen_bekreftet_i_dag_at_datalagringsdirektivet_er_ulovlig.html
</link>
692 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/EU_domstolen_bekreftet_i_dag_at_datalagringsdirektivet_er_ulovlig.html
</guid>
693 <pubDate>Tue,
8 Apr
2014 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
694 <description><p
>I dag kom endelig avgjørelsen fra EU-domstolen om
695 datalagringsdirektivet, som ikke overraskende ble dømt ulovlig og i
696 strid med borgernes grunnleggende rettigheter. Hvis du lurer på hva
697 datalagringsdirektivet er for noe, så er det
698 <a href=
"http://tv.nrk.no/program/koid75005313/tema-dine-digitale-spor-datalagringsdirektivet
">en
699 flott dokumentar tilgjengelig hos NRK
</a
> som jeg tidligere
700 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dokumentaren_om_Datalagringsdirektivet_sendes_endelig_p__NRK.html
">har
701 anbefalt
</a
> alle å se.
</p
>
703 <p
>Her er et liten knippe nyhetsoppslag om saken, og jeg regner med at
704 det kommer flere ut over dagen. Flere kan finnes
705 <a href=
"http://www.mylder.no/?drill=datalagringsdirektivet
&intern=
1">via
706 mylder
</a
>.
</p
>
710 <li
><a href=
"http://e24.no/digital/eu-domstolen-datalagringsdirektivet-er-ugyldig/
22879592">EU-domstolen:
711 Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig
</a
> - e24.no
2014-
04-
08
713 <li
><a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/EU-domstolen-Datalagringsdirektivet-er-ulovlig-
7529032.html
">EU-domstolen:
714 Datalagringsdirektivet er ulovlig
</a
> - aftenposten.no
2014-
04-
08
716 <li
><a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/Krever-DLD-stopp-i-Norge-
7530086.html
">Krever
717 DLD-stopp i Norge
</a
> - aftenposten.no
2014-
04-
08
719 <li
><a href=
"http://www.p4.no/story.aspx?id=
566431">Apenes: - En
720 gledens dag
</a
> - p4.no
2014-
04-
08
722 <li
><a href=
"http://www.nrk.no/norge/_-datalagringsdirektivet-er-ugyldig-
1.11655929">EU-domstolen:
723 – Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig
</a
> - nrk.no
2014-
04-
08</li
>
725 <li
><a href=
"http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/data-og-nett/eu-domstolen-datalagringsdirektivet-er-ugyldig/a/
10130280/
">EU-domstolen:
726 Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig
</a
> - vg.no
2014-
04-
08</li
>
728 <li
><a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/
2014/
04/
08/nyheter/innenriks/datalagringsdirektivet/personvern/
32711646/
">-
729 Vi bør skrote hele datalagringsdirektivet
</a
> - dagbladet.no
730 2014-
04-
08</li
>
732 <li
><a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
928137/eu-domstolen-dld-er-ugyldig
">EU-domstolen:
733 DLD er ugyldig
</a
> - digi.no
2014-
04-
08</li
>
735 <li
><a href=
"http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/european-court-declares-data-retention-directive-invalid-
1.1754150">European
736 court declares data retention directive invalid
</a
> - irishtimes.com
737 2014-
04-
08</li
>
739 <li
><a href=
"http://www.reuters.com/article/
2014/
04/
08/us-eu-data-ruling-idUSBREA370F020140408?feedType=RSS
">EU
740 court rules against requirement to keep data of telecom users
</a
> -
741 reuters.com
2014-
04-
08</li
>
746 <p
>Jeg synes det er veldig fint at nok en stemme slår fast at
747 totalitær overvåkning av befolkningen er uakseptabelt, men det er
748 fortsatt like viktig å beskytte privatsfæren som før, da de
749 teknologiske mulighetene fortsatt finnes og utnyttes, og jeg tror
750 innsats i prosjekter som
751 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
</a
> og
752 <a href=
"http://www.dugnadsnett.no/
">Dugnadsnett
</a
> er viktigere enn
755 <p
><strong
>Update
2014-
04-
08 12:
10</strong
>: Kronerullingen for å
756 stoppe datalagringsdirektivet i Norge gjøres hos foreningen
757 <a href=
"http://www.digitaltpersonvern.no/
">Digitalt Personvern
</a
>,
758 som har samlet inn
843 215,- så langt men trenger nok mye mer hvis
760 ikke Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet bytter mening i saken. Det var
761 <a href=
"http://www.holderdeord.no/parliament-issues/
48650">kun
762 partinene Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet
</a
> som stemte for
763 Datalagringsdirektivet, og en av dem må bytte mening for at det skal
764 bli flertall mot i Stortinget. Se mer om saken
765 <a href=
"http://www.holderdeord.no/issues/
69-innfore-datalagringsdirektivet
">Holder
766 de ord
</a
>.
</p
>
771 <title>ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software
</title>
772 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html
</link>
773 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
774 <pubDate>Tue,
1 Apr
2014 12:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
775 <description><p
>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
776 2014-
04-
08, in
7 days. But there are heaps of machines still running
777 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
778 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
779 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
780 new operating system. Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
781 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
782 are already well known and covered elsewhere. Most of them involve
783 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
784 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
785 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
786 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
787 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.
</p
>
789 <p
><a href=
"http://www.reactos.org/
">ReactOS
</a
> is a free software
790 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
791 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
792 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
793 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
794 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
795 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing. It is
796 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
797 from the approach taken by
<a href=
"http://www.winehq.org/
">the Wine
798 project
</a
>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
801 <p
>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
802 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
803 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
804 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
805 click directly from the Internet. Check out the
806 <a href=
"http://www.reactos.org/screenshots
">screen shots on the
807 project web site
</a
> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
808 Windows before metro).
</p
>
810 <p
>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
811 operating systems. I
've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
812 virtual machine. The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
813 fine as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, my main test application
814 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
815 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
816 the disk after the installation. So no luck with that test software.
817 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
818 I
've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
819 to work just fine. If you like Windows and want to keep running your
820 old Windows binaries, check it out by
821 <a href=
"http://www.reactos.org/download
">downloading
</a
> the
822 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
828 <title>Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal
</title>
829 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html
</link>
830 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html
</guid>
831 <pubDate>Sun,
30 Mar
2014 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
832 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
>
833 keep gaining new users. Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
834 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu
">#debian-edu
</a
>, with a
835 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
836 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.
</p
>
838 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
840 <p
>My name is Roger Marsal, I
'm
27 years old (
1986 generation) and I
841 live in Barcelona, Spain. I
've got a strong business background and I
842 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent. Additionally,
843 I
've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
844 last development phase of a new social networking concept.
</p
>
846 <p
>I
'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
847 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
848 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.
</p
>
850 <p
>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
851 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
854 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
855 project?
</strong
></p
>
857 <p
>I discovered the
<a href=
"http://www.ltsp.org/
">LTSP
</a
> advantages
858 with
"Ubuntu
12.04 alternate install
" and after a year of use I
859 started looking for an alternative. Even though I highly value and
860 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
861 change to a more robust and stable alternative. As far as I was using
862 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
863 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself. Surprised, I discovered
864 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
865 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
866 running. I just loved it.
</p
>
868 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
869 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
871 <p
>I found a main advantage in that, once you know
"the tips and
872 tricks
", a new installation just works out of the box. It
's the most
873 complete alternative I
've found to create an LTSP network. All the
874 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
875 be made of steel.
</p
>
877 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
878 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
880 <p
>I found two main disadvantages.
</p
>
882 <p
>I
'm not an expert but I
've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
883 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I
'm quite
884 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I
'm sure many people with few
885 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
886 or dropped.
</p
>
888 <p
>It
's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
889 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
890 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
891 discourage many people too.
</p
>
893 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
895 <p
>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
896 Virtualbox.
</p
>
899 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
900 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
902 <p
>I don
't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
903 attribute in both
"freedom
" and
"no price
" meanings is what will
904 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
905 the
<a href=
"http://www.r-project.org/
">"R
" statistical language
</a
>; a
906 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
907 Today it
's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
908 different level of studies. I believe free and open software will
909 increasingly gain popularity, but I
'm sure schools will be one of the
910 first scenarios where this will happen.
</p
>