Setting Up a Secure Webapp

ngingx reverse proxy auth for a basic web app

 Posted on May 22, 2021  (Last modified on May 29, 2021)  |  8 minutes  |  1502 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

As a person who prefers full access to data in the simplest format, while at the same time having it useful with latest technologies, my quest for trying things out is an ongoing activity. Earlier, I blogged about my needs of collating news feeds in a simple format, readily accessible offline, while still being useful and aligned with the modern paradigm. In today’s age, the other common aspect of our life, is digitization of moments. [Read More]
Linux  Containers  PhotoPrism  nginx  Reverse Proxy  Docker  Proxy Auth 

Cicada Insect

pandemic has made time for things which weren't paid much attention to

 Posted on April 23, 2021  |  3 minutes  |  561 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Pandemic With COVID-19, this was the first nation-wide lockdown in my lifetime I’ve witnessed. I guess the feel must be same for many many more people across the globe. It was almost the same time, a year ago, when this lockdown first struck. It being the first time, I wasn’t then really prepared on how to handle it. With everything literally shut down, there was nothing to do than sit where you are. [Read More]
Cicada  Covid-19  Lockdown  Nature  Insects 

Catching Up Your Sources

Keeping track of all news sources - offline and mobile

 Posted on April 19, 2021  |  9 minutes  |  1716 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

I’ve mostly had the preference of controlling my data rather than depend on someone else. That’s one reason why I still believe email to be my most reliable medium for data storage, one that is not plagued/locked by a single entity. If I had the resources, I’d prefer all digital data to be broken down to its simplest form for storage, like email format, and empower the user with it i. [Read More]
News  RSS  Feeds  feed2imap  Aqua Mail  Mobile  Ellora  Kailasa 

Wayland KDE X11

Impressions from KDE, Wayland and Plasma 5.21.1

 Posted on February 26, 2021  (Last modified on March 1, 2021)  |  6 minutes  |  1093 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

KDE Impressions These days, I often hear a lot about Wayland. And how much of effort is being put into it; not just by the Embedded world but also the usual Desktop systems, namely KDE and GNOME. In recent past, I switched back to KDE and have been (very) happy about the switch. Even though the KDE 4 (and initial KDE 5) debacle had burnt many, coming back to a usable KDE desktop is always a delight. [Read More]
Linux  Containers  systemd  KDE  Plasma  Plasma 5.21  Wayland  X11  OBS  Open Build Service 

First Telescope

Building up a hobby in Astronomy

 Posted on October 3, 2020  |  9 minutes  |  1788 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Curiosity I guess this would be common to most of us. While I grew up, right from the childhood itself, the sky was always an intriguing view. The Stars, the Moon, the Eclipses; were all fascinating. As a child, in my region, religion and culture; the mythology also built up stories around it. Lunar Eclipses have a story of its own. During Solar Eclipses, parents still insist that we do not go out. [Read More]
Astronomy  Dobsonian  Moon  Planetary 

LUKS Headless Laptop

Working around LUKS password in laptops that now transitioned to headless machines

 Posted on August 20, 2020  |  3 minutes  |  601 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

As we grow old, so do our computing machines. And just like we don’t decommission ourselves, so should be the case of the machines. They should be semi-retired, delegating major tasks to newer machines while they can still serve some less demaning work: File Servers, UPNP Servers et cetera. It is common on a Debian installer based derivative, and otherwise too, to use block encryption on Linux. With machines from this decade, I think we’ve always had CPU extension for encryption. [Read More]
Linux  Cryptsetup  LUKS  Cryptsetup  dm-crypt  headless  laptop 

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74

Power Savings tool for Linux

 Posted on July 18, 2020  |  2 minutes  |  292 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74 Laptop Mode Tools version 1.74 has been released. This release includes important bug fixes, some defaults settings updated to current driver support in Linux and support for devices with nouveau based nVIDIA cards. A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository 1.74 - Sat Jul 18 19:10:40 IST 2020 * With 4.15+ kernels, Linux Intel SATA has a better link power saving policy, med_power_with_dipm, which should be the recommended one to use * Disable defaults for syslog logging * Initialize LM_VERBOSE with default to disabled * Merge pull request #157 from rickysarraf/nouveau * Add power saving module for nouveau cards * Disable ethernet module by default * Add board-specific folder and documentation * Add execute bit on module radeon-dpm * Drop unlock because there is no lock acquired Resources Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at project’s release page Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable. [Read More]
Linux  Power Savings  Battery  Laptop  Laptop Mode Tools 

Kodi PS3 BD Remote

Setting up a PS3 Blu-Ray Disc Remote with Kodi

 Posted on June 16, 2020  (Last modified on June 17, 2020)  |  14 minutes  |  2960 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Setting up a Sony PS3 Blu-Ray Disc Remote Controller with Kodi TLDR; Since most of the articles on the internet were either obsolete or broken, I’ve chosen to write these notes down in the form of a blog post so that it helps me now and in future, and hopefully others too. Raspberry Pi All this time, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for my HTPC needs. The first RPi I acquired was in 2014 and I have been very very happy with the amount of support in the community and quality of the HTPC offering it has. [Read More]
Linux  Debian  Kodi  PS3  HTPC  XBMC  BD Remote 

Apt Offline 1.8.2

Offline APT Package Manager

 Posted on February 9, 2020  |  19 minutes  |  3922 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

apt-offline 1.8.2 I am pleased to announce the release of apt-offline version 1.8.2 This release has many bug fixes along with a long standing issue of signature validation 2017 - The year of realization and change Back in 2017, the bug was reported that apt-offline did not validate apt meta Packages files. apt-offline was only doing a signature validation for the Release files but did no validation of the apt meta Packages files, which had their checksums listed in the Release files. [Read More]
Linux  Debian  APT  apt-offline  Package Management 

Laptop Mode Tools 1.73

Laptop Mode Tools: Power Savings Tool for Linux

 Posted on January 11, 2020  |  4 minutes  |  743 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Laptop Mode Tools 1.73 I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools version 1.73 This release includes many bug fixes. For user convenience, 2 command options have been added. rrs@priyasi:~$ laptop_mode -h **************************** Following user commands are understood status : Display a Laptop Mode Tools power savings status power-stats : Display the power statistics on the machine power-events : Trap power related events on the machine help : Display this help message (--help, -h) version : Display program version (--version, -v) **************************** 15:22 ♒ ॐ ☺ 😄 rrs@priyasi:~$ sudo laptop_mode status [sudo] password for rrs: Mounts: /dev/mapper/nvme0n1p4_crypt on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache,autodefrag,subvolid=5,subvol=/) /dev/nvme0n1p3 on /boot type ext4 (rw,relatime) /dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro) /dev/fuse on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000) Drive power status: Cannot read /dev/[hs]d[abcdefgh], permission denied - /usr/sbin/laptop_mode needs to be run as root (NOTE: drive settings affected by Laptop Mode cannot be retrieved. [Read More]
Linux  Laptop Mode Tools  Power Savings