Tiernan's Comms Closet

Geek, Programmer, Photographer, network egineer…

more raspberry pi and camera antics

October 12, 2012
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A while back I posted about the Raspberry Pi, and in the post was a link to a Photographer who was embeding a Raspberry Pi into a Canon 5D MKII battery grip. Well, its been a while, and i have been thinking about the Pi and Cameras, so I went looking around… Here is what i found.

The one thing i have not been able to figure out is how to tell the Pi to take the photos out of the camera wihtout having a monitor plugged in. I was thinking either tell it, on boot, to start monitoring the camera and download everything. This way, if you have it plugged into a external power source, it will be monitoring and downloading to somewhere… USB HDD, USB Key, etc. If there is a Wifi spot around, try uploading them to a location, posibily manageable via web interface of some sort… Lots of interesting ideas can be done… its just a matter of doing them… 🙂

RouterOS Using Host names in Firewall Rules

October 12, 2012
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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on RouterOS Blocking Machine access to all but one IP, I thought I would show how to add extra IPs to that list, without having a shedload of firewall filters.

  • First things first, get your list of IPs you allow access to. In my case, I just did an NSLOOKUP on the name and got the IPs.
  • Create an “Address List” in RouterOS. This can be done on the Web Interface by going to IP / Firewall / Address List and clicking Add. I had none previously, so I created a new rule, naming it ExpressVPN (the lads I use for VPN access) and added the first address.
  • this is where things get interesting. for extra IP (for ExpressVPN, I have 4) you create a new address with the SAME name, but different IP.
  • in your firewall rule, you should have either an src address or a dst address. in my case, I had both, but this was a change for the dst address. I removed the address from the rule, and I added it as a dst address list entry. If you have multiple address lists, you will see them here.

to do this at the command prompt:

this will block any traffic, other than the IPs in the expressVPN address list, for the machine 192.168.0.123.

RouterOS Blocking Machine access to all but one IP

October 11, 2012
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So, I have a machine on my network, which should be only connecting to the internet through a VPN. I needed to tell my RouterOS box to block all access, except to this said IP address… The following should do the trick… YMMV

this will drop any packets from the srcaddress (IP address) that are not for the destination dstaddress (IP address). in my case, dstaddress is the VPN server I want to connect to. So, in theory, all packets should just go through the VPN and not leak out into the rest of the network… again, still testing this so be careful!

ZFS iSCSI NFS SFTP Hyper-V and more

October 5, 2012
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As part of my new task to make my files safer and backups faster, and, well, cheap, I am looking into ZFS for my storage needs. My needs are as follows:

  • Allow me to store lots of different types of data (Photos, Videos, Music, VMs) in different formats (RAW and JPG photos, MP4, AVI and DivX Videos, with DVD and BluRay rips also a posibility, MP3 music and VHD files from HyperV, inclduing ISOs and Snapshots). I also need to store different file systems using iSCSI (Mac and Windows clients will be mounting the storage).
  • must be safe. DO NOT LOSE DATA!
  • must be somewhat fast. I have VHDs weighing in at 100Gb… my photo collection is 600Gb. If i need to move or copy files to the storage system, it must be fast.

So, ZFS offers all these features. I can export a file share as iSCSI, NFS, SMB, etc. All works well. But the replication stuff is the interesting part…

The plan, which i am working on, is as follows:

  • have 2 machines setup: one in house and one in a datacenter (I have a dedicated box in the Hetzner data center). both could be VMs (the one in the datacenter will more than likley be a VM).
  • use the storage on the local system for whatever i need backed up.
  • have a script which will take a snapshot of a given pool every 4 hours or so…
  • that script should also dump the snapshot to a temporary location on the machine using ZFS send.
  • that file should be checked, compressed, broken up into little bits and checked again… checking is important!
  • take those little bits and send them to the datacenter, which will do lots more checking and import the files into the ZFS pool over there…
  • there may even be a two way system to send from the datacenter back to the house…
  • finally, the remote pool should be dumped to an SFTP backup system that Hetzner give me… Currently set at 100Gb, but can be increesed as needed…

Thats the “plan”… Lets see how it actually works out…

Anyway, parts of the process i need to tweak:

  • uploading and using as much of my upload bandwidth as possible (2x10mb upload connections…) if i am backing up 800Gb, which should be my first backup, i would like to use both pipes to the fullest… on a single connection, at 50% capacity, it would take 15.1 days to upload. if i can get both connections to work at 80% capacity, giving me 16Mbits/s, it would be down to 4.7 days. With compression and Deduplication, i can probably bring that down a bit more…
  • backing up to SFTP… Reading different things is telling me this might not be such a good idea…

Some links which you might find useful:

More Jekyll Stuff

October 4, 2012
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Couple of bits and pieces on Jekyll stuff today… I am tweaking the outline of the site, so i am surfing around finding stuff… here is what i have found

  • Host a static site on Amazon S3: Interesting idea, and something i would look into eventually… And with the help of CloudFront you could host your whole blog on a CDN!
  • Rake tasks for Jekyll: Rake is the Ruby version of make… and a RakeFile can have tasks, which are in Ruby… They can do, from what i can gather, pretty much anything… So, some examples of what you can do with them are linked here… I especially like the New Post generator… very handy!
  • Jekyll Plugins: Various different plugins for Jekyll… I am interested in a few of these, mainly the Generate_projects one, which generates a page for your projects based on your GitHub projects… very cool stuff…
  • Strictly speaking, this is not just a Jekyll how to, but Migrating from WordPress to Jekyll is a handy read. my main blog, my podcast and photography blog both run WordPress. migrating them to Jekyll would mean i could move them directly to a CDN and make things a lot faster… Maybe something i plan doing soon…

If you have any tips or tricks, why not leave a comment and i can add them to the post.

Handbrake Cluster

October 3, 2012
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[UPDATED] someone asked in the comments if there was an binary build for this file. there is now! http://handbrakecluster.codeplex.com now hosts the code and binaries, and will soon have help files and documentation.

A few days back, i wrote a post titled Powershell + Handbrake + AppleTV + iTunes = Automatic TV… ish. In it i included a block of Powershell code to bulk convert TV shows from whatever format you had them in to a M4V format for the AppleTV. Well, as they say “If necessity is the mother of all invension, lazyness must be the father”. I have a lot of shows i wanted converted to the AppleTV, so i built something… Its called HandBrake Cluster and is written in .NET 4.5, uses MSMQ and Handbrake to do the processing… The workflow is as follows:

  • setup the system as described on the HandBrake Cluster site.
  • run the adder program with the paramaters required (location of files you want converted, type of files to find, where you want the files to be placed, output file type)
  • run the cluster EXE on as many machines as you want. each machine will need to point to the correct MSMQ on the head node, have their own copy of Handbrake, and must have access to the fileshare that you are reading and writing to…
  • each node will take a message of the queue, process the file and then mark it as completed. There is code to see if the message has failed, so, in theory, if something goes into the queue, it should always be processed…

I have run this at home on a couple of different machines, and so far so good… my room gets a bit warmer when i kick this off, and between the 3 machines i ran it on, my FPS count went from just 80-120 on the Godbox, to a total of about 160 – 240 FPS (Godbox = 80-120, Server 1 and 2 are about 40-60FPS).

The next thing i managed to do was tweak my import process for iTunes. I am using a program called iHomeServer for iTunes which is running on the GodBox. It monitors a folder, which is where HandBrake Cluster is writing to, and adds them to iTunes. I can then tweak the metadata using the tool, so i can add art work, tell it which shows are related, and it sets up Art work, title info, etc. It is very handy, and something i am very happy with.

Enabling True Bridging modem on a Cisco ECP3925 Cable Modem (UPC Ireland)

October 2, 2012
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I am a UPC Ireland customer, and have 2 cable modems into the house, both Cisco EPC3925s. These are not exactly great modems for power users, but are grand for normal use… Me, however, being a poweruser wanted something a little more, how should I put it, powerful.

A couple of months back, a tutorial was posted on Boards.ie which showed you How to enable “bridging” on your UPC modem. When i say “Bridging”, they used DMZ, turned off firewalls, static IPs internally, turned off WiFi and DHCP, etc. It worked, quite well actually, but was “odd”… Today, however, there is a new tutorial Enabling REAL bridging on a Cisco EPC3925. I have tried this, and so far, it works! now just to set my router to work correctly, and update my IPs if they change…

PowerShell + HandBrake + AppleTV + iTunes = Automatic TV… Ish…

September 28, 2012
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I have an AppleTV in the house (3, actually) and I am very happy with its ease of use, size and cost… You can’t argue with the small price!

I also have a lot of content that works great with the AppleTV in iTunes, but I have content which does not work so great with the AppleTV… So, I needed to find a way to convert files quickly and easily… that’s where PowerShell and Handbrake come in…

  • in the code above, you need to set the path of where your files live. in my case, they live on a NAS.
  • next, set the location of HandBrake… I have a 64-bit copy of Windows and a 64-bit copy of HandBrake.
  • set the new file name to where you want the file to go. in my case I have it set to my “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder, which is a magic folder for iTunes that copies any files dropped in there to your iTunes library.
  • finally, conversion is run…

This may take a few min, depending on a few factors:

  • how many files you are converting
  • how fast your machine in
  • how fast your machine can read and write the files…
  • etc…

I have set files to convert on 3 different machines (the GodBox and 2 other servers) and I am getting speeds of anywhere between 250FPS (on the GodBox running 2 instances of HandBrake CLI) and 40 – 60 FPS on the older servers… on the remote machines, they are sending files to the GodBox folder also, so once everything completes, it’s just a matter of opening iTunes and we are good to go… Now to figure out how to automate the Metadata import…

Crashplan Backups

September 27, 2012
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I have been running CrashPlan for a while now, and, other than some minor issues (backup speed to their central location is the big one), everything has been going grand. I use it to backup about 600GB of photos and videos, 500GB+ of VMs, documents, source code and a fair whack of other stuff… In total, about 2TB of data.

Anyway, here are some tips i have figured out over the last while for making Crashplan work a little better…

I am also in the process of doing some further tests with iSCSI drives linked to the Cloud, and other weird and wonderful things… once I have finished, i will upload extra stuff here.

More VoIP Stuff

September 27, 2012
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As part of my ongoing plan to upgrade the house to VoIP, and as a follow up to my first VoIP stuff post, here are some more things i have found…

  • I have added SipDiscount and SipGate for making and recieving calls.
  • SipDiscount allows me to set pretty much any number as my Caller ID, as long as i “own” that number (they either text or call you with a code, and you enter it on their site). They also allow me to make cheap calls to Irish Mobiles (check their rates here)
  • SipGate gave me a incoming UK phone number. Its an 0845 number, which I dont know what that means… but it was free, so its all good. Not sure if i can recieve text messages on it though…
  • I have a Blueface account, which gives me an Irish 076 VoIP number. 076 is the standard VoIP number here in Ireland…
  • I have a IpKall number, which is based in Washington State. You need to recieve a call on this line at least once every 30 days to keep it active.
  • My Google Voice accepts calls and forwards them to my IpKall number, which then rings my BlueFace SIP account (since i know they will be up all the time, by my home server may be offline since i am only testing) which, if a SIP device is connected, will forward it again… if i am offline, or no sip devices are active, that call is redirected to voice mail…

Its all very complicated at the moment, but the plan will be that any incoming calls should go directly to the machine in house, which will ring the desk phone and any other SIP clients. Any incoming PSTN calls will also do the same. Outgoing calls will depend on the dialing plan, which i still need to figure out, but the theory goes as follows:

  • Irish landline calls at certin times should go though the PSTN (since we get some free calls with our line). Other times they should go though SipDiscount or BlueFace.
  • if the PSTN is busy, fall over to one of the other providers…
  • Irish Mobile calls should go though SipDiscount and then fall back to land line, or if i ever get the BlueTooth setup working, SipDiscount, then bluetooth, then landline…
  • International calls should be sent though SipDiscount or Blueface, whichever is cheaper…

Its going to be an interesting setup… 🙂

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