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| -rw-r--r-- | content/blog/2022/music-server.md | 159 |
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diff --git a/content/blog/2022/ddns.md b/content/blog/2022/ddns.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73d9aad --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/2022/ddns.md @@ -0,0 +1,160 @@ ++++ +title = "Dynamic DNS" +author = ["Michał Sapka"] +date = 2022-05-13T22:26:00+02:00 +categories = ["blog"] +draft = false +weight = 3001 +abstract = "DDNS is a DNS for folks with non-static IP. Here I try to choose the best for me." +aliases = ["/2022/ddns/", "/articles/ddns/"] ++++ + +I am one of the unlucky ones without static IP address. +I would get one from my ISP, but this would require me to upgrade to a business contract. +And to do such upgrade, I would need a company - which I do not own nor have I any plans to own in the near future. +Luckily, I can still have a domain. +There is a group of services under the umbrella term Dynamic DNS. + +[DDNS on Arch Wiki](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dynamic_DNS) + +Basically, I need to point my domain to their name server and keep them up to date with changes of my IP. +The DDNS server acts as a middle-man when using a normal domain. +In most cases, I just need to fetch a given URL periodically ad the service will treat this as current IP set. + + +## Self hosting vs 3rd party {#self-hosting-vs-3rd-party} + +There are ready-made packages I could install on any VPS, but debugging DNS is not something I would like to do. +Therefore, I will go with 3rd party. + +I looked through the interwebs for providers and found lots of them. +Unfortunately, most of them are dead, so the choice is much less difficult. + + +## Requirements {#requirements} + +After a short analysis, I came up with few requirements: + +| Max number of domains | 3 | +|-------------------------------------|------------| +| Max number of subdomains per domain | 20 | +| Expected uptime | 95.5 | +| Location | Europe/USA | +| MX Records | YES | +| TTL | 10min | + + +## Instant rejects {#instant-rejects} + +I instantly rejected some providers, since they will now work for my use case: + +| Service | Reason? | +|----------------------|--------------------------------------| +| activedns.co.za | South Africa only | +| bcu.cc | Site does not open | +| ddns.nu | Site does not open | +| dhcp.io | Domain for sale | +| dhs.org | Site does not open | +| dns.widge.net | Site does not open | +| dnsdynamic.org | Some random site under the address | +| dnsmadeeasy.com | It's namecheap now | +| dnspark.com | It's namecheap now | +| dtdns.com | Broken site | +| dyn.ee | Domain for sale | +| dyn.ro | Domain for sale (I think) | +| dynamicdomain.net | Site reads like poor phising attempt | +| dyndsl.com | Domain for sale | +| domain-dns.com | Not accepting new zones | +| dyndnsservices.com | Offers self-host only | +| dynfree.com | Broken site | +| dynup.net | Broken site | +| hldns.com | No longer offers DDNS | +| hn.org | Site does not work | +| homepc.org | Site does not work | +| hub.turnkeylinux.org | Site does not work | +| microtech.co.gg | Site does not work | +| minidns.net | Site does not work | +| myonlineportal.net | Only 10 domains per account | +| myserver.org | Broken site | +| nettica.com | Domain for sale | +| nicolas.cx | No sign-up via web | +| nubem.com | Site does not work | +| ods.org | Domain for sale | +| powerdns.com | Self hosted solution | +| prout.be | Self hosted solution | +| spdns.de | No english site | +| system-ns.com | No longer offers DDNS | +| tzo.com | Site does not work | +| whyi.org | Site does not work | +| worldwidedns.net | Does not support enough zones | +| xname.org | Site does not work | +| yi.org | Site does not work | + +\## The potential ones + +After removing most positions from list, I dig a big deeper: + +| Service | Price | Uptime | Location | +|--------------------|--------------|-----------|-------------| +| | per year | | | +| changeip.com | $6 | 99.9% (1) | USA | +| dhis.org | Donation | ? | ? | +| dns2go.com | lots$ | ? | ? | +| dnsexit.com | FREE for TLD | 100% | Distributed | +| duckdns.org | FREE | ? | ? | +| duiadns.net | $11 | ? | ? | +| dynaccess.de | 22EUR | ? | Germany | +| dynamip.com | $48 | ? | ? | +| dyndns.berlin | FREE | ? | Germany | +| dyndns.com | $55 | ? | ? | +| dyndns.dk | FREE | ? | ? | +| dynip.com | lots$ | ? | ? | +| dyns.cx | Donation | ? | ? | +| dynu.com | FREE | 100% (2) | Distributed | +| easydns.com | FREE | 100% | ? | +| freedns.afraid.org | $60 | ~99.3%(3) | ? | +| noip.com | $24.99 | 100% (2) | ? | +| planetdns.net | $299.95 | ? | ? | +| staticcling.org | FREE | ? | ? | +| thatip.com | $48 | ? | ? | +| thebbs.org | FREE | ? | ? | +| totaluptime.com | $1188(SIC!) | ? | ? | +| zonomi.com | lots$ | ? | ? | + +- [(1) whtop.com](<https://www.whtop.com/review/changeip.com>) +- [(2) comparingtech.com](<https://www.comparitech.com/net-admin/dynamic-dns-providers/>) +- [(3) dnsperf.com](<https://www.dnsperf.com/dns-provider/afraid-org>) + +Notes: + +- "?" - I couldn't find data, but also I wasn't looking very hard +- "lots$" - some providers have a complicated pricing and at first glance it was obvious, that it will be expensive. + + As we see, some working providers are crazy expensive. They add extra features, but still - crazy expensive. + + +## Conclusion {#conclusion} + +DDNS is a strange market. It's mostly dead. But when the service is still available, it seems to be run from someone's basement. There are companies in the space, don't get me wrong - but most of it looks like hacker culture byproduct. And this makes sense, since the primary use case for DDNS is someone without static IP - ergo, an individual and not a company. + +The sad aspect of this is lack of any SLAs in most cases. + +The happy aspect of this is that you can get a lot for very little. + + +## Decision {#decision} + +Looking at the data, I have decided to go with dynu.com as it has 100% uptime, and it's free. + + +## Setting up dynu.com on Synology {#setting-up-dynu-dot-com-on-synology} + +First, create a dedicated IP update password on dynu.com. It's optional, but highly recommended. + +Then, in Synology Control Panel open External Access, then click on "DDNS" tab. Click "Customize Provider" and set query URL to + +```nil +https://api.dynu.com/nic/update?myip=__MYIP__&username=__USERNAME__&password=__PASSWORD__&hostname__HOSTNAME__&myipv6=no +``` + +Now, add a subdomain. Note, that it would be best to MD5 the password. diff --git a/content/blog/2022/gnu-stow.md b/content/blog/2022/gnu-stow.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d06dee --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/2022/gnu-stow.md @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ ++++ +title = "GNU Stow" +author = ["Michał Sapka"] +date = 2022-06-09T22:26:00+02:00 +categories = ["blog", "update"] +draft = false +weight = 3002 +abstract = "GNU Stow is a tool for managing symlink farms, used primarily for dotfiles. Here you can find a short guide on how to use it." +aliases = ["/articles/gnu-stow"] ++++ + +If you are working with Linux/BSD based system, you are most likely accustomed to managing your configs with dotfiles. +And you most likely have them stored with Git. +But there is the never ending problem of how to actually use them. +I have moved management of this under GNU Stow. + +Let's take a very typical dotfiles repository. + +```shell +./nvim/init.lua +./tmux/tmux.conf +``` + +You want to have those files available as + +```shell +~/.config/nvim/init.lua +~/.tmux.conf +``` + +The most popular approach would be to symlink the files under the expected location. +We could also copy the files every time something changes, but that would be crazy. +Are we the stuck with having to do those symlinks manually every time we install a new machine or create a virtual one? And what if we have dozens of such configs stored under git? + + +## Symlink farm {#symlink-farm} + +GNU Stow is a symlink farm. +This means, that it's a system aimed at automating creating of those symlinks. + +[GNU Stow website](https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/manual/stow.html) + +For Stow, the dotfiles directory is called "Stowed" directory. +Now comes the cool part. +Each folder in the Stowed directory (called "Package directory") stores a separate directory tree. +GNU Stow will join all those separate trees and create a proper structure under Target Directory, which by default is the parent of Stowed directory. +Let's look at example. + +```shell +~/target/stow/one/config/one.conf +~/target/stow/two/config/two.conf +~/target/stow/three/config/three.conf +``` + +So, our home director now has a "Target" directory, which has a "Stow" directory. +The Stow directory stores three configs which we want to symlink as + +```shell +~/target/config/one.conf +~/target/config/two.conf +~/target/config/three.conf +``` + +Let's stow the first one + +```shell +cd ~/target/stow +stow one +``` + +And see what happened + +```shell +cd ~/target +ls -lA +``` + +We get something like + +```shell +lrwxrwxrwx 1 msapka wheel 15 Jun 9 23:01 config -> stow/one/config +drwxr-xr-x 5 msapka wheel 4096 Jun 9 22:55 stow +``` + +Stow created a config symlink in the target directory. +Very cool, but it gets cooler! Let' stow the second one + +```shell +cd ~/target/stow +stow two +``` + +and what we get + +```shell +drwxr-xr-x 2 msapka wheel 4096 Jun 9 23:03 config +drwxr-xr-x 5 msapka wheel 4096 Jun 9 22:55 stow +``` + +Our config is no longer a symlink, but a real folder. +Let's see what's inside here. + +```shell +cd config +ls -lA +``` + +```shell +lrwxrwxrwx 1 msapka wheel 27 Jun 9 23:03 one.conf -> ../stow/two/config/one.conf +lrwxrwxrwx 1 msapka wheel 26 Jun 9 23:03 two.conf -> ../stow/one/config/two.conf +``` + +We have our two configs, but what has happened? +Stow looked at both subtrees for "one" and "two" and joined them in a way, that is possible. +The only way for one.conf and two.conf to exist in config is if config is a normal directory. Extremely cool! + +Let's image that our target is actually homedir, so we have a ~/dotfiles directory. +Then each package directory can mimic the tree structure of the actual config! Coming back to our example, we can have a + +```shell +~/dotfiles/tmux/.tmux.conf +~/dotfiles/nvim/.config/nvim/init.lua +``` + +Then, after stowing both packages we have symlinks under our desired + +```shell +~/.config/nvim/init.lua +~/.tmux.conf +``` + +GNU Stow is a very simple tool. All we need to understand what will happen with each subtree. diff --git a/content/blog/2022/music-server.md b/content/blog/2022/music-server.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce79ebb --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/2022/music-server.md @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ ++++ +title = "Adding simple music server to my network" +author = ["Michał Sapka"] +date = 2022-05-25T22:26:00+02:00 +categories = ["blog"] +draft = false +weight = 3003 +abstract = "As part of my partitioning with streaming services, I have created a small music server on my home network. This article touches on how to get music, how to store and how to actually listen to it." +aliases = ["/articles/music-server", "/2022/music-server"] ++++ + +_This is an old article, and even though it is still valid, I no longer use Linux_ + +One of my goals for 2022 is to not pay for music subscriptions anymore. +Nowadays, it's really easy and cheap to actually own my music. + + +## Getting music {#getting-music} + +Internet is full of cheap, used CDs and new music is ready for purchase on sites like Bandcamp. +Since I mostly listen to dead people, CDs are my primary source. + +The first problem is having something to put a disc in. +I've gotten myself a cheap USB-CD/DVD drive. +It's very loud, but since I use it only for getting the data to my computer, it's not a problem. + +I rip (a word that I have not seen in a long time) on MacBook using XLD app. +I plan to move this step to Linux soon. + +[XLD homepage](https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html) + +I rip the music to FLAC, which seems to be standard. +It's lossless and most file-based players have no problems with it. +Of course, not everywhere. +iOS is always problematic, but I don't listen to music on the go very often, so it's a problem for future me. + +A single album in FLAC takes about 200-300 MB. +I still remember MP3 days, where it would go down to 60 MB or less, but back then storage and transfer were actually expensive. +I don't hear any noticeable difference between FLAC and good compressed file, but again - storage and transfer is cheap, Furthermore I have a single high-res album where half an hour takes 750 MBMB and there is zero difference. +Well, now I know, and I won't buy-high res ever again :) + + +## Storing and serving music {#storing-and-serving-music} + +The music will be accessed by multiple devices on local network, so putting it on the Home Server makes perfect sense. +I now have a dedicated share "music" which is shared via Samba and NFS. + +Samba seems better than NFS, but then NFS on Linux is simpler to set up. + +For Samba, I need to add read+write access to Music share for each user from Synology web UI. + +NFS on the other hand doesn't support users, but devices instead. +The first step is to set static IP for my devices (which is always a good idea). +How exactly this should be approached depends on the setup, but I use UniFi Dream Machine and forcing IP for a device is very straight forward. +After I have static IPs, I can add read/write access for those addresses, also via Synology web UI. + +Served music is so small, that this does not add any noticeable overhead for the server. + + +## Accessing the music on Linux {#accessing-the-music-on-linux} + +First, I needed to install NFS support. I use Arch, so: + +```shell +pacman -S nfs-utils +``` + +Then I checked if the share actually exists. My server's address is 10.0.1.200. + +```shell +showmount -e 10.0.1.200 +------------------ +Export list for 10.0.1.200: +/volume2/music 10.0.1.10 +``` + +Voilà! Next step: check if it works + +```shell +mkdir /mnt/music +mount 10.0.1.200:/volume2/music /mnt/music/ +cd /mnt/music +ls +``` + +And listing worked. +Noice. +To automate it for future, and to allow non-root users to actually mount the drive I added a new mount to /etc/fstab: + +```shell +10.0.1.200:/volume2/music /mnt/music nfs _netdev,noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.mount-timeout=10,timeo=14,users,x-systemd.idle-timeout=1min 0 0 +``` + +After the first user accesses /mnt/music, the drive will be mounted. + + +## Playing the music using CMUS {#playing-the-music-using-cmus} + +We have access to the files, let's play it. +Every modern music player for Linux should work with Flac, but I've chosen CMUS. +It's fast, it's terminal based, and it supports VIM keybindings. + +[CMUS on Github](https://cmus.github.io/) + +```shell +pacman -S cmus +``` + +After we open cmus, we need to add music. +It's done similarly to VIM, via an ex command. + +```shell +:add /mnt/music/ +``` + +And a few seconds later, the music is visible in the player. +Using CMUS requires reading the manual + +```shell +man cmus-tutorial +``` + +but the basics I needed to play something from Artist/Album view were: + +| key | descrition | +|-------|---------------------------------------| +| j | go up | +| k | go down | +| tab | change active window (artists/tracks) | +| space | expand artist to album list | +| c | play track / pause track | +| e | add track to queue | +| q | exit | + +Extra bonus: after first configuring system I had some problems with audio not working from time to time. +Moving from Pulse to Pipewire solved them all. + +[Pipewire webpage](https://pipewire.org/) + + +## Listening on Mac via CMUS {#listening-on-mac-via-cmus} + +I have no idea how to auto mount a server on MacOS, so after every reboot or network change, I need access the Samba share via Finder. +After it's mounted, I can access it under /Volumes/music. + +On Mac I also use CMUS, so all of the above apply as well. +One difference is adding the files due to different location + +```shelll +:add /Volumes/music +``` + + +## Next up {#next-up} + +This doesn't solve all my needs. In the future I need to find out how to: + +- Access The Music Outside My Home Network +- how to marry this setup with my multiroom system (Sonos + Homepods) |