Latest posts for tag truelite

Free as in Facebook

Yesterday we were in an airport. We tried to connect to the airport "free" wifi. It had a captive portal that asked for a lot of personal information before one could maybe get on the internet, and we gave up. Bologna Airport, no matter what they do to pretend that they like you, it's always clear that they don't.

I looked at the captive portal screen and I said: «ah yes, "free" wifi. Free as in Facebook».

We figured that we had an expression that will want to be reused.

2015-03-09

eng life pdo truelite

Setting up Akonadi

Now that I have a CalDAV server that syncs with my phone I would like to use it from my desktop.

It looks like akonadi is able to sync with CalDAV servers, so I'm giving it a try.

First thing first is to give a meaning to the arbitrary name of this thing. Wikipedia says it is the oracle goddess of justice in Ghana. That still does not hint at all at personal information servers, but seems quite nice. Ok. I gave up with software having purpose-related names ages ago.

# apt-get install akonadi-server akonadi-backend-postgresql

Akonadi wants a SQL database as a backend. By default it uses MySQL, but I had enough of MySQL ages ago.

I tried SQLite but the performance with it is terrible. Terrible as in, it takes 2 minutes between adding a calendar entry and having it show up in the calendar. I'm fascinated by how Akonadi manages to use SQLite so badly, but since I currently just want to get a job done, next in line is PostgreSQL:

# su - postgres
$ createuser enrico
$ psql postgres
postgres=# alter user enrico createdb;

Then as enrico:

$ createdb akonadi-enrico
$ cat <<EOT > ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc
[%General]
Driver=QPSQL

[QPSQL]
Name=akonadi-enrico
StartServer=false
Host=
Options=
ServerPath=
InitDbPath=

I can now use kontact to connect Akonadi to my CalDAV server and it works nicely, both with calendar and with addressbook entries.

KDE has at least two clients for Akonadi: Kontact, which is a kitchen sink application similar to Evolution, and KOrganizer, which is just the calendar and scheduling component of Kontact.

Both work decently, and KOrganizer has a pretty decent startup time. I now have a usable desktop PIM application that is synced with my phone. W00T!

Next step is to port my swift little calendar display tool to use Akonadi as a back-end.

2015-02-17

eng pdo sw truelite

seat-inspect

Four months ago I wrote this somewhere:

Seeing a DD saying "this new dbus stuff scares me" would make most debian users scared. Seeing a DD who has an idea of what is going on, and who can explain it, would be an interesting and exciting experience.

So, let's be exemplary, competent and patient. Or at least, competent. Some may like or not like the changes, but do we all understand what is going on? Will we all be able to support our friends and customers running jessie?

I confess that although I understand the need for it, I don't feel competent enough to support systemd-based machines right now.

So, are we maybe in need of help, cheat sheets, arsenals of one-liners, diagnostic tools?

Maybe a round of posts on -planet like "one debian package a day" but with new features that jessie will have, and how to understand them and take advantage of them?

That was four months ago. In the meantime, I did some work, and it got better for me.

Yesterday, however, I've seen an experienced Linux person frustrated because the shutdown function of the desktop was doing nothing whatsoever. Today I found John Goerzen's post on planet.

I felt like some more diagnostic tools were needed, so I spent the day making seat-inspect.

seat-inspect tries to make the status of the login/seat system visible, to help with understanding and troubleshooting.

The intent of running the code is to have an overview of the system status, both to see what the new facilities are about, and to figure out if there is something out of place.

The intent of reading the code is to have an idea of how to use these facilities: the code has been written to be straightforward and is annotated with relevant bits from the logind API documentation.

seat-inspect is not a finished tool, but a starting point. I put it on github hoping that people will fork it and add their own extra sanity checks and warnings, so that it can grow into a standard thing to run if a system acts weird.

As it is now, it should be able to issue warnings if some bits are missing for network-manager or shutdown functions to work correctly. I haven't really tested that, though, because I don't have a system at hand where they are currently not working fine.

Another nice thing of it is that when running seat-inspect -v you get a dump of what logind/consolekit think about your system. I found it an interesting way to explore the new functionalities that we recently grew. The same can be done, and in more details, with loginctl calls, but I lacked a summary.

After writing this I feel a bit more competent, probably enough to sit at somebody's computer and poke into loginctl bits. I highly recommend the experience.

2015-02-10

debian eng pdo sw truelite

Playing with python, terminfo and command output

I am experimenting with showing progress on the terminal for a subcommand that is being run, showing what is happening without scrolling away the output of the main program, and I came out with this little toy. It shows the last X lines of a subcommand output, then gets rid of everything after the command has ended.

Usability-wise, it feels like a tease to me: it looks like I'm being shown all sorts of information then they are taken away from me before I managed to make sense of them. However, I find it cute enough to share:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
#coding: utf-8
# Copyright 2015 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>.  Licensed under the terms
# of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version.

import argparse
import fcntl
import select
import curses
import contextlib
import subprocess
import os
import sys
import collections
import shlex
import shutil
import logging

def stream_output(proc):
    """
    Take a subprocess.Popen object and generate its output, line by line,
    annotated with "stdout" or "stderr". At process termination it generates
    one last element: ("result", return_code) with the return code of the
    process.
    """
    fds = [proc.stdout, proc.stderr]
    bufs = [b"", b""]
    types = ["stdout", "stderr"]
    # Set both pipes as non-blocking
    for fd in fds:
        fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, os.O_NONBLOCK)
    # Multiplex stdout and stderr with different prefixes
    while len(fds) > 0:
        s = select.select(fds, (), ())
        for fd in s[0]:
            idx = fds.index(fd)
            buf = fd.read()
            if len(buf) == 0:
                fds.pop(idx)
                if len(bufs[idx]) != 0:
                    yield types[idx], bufs.pop(idx)
                types.pop(idx)
            else:
                bufs[idx] += buf
                lines = bufs[idx].split(b"\n")
                bufs[idx] = lines.pop()
                for l in lines:
                    yield types[idx], l
    res = proc.wait()
    yield "result", res

@contextlib.contextmanager
def miniscreen(has_fancyterm, name, maxlines=3, silent=False):
    """
    Show the output of a process scrolling in a portion of the screen.

    has_fancyterm: true if the terminal supports fancy features; if false, just
    write lines to standard output

    name: name of the process being run, to use as a header

    maxlines: maximum height of the miniscreen

    silent: do nothing whatsoever, used to disable this without needing to
            change the code structure

    Usage:
        with miniscreen(True, "my process", 5) as print_line:
            for i in range(10):
                print_line(("stdout", "stderr")[i % 2], "Line #{}".format(i))
    """
    if not silent and has_fancyterm:
        # Discover all the terminal control sequences that we need
        output_normal = str(curses.tigetstr("sgr0"), "ascii")
        output_up = str(curses.tigetstr("cuu1"), "ascii")
        output_clreol = str(curses.tigetstr("el"), "ascii")
        cols, lines = shutil.get_terminal_size()
        output_width = cols

        fg_color = (curses.tigetstr("setaf") or
                    curses.tigetstr("setf") or "")
        sys.stdout.write(str(curses.tparm(fg_color, 6), "ascii"))

        output_lines = collections.deque(maxlen=maxlines)

        def print_lines():
            """
            Print the lines in our buffer, then move back to the beginning
            """
            sys.stdout.write("{} progress:".format(name))
            sys.stdout.write(output_clreol)
            for msg in output_lines:
                sys.stdout.write("\n")
                sys.stdout.write(msg)
                sys.stdout.write(output_clreol)
            sys.stdout.write(output_up * len(output_lines))
            sys.stdout.write("\r")

        try:
            print_lines()

            def _progress_line(type, line):
                """
                Print a new line to the miniscreen
                """
                # Add the new line to our output buffer
                msg = "{} {}".format("." if type == "stdout" else "!", line)
                if len(msg) > output_width - 4:
                    msg = msg[:output_width - 4] + "..."
                output_lines.append(msg)
                # Update the miniscreen
                print_lines()

            yield _progress_line

            # Clear the miniscreen by filling our ring buffer with empty lines
            # then printing them out
            for i in range(maxlines):
                output_lines.append("")
            print_lines()
        finally:
            sys.stdout.write(output_normal)
    elif not silent:
        def _progress_line(type, line):
            print("{}: {}".format(type, line))
        yield _progress_line
    else:
        def _progress_line(type, line):
            pass
        yield _progress_line

def run_command_fancy(name, cmd, env=None, logfd=None, fancy=True, debug=False):
    quoted_cmd = " ".join(shlex.quote(x) for x in cmd)
    log.info("%s running command %s", name, quoted_cmd)
    if logfd: print("runcmd:", quoted_cmd, file=logfd)

    # Run the script itself on an empty environment, so that what was
    # documented is exactly what was run
    proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, env=env)

    with miniscreen(fancy, name, silent=debug) as progress:
        stderr = []
        for type, val in stream_output(proc):
            if type == "stdout":
                val = val.decode("utf-8")
                if logfd: print("stdout:", val, file=logfd)
                log.debug("%s stdout: %s", name, val)
                progress(type, val)
            elif type == "stderr":
                val = val.decode("utf-8")
                if logfd: print("stderr:", val, file=logfd)
                stderr.append(val)
                log.debug("%s stderr: %s", name, val)
                progress(type, val)
            elif type == "result":
                if logfd: print("retval:", val, file=logfd)
                log.debug("%s retval: %d", name, val)
                retval = val

    if retval != 0:
        lastlines = min(len(stderr), 5)
        log.error("%s exited with code %s", name, retval)
        log.error("Last %d lines of standard error:", lastlines)
        for line in stderr[-lastlines:]:
            log.error("%s: %s", name, line)

    return retval


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="run a command showing only a portion of its output")
parser.add_argument("--logfile", action="store", help="specify a file where the full execution log will be written")
parser.add_argument("--debug", action="store_true", help="debugging output on the terminal")
parser.add_argument("--verbose", action="store_true", help="verbose output on the terminal")
parser.add_argument("command", nargs="*", help="command to run")
args = parser.parse_args()

if args.debug:
    loglevel = logging.DEBUG
elif args.verbose:
    loglevel = logging.INFO
else:
    loglevel = logging.WARN
logging.basicConfig(level=loglevel, stream=sys.stderr)
log = logging.getLogger()

fancy = False
if not args.debug and sys.stdout.isatty():
    curses.setupterm()
    if curses.tigetnum("colors") > 0:
        fancy = True

if args.logfile:
    logfd = open("output.log", "wt")
else:
    logfd = None

retval = run_command_fancy("miniscreen example", args.command, logfd=logfd)

sys.exit(retval)

2015-01-21

eng pdo sw truelite

Upgrade Cyanogenmod with an encrypted phone

Cyanogenmod found an update, it downloaded it, then it rebooted to install it and nothing happened. It turns out that the update procedure cannot work if the zip file to install is in encrypted media, so a workaround is to move the zip into unencrypted external storage.

As far as I know, my Nexus 4 has no unencrypted external storage.

This is how I managed to upgrade it, I write it here so I can find it next time:

enable USB debugging
adb pull /cmupdater/cm-11-20141115-SNAPSHOT-M12-mako.zip
adb reboot recovery
choose "install zip from sideload"
adb sideload cm-11-20141115-SNAPSHOT-M12-mako.zip

2014-12-19

eng pdo sw truelite

Radicale and DAVDroid

radicale and DAVdroid appeal to me. Let's try to make the whole thing work.

A self-signed SSL certificate

Update: use this method instead, to avoid apache complaining that server certificate is a CA certificate.

Generating the certificate:

    openssl req -nodes -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout cal-key.pem -out cal-cert.pem -days 3650
    [...]
    Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:IT
    State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Bologna
    Locality Name (eg, city) []:
    Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:enricozini.org
    Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
    Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:cal.enricozini.org
    Email Address []:postmaster@enricozini.org

Installing it on my phone:

    openssl x509 -in cal-cert.pem -outform DER -out cal-cert.crt
    adb push cal-cert.crt /mnt/sdcard/
    enrico --follow-instructions http://davdroid.bitfire.at/faq/entry/importing-a-certificate

Installing radicale in my VPS

Update: there is already a new version of radicale available in Debian testing.

An updated radicale package, with this patch to make it work with DAVDroid:

    apt-get source radicale
    # I reviewed 063f7de7a2c7c50de5fe3f8382358f9a1124fbb6
    git clone https://github.com/Kozea/Radicale.git
    Move the python code from git to the Debian source
    dch -v 0.10~enrico-1 "Pulled in the not yet released 0.10 work from upstream"
    debuild -us -uc -rfakeroot

Install the package:

    # dpkg -i python-radicale_0.10~enrico0-1_all.deb
    # dpkg -i radicale_0.10~enrico0-1_all.deb

Create a system user to run it:

    # adduser --system --disabled-password radicale

Configure it (/etc/radicale/config) for mod_wsgi with auth done by Apache:

    # For brevity, this is my config file with comments removed

    [storage]
    # Storage backend
    # Value: filesystem | multifilesystem | database | custom
    type = filesystem

    # Folder for storing local collections, created if not present
    filesystem_folder = /var/lib/radicale/collections

    [logging]
    config = /etc/radicale/logging

Create the wsgi file to run it:

    # mkdir /srv/radicale
    # cat <<EOT > /srv/radicale/radicale.wsgi
    import radicale
    radicale.log.start()
    application = radicale.Application()
    EOT
    # chown radicale.radicale /srv/radicale/radicale.wsgi
    # chmod 0755 /srv/radicale/radicale.wsgi

Make radicale commit to git

    # apt-get install python-dulwich
    # cd /var/lib/radicale/collections
    # git init
    # chown radicale.radicale -R /var/lib/radicale/collections/.git

Apache configuration

Add a new site to apache:

    $ cat /etc/apache2/sites-available/cal.conf
    # For brevity, this is my config file with comments removed
    <IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost *:443>
            ServerName cal.enricozini.org
            ServerAdmin enrico@enricozini.org

            Alias /robots.txt /srv/radicale/robots.txt
            Alias /favicon.ico /srv/radicale/favicon.ico

            WSGIDaemonProcess radicale user=radicale group=radicale threads=1 umask=0027 display-name=%{GROUP}
            WSGIProcessGroup radicale
            WSGIScriptAlias / /srv/radicale/radicale.wsgi

            <Directory /srv/radicale>
                    # WSGIProcessGroup radicale
                    # WSGIApplicationGroup radicale
                    # WSGIPassAuthorization On
                    AllowOverride None
                    Require all granted
            </Directory>

            <Location />
                    AuthType basic
                    AuthName "Enrico's Calendar"
                    AuthBasicProvider file
                    AuthUserFile /usr/local/etc/radicale/htpasswd
                    Require user enrico
            </Location>

            ErrorLog{APACHE_LOG_DIR}/cal-enricozini-org-error.log
            LogLevel warn

            CustomLog{APACHE_LOG_DIR}/cal-enricozini-org-access.log combined

            SSLEngine on
            SSLCertificateFile    /etc/ssl/certs/cal.pem
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/cal.key
    </VirtualHost>
    </IfModule>

Then enable it:

    # a2ensite cal.conf
    # service apache2 reload

Create collections

DAVdroid seems to want to see existing collections on the server, so we create them:

    $ apt-get install cadaver
    $ cat <<EOT > /tmp/empty.ics
    BEGIN:VCALENDAR
    VERSION:2.0
    END:VCALENDAR
    EOT
    $ cat <<EOT > /tmp/empty.vcf
    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:2.1
    END:VCARD
    EOT
    $ cadaver https://cal.enricozini.org
    WARNING: Untrusted server certificate presented for `cal.enricozini.org':
    [...]
    Do you wish to accept the certificate? (y/n) y
    Authentication required for Enrico's Calendar on server `cal.enricozini.org':
    Username: enrico
    Password: ****
    dav:/> cd enrico/contacts.vcf/
    dav:/> put /tmp/empty.vcf
    dav:/> cd ../calendar.ics/
    dav:/> put /tmp/empty.ics
    dav:/enrico/calendar.ics/> ^D
    Connection to `cal.enricozini.org' closed.

DAVdroid configuration

Add a new DAVdroid sync account
Use server/username configuration
For server, use https:////
Add username and password

It should work.

Latest posts for tag truelite

Free as in Facebook

Setting up Akonadi

seat-inspect

Playing with python, terminfo and command output

Upgrade Cyanogenmod with an encrypted phone

Radicale and DAVDroid

A self-signed SSL certificate

Installing radicale in my VPS

Make radicale commit to git

Apache configuration

Create collections

DAVdroid configuration

Related links

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Spelling a chilometri zero