Tag Archives: ubuntu

How to configure macOS TimeMachine and Ubuntu 20.04

Recently I wanted to be able to backup my Mac via TimeMachine, but unfortunately I did not have a large enough HDD to back up, so I’ve decided to backup to one of my servers. Not until recently that was not an option until I ran into a blog post that produced an step by step configuration to run successfully, but what I did find out was that my server was getting full and TimeMachine did not do a good enough job deleting old backups. So, I found a single command to limit the backups, but what I found was that if the plist has been already copied (meaning a backup was already ran), the new limits won’t be recognized. So you will need to run a new backup with carrying the limits on the new plist to the server.

Below are the steps to successfully be able to config a TimeMachine backup server with limits on your backups so you don’t run out of storage 😉 .

  1. Ensure that you have a ubuntu 20.04 LTS image running with enough storage to perform the backups
  2. Run sudo apt install -y netatalk avahi-daemon
  3. Run sudo vi /etc/netatalk/afp.conf
  4. Add a section for your Time Machine:
    [Time Machine]
      path = /media/path/to/backups
      time machine = yes
  5. Create a directory to act as the Time Machine:
    sudo mkdir -p /media/path/to/backups
  6. Run sudo chown nobody:nogroup /media/path/to/backups
  7. Run sudo chmod 777 /media/path/to/backups
  8. Restart netatalk:
    sudo service netatalk restart
  9. Now, on your Mac, before doing anything else, might be smart to put a limit on your backup.  The command below will put a 100GB limit.
    sudo defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 102400
  10. At this point… you should be able to open the Time Machine settings in System Preferences and use Select Disk… to pick your new Time Machine backup drive. Where /media/path/to/backups should show up on the path.
  11. Enjoy your Time Machine backups 🙂

sources

https://www.grizzly-hills.com/2019/11/02/ubuntu-19-10-setting-up-time-machine/

Docker container + X11 on macOS = Awesome

I’ve been exploring dockerizaton lately more and more and I think I like the idea of having my apps in containers.  I am not going to lie, it does take some time to get used to, but it is pretty cool the things that you can do.

One thing that I think I wanted to accomplish was able to run X11 apps through docker.  I found Docker Headless VNC container and that was slick.  Where I was able to run a whole Xfce environment within a Docker container!!! kudos to those folks.  Now, my challenge was that in my case, I didn’t want a fat image and/or configure each app to download of configuring. So, this wasn’t my solution at this time.  So, I decided to explore further and found a way to run X11 from a Docker container in macOS.  Below are the steps on how to accomplish this.

  1. Install XQuartz (X11),  Docker and homebrew.  You can follow their respective installation process.
  2. Install socat which is a “multipurpose relay.”  This will allow us to call the display.
    brew install socat
  3. Create you local Dockerfile.  In this particular case, I am using Ubuntu latest (which at the time of this post is 16.04.1 LTS).  On your terminal, you can do “vi Dockerfile” and paste the info from below in that file.
    FROM ubuntu:latest
    
    RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y firefox
    
    RUN useradd -ms /bin/bash developer && \
     echo "\ndeveloper ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers
    
    USER developer
    ENV HOME /home/developer
    CMD /usr/bin/firefox
  4. Then, let’s build the Docker image by doing the following…
    docker build -t firefox .
  5. Now, on a different terminal, run the following command…
    socat TCP-LISTEN:6000,reuseaddr,fork UNIX-CLIENT:\"$DISPLAY\"
  6. Then come back to your old terminal (or a different one) and run this command
    docker run -ti --rm \
    -e DISPLAY=$(ipconfig getifaddr en0):0 \
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
    firefox
  7. At this point, you should have opened a Firefox instance from your Docker container through X11 on macOS 🙂
    If you didn’t… take a look at the steps again.  Happy dev and opening other X11 instances.

Sources:

http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2014/09/11/running-gui-apps-with-docker/

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16296753/can-you-run-gui-apps-in-a-docker-container#

https://github.com/mbessler/docker-gnucash

https://hub.docker.com/r/palshife/ssh/

https://hub.docker.com/r/palshife/gnucash/

https://github.com/ConSol/docker-headless-vnc-container

https://askubuntu.com/questions/192050/how-to-run-sudo-command-with-no-password

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27701930/add-user-to-docker-container

https://askubuntu.com/questions/842572/file-in-etc-sudoers-d-not-recognized

System Monitor Indicator For Unity Panel In Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

If you install the new version of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot you will notice that it comes with Unity installed in order to make a better OS experience.  That could be very well true, but I do like to see my system monitor and see how my PC is behaving.  Now, it can not be easily done with unity, but if you would like to do it, go to the link below and you will be able to find steps by using PPA in order to get your system monitor on unity.  Also, if you don’t like unity you could go back to gnome, but that is something different that is not being cover in this article. 🙂

Source http://www.linuxnov.com/system-monitor-indicator-for-unity-panel-in-ubuntu-11-04-natty-narwhal/

Upgrade to Ubuntu from Natty Narwhal 11.04 to Oneiric Ocelot 11.10

The following steps below from Ubuntu will guide you in terms of successfully upgrading your Ubuntu system from Natty Narwhal 11.04 to Oneiric Ocelot 11.10.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in “update-manager -d” (sans quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and display following message: “New distribution release ‘11.10’ is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions”.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 on a server system, follow the steps listed below: Step 1: Install the update-manager-core package (if it is not already installed). Step 2: Use following command sudo do-release-upgrade -d to launch the upgrade tool. Step 3: Follow the on-screen instructions. Note that the server upgrade is now more robust and will utilize GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of dropped connection problems, for example.

Source: OneiricOcelot/ReleaseNotes – Ubuntu Wiki.

Ubuntu Backup Before Upgrade (UBBU)

just in case you didn’t know i created not too long my first linux bash script.  the reason why i developed this was because i was getting tired of backing up my ubuntu linux system every six months.  so, if you would like to be able to backup certain selected folders and files you could download a copy by going to Ubuntu Backup Before Upgrade site.

Upgrade Amarok to 2.0

this one will allow you to have the lastest verison of amarok in your sources.

  1. add the following line to your sources list
  2. deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu intrepid main

  3. then find “amarok-kde4” on synaptic manager and install it
  4. the upgrade will take care of deleting the old amarok and installing the new one in

Upgrade OpenOffice to 3.0

i’ve been using the older version of openoffice and i wanted to upgrade to 3.0 in ubuntu.  well it is not as easy as … i download the files and then click upgrade.  there are repositories that i need to download in order to install them properly.  you will be using ppa (personal package archive) in order to have such of installation.

so what i did in order to have this upgrade automatically is the following steps:

  1. first you will need to open “synaptic package manager
  2. go to “third-party software” tab and then click on “add”
  3. add this following line
    deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main
  4. now reload the package information the synaptic package manager and then upgrade

Facebook On Your Messenger

alright… i know that i am currently working on a paper but i had to do this.  just as it right now i just experience the best application that i could ever imagine.  i really hate people that chat through facebook chat and i really hate to be bother while i am stalking others :D.  so what it is what i am talking about… the facebook integration to pidgin in order to use it as a instant message application, just like if you were using yahoo, msn, icq and others.

now i will be able to chat with my friends with no problem from my instant messenger.  that is why i love open source applications, it gives you the freedom  to use it which ever way you want it.

so in order to have facebook on your im you will need to get…

  1. pidgin at http://pidgin.im/
  2. facebook add-in at http://www.getdeb.net/release/3699

and that is it… NOTE: that this was tested on ubuntu (linux os).

Enable USB with Virtualbox

this small tutorial will illustrate how to have your usb working with virtualbox.  virtualbox has the usb support disable by default.  if you want to have your usb to work properly with virtualbox you would have to perform the following steps.

this tutorial applies for ubuntu 8.10.  but it might work with other distros.

steps:

  1. type “sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh
  2. go to the following block
    #
    # Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
    #
    #mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
    #domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
    #ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
    #mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

    change it to
    #
    # Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
    #
    mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
    domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
    ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
    mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

  3. now go type “sudo gedit /etc/fstab”
  4. copy and paste the following code to your fstab
    none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1000,devmode=664 0 0

you are almost done.  now reboot your computer and you should be good to go.

Installing Tor in Ubuntu Hardy

before i show you how to install tor in ubuntu hardy, i am going to explain a little bit what exactly tor is.

Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Retrieved from torproject.org

So if you want more information go and visit torproject.org and you will be able to answer all your questions.  so now lets go and install tor in ubuntu.

Steps:

  1. Open your “Terminal” and type “sudo apt-get install tor”
  2. after tor is installed now you will need to install privoxy.  for that you will need to go to this page and download you system architecture version (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=35042&release_id=627607).  in my case is privoxy_3.0.10-1_i386.deb.after having both programs install now is all about configuration of just one of them ;).
  3. now, on your “Terminal” make a copy of the configuration file from privoxy folder. in my case would be “sudo cp /etc/privoxy/config /etc/privoxy/config-backup”
  4. make a new file with “sudo nano /etc/privoxy/config”
  5. paste the following information:

    # Generally, this file goes in /etc/privoxy/config
    #
    # Tor listens as a SOCKS4a proxy here:
    forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
    confdir /etc/privoxy
    logdir /var/log/privoxy
    actionsfile standard # Internal purpose, recommended
    actionsfile default # Main actions file
    actionsfile user # User customizations
    filterfile default.filter

    # Don’t log interesting things, only startup messages, warnings and errors
    #logfile logfile
    #jarfile jarfile
    #debug 0 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
    debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings
    debug 8192 # Errors – *we highly recommended enabling this*

    user-manual /usr/share/doc/privoxy/user-manual
    listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118
    toggle 1
    enable-remote-toggle 0
    enable-edit-actions 0
    enable-remote-http-toggle 0
    buffer-limit 4096

    Retrieve from https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/PrivoxyConfig

  6. exit out from the program (nano NOT terminal) and save it.
  7. go to this site to install the tor plug in for firefox.  Tor Plug in.
  8. after firefox is restarted click on the “Tor Disabled” button in the bottom to enable it, and to check that it works properly go to check tor installation.

if it works, congrats.  if it doesn’t sorry.  go back and check this tutorial or go to tor website to get support.