Category Archives: Linux

Phoniebox

Linux, Projects

Ich habe unserer Tochter zu Weihnachten eine Phoniebox gebaut. Grundsätzlich findet man alle nötigen Informationen auf der Webseite der Phoniebox, ich beschreibe hier rudimentär die Schritte die ich gemacht habe und die verwendete Hardware. Die Front wurde gefräst, der Rahmen vom OLED-Display mit PLA gedruckt und die Symbole gelasert, alles mit dem Snapmaker 2.0 A350. Zusätzlich habe ich aus einer Schublade vom Dragan eine Aufbewahrungsbox für die RFID-Karten gemacht.

Hardwareliste:

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2
SanDisk 32GB SD Card
Raspberry Pi 3 GPIO expansion board
LED-Arcade Buttons (nicht verwendet)
1.3″ 4-Pin I2C OLED 128X64 mit sh1106 Controller
125kHz RFID Karten
RFID Reader EM4100/Tk400 125kHz
USB Buchse
EARU On/Off Schalter
HifiBerry MiniAMP
Pimoroni OnOff SHIM
Speedlink Twoxo Speaker
Trust Urban Primo PowerBank 10’000mAh
Dragan von IKEA
Östernäs von IKEA
EC11 Rotary Encoder als Lautstärkeregler
TTP223 Touch Sensoren als Bedienelemente
Lichtwellenleiter

Continue reading Phoniebox →

Update an ESXi Host from SSH

Linux

Notes how to update a VMware ESXi host:

1. Download Patch from VMware

2. Load it on a Datastore (e.g. with scp) on the ESXi host and connect with SSH. SSH Server must be activated if it’s not already done (Host -> Manage -> Services).

3. Show version:

vmware -vl
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 (Build 4887370)
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Update 1

3a. Optional: List all installed VIB’s:

esxcli software vib list

4. Move all VM’s to another Host or shut down, then activate Maintenance Mode:

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

5. Start Update:

esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1_local/patch/ESXi650-xxxxxxxxxx.zip

6. The updater will show if it’s necessary to reboot the machine.

7. Show new version:

vmware -vl
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 build-7388607
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Update 1

8. End Maintenance mode:

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

9. Start VM’s again.

 

vCenter Server behind NAT

General, Linux, Network

Be warned: This configuration is not officially supported by VMware.

If you have your vCenter Server behind NAT, you can not connect your ESXi Host to this Server. It will loose connection after a few seconds to vCenter because vCenter publishes his private IP to the configuration of ESXi.

1. We need an port forwarding of port TCP/UDP 902 from your public IP to the internal IP of the vCenter Server. If you have a Firewall, allow connections only from the IP of your ESXi host.

2. Connect over SSH to the ESXi Host and edit vpxa.cfg with vi:

vi /etc/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg

Configure the following settings:

Insert this tag, if you don’t add this tag and restart the services, it will overwrite the IP again with the private one of vCenter:

<preserveServerIp>true</preserveServerIp>

Replace the private IP of the vCenter Server with the public one:

<serverIp>PublicIPvCenterServer</serverIp>

Restart services:

/etc/init.d/hostd restart

Now the connection should stay stable.

HomeAssistant on Raspberry Pi

Linux, Projects

home-assistant-logo

This are my notes to install home-assistant on a raspberry-pi 3. At the end, this is a multipart how-to for installing home-assistant and mosquitto (MQTT) with a NodeMCU and some magnetic contacts.

Copy Raspbian Lite to an SD Card on Mac OSX (use rdisk is faster):

sudo dd if=Downloads/2017-11-29-raspbian-stretch-lite.img of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=4m conv=sync

Enable SSH (create a file named ssh on the SD-Card):
touch /Volumes/boot/ssh

Put the SD-Card into your raspberry and boot it up.

Login and change password of user pi and root:
passwd
sudo passwd root

Configure WLAN:
wpa_passphrase “YourWLANSSID” “yourWLANPassword”
Configure WLAN in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:
country=CH
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid=”YourWLANSSID”
#psk=”yourWLANPassword” <<<<<—– REMOVE THIS COMMENTED LINE!
psk=131e1e221f6e06e3911a2d11ff2fac9182665c004de85300f9cac208a6a80531
}

You have a fixed IP? (preferred!)
Edit /etc/dhcpcd.conf and set the hostname inside this file.
Add config for your interface:
interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.0.XXX/24
static routers=192.168.0.XXX
static domain_name_servers=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
static domain_search=some.domain.com
static domain_name=some.domain.com

Use raspi-config to configure your raspberry hostname and partition then reboot.

Continue reading HomeAssistant on Raspberry Pi →

DIY Airplane tracker (ADS-B tracking)

Linux, Projects

Do you want to build your Airplane tracker by yourself? It’s easy and it’s realtime, not delayed like flightradar24.

What do you need?

Here are the steps for Linux/Unix Systems:
Download and unzip the Software:

wget https://github.com/antirez/dump1090/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip

Change into the unzipped directory and execute make:

cd dump1090-master/
make

Plug in your DVB-T stick and launch dump1090:

./dump1090 --interactive --net

The option “interactive” tells the program to output planes with automatically refreshed screen every second
The option “net” enables networking support.

After a few seconds you should see the first planes:

You can even connect with your webbrowser to http://127.0.0.1:8080 to see the planes on a map.

Now you should see planes near you. It’s best to go outside with your antenna to track airplanes. You can even build better antennas 😉 See the links below.

Happy plane tracking!

DIY Antenna: ADS-B wine cork antenna
Or if you use Windows see this post here: dump1090 on Windows