Linux

Adding a disk to an encrypted mdadm array

My RAID6 was originally planned with 6 drives, but only had 5 for a while due to space concerns with the case. However, I found as a file, media, and multiple cryptocurrency node it filled up the 2.7TB pretty quickly. So, I got a new case (and some more RAM), which has proper space for 6 3.5” drives (and 2 5.25”). When migrating to this I decided to add the extra 1TB WD Red NAS drive I bought but have not been able to use.

The case is a Fractal Design Define Mini, and I am thoroughly impressed. Six 3.5” slots, two 5.25” external slots, and lots of sound padding on the doors and sides.

My SuperMicro server in the Fractal Design case

Categories: Computing, Linux

Fixing mirrorlist on Arch Linux Arm (Raspberry Pi)

I hadn’t updated my Raspberry Pi (a B+ model for my rpi-drd project) in about a year. Pacman -Syu kept complaining about being unable to find files on any of the mirrors. So I, without thinking, ran reflector on an x86 host and copied it over. Oops. Now it definitely can’t find packages. The archlinuxarm.org website gave me the hostname I needed, but not the entire URL. Put this in your mirrorlist (as the sole entry) to restore functionality:
Categories: Computing, Raspberry Pi

Installing Arch Linux with an encrypted root

I’ve got a ThinkPad T410. I got it off craigslist in what was a somewhat shady transaction. Regardless, it came with a 300GB spinner. Not interested in finding out how much life was left on it I got a solid state replacement from NewEgg for “Cyber Monday”. A 240GB Intel one for $110, that’s less than 50 cents per GB!

The spinner has a single unencrypted partition with Arch Linux running on it. I wanted to run Arch on an encrypted partition. The main reason: If it’s ever stolen I don’t want to have to worry about any of the data on it. Bonus reason: Geek/spy points.

So, while there are excellent guides for installing Arch, and setting up encryption, and optimizing an SSD, there don’t seem to be any combining the three. In reality it’s not that much more difficult, and if you are motivated to setup encryption on Linux in the first place you probably know what you’re doing. Still, I was disheartened a bit at the lack of information so I decided to note how I went about it in general.

Categories: Computing

Carduino 2.0 – Intel Galileo Setup

Out of the box the Galileo is setup to run sketches uploaded from volatile memory, which is really lame. I didn’t spend much time with it using the stock SPI kernel. So, an SD card is pretty much required to do any serious development with this board. This is not a bad thing (although you aren’t running in real-time anymore), since having a full OS to use has lots of advantages. Plus, this way I can automate the build process in a way I’m more familiar with.

Categories: Arduino, Programming

Arch Linux on Lenovo ThinkPad T410

I picked up a really cheap ThinkPad T410 from Craigslist. First-gen mobile Core i5, 4GB, 320GB drive and most importantly: 1440×900. A 40% increase in horizontal space (and 17% vertical). Finally I can tune without trying to get TunerStudio to fit. Installing Arch was quick, as usual. The laptop has a fingerprint reader, which works really well in Linux. Now I can log in with a finger swipe-although you have to press enter after swiping.
Categories: Cars, Computing

Moving home server to Arch

I’ve ordered a 2 terabyte hard drive to appropriately serve as a backup drive for my home server. This would normally just require swapping the old backup drive out for it, and then performing a backup. But I figure since I’ll have it down anyway, I’ll have enough drives to swap to Arch Linux and get things going again with the old drive as a … backup. I’ve got quite a few services setup on it, and I’m not looking forward to moving all the config files over
Categories: Computing

udev broke, server broke, router broke

I attempted to get a webcam going on our home server. So, I plug it in, and since I’ve done this before I ran a script I made to grab an image from the webcam. Which didn’t work. So, after checking out why (/dev/video0 node was missing), I noticed that the kernel no longer had support built in. After going through the kernel options, I realized they changed the v4l and webcam support options around and since I just upgrade using “-silentoldconfig” (the bad way to do upgrades), it broke whenever I upgraded to 3.
Categories: Computing

Home server is back online

I’ve pulled power and cable from the attic and just powered up the home server again. It’s been asleep for 5 months until now. I’ve just done an emerge -sync, and it took about 10 minutes to complete. However, it went up without any problems, which is good. Considering I turned it off in a working state. I was tempted to backup all my config files and start fresh with, say, Arch Linux, but that would take all weekend.
Categories: Computing

Gentoo on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro

If your sick of your brand new MacBook just working (more or less), and you just feel like modifying your kernel’s source to get your computer to work right, you’ve come to the right place. I (finally) managed to get Gentoo booting on a new MacBook Pro (15”, Core i7, mid-2012) alongside OS X 10.8.2. I suppose it actually wasn’t that bad, it could have been much worse. I only had to reinstall OS X once after a wonky partition editor….
Categories: Computing