WireGuard VPN on a JetKVM

The setting…

I recently started adopting WireGuard VPN into more and more of my server infrastructure. Consequently, I was wondering if the Linux-based JetKVM could also be integrated into these networks - especially useful since I do not want to use their cloud solution, but still want to deploy these onto remote locations as needed. So, getting WireGuard to run there was both harder and easier than expected - here is a write-up on how to do it. If you just came here to quickly copy-paste some commands, there you go:

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Unbranding a Fritz!Box 6490 KDG Edition

What was going on?

Recently, I had once again the unique opportunity to flash a “Fritz!Box 6490 KDG Edition” with the guarantee of no consequences in case I completely brick it. This time, because I needed the DECT functionality still working after this operation, I chose to stay on the proprietary firmware by AVM. 🤷‍♂️

So, here is my battle plan:

1. Get the stock firmware for the device from its vendors download-server with its recovery-tool in case it goes really wrong.
2. Convince the bootloader to report an unbranded model to the OS (guide from here)
3. “Recover” and boot it
4. Enjoy a more open experience!

What really happened…

Obtaining the stock image

This is where I hit the first road-block: The manufacturer offers seemingly no recovery.exe-tool for this device. So, to proceed, I just grabbed the original firmware image from their download server and extracted the partition images from it:

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Phishing Attempt on Steam

Well, that happened…

…just a word of warning: Be careful on the internet!

I was randomly contacted by some dude on Steam late at night, stating that he wanted me to connect with his buddy - fine, right? While he did not identify himself properly, I shrugged it off, as he just wanted to hook me up with his friend quickly. I was like “Sure, why not?”, let’s give it a shot. Here is a screenshot of our little chat:

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OpenWrt for Fritz!Box 7360 EWE Edition

What was going on?

Recently, I had the unique opportunity to open-source flash a “Fritz!Box 7360 EWE Edition” with the guarantee of no consequences in case I completely brick it! So my first choice fell on OpenWrt, as it is a well-known and well-documented open-source firmware for routers and modems. Especially, this would fix issues with increasingly decreasing wireless performance with the original firmware after multiple weeks of uptime (thanks AVM).

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OPNsense for R&S GP T-10

What?

I recently got some old firewalls - the “Rohde & Schwarz GP T-10” (they are even still oficially supported by the latest software release by the manufacturer!). These are embedded devices build to be deployed in workshops (or any other harsh environment) and are therefore fanless designed. They are also very small and have a very low power consumption. The hardware is quite old, but still more or less capable for a firewall. The only problem is, that the operating system is not open source and therefore not very flexible. So I decided to replace the operating system with OPNsense.

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Rice Pudding - without rice

Ingredients

• 40g Sugar
• 1 packet Cream-Pudding Pulver
• 500ml Milk
• 6x drops Vanilla flavor
• 5x Butter Biscuit (“Butterkeks”)

Assembly

Stove.insert(pot);
pot.insert(mix(milk, sugar, aroma));
Stove.heat(pot, 100%);
while(pot.content is not cooking)
    stir(pot.content);
Hand.insert(butter_biscuits);
Hand.crush();
pot.insert(pudding_pulver);
pot.insert(butter_biscuits);
for(2 minutes)
    stir(pot.content);
while(pot.temperature > environment.temperature)
    wait();
Fridge.insert(pot);

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Ceiling Light: B.K.Licht and Home Assistant

Leadup

Everything started as I bought the “LED Panel, Colour Temperature Fully Adjustable […]” by “B.K.Licht” off Amazon. It worked great with the also shipped remote control and it was only a little bit inconvenient to never have the remote when needed. It is a 15W LED panel with RGB/WW/CW and therefore 5 channels. I chose it because the pictures in the reviews indicated a modular power supply and also showed some minor information about the wattage and ratings. Furthermore, the manufacturer (or at least distributor) was also located in Germany, so I hoped for easier communication.

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LaTeX is shit

Here is my list of problems…

• Bad parameter transfer: {} is so illegible in quantities
• Commands are illegible: In LibreOffice I write e in R or m = abs (M) and have what I want. Done.
• Nesting is shitty to read: If it ends with }}})} you have a lot of fun!
• Not live: Okay, I’ll put it behind bracket number four… Wait five seconds… Damn, put it next to it and again… - And only when Overleaf isn’t going crazy!
• Hmm, we have a style parameter with {}. THEN LET’S GO BRUTAL. Elsewhere you can add " " for a string or space to be respected, which does not affect the reading flow. But {} - here you are always forced to {}. For. Every. Shit.
• LaTeX does a lot for you - if you don’t want that, you have to deal with warnings and complaints.
• Unintuitive syntax: \subtitle * {BS} - you have an idea what * is doing here? No. Neither do I - but please do not include a readable parameter or other command for it - because LaTeX!
• Just open it offline? With pleasure. Then I’ll just download the 1-2GB LaTeX compiler collection. LibreOffice, for example, is 500 MB in size - and that with a complete GUI, image processing and spreadsheets!
• Okay, \rightarrow etc. is nice - but did you know that you can also pass parameters to that?!? At least that’s Overleaf.
• And LaTeX tries to be able to do everything: Instead of dividing the standard into math, markup, graphics, etc., you have to be careful that math commands are available in the text flow, but do not do what they should -> simply prevents context-based simplification.
• And I don’t think that it can be easily expanded - in LibreOffice? I want to embed an auto-updating website screenshot? Sure thing. In the worst case add a Python script as a plugin. Done. Latex? Nope.
• And yes, I’ve already seen one or the other LaTeX text - how did I recognize it? Images from the following chapters have ended up in the previous ones. Why? Because LaTeX felt it was “more suitable”.
• …this gets even worse if you try to separate two chapters by introducing a new page starting with your headline (using \newpage): Now you have a new page with your new chapter AND the graphics from the previous chapter! Try using \clearpage - it does not clear, but flush instead!
• Shitty to archive: Oh, I opened an old document - let’s hope that the exotic plugins (which you use very quickly, because LaTeX ends very quickly) can still be found somewhere … LibreOffice etc? The document from 1999 still just works - Word even down to the first version. And for archiving, it is sufficient to save the portable version as well. Done. Latex? Have fun scraping together all the extensions from the most diverse corners.
• LibreOffice has a document. It has everything used in it: fonts, images - everything. I open it for myself and it does for you too. Done. LaTeX you have to push everything around somehow - not to mention that one LaTeX compiler may not swallow the x format like the other.
• Include media? With pleasure: Just no two clicks with clear submenus. But HELL NO, you need to integrate a plugin and then google elsewhere what the damn alignment command for images with that specific plugin is. Because there is another command for text based alignment.
• Copy&Paste from LaTeX documents? No! Try it for yourself, you’ll may find spontaneously missing underscores or reordered letters. Also good luck selecting tables - they only look like them!
• Did you know that LaTeX will always rescale your images? There is no way to turn it off, except…
• …to prevent image rescaling you have to convert them to a PDF. These won’t be scaled in any way, as LaTeX is currently not supporting this. Now imagine you learn this after you are already using >42 images and you now have to painstakingly convert them.
• Change DPI? Nope, just does not do anything. Because why should the recommended command work?
• An other way to prevent image rescaling is to use vector graphics - which is fine. EXCEPT that LaTeX does not support SVG (which is THE filetype used in browsers, fonts, icon packs…) and it is recommended… To use PDF.
• PDF optimization does not exist. You have a complex PDF-graph by mathplotlib? Let it slow down and crash the reader. But GOD FORBID you have a png-image, that MUST be scaled down so no text is readible anymore!
• Sometimes the text placement on pages is just… weird.
• BibTeX. A tool for standardized citations. But - ITS OWN FORMAT IS NOT STANDARDIZED! Beside questionable historic categories, nobody seems to know which tokens should be used when…
• Also BibTeX: It is 2022 now (or maybe even later) and this package does not even come with URL (or URI) support (you know, often enough you need to use this). You need to search the internet to find a suitable replacement. Again.
• Your professor gives you a LaTeX template you are forced to use - okay! Just import it and use it, right? NO! I imported it into Overleaf (because I still refuse to install that crap) and all formatting is broken and packages are missing. So much for portability!
• Inside some documents/fonts charaters like ff, ti or ft are represented using a special remapped character - resulting in a broken search feature as you e.g. would need to enter ← to search for ff, e.g. “scaffold” must be searched as “sca←old”. Imgaine the pain with words containing a “-tion” or special characters you can’t enter!
• Ever tried to use a \footnote{} inside a \caption{} of a \figure{}? This will not work out due to the compiler error-ing out. It is a known problem, where you have to use the optional parameters of the caption - fine, but that also does not work… Then, if you dig deep enough, there is a workaround using a \footnotemarker and a subsequent \footnotetext - but guess what: That works including throwing the same errors as before!? If \citep{} works without issues inside \caption{} in the provided template, why does \footnote{} not.
• Also something I just encountered: I was typing and typing, the amount should already fill another page, but upon rendering, the page-count stayed the same. Fine, I think while scrolling back up, LaTeX must have found a way to realign the content to fit in the new text without adding a new page. Yes, it did. On another page, in another chapter, are now four two centimeter tall white spaces, as the previously placed graphics were moved somewhere entirely else. Nice, makes reading so much more aesthetic.

…not bad?

• Okay, it’s nice that I can script my documents too.
• Okay, yes the source can be versioned well via Git.

That would be all. Let’s see what else I find in the future.

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Mekanism Generator Uran Production

Random side note - here is a corrected version of the uran production line for Mekanism v12.

Download

Thank me later!

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Prusa Mini+ WiFi and virtual USB

What?

The Prusa Mini+ has a problem: It has no WiFi. Also the software does not support any wifi module until now - that feature is planned, but not implemented. Additionally the web interface is, let’s say, not really working, as the printer struggles with serving the static contents (like .css and .js), which are required to render the site. This issue is also known since release 4.3.0 but also not resolved (#1285).

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Kernel Panic by SCSI

I’ve notices some kernel panics on one of my vms when ever any other vm was doing some more cpu intensive work. It seemed there was no reason, as there was no unusual ram usage or vm-host events! So I ignored it for a while until I was finally able to trigger it by using one of my own services - here is a little record of the crash (just in case of further reference):

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Star Trek and Orville

Some actors known from “Star Trek” I noticed inside “The Orville”:

• Robert Picardo: Ildis_Kitan / The Doctor
• Timm Russ: Dr. Sherman / Mr. Tuvok
• Marina Sirtis: Schoolteacher / Deanna Troi
• John Billingsley: Cambis Borrin / Dr. Phlox
• Penny Johnson: Claire Finn / Kasidy Yates-Sisko
• Brent Spiner: Sounds familar? / Lt. Cmdr. Data

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Crispy Olive Bread Slices

Ingredients

• 120ml Olive oil
• 40g Garlic powder
• Some Pepper
• 4x White bread slices

Assembly

for(breadSlice of bread) {
    toast = Toaster.toast(breadSlice);
    paste = mix(oil, garlic powder, pepper);
    result = spread(paste, toast);
    while(result.temperature > warm)
        wait();
}

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Vanillesauce / Pudding á la Simon

Ingredients

• 500ml Milk
• 3x Spoon starch
• 3x Spoon sugar (+1 spoon for pudding)
• 4x Drops butter-vanilla flavor (may mix 1:1 with rum flavor)

Assembly

pot.insert(mix(milk, starch, sugar, flavor));
Stove.insert(pot);
Stove.heat(pot, 100%);
while(pot.content.stateOfAggregation == fluid)
    stir(pot.content);
Stove.heat(pot, 0%);
while(pot.content.temperature > cold)
    wait();

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SQLite to MariaDB Migration of Solder

What happended?

Well, quick and simple: I needed to migrate my Solder service for the Technic Launcher to an other database backend for several reasons. One main reason was, that the current hoster of it planned to shutdown some deprecated PHP versions - but Solder does not support the sqlite database for newer PHP versions anymore. So I needed to switch the database solution (without loosing too much data, because the instance houses several hundert modification at the time) right now.

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WarriorCats Roleplay - Beendet

Nun…

Nichts währt für immer und ewig, auch wenn es anders scheint. Damit möchte ich nun auf das Ende des WarriorCats Roleplay Projekt (zumindest von meiner Seite) verweisen. Es sei angemerkt, dass das ganze Projekt eventuell dank der Community weiterlaufen wird - wenn sich nun doch noch Jemand findet. So war die Suche nach einem neuen Admin schon seid Längerm im Gange, konnte aber nur langsam abgeschlossen werden. Der Discord Server wird nun unter neuer Führung weiterlaufen - bis auf Weiteres. Das Modpack sowie alle weiteren Dienste werden nun Stück für Stück abgeschaltet. Diesmal wird es aufgrund des Wunsches der ehemaligen Leiterin keinen öffentlichen Server Download geben, dennoch stehe ich bei Fragen noch weiter zur Verfügung. Also, bis dann!

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