Story is that I have several TP-Link WR710N access points in use, flashed with OpenWrt. The preinstalled (factory) OS is a bit too limiting, resource-intensive and cannot be checked for flaws (or be modified for that matter). Whilst reading the OpenWrt website, I saw they merged with the LEDE project and they are merging their efforts. Hooray for this/these amazing project(s).

Since my installations are a bit stale (and they still work like a charm), it was time to do updates. The project has a fine page about sysupgrade, which describes the process for both the GUI (webinterface) and commandline (preferred). As such I'd like to share the experience, together with some examples.

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Today isn't just Valentines day, but also I love Free Software Day! I've been using (and contributing) Free Software for years now and don't want anything else. Even when I've given non-Free Software another chance, every time I was glad when I returned to Free Software.

A big thank you goes out to all developers, sysadmins, network guru's, translators, bugsquashers and all other contributors.

A small selection of tools/libraries/projects/organizations I'm thankful for this year: debian, ubuntu, terminator, mate, vi(m), firefox, thunderbird, postgresql, apache, kvm, libvirt, bash, openssh, nextcloud, workrave, audacious, vlc, mtp (Media Transfer Protocol), ext2/ext3/ext4/btrfs, mdadm, postfix, the linux kernel, fosdem, fsfe, eff, bitsoffreedom, ccc and kodi.

For the next year, let's make sure we don't squabble amongst ourselves. Let us be even more understanding and help each other out more. Let us agree to disagree and be fine with that. I do not care which window manager, editor, desktop or database you use. Of course I have my own preferences and don't mind a good discussion. As long as we give each other the freedom to choose what we want, it's OK. We're all playing for the Free Software team. And yes, each of us known that we are right ;-)

At the previous FOSDEM I picked up the following card and gave it to my wife, she liked it a lot (just a tip)

Earlier this year I went on a long holiday to Japan and China. I have an Android phone and am a very big fan of OpenStreetMap. So I used OsmAnd (which uses OpenStreetMap data) to navigate through those countries. I made a spreadsheet with LibreOffice, which included a few links to certain location which are hard to find or do not have an address. Then I exported that .ods to a .pdf and was able to click on the links, which then openend perfectly in OsmAnd.

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My girlfriends phone broke this week and I gave her my spare (old) Samsung Galaxy S4, which I had replaced due to glitches (like not seeing the SIM card regularly). But it worked most of the time and a simple reboot would fix the issue. At the end of the next day she told me that her mobile internet was not working and I was surprised. I did not modify anything, so the Telfort configuration must have come from the network. On their website you are able to find the correct settings, but you have to follow a terribly inefficient, phone specific wizard and are guided step-by-step (e.g. user friendly) to correctly configure the settings. The settings basically boil down to:

APN: internet
MCC: 204
MNC: 12
Accesspoint type: default,supl

Then I simply saved and enabled this and all was well again.

For those who are interested, a proxy server (with port) was configured and encryption was enabled.

Ever since the talk about WireGuard at FOSDEM last year, I have been keeping an eye on the project. They opening line explains the project perfectly:

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This morning I woke up to my irssi client not being connected anymore to the Freenode IRC servers. irssi clearly states why, I got k-lined while I was sleeping! Also several query (private message) windows are open, so I was at least at the receiving end of spam.

My first thoughts go out to my irssi server, is it compromised and am I sending out spam? After a few minutes of searching, I notice nothing out of the ordinary. I check the Freenode website and find some useful information about usermodes. Let's try if I can connect to Freenode again... it works! Quickly I set my usermode to +R which blocks (ignores) messages from unidentified users with:

/mode username +R

Seems like a good idea to join #freenode and check about the details of my k-line. Upon joining the channel, I read the channel topic and it is immediately clear what is going:

If you were k-lined, it was a mistake, our apologies | freenode is currently suffering from a wave of PM spam. Please do not follow links. Please set `/mode yourusername +R` to minimise spam. | Welcome to #freenode. On-call staff can be found via '/stats p'. For a list of all staff, try '/who freenode/staff/*'. | Please do not copy spam into channels. | freenode #live takes place 28-29 O

Luckily I already read up on usermodes and it is good to hear that my k-line was indeed a mistake. I wish the Freenode team a lot of luck with fighting this spam wave.

Earlier this week I resurrect my blog with Hugo. After setting up the site and blogging a bit, I wondered how my RSS feeds looked, since that is the de-facto standard for subscribing to websites. Unfortunately I could not easily find and enable the RSS feeds, and it looks like RSS is part of templating instead of being built-in. Somehow this was the final (of several) papercuts and I was fed up with Hugo. Then I remembered hearing about the Nikola static site generator, most recently referenced by Alan Pope on the Ubuntu Podcast, and I thought I would give that a try.

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Since IPv6 is happening, we should be prepared. During the deployment of a new accesspoint I was in need of a Unique Local Address. IPv6 Unique Local Addresses basically are comparable to the IPv4 private address ranges.

Some sites refer to Unique-Local-IPv6.com, but that is offline nowadays. Others refer to kame.net generator, which is open source and still available yay.

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You might have noticed, but I am re-starting to blog. Currently I am experimenting with Hugo for this. The last time around my blog was based on Wordpress and before that I also used PyBlosxom.

It is quite funny that I am moving back to a static site generator again. Back in the day my main reason for it was optimal resource usage. Then I went for user friendlyness and now I want a fast _and_ secure system again.

Right off the bat I was smacked in the face again with my arch enemy, theming. It took me a while to select and configure a theme which I think is "good enough" for now. I am not a (web) designer and I do not want to become that, but at times like these... Anyway, this could mean that the site will be re-structered or re-themed, consider it in a state of flux.