A few days later, I bought a Dell D610 laptop (Celeron 2.0GHz, 40GB hard disc) off Ebay and some additional memory to take it to 2GB.

I had downloaded Ubuntu Server 10.10 about the same time and burnt the ISO to CD, however when I came to use it I found the image was incomplete, so had to download it again. Second time lucky.

The notes below are for me as an aid for future rebuilds, but may help someone else with their configuration.

I installed the operating system using pretty much the default settings and after it had finished installing and restarted, I changed the network settings to use a static IP address instead of DHCP.

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

I changed the primary interface from:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

to

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 10.x.x.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.x.x.0
broadcast 10.x.x.255
gateway 10.x.x.x

Or at least my specific details instead of those above.

I was going to edit the the DNS settings

sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

but they had already correctly got my DNS settings, so I didn’t need to change the nameserver entry.

I then restarted the networking

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

OK, now the fun begins!

The old laptop provides the following:

• Webserver – Apache, PHP
• Filter proxy server – Squid, Dansguardian
• Email spam filtering – SpamAssassin

It was all managed using Webmin, and I also had VNC configured to give me a session onto the display, yes I know its a server, but I installed a GUI to make my life easier.

First I installed webmin to make my life easier:

sudo aptitude install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl apt-show-versions

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.530_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.530_all.deb

Once Webmin was installed it simplified the installation of other requirements. NTP to ensure that the time was synchronised with the rest of my network.

install ntp
cd /etc
sudo vi ntp.conf
remove server ntp.unbuntu.com replace with sarig.midkemia.local (my domain controller and time source).

Next to join it to my domain; install following packages:
keyutils
krb5-config
libgssrpc4
libkadm5clnt-mit7
krb5-user
smbclient
smbfs
winbind

sudo vi krb5.conf

[libdefaults]
default_realm = MIDKEMIA.LOCAL
dns_lookup_realm = false
dns_lookup_kdc = false
ticket_lifetime = 24h
# The following krb5.conf variables are only for MIT Kerberos.
krb4_config = /etc/krb.conf
krb4_realms = /etc/krb.realms
kdc_timesync = 1
ccache_type = 4
forwardable = true
proxiable = true

[logging]
default = FILE:/var/log/krb5libs.log
kdc = FILE:/var/log/krb5kdc.log
admin_server = FILE:/var/log/kadmind.log

# The following encryption type specification will be used by MIT Kerberos
# if uncommented.  In general, the defaults in the MIT Kerberos code are
# correct and overriding these specifications only serves to disable new
# encryption types as they are added, creating interoperability problems.

#    default_tgs_enctypes = aes256-cts arcfour-hmac-md5 des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc des-cbc-md5
#    default_tkt_enctypes = aes256-cts arcfour-hmac-md5 des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc des-cbc-md5
#    permitted_enctypes = aes256-cts arcfour-hmac-md5 des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc des-cbc-md5

# The following libdefaults parameters are only for Heimdal Kerberos.
v4_instance_resolve = false
v4_name_convert = {
host = {
rcmd = host
ftp = ftp
}
plain = {
something = something-else
}
}
fcc-mit-ticketflags = true

[realms]
MIDKEMIA.LOCAL = {
kdc = sarig
admin_server = sarig.midkemia.local
default_domain = midkemia.local
}
ATHENA.MIT.EDU = {
kdc = kerberos.mit.edu:88
kdc = kerberos-1.mit.edu:88
kdc = kerberos-2.mit.edu:88
admin_server = kerberos.mit.edu
default_domain = mit.edu
}
MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU = {
kdc = kerberos.media.mit.edu
admin_server = kerberos.media.mit.edu
}
ZONE.MIT.EDU = {
kdc = casio.mit.edu
kdc = seiko.mit.edu
admin_server = casio.mit.edu
}
MOOF.MIT.EDU = {
kdc = three-headed-dogcow.mit.edu:88
kdc = three-headed-dogcow-1.mit.edu:88
admin_server = three-headed-dogcow.mit.edu
}
CSAIL.MIT.EDU = {
kdc = kerberos-1.csail.mit.edu
kdc = kerberos-2.csail.mit.edu
admin_server = kerberos.csail.mit.edu
default_domain = csail.mit.edu
krb524_server = krb524.csail.mit.edu
}
IHTFP.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.ihtfp.org
admin_server = kerberos.ihtfp.org
}
GNU.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.gnu.org
kdc = kerberos-2.gnu.org
kdc = kerberos-3.gnu.org
admin_server = kerberos.gnu.org
}
1TS.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.1ts.org
admin_server = kerberos.1ts.org
}
GRATUITOUS.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.gratuitous.org
admin_server = kerberos.gratuitous.org
}
DOOMCOM.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.doomcom.org
admin_server = kerberos.doomcom.org
}
ANDREW.CMU.EDU = {
kdc = vice28.fs.andrew.cmu.edu
kdc = vice2.fs.andrew.cmu.edu
kdc = vice11.fs.andrew.cmu.edu
kdc = vice12.fs.andrew.cmu.edu
admin_server = vice28.fs.andrew.cmu.edu
default_domain = andrew.cmu.edu
}
CS.CMU.EDU = {
kdc = kerberos.cs.cmu.edu
kdc = kerberos-2.srv.cs.cmu.edu
admin_server = kerberos.cs.cmu.edu
}
DEMENTIA.ORG = {
kdc = kerberos.dementia.org
kdc = kerberos2.dementia.org
admin_server = kerberos.dementia.org
}
stanford.edu = {
kdc = krb5auth1.stanford.edu
kdc = krb5auth2.stanford.edu
kdc = krb5auth3.stanford.edu
admin_server = krb5-admin.stanford.edu
default_domain = stanford.edu
}

[domain_realm]
.mit.edu = ATHENA.MIT.EDU
mit.edu = ATHENA.MIT.EDU
.media.mit.edu = MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU
media.mit.edu = MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU
.csail.mit.edu = CSAIL.MIT.EDU
csail.mit.edu = CSAIL.MIT.EDU
.whoi.edu = ATHENA.MIT.EDU
whoi.edu = ATHENA.MIT.EDU
.stanford.edu = stanford.edu
.midkemia.local = MIDKEMIA.LOCAL
midkemia.local = MIDKEMIA.LOCAL

[login]
krb4_convert = true
krb4_get_tickets = false

[appdefaults]
pam = {
debug = false
ticket_lifetime = 36000
renew_lifetime = 36000
forwardable = true
krb4_convert = false
}

kinit administrator@MIDKEMIA.LOCAL

should prompt for password and not throw error

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

#
# Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux.
#
#
# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which
# are not shown in this example
#
# Any line which starts with a ; (semi-colon) or a # (hash)
# is a comment and is ignored. In this example we will use a #
# for commentary and a ; for parts of the config file that you
# may wish to enable
#
# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command
# “testparm” to check that you have not made any basic syntactic
# errors.
#

#======================= Global Settings =======================

[global]
log level = 3
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
winbind enum users = Yes
winbind enum groups = Yes
winbind use default domain = Yes
winbind nested groups = Yes
winbind separator = +
idmap uid = 600-20000
idmap gid = 600-20000
socket options = TCP_NODELAY
obey pam restrictions = yes
client ntlmv2 auth = yes
wins server = 10.x.x.3
client use spnego = yes
map to guest = bad user
winbind trusted domains only = yes
encrypt passwords = true
realm = MIDKEMIA.LOCAL
passdb backend = tdbsam
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
template shell = /bin/bash
dns proxy = no
preferred master = no
server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
invalid users = root
unix password sync = yes
template homedir = /home/%D/%U
workgroup = MIDKEMIA0
syslog = 0
security = ADS
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
usershare allow guests = yes
max log size = 1000
pam password change = yes
smb ports = 139

## Browsing/Identification ###

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of

# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field

# Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section:
# WINS Support – Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable its WINS Server
;   wins support = no

# WINS Server – Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client
# Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both

# This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS.

# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
;   name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast

#### Networking ####

# The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to
# This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask;
# interface names are normally preferred
;   interfaces = 127.0.0.0/8 eth0

# Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the
# ‘interfaces’ option above to use this.
# It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is
# not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself.  However, this
# option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly.
;   bind interfaces only = true

#### Debugging/Accounting ####

# This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine
# that connects

# Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB).

# If you want Samba to only log through syslog then set the following
# parameter to ‘yes’.
;   syslog only = no

# We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything
# should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log
# through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher.

# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace

####### Authentication #######

# “security = user” is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.

# You may wish to use password encryption.  See the section on
# ‘encrypt passwords’ in the smb.conf(5) manpage before enabling.

# If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what
# password database type you are using.

;   guest account = nobody

# This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix
# password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the
# passdb is changed.

# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<kahan@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge).

# This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes
# when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in
# ‘passwd program’. The default is ‘no’.

# This option controls how nsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped
# to anonymous connections

########## Domains ###########

# Is this machine able to authenticate users. Both PDC and BDC
# must have this setting enabled. If you are the BDC you must
# change the ‘domain master’ setting to no
#
;   domain logons = yes
#
# The following setting only takes effect if ‘domain logons’ is set
# It specifies the location of the user’s profile directory
# from the client point of view)
# The following required a [profiles] share to be setup on the
# samba server (see below)
;   logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U
# Another common choice is storing the profile in the user’s home directory
;   logon path = \\%N\%U\profile

# The following setting only takes effect if ‘domain logons’ is set
# It specifies the location of a user’s home directory (from the client
# point of view)
;   logon drive = H:
;   logon home = \\%N\%U

# The following setting only takes effect if ‘domain logons’ is set
# It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored
# in the [netlogon] share
# NOTE: Must be store in ‘DOS’ file format convention
;   logon script = logon.cmd

# This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe.  The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix
# password; please adapt to your needs
; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser –quiet –disabled-password –gecos “” %u

########## Printing ##########

# If you want to automatically load your printer list rather
# than setting them up individually then you’ll need this
;   load printers = yes

# lpr(ng) printing. You may wish to override the location of the
# printcap file
;   printing = bsd
;   printcap name = /etc/printcap

# CUPS printing.  See also the cupsaddsmb(8) manpage in the
# cupsys-client package.
;   printing = cups
;   printcap name = cups

############ Misc ############

# Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration
# on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name
# of the machine that is connecting
;   include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m

# Most people will find that this option gives better performance.
# See smb.conf(5) and /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/speed.html
# for details
# You may want to add the following on a Linux system:
#         SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

# The following parameter is useful only if you have the linpopup package
# installed. The samba maintainer and the linpopup maintainer are
# working to ease installation and configuration of linpopup and samba.
;   message command = /bin/sh -c ‘/usr/bin/linpopup “%f” “%m” %s; rm %s’ &

# Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. If this
# machine will be configured as a BDC (a secondary logon server), you
# must set this to ‘no’; otherwise, the default behavior is recommended.
;   domain master = auto

# Some defaults for winbind (make sure you’re not using the ranges
# for something else.)

# The following was the default behaviour in sarge,
# but samba upstream reverted the default because it might induce
# performance issues in large organizations.
# See Debian bug #368251 for some of the consequences of *not*
# having this setting and smb.conf(5) for details.
#  winbind seperator = +

#Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders
# with the net usershare command.

# Maximum number of usershare. 0 (default) means that usershare is disabled.
;   usershare max shares = 100

# Allow users who’ve been granted usershare privileges to create
# public shares, not just authenticated ones

#======================= Share Definitions =======================

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares.  This will share each
# user’s home directory as \\server\username
;[homes]
;   comment = Home Directories
;   browseable = no

# By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the
# next parameter to ‘no’ if you want to be able to write to them.
;   read only = yes

# File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
;   create mask = 0700

# Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
;   directory mask = 0700

# By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone
# with access to the samba server.  Un-comment the following parameter
# to make sure that only “username” can connect to \\server\username
# This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes
;   valid users = %S

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
;[netlogon]
;   comment = Network Logon Service
;   path = /home/samba/netlogon
;   guest ok = yes
;   read only = yes
;   share modes = no

# Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store
# users profiles (see the “logon path” option above)
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
# The path below should be writable by all users so that their
# profile directory may be created the first time they log on
;[profiles]
;   comment = Users profiles
;   path = /home/samba/profiles
;   guest ok = no
;   browseable = no
;   create mask = 0600
;   directory mask = 0700

[printers]
comment = All Printers
browseable = no
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
guest ok = no
read only = yes
create mask = 0700

# Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable
# printer drivers
[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
read only = yes
guest ok = no
# Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers.
# Replace ‘ntadmin’ with the name of the group your admin users are
# members of.
;   write list = root, @ntadmin

# A sample share for sharing your CD-ROM with others.
;[cdrom]
;   comment = Samba server’s CD-ROM
;   read only = yes
;   locking = no
;   path = /cdrom
;   guest ok = yes

# The next two parameters show how to auto-mount a CD-ROM when the
#    cdrom share is accesed. For this to work /etc/fstab must contain
#    an entry like this:
#
#       /dev/scd0   /cdrom  iso9660 defaults,noauto,ro,user   0 0
#
# The CD-ROM gets unmounted automatically after the connection to the
#
# If you don’t want to use auto-mounting/unmounting make sure the CD
#    is mounted on /cdrom
#
;   preexec = /bin/mount /cdrom
;   postexec = /bin/umount /cdrom

[shared]
writeable = yes
valid users = MIDKEMIA+ian,@MIDKEMIA+unixadm
browsable = yes
create mode = 777
path = /shared

[wwwroot]
guest account = ian
writeable = yes
path = /var/www
valid users = MIDKEMIA+administrator,@MIDKEMIA+unixadm
create mode = 777
browsable = yes

[salearn]
guest account = ian
writeable = yes
public = yes
path = /etc/spamassassin/sa-learn

testparm

vi /etc/hosts
add 10.x.x.3 sarig.midkemia.local sarig
10.x.x.4 nakor.midkemia.local nakor

vi /etc/nsswitch.conf

# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference’ and `info’ packages installed, try:
# `info libc “Name Service Switch”‘ for information about this file.

passwd: files winbind
shadow: files winbind
group: files winbind

#hosts: db files nisplus nis dns
hosts: files dns wins

# Example – obey only what nisplus tells us…
#services: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#networks: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#protocols: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#rpc: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#ethers: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#netmasks: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files

bootparams: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files

ethers: db files
netmasks: files
networks: files dns
protocols: db files
rpc: files
services: files

netgroup: files

publickey: nisplus

automount: files
aliases: files nisplus

sudo net ads join -U administrator

install files for rlogin rsh-rod-server ssh

Next set up Apache webserver. Change www permissions and copy internal, external and squid-reports from old server to www
Configure appropriate virtual servers

Next install Danguardian filtering.
This requires squid proxy server installed.
In webmin choose Squid Proxy Server in Un-Used Modules, it told me it was not installed and offered to download and install it for me. Sounds good and just worked.

Configuration, Access Control,
Access Control Lists
Create new ACL Client Address called lan, from IP 10.x.x.0 netmask 24
Create new ACL Client Address called our_networks, from IP 10.x.x.0 netmask 24
Proxy restrictions
Add proxy restriction Allow our_networks and move above Allow localhost

Authentication Programs
Number of authentication programs 5
Authentication cache time 2 hours
Authentication realm Squid proxy-caching web server

Install squid-cgi package

Download Dansguardian Webmin module
Install Dansguardian package, this installs to a different location than the Webmin module expects, so edit module config:
Full path to DG binary   /usr/sbin/dansguardian
Command to restart DG (if allowed)  /usr/sbin/dansguardian -r
Command to start DG (if allowed)  /usr/sbin/dansguardian
Command to stop DG (if allowed)  pkill dansguardian

Hmm that’s it then. That was so much easier than when I first installed it.

Install sarg package
Edit webmin module config for sarg
Full path to SARG configuration file  /etc/sarg/sarg.conf

Install mailutils package

Finally install and configure SpamAssassin. I used the existing local.cf as a guideline.

The laptop ran fine for a few hours and then crashed. Hmm, that’s not a good start. On investigating it was very hot. After letting it all cool down, it worked again, so my thoughts were a ventilation problem. Then it re-occured, OK, there’s something else going on!
It turns out the cooling fan isn’t running, so that was why it overheated. Google turned up dellfand, which I downloaded and made following the site instructions. I set the fan low speed to 35C and fan high to 40C and set it to start on system start.

Update: This worked fine until the hot weather last week, when it overheated again. I have now changed the fan low to 30C and fan high to 35C and the system now is fairly stable at about 35C most of the time.

A few months ago we picked up a usb TV tuner at Costco and that got me thinking about a PC based solution for the problem. About 9 years ago when we first attached a PC to our HiFi system, it was a very low specification and although we had a TV tuner card, the PC wasn’t powerful enough to record anything usable. As time went on, the PC has been replaced a few times and about 5 years ago we installed a piece of software called Meedio that we used to manage/play our video and audio files. There was also Meedio TV to record from TV, but we never explored it as the PC was still fairly low spec. At the time we chose Meedio, I had been aware of a Linux based program called Mythtv, but due to the fact that the PC was low spec and I was more familiar with Windows, this was discounted.

Roll forward to this year and I explored the options again. This time Mythtv sounded worth investigating, so I downloaded a copy of Mythbuntu, this is a Ubuntu Linux operating system bundled with Mythtv. I am currently using Ubuntu on a PC providing filtered internet access for the kids, so was more familiar with this than any other distribution. Using a 120GB disc in the old Dell desktop we replaced 18 months ago, I installed Mythbuntu and started trying it out. In the past few years Linux installations have become a breeze. My first installation was Slackware 2 back in 1995, and that was a command line experience that was challenging. Now, you just put the CD in and get lead through the install just like a Windows operating system installation. Anyway, after less than 30 minutes, I had the operating system installed, Mythtbuntu configured with my usb TV tuner and the first TV programs recording. I set the program guide to pick up from the cable guide and that gave me a few days available programming.

One of the first things I experimented with was changing the program guide to get its data from Radio Times using the xmltv program. I found configuration information for UK xmltv on the Mythtv website to help with that. Once I got this working, I then had 14 days of program guide which gave a lot more flexibility in programming. At this point I was only able to record Freeview channels.

Having proved that the concept worked, I set about gathering the required parts. The existing PC attached to our HiFi was an old HP Evo small form factor which would enable me to install 2 PCI cards to provide the connections to cable and aerial. I selected a Hauppauge Nova-T 500 dual digital card to allow recording/viewing of 2 Freeview channels. To connect to the cable box, I needed an analogue tuner with composite input, so a Hauppauge PVR 150 card was selected. As usual, my thoughts turned to Ebay as the source for all of the parts and quickly acquired the needed cards. While contemplating the plan for how I would build the system while providing the minimum downtime for the existing functions for the HIFi PC, I concluded it was best to get a second Evo SFF PC and build the system in that and then swap once it was setup and working. I bought a used 160GB disc off ebay (not a good idea – more later) and started to assemble the new system. Needless to say this was only a week before we went on holiday, so it wasn’t going to be in full operation before we went.

Hardware

• HP Evo SFF PC (2.53GB Processor, 1.2GB RAM, on-board sound and graphics)
• Seagate 160GB IDE Hard drive
• Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB PCI tuner card
• Hauppauge WinTv PVR-150 tuner card

Initially, I installed the PVR 150 in the bottom PCI slot and the T 500 in the top PCI slot, however the system would only boot sometimes that way around, so I swapped them over.

I installed Mythbuntu from the CD using the Mythbuntu installation guide for help. The last step of Mythbuntu installation launches the Mythtv backup setup. This is where you configure the cards for recording and the locations for storing your files. Mythtv software is split into 2 halves; there is the backup that controls the cards and the recordings and the frontend that displays the recordings and is the user interface. As I intended to possibley attach multiple frontends to this backend, I set a static IP address for my network during the configuration. As I’m in the UK I selected PAL-I for TV format and left the channel frequency table at try-all. Local timezone was set to auto. All the other settings in the general section was left as default.

Next setting up the cards. The order that the cards are added to the system detirmines the priority of the card. It took me a few goes to get the cards working and then get them in the right order ( I have currently have cards 7,8 and 12). First add the first channel of the digital card:

• DVB DTV Capture card (v3.x)
• /dev/dvb/adaptor0/frontend0

finish. Then add the second channel

• DVB DTV Capture card (v3.x)
• /dev/dvb/adaptor1/frontend0

finish. Then add the analogue card:

• IVTV MPEG-2 encoder card
• /dev/video0
• Composite1

finish. Once the cards are added, press Esc to return to the main menu.

Setting video sources. I created a source called Cable and another called Freeview. Both were initially set to use the transmitted guide only (EIT). Once the sources are added, press Esc to return to the main menu.

Setting input connections. This is where you connect the card to the source. For DVB adaptor0/frontend0 I selected Freeview as the source and selected scan for channels. This then scanned and populated the channel table with the Freeview channels. I set DVB adaptor1/frontend0 to Freeview as well, but didn’t re-scan for channels. MPEG /dev/video0 Composite1 was set to Cable source. I scanned for channels but shouldn’t have.

The storage directories can remain the defaults for the moment.

The backend is basically setup at the moment. Press Esc to exit the backend setup menu and allow mythfilldatabase to run.

Run the Mythtv Frontend and hopefully you will have some channels and be able to change between them.

The next thing I did was to configure the program guide to get its data from Radio Times. As mentioned above, I found the configuration information for UK xmltv on the Mythtv website helped get this working. I went back into the Mytv backend setup and configured mythfilldatabase to run daily early in the morning. I found if I ran mythfilldatabase from the command line, it worked fine, however if Mythtv ran it then an error occured. It failed with error 512. I found the following on the unbuntu forums http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=624517 which gave the the answer. The configuration was setup in my account, but not for the mythtv account that was running the software. The solution that I chose was to link the configuration files in my account into the mythtv account

• cd /home/mythtv/.mythtv
• sudo ln -s /home/ian/.mythtv/Cable.xmltv
• sudo ln -s /home/ian/.mythtv/Freeview.xmltv

Changing the permissions on my files so that mythtv could read and write to them resolved the mythfilldatabase error. There was another error when filling the database:
XMLTV requires a Date::Manip timezone of +0000 to work properly.
I found the answer to this bug here http://www.artificialworlds.net/freeguide/FAQ/DateManipError and following the instructions downloaded the Debian packages to resolve this problem. Finally to resolve a permissions problem with the cache file, (~/.xmltv/cache) I changed permissions to write for other. At this point xmltv would download the guide information automatically from Radio Times every morning.

This was the state the system was left in when we went on holiday. It was scheduled to record all the Freeview programs we wanted while on holiday in parallel with the DVD recorder. When we came back it had performed perfectly, so it was time to swap it into full use.

That’s for another post.

Dell do a range of computers for Small Business, called Vostro which are very well specified and which also offered the option to ‘downgrade’ from Vista to XP for £10. This seemed a very good solution to me. We specified a Vostro 220 mini tower system with a dual output graphics card to match the functionality we already had. This also became the point at which we changed from a pair of 17″ CRT monitors to a pair of 19″ widescreen TFT monitors. The thought was to re-arrange our desk to minimise the items on it. To accomplish this we bought a Belkin OmniView Pro2 KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch which would allow us to run both the new computer and Jo’s laptop sharing one of the screens and the other screen only attached to the new system.

When the system arrived, I was in for a surprise with the dual outputs on the graphics card. I was expecting a pair of DVI (white digital connector on the left) outputs. I should have checked the specifications of the ATI Radeon HD 3650 card that Dell provided more carefully. It had one DVI output (which I promptly had to convert back to VGA to attach to the KVM switch) and a Display Port and HDMI output. I had to get a HDMI to DVI cable to attach the second monitor.

I had planned to move my Creative Labs Audigy 2 soundcard and Live Drive (drive bay mounted additional inputs including Firewire which I use for my negative scanner) from our old system to the new computer. Installing and configuring the sound card was easy and then I tried to install the drive bay expansion. The old system had the required Molex power connection (white connector with 4 wires) to power the expansion device, however the new system only had SATA power connectors for the drives, even for the DVD drive. I had to buy a convertor cable to change from SATA power to Molex power before I could install it. Then when I tried to reattach the front of the case, I found that it was designed for optical devices in the drive bays and didn’t provide a full 5.25 drive bay hole. I could have tried to hack the case to make it fit, but in the end replaced the sound card with a Creative Labs Audigy 2ZS with external expansion. This still required the SATA to Molex power convertor to provide the additional power to the sound card to power the external box, but is a better solution.

I purchased a second hard disc this week to enable RAID 1 on our Vostro 220 mini tower. RAID 1 is when the same data is written to 2 discs, meaning that the discs are mirrored. This provides redundancy if one of the hard disc fails; the computer will carry one working as normal. You then just replace the failed disc and re-create the mirror to restore the fault tolerance. We didn’t buy the second hard disc at the time we bought the system from Dell, for a couple of reasons. First, we were spending enough at the time and it wasn’t necessary to make the system work. Secondly, Dell wanted £130 for an additional 500GB hard disc, but sourcing it seperately would be about £50.

I installed the second drive in the lower hard disc bay in the tower and attached the available power connector to it. There wasn’t a spare SATA data cable attached to the motherboard, so I had to use a SATA cable from a USB to IDE/SATA kit that I had. This only need to be a short cable as the motherboard connections were almost under the hard disc. After restarting the computer, I entered the BIOS (F2 on startup), the second hard disc was already detected and then I changed the SATA Mode to RAID from AHCI (under Integrated Peripherals). I saved the settings and restarted the computer. Windows informed me that new hardware was detected and wanted to restart, so I let it. The next time it started I ran the Intel Matrix Storage Console. I switched to Advanced Mode and saw that both drives were showing (the original on Port 0 and the new one on Port 2).  I selected Actions, Create RAID Volume from Existing Hard Drive. I then selected RAID 1 (mirroring), the other option RAID 0 (striping) creates a single volume striped across both discs. This gives a single large partition, but in my opinion is worse than two separate discs because if one drive fails, you will loose all data stored on both discs instead of just loosing one disc worth. Anyway back to the RAID 1 creation, I then selected the disc on PORT 0 as the source and the one on Port 2 as the member disc and let it get on with creating the mirror. It took just under 3 hours to mirror the existing 500GB drive. I am now protected if my system disc fails, which is a good place to be.

I originally got myself a Bluetooth headset. Initially, I had problems connecting the headset to the Bluetooth on my laptop. I upgraded the Bluetooth stack to the latest Toshiba stack and then was able to successfully connect the headset to my laptop and configure Skype to use it. However, shortly afterwards, the headset locked up completely and I was unable to use it.

While looking around for an alternate handset, I came across the Kensington Vo200 Bluetooth Internet phone. This is a PCMCIA sized telephone handset. It plugs into a laptop’s PCMCIA card slot to charge and then connects to the laptop using Bluetooth.

You have to install the software that comes with it for the charging to work. Once I installed the software, it told me that it only worked with the Widcomm Bluetooth stack. Great that the instructions don’t mention that. After googling the problem, I came across a user comment on the Expansys-usa website, commenting that the Kensington Vo200 works with the Toshiba Bluetooth stack. It mentioned that the charging light didn’t come on for about 2.5 hours, and I found this to be accurate. After the handset was charged, I was able to create a new connection to it using the Toshiba Bluetooth Settings.

It was then possible to change the Skype audio settings to use the Bluetooth wave audio device. The handset gave clear audio when used as a handset. In testing, I found the handsfree operation to be noisy. When charging, the handset sticks out of the PCMCIA socket about 1/4 inch. All in all, for just over £10 on Ebay for a new handset, I think it was a good buy.

I initally set this to my local NTP server with a backup on an online one. However, there is no way to manually set the time initially. When you power on the router the date is set to 1st January 2005. The problem with this is that using NTP will only correct a small time difference; 3.5 years is a big large to correct.

I had almost given up on resolving it when I thought to try connecting using telnet to the router.
The user name and password for the telnet session are the default admin credentials (not the ones I had changed for the web interface). Once connected, press Ctrl C, then type Cli (Capital C is important). This gets you to a unix type shell. Then cd config cd sntpc show This will confirm that the time is sychronised and gets around the large time differnece. Then type exit and logout.

The bonus of fixing the time is the firewall logging now works properly.

I wasn’t able to reply on Tuesday as I was replacing a failing hard disc and reinstalling Windows XP on a laptop for a colleague at work. I’d forgotten how long it takes from plain XP, through Service Pack 2 and then downloading and installing the remaining 91 security patches. Still, after all that I was able to install Avast as a free Anti-Virus program and Open Office as a free office suite (much better than MS Works that was previously on the system).

On Wednesday at work, I got called to look at a printer with a paper jam. Usually a simple fix, in the worse case maybe a pair of tweezers to remove the last bit of torn paper. The printer was an old, but very serviceable LaserJet 4000, not very heavy use, so plenty of life left in it. Of course, no maintenance on it, its not worth it for a printer that’s getting on for 9-10 years, so if I didn’t fix it, we would replace it…it would be cheaper than getting it fixed. After 10 minutes at the printer location pulling scraps of paper out of it, I took it back to my desk. I ended up unscrewing just about every bit that would come off, before I could finally get the tweezers to the last bits of crinkled paper and pull it out. All in all, I removed a piece of paper about the size of my hand, but it was finally working again. Just time to get it back on the shop-floor and get the toner off my hands before going home.

One of my memorable tech troubles was a few years ago, I can’t remember if it was on a Tuesday or not. We were upgrading our local SMS server (used for software and patch distribution) from Windows Server 2000 to Windows Server 2003. On the face of it all the hardware was supported, so there shouldn’t be any issues. Any applicable updates had been deployed successfully to the client PCs in the morning, so the afternoon was an acceptable timeframe for the upgrade. The upgrade was run and completed successfully. Big sigh of relief when the logon screen came up. However, the network card didn’t detect on logon, so the server was shut down and restarted. Watching the message that no RAID array was found was not what I wanted to see. For those non-technical reading this, a RAID array is a collection of discs that your data is spread across to provide redundancy is case of a single disc failure, if it couldn’t find the RAID array it meant it couldn’t find any data on the server, in essence I had a box with some pretty lights, but not serving its purpose.

So, some urgent searching of the Dell site and Google uncovered the answer. I should have upgraded the firmware on the RAID controller before upgrading to Windows 2003. The firmware is the program that controls how the RAID controller works. On investigation, it was several versions older than that needed to work with Windows 2003, oops. Needless to say, the version that was currently installed wouldn’t upgrade directly to the version I needed in one go, so several updates and restarts later, all was working well again. No downtime as far as the use of the server went, but got the adrenalin going. The moral of this story, ‘if the instructions states there are prerequisites like firmware and driver updates, there is a reasonable chance they are not optional’. From it I learnt to carefully read and follow instructions when upgrading operating systems – especially on a server in a production environment.

So, a bit later than Tuesday, but there’s a triumph and a trouble that became a triumph.

Not today! Wired connection was working fine, but there was no wireless. After resetting the router and re-entering the configurations, I had intermittant wireless, but now no routing of wireless connections to the internet. Also, it was no longer logging any connection details.

I have had the router since February 2005, so it has been on for most of that time continuously. I updated the firmware from the default Linksys to Hyperwrt when I got it which gave me the ability to log the incoming and outgoing firewall connections and messages. This has had its uses; a few weeks ago I was able to identify a test signal from my VOIP service that was trying to connect every few seconds.

So, unexpectedly, I had to go out and buy a replacement router this afternoon. Linksys routers used to run Linux. There is a great support for 3rd party firmware upgrades to the Linux based routers, one good site for this is Linksysinfo. Unfortunately, a few years ago, Linksys changed their routers from using Linux, which means the 3rd party options are now limited.

I now have full connectivity restored, but have had to sacrifice the logging ability as this isn’t part of the standard firmware.

I have the majority of my data located on a server computer with a RAID hard disc array. This means that I can have a hard disc fail and not loose any data before I can replace it. I backup the data stored on this computer to tape every week to a pool of weekly and monthly backup tapes. This gives me the ability to restore previous versions of files that are deleted or overwritten.

My computer, with the software applications on, accesses the data on the server and doesn’t store any critical information locally. This means if I have a hard disc failure on this machine, I don’t loose any critical data and only have to reinstall the operating system and programs.

As I scan my film negatives, I am scanning them at the highest resolution that the film scanner is capable of and storing them in tiff format. For long term storage of the scanned images, I have created par files for each image, which will allow me to recreate the image if the original is damaged. Each film has been stored on DVD, 2 copies, each on different manufacturer’s DVD. One set will be stored at my mum’s and I will retain the other scanned set as well as the original negatives.

I know that there are other things I should be doing such as storing my tapes at a different location rather than at home. This locating of storage media remotely protects against data loss in the case of a fire. Although the original data would be lost, I would be able to recover it from backup.

Coming from an IT environment, I am aware of the importance of data backup and am able to implement a solution that will work for me. I often wonder what, if anything, most computer users do to ensure the long term protection of their data. There are USB flash drives, external hard drives, online storage and DVD/CD storage available. As the home computer becomes more important for storing digital photos and other information, I wonder what will finally be targeted at the home user as a out of the box minimal configuration solution.

What do you do to protect your data?

Anyway, I was checking my account balance yesterday and realised that I was nearly out, so I added more credit. I should have checked their tarrifs first as most of the rates have gone up. For example a UK landline call is now 1.5p per minute; this is however cheaper than my land line provider, VirginMedia, who charge 3p per minute plus a 6p connection charge. I checked the tarrifs for the other VoIP accounts that I have, VoipTalk and SipGate and found that for UK calls, Sipgate works out best for me. I have added credit to this account and changed the dial plan on my Linksys SPA-3000 adapter to use Sipgate for all UK calls and VoipCheap for all international calls.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an unexpected premium rate call on my land line bill. As I use Sipura 3000 System Tray Monitor to monitor the phone adapter, I was able to confirm that we had not made the call and get a refund.

After 9 months of using VoIP for all my calls from home I am very pleased with the results. I also get the benefit, when I add credit, of the free international calls. If you are reading Lyall, I’ll try to call you next weekend.

The computer is now back and working. When I took the computer back today, I looked at the VOIP router that I got Mum for her birthday. I got a Draytek Vigor 2510V ADSL router with VOIP; this was an all in one solution for ADSL and had built in VOIP (Voice over IP). However, when I first installed it last weekend, the call quality was poor with a lot of echo on the line. I changed the codec used to G.711 today and now the call quality is fine. It is configured using VOIPCheap the same as our VOIP service. [previous post]