Monday, February 10, 2020

remount VMWare datastore after RAID rebuild

So I had to rebuild my RAID on my ESXi host.  Upon reboot the host successfully loaded up ESXi, but the VMs were invalid, the datastore gone.  Going to storage ESXi could see the presented disk and a VMFS partition.

Lots of VMWare forum articles and posts later with no resolution I found this site that saved my bacon.

https://masteringvmware.com/force-mount-vmfs-datastore-using-esxcli/

In case the site ever goes down, copied below:


Tuesday, December 24, 2019

PSF-B04 over the air flash to sonoff plus configuration

PSF-B04 appears to be the ESP8285



My photo showing 5v, ground, rx, tx, and GPIO 16 soldered to
Before soldering like I did, this post has more help with finding solder points that are easier, away from the chip- also advice to remove an unknown chip if you run into issues of the device rebooting when hitting all the relays at once.







Two relay board:
Backup original firmware:
https://notenoughtech.com/featured/is-it-worth-hacking-sonoff-basic/

Get into boot-loader:

button furthest from relays- changes latching setting of relays

middle button triggers relay closest to buttons

button closets to relay triggers relay closer to PSF module

random holding of buttons to get red LED fast blinking = wifi mode, the magic combo seems to be holding the button closest to relay down for about 7 seconds, then the next button over for about 7 seconds.

Serial method not working, either my TTL serial adapter is bad, or my soldering was bad.


Wifi method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONFhXM5R-t4

Neither CMD or VisualStudio CMD line worked

Used Anaconda Prompt (Python)

Also command "pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt" is outdated, must use,
"py -m pip install --user -r requirements.txt"

(see this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/a2xusa/pip3_is_not_recognized_as_an_internal_or_external/)


Then run python.exe sonota.py

SSID = ITEAD-1000705895
password = 12345678 (sonoff default).

Was getting AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'set_nodelay'

commented out section found here
https://github.com/mirko/SonOTA/issues/169

still seemed stuck- once got to a repeated cmd prompt output of "when download finishes, you have a few minutes to connect to final... wifi ... blah blah I rebooted the relay board and BOOM, the python script kicked in and the board flashed.  I don't think the commented out python line mentioned in the git thread fixed the issue, just lowered the 'log noise' in the prompt.

This was my 5th or so attempt, having the board in latch settings (relay stays open or closed, no delay action) might have helped per this other thread and method (but doubt this).
https://www.hagensieker.com/wordpress/2019/01/26/sonoff-rf-with-tasmota-firmware-in-homeassistant/

The device then presenting a wifi hotspot as sonoff-<four random numbers>

I did not connect to this, it went away eventually- I then found it's IP address via router

Typed in IP into we-browser and surprised to find a sonoff basic module webGUI

Fail - or so you would think - the Sonoff Basic Module is the first displayed, not the four channel - change via configuration in webGUI (makes me wonder about the actual four channel board that this brand sells- one could control two garage doors AND other features like lights).

Refer back to the blog that does the serial port wired hack on guidence
https://www.hagensieker.com/wordpress/2019/02/21/hacking-unknown-2-channel-relay-with-tasmota/



Amazon review mentions using one of the GPIOs for a reed switch to make the garage door status of being open or closed also a feature of this device (in combination of using samsung smart things, this might not be a feature easily setup in hass.io).
Per review, "Used it with my garage door opener project. Flashed it with Tasmota and found GPIO14 on the ESP chip which I use for connecting a reed switch (door sensor) too. "

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

CentOS 7 setup for golden image

Recently have been burning through CentOS VMs lately, and wanted to setup a CentOS 7 "golden image" to clone for future builds.

** NOTES, IRT Splunk severs, do not install GUI (causes proxy bridge interface weirdness), setup firewall rules).

- Install Centos7 with decent VM specs (two core, 2 gigs ram)
- Install NIC
- Install net-tools (for ifconfig command)
- install GUI (DO NOT INSTALL GNOME, BREAKS ALL THE THINGS)
- yum update
- remove virbr0 interface and libvirtd service as it messes up the Splunk install (TBD if the issue)
- disable SELinux
- disable or create firewall rules
- install A3Sec app on Splunk
- Set timzone
- Trouble shoot why having A3Sec and Snort for Splunk at the same time breaks Splunk's time parsing capability.


Ensure during boot up from CentOS7 ISO in VMWare datastore, select turning on the NIC in the GUI installation process, specify drive (30 gig size from earlier configuration), create root password and user account.

Install networking on headless CentOS7 build
https://lintut.com/how-to-setup-network-after-rhelcentos-7-minimal-installation/

Install ifconfig
https://linuxconfig.org/howto-install-ifconfig-on-centos-7-linux

Install nano:  yum install nano

Mount CD for Splunk ISO
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-mount-cd-dvd-rom-on-centos-rhel-linux

Install GUI ** DO NOT DO !! ***
https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linux/centos-how-tos/install-gnome-gui-on-centos-7-rhel-7.html

And then for good fun, install htop
http://cheapwindowsvps.com/blog/how-to-install-htop-on-centos-7/

neofetch
http://www.vassox.com/linux-general/install-neofetch-on-centos-7-rhel/

LNAV log
https://www.unixmen.com/install-use-lnav-on-centos-7/

- adding epel-release for LNAV makes htop available as well.

virbr0 and libvirtd removal
https://www.thegeekdiary.com/how-to-remove-virbr0-and-lxcbr0-interfaces-on-centos-rhel-5-and-rhel-7/

disable SELinux
https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-disable-selinux-on-centos-7/

disable firewall
https://www.liquidweb.com/kb/how-to-stop-and-disable-firewalld-on-centos-7/

Make firewall rules- add exceptions for 8000, 8089, 9997, 514, 1514
https://blog.christophersmart.com/2014/01/15/add-permanent-rules-to-firewalld/

Install Splunk on CentOS
https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.0/SearchTutorial/InstallSplunk

A3Sec App
https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/2739/#/details

Set timezone
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/centos-linux-6-7-changing-timezone-command-line/

Trouble shoot A3 sec time stamp parsing breaking- update props.conf to parse time
https://answers.splunk.com/answers/626816/pfsense-event-date-time-wrong.html

Change splunk license to free immediately before expatriation of trail.




Saturday, August 4, 2018

OpenVPN import in Ubuntu

Oh the joy of Linux and importing VPN configurations from pfSense OpenVPN client export wizard/generator.

On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, the trick was not to use the OpenVPN.oval file, but to manually import the file not using the OpenVPN part of the GUI- using the 'archive' option from the pfSense file generator.

I updated to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and now the trick was to download the Mac/Windows viscosity bundle, unpack, and run that .conf.

Oh Linux network manager and your VPN 'turn key' GUI, you trickster you.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Increased sensitivity to A3Sec's Splunk pfsense app's scanned panel

So playing around with A3Sec's pfsense Splunk app, I moved the threshold of the scanned panel around to see how many more IPs/geolocations popped up on the map.  I then even had a friend run a standard/default nmap scan on my IP, and cranked the search string's sensitivity down to where it caught it, this is the new string.

index=gw_pfsense sourcetype=pfsense_filterlog action=blocked  | dedup src dest_port | transaction src maxspan=5m maxpause=12s keeporphans=false | where eventcount > 3 | iplocation src | geostats latfield=lat longfield=lon count(src)

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Shinobi NVR

Being a glutton for punishment, I didn't want the standalone NVR unit built for my PoE security cameras- I was head strong that I would buy BlueIris, or get Zoneminder working.

I started to get sticker shock at BlueIris, its $60.00 for the server software, and that doesn't even come with the $10.00 Android app!  The second gripe was that it only runs on Windows, and I've found Win10 to be really bad for uptime- I have had to firewall my Win10 VM (currently used for the PoE client from the company that is very limited in features) off from the internet so it doesn't randomly update and restart (with my luck this would be right during a brake-in).

A quick VM spin up of a zoneminder build showed me I wanted NOTHING to do with that software.  Getting so discouraged I started to entertain the idea of buying the PoE brand's NVR,  then I came along Shinobi- the new kid on the block but solid looking.  So onto the pro-tips earned by hours of fail (not Shinobi's fail, my fails).

Install from site, great instructions, well packaged, one of the easier Linux installs
https://shinobi.video/docs/start

Reddit support forum:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShinobiCCTV/

- do not build on CentOS, trust me.
- Currently on Ubuntu server 16.xx
- If a VM, make a snap shot after updating the OS and installing Shinobi, not just as best practice but there are a number of "land mind" settings in Shinobi that if set but not right for your PoE camera, Shinobi will become totally un-responsive.  Its easiest to just start over from the snap shot.

Adding cameras:  Reolink RLC-410 Bullet, RLC-420 dome, RLC-422 5mp zoom dome.
Some info on Reolink from Zoneminder trail blazers:  https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?t=25874

Reolink:  h265 camera facts.
https://reolink.com/h265-ip-cameras-buying-guide/

- rtsp://user:password@IPaddress:554/h264Preview_01_main

Stream types for reolink:
- Poseidon is lagging
- HLS  *AVOID* causes system to be un-usable and requires reverting to snapshot
- FLV doesn't work
- JPEG with audio is decent

Notes from the Zoneminder attempt:
- Reolink has two feeds per each camera, one is high frame rate, one much slower (and I believe lower resolution).  For the OEM client I believe the slower FR is for motion sensing.

Current result- all four of my Reolinks are feeding in, but there is severe frame skipping, or just lock up of the feed all together.