FAHControl on Chromebook

As I wanted to be able to control my folding from my Chromebook, but the official FAH Control still has a Python2 dependency, I had to use a workaround to get it to work.

1. Download:
• The deb file from: https://github.com/cdberkstresser/fah-control/releases
• found it in this thread: https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=34757&sid=e7eec792658e20ad2da3a89e905685c6&start=15
2. Install some requirements:
• In a linux terminal run:
• sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-3.0
3. Right click the deb file and select install with Linux

Now I wanted to add an icon to the launcher for being able to quickly launch it

1. Get a suitable icon. Here is what I chose
• https://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/papirus-team/papirus-apps/512/FAHControl-icon.png
2. Move the icon file into the "Linux files" directory
3. Create the applications directory:
• mkdir -p .local/share/applications
4. Create the shortcut
• touch .local/share/applications/FAHControl.desktop
5. Put the following in it

[Desktop Entry]

Name=FAHControl

Comment=Folding at Home Control interface

GenericName=FAH

X-GNOME-FullName=Folding at Home Conrol

Exec=/usr/bin/FAHControl

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Icon=/home/XXX/FAHControl-icon.png

Categories=Settings

Sources:

• https://support.google.com/pixelbook/thread/708306/how-do-i-add-linux-apps-to-the-home-screen?hl=en

Ventoy: Ultimate Boot USB

I learned about Ventoy from ThioJoe on Youtube in this video. It is a bootable USB image that allows you to place ISOs on the drive and then choose which one to boot. This allows one USB drive to act as a master install/rescue/debug drive.

Linux Instructions:

1. Download from github: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases
2. Extract
• tar xvzf ventoy-*-linux.tar.gz
3.  run Web UI
• cd ventory-*/
• sudo ./VentoyWeb.sh
4. Use browser to go to http://127.0.0.1:<port>
• Format the USB drive
• WARNING: This will delete all data/files off the USB drive
5. Refresh local drives
• sudo partprobe
6. Open the USB folder and copy in ISOs

What I put on the USB drive:

• Windows 11 install ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11
• Memtest86: https://www.memtest86.com/tech_booting-cd-dvd.html
• Linux install ISOs (also work as LiveCDs): Choose your favorite distro or have as many as will fit on your USB stick

Saving data off a scratched DVD

I had a DVD with files on it that I needed. Unfortunately, it was giving me errors when trying to pull them off. Here is what I did to try to recover as much data as possible.

• Install ddrescue and a gui for visualizing its progress
• sudo apt-get install gddrescue ddrescueview
• Run a first pass with no retries to get as much info as possible
• ddrescue -dn -b2048 /dev/sr0 disk.img disk.mapfile
• Retry failed blocks
• ddrescue -d -r5 -b2048 /dev/sr0 disk.img disk.mapfile
• Description of the options:
• /dev/sr0: the dvd drive
• disk.img: the file to create
• disk.mapfile: the mapfile that keeps track of the status of the recovery
• -d: Use direct disc access for input (aka, no caching)
• -n: Skip the scraping phase
• -b2048: block size of 2048, use for cdroms and dvd
• defaults to 512
• -r5: retry 5 passes
• -1 for infinite passes

Sources:

• https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html#Optical-media
  

New 27" 1440p monitor VX2758-2KP-MHD

 With the falling prices of monitors and the aging small 20" 1680x1050 LCD that I was using I decided it was time for an upgrade.

The Search

The types and models I was looking at were

• 24" 1080p 144Hz (6bit + 2 dithering)
  
• AOC 24G2 ~179.99
• Viewsonic XG2405 ~179.99
• 24" 1200p 75Hz
•  Asus Proart PA248QV ~199.99
  
• 27" 1440p 144Hz (8bit + 2 dithering)
• Viewsonic VX2758-2KP-MHD ~219.99
• LG 27GL850-B ~346.99

 The prices that I listed above are the lowest that I have seen. I went with the Viewsonic VX2758-2KP-MHD due to the increased resolution and screen real estate over a 24" for the relatively small sum of $40 especially since the prices on the 24" monitors were generally higher at the time.

Review

Pros

• Monitor assembled easy
• No dead pixels
• Good color reproduction
• Freesync support with up to 144Hz
  

Cons

• OSD does not work without input
• doesn't allow you to change inputs
• is somewhat remedied by it auto selecting the active input
• OSD uses the older style non-joystick style button inputs
• Monitor occasionally does not register displayport input and requires a power cord unplug to fix
• Driver install does not work properly (see below)

Known downsides before purchase and other thoughts

• No height adjustment, but I did not need this particular feature and is not expected at this price point
• 1ms MPRT/3ms GTG pixel response is a bit of an exaggeration and would only happen at highest overdrive setting which comes with lots of inverse ghosting between 60-120Hz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukKev6cPZhY
  
• Buttons are on the right side, so not optimal for dual side by side monitors as one monitor will always have its buttons blocked
  

 

Monitor Driver install

• https://www.viewsonic.com/us/productresources
  
• https://www.viewsonic.com/us/vx2758-2kp-mhd.html#downloads
• Unfortunately, the installer will say it didn't find a suitable version, but do NOT hit "ok". Instead go to device manager and have it search the location that the installer decompressed the files to. After that installs the driver, you can then go back and hit "ok" on the installer.

Ubiquiti network setup

I wanted to follow the common security guidance of having 3 wireless networks/VLANs: Normal, IOT, and Guest

• Normal would contain the TV, printer, computers, and google devices for casting to TV
• IOT would contain the smart outlets, garage door sensor, and other smart devices
• Guest would be just for visitors

Ubiquiti has a nice easy default for isolating a guest network, so I just used that.

However, I needed to add a rule to prevent the IOT and Normal networks from comunicating, because applying a similar isolation policy to the IOT network prevented the Belkin smart switches from communicating.

Add the networks

Settings -> Networks -> Add New Network

• IOT
• Network Name: IOT
• Advanced
• VLAN ID: 2
• Guest
• Network Name: Guest
• Advanced
• VLAN ID: 3
• Device Isolation: True

Add the wireless network

Settings -> WiFi-> Add New WiFi Network

• Add a 2.4 GHz and a 5 GHz wireless network for each of the new networks

Add the firewall rule

I followed this guide, but the screens have changed in newer version: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010254227-UniFi-USG-Firewall-How-to-Disable-InterVLAN-Routing

Settings -> Traffic & Security -> Global Threat Management -> Firewall -> Create New Rule

• Type: LAN In
• Description: Isolate IOT from LAN
• Enabled: True
• Rule Applied: Before Predefined Rules
• Action: Drop
• IPv4 Protocol: All
• Source
• Source Type: Network
• Network: IOT
• Network Type: IPv4 Subnet
• Destination
• Destination Type: Network
• Network: LAN
• Network Type: IPv4 Subnet

Cleaning up old vmlinuz and initrd files in /boot

 I noticed that updates were taking a long time on the kernel step. So I expanded what it was doing and it was attempting to build really old versions (3.13)

Purge from apt-get

• Figure out which package to remove
• dpkg -S /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-36-generic
• Remove the package
• sudo apt-get purge linux-image-3.13.0-36-generic
• If you have many to remove, you can use bash expansion like so:
• sudo apt-get purge linux-image-3.13.0-{36,37,39}-generic
• Regenerate initrd
• sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
• Update grub
• sudo update-grub
• If initramfs is still generating stuff for old kernel, you can remove like so
• sudo update-initramfs -d -k 3.13.0-36-generic
• Note: bash expansion does not work for this command

Sources

• https://askubuntu.com/questions/912473/can-i-delete-old-vmlinuz-in-boot-manually
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/1001285/why-are-old-initrd-files-of-uninstalled-kernels-filling-up-boot-partition

Replacing drives in ZFS

 As my two 3TB WD Red drives (purchased before the SMR controversy) in Raid 1 were starting to fill up and the price of bigger drives came down, it was time for an upgrade. I purchased two 6TB WD Red Plus drives to replace them (~$105 each before tax). I went with this particular drive and size because of the speed (5640 rpm) to keep the drives quiet and cool. Most NAS drives are going to the higher rpm of 7200.

Checking the drives

I used an external enclosure to test each of the drives before adding them to the ZFS Pool

• Determine the drive
• For these examples I used /dev/sdX, but you need to use the device letter applicable to you
• ls /dev/sd*
• Check initial SMART attributes
• sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdX
• SMART short test
• sudo smartctl --test=short /dev/sdX
• Check SMART test status
• sudo smartctl -c /dev/sdX
• Check SMART attributes
• sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdX
• Write Zeros to the entire disk
• Warning: This will erase the entire disk and you will lose anything stored on it
• sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M status=progress
• Check SMART attributes
• sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdX
• SMART extended test
• I had problems with this test being stuck at 90% remaining due to the drive stopping spinning
• The solution it to make sure the drive is spinning and then kicking off the test and a command to keep the drive active
• sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null count=1  # Read one 512 byte block from drive
• sudo smartctl --test=long /dev/sdX  # Kick off the test
• sudo watch -d -n 60 smartctl -a /dev/sdX  # Make sure the drive doesn't spin down. Will also show test status
• Power Off the drive
• sudo udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdX
• Disconnect the drive
• Repeat for the next drive

Adding the drives to the pool

At this point I hooked both drives up to the SATA connectors inside the server, but had to disconnect the front panel USB to access the open SATA port and disconnect the DVD drive. Now it was time to add them to the pool to get data replicated to them.

• Get current status
• sudo zpool status
• Get the drive ids
• ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/
• Attach them to a current drive to put them in the same mirror
• Run this command with the values substituted for both drives:
• sudo zpool attach [poolname] [original drive to be mirrored] [new drive]
• If you get an error like: devices have different sector alignment
• than add: -o ashift=9 
• There are performance penalties for running a 4K drive as a 512B one, but supposedly there are storage size advantages
• Update 2023-12-10: Apparently it is a quite large performance difference: 35-45MB/s vs 70-72MB/s
• Here is what I ran (serial 1 and 2 are the existing drives while 3 and 4 are the new ones:
• sudo zpool attach storage /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD30EFRX-68EUZN0_WD-SERIAL#1 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD60EFZX-68B3FN0_WD-SERIAL#3 -o ashift=9
• sudo zpool attach storage /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD30EFRX-68EUZN0_WD-SERIAL#2 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD60EFZX-68B3FN0_WD-SERIAL#4 -o ashift=9
• Check on the status:
• sudo zpool status
• Wait for the resilvering to complete
• Estimated time was ~33 hours
• Actual runtime was ~18 hours copying around 2TB of data
• Optional scrub to verify all data
• sudo zpool scrub [POOLNAME]
• Wait for it to finish
• Estimated time was ~13 hours
• Actual time was ~10 hours
  

Remove the old drives

• Remove the old disks from the pool:
• sudo zpool detach [POOLNAME] [DISKNAME]
• What I ran:
• sudo zpool detach storage /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD30EFRX-68EUZN0_WD-SERIAL#1
• sudo zpool detach storage /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD30EFRX-68EUZN0_WD-SERIAL#2
• Check on the status
• sudo zpool status
• Shutdown the server and remove the drives

Expand the Quotas

• Check current usage and quotas
• df -k /storage/mythtv /storage/.encrypted
• sudo zfs get quota storage/mythtv
• sudo zfs get quota storage/.encrypted
• Set new quotas, total storage available was 5.45T
• sudo zfs set quota=1.5T storage/mythtv
• sudo zfs set quota=3.9T storage/.encrypted
• While editing my zfs containers, I decided to turn off compression since i wasn't seeing any gains
• sudo zfs set compression=off storage/.encrypted

Sources

• Drive Check
• Initial inspiration: https://superuser.com/questions/1252662/initial-testing-of-new-hard-drives-in-linux
• Keeping the drive spinning: https://superuser.com/questions/766943/smart-test-never-finishes
• Power Off the drive: https://askubuntu.com/questions/532586/what-is-the-command-line-equivalent-of-safely-remove-drive
• Adding to zpool
• https://www.sotechdesign.com.au/how-to-add-a-drive-to-a-zfs-mirror/
• https://superuser.com/questions/1265328/how-to-create-zfs-mirror-with-disks-of-different-sector-sizes
• Performance difference of ashift=9 vs ashift=12
• https://louwrentius.com/zfs-performance-and-capacity-impact-of-ashift9-on-4k-sector-drives.html
• Removing from zpool
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/remove-disk-from-mirror-in-freenas-11.56494/