welcome to the category five
dot tv community coffee break everyone
is the 20th of september
2020. it's like
20 20 20. i just realized that
whoa it sure is yeah
after 72 category 5 community coffee
breaks
this is our 72nd can you guys imagine
that
wow let's go today
today we wind down what we're gonna call
season one of the category five tv
community coffee break it was started up
as kind of a way to
give us some respite from everything
that was going on in our world back in
march and
and onward uh here in 2020 you know what
i'm talking about
give us a place to come together in a as
a community and just kind of
chat about anything else now it's
evolved into something that is
uh so much more than that we've become a
a
you know even tighter knit community
it's a small but
mighty group of people who are here uh
regularly
and so after 72 of these category five
community coffee breaks we're gonna say
okay well that's season one
now we're gonna move on now we're gonna
move on to season two and and with the
evolution of the community coffee break
comes some change
and that means that um it's not
just about coming together to get away
from
um all of the the you know stuff that
we've been dealing with in 2020 but it's
also
an opportunity for each kind of
individual community member to be able
to share
some of the tech that they're working on
i can't wait to show you some of the
cool things that i'm working on
vp9 has always got some kind of project
going on and
that's really cool and with the change
to
season two of the community coffee break
you may have noticed
but i am not the host i am not the
moderator
of the community coffee break anymore
and so officially i hand the reins over
our friend bp9 from our community and
bp9 moving forward
will be the moderator and host of the
category 5 community coffee break
so congratulations and welcome and
thank qvp9 for stepping up to take that
off of my shoulders
uh and it's going to be an exciting
season so welcome to uh
you know the next level well thank you
robbie i appreciate that
um so i guess it's a i guess it's
officially mine now so
i will do my best to hear that carry on
i will do my best to to to carry on in
the in the regular transition
in the regular the way we do it we keep
it
keep it geeky because um you know i the
big thing that i love about this
particular
uh coffee break is that we get to we get
to play
in the um uh in in
we get to be geeks we just get to to
talk tech and we get to
when we're not talking about covered
we're not doing any of that mess
we're going to keep it positive and keep
it keep it interesting so
so i've got some stuff to share
so let me first introduce everybody so
i see doug on the top left hand corner
um and then myself i'm bp nine
and then we've got uh robbie in the
bottom left hand corner
and then i see peter has just joined us
as well hey peter how are you sir
okay your audio's a little low but
that's that's okay
um you may need to tweak that a little
bit
hi hi peter hey peter
uh yeah it's a little better peter so
what you may have missed peter was
i don't know if you heard that as you
were just coming in a little late
but um uh uh robbie has
handed the reins over to me in terms of
keeping the coffee break going so
i'll be hosting coffee break from here
on out so i'll do my best to
not mess up
i think you hit on it too i should say
like one of the things you hit on like
we can be geeks here but we can also be
ourselves and we can be
like you know that i've done coffee
breaks sitting with a bowl of ramen at
my office like
um it's not it's not something that is
overly formal
it's a it's a community coffee break
it's a it's a get together so
bp9 you don't have to worry about like
hey i hope i could do a great job
it's like just just as long as you're
here you show up and you do it and you
do your thing
uh because what you've been doing over
the past like 72 weeks
or 72 episodes i guess i would say
because some of them were daily
um it's going to be great
i appreciate that thank you robbie i
appreciate it
so let's see uh let's start with uh with
doug
what have you been up to technical you
know technical lies or anything else
what have you been having um
i've pretty much just been working
and going to church but um i wanted to
ask robby you did a um
a show here a while ago using pie hole
you remember that i do yeah um
i've done a couple shows on pie hole so
one of them was a generic install and
one of them was specific to the
microtech
oh i didn't know you could do that on
microchip but um
you did that on a um raspberry uh
raspberry pi right um
in the feature i don't recall doug which
board i used personally i use an xu
my pie hole is running on an xu4 uh
because
i i personally don't like that the
raspberry pi uh
is only sd cards so with something as
critical as
a dns server a pie hole i wanted
something that had emmc
something with more reliable storage so
that's why i went with the xu4
but i don't recall which i showed i was
thinking of doing that
on a raspberry pi um i guess i'll have
to buy something a little bit better
suited although i have a similar
question
regarding uh regarding dns
the pine book pro and i don't know if
you've noticed this robbie but the pine
book pro
tends to sorry i i froze up there guys
so
i missed anything doug said oh no
uh doug was asking about the uh the pie
hole
yes so i got that i got that far sorry
and then i lost you
okay i'm sorry
um you said that you did it at an xu4
and i said i'll probably have to buy
something a little more suitable
um do you have like a like a home server
no okay because that's the here at the
studio it's a little different because i
have a server so i have virtualbox
installed and i actually run it as a
debian virtual machine
so you can always it is just a linux
application so you can follow the steps
i did in this in the tutorial and you
should be able to install it on any
linux machine but you just want to make
sure it's something that can always be
up
that's all because as soon as as soon as
you turn it off
like you wouldn't put it on your desktop
computer because as soon as you turn it
off
all of the internet goes down because
you've lost all dns
yeah so just make sure something
reliable that's all
i've got a computer running point linux
that i might be able to put it on
yeah yeah just make sure it's reliable
or that you have
that you as soon as you install a pie
hole you have to
immediately go to it's probably dns when
there's a problem with the internet
because um i've had it happen where you
know i've accidentally unplugged my
pie hole and internet goes down for the
whole house and you're looking around
trying to figure out why is internet
down
and it turns out my dns server was down
so it's just not resolving so the first
test you can do is just
ping an ip address on the public public
land
and you know like 8.8.8.8 is a really
easy one to remember so ping it
see if it replies and if it does you
know it's your dns
what does that come back to that's
uh the dns servers at google that's what
i thought okay
yeah yeah and there are others so it's
just a way
because if your pie hole goes down
google.com will not come
up but 8.8.8.8 will so because dns is
specifically domain name resolution so
it converts the dot com to an ip address
as long as you know the ip address you
can get there anyway
but it's a quick way to test if your dns
server is the problem
right okay
so a quick question for for anyone in in
the
in the chat um the pine book pro
uh and probably my my new lap my laptop
with uh
uh ubuntu two 2020 on it
um it will use
a dns address of 127.0.0.53
and that seems to cause a delay
in name resolution every single time and
if i
go into etsyresolve.com and change that
to my
local router 192.168.
whatever it is then it works
every single time yeah have you seen
and what's the what's the solution for
that i mean it looks like
that 127.0.0.53
is designed to dynamically switch dns
depending on whether you have a wi-fi
connection or a wired connection to
wherever the case may be
but it just seems to be great it's a
hard time so
i it's why it's using a loopback but uh
i think your solution is correct
uh you say etsy i always say etc so i
gotta get into the habit of saying etsy
i like it
um so in etsyresolve.com yeah i think
your solution is perfect
oh every time you power it up yeah
because oh
change the permissions on the file so it
doesn't get rewritten well
what happens is that the um there is a
process
um and i'm trying to remember the name
of it that i can't remember
but what it does is it it overwrites
the at the etc resolve dot com
yeah and uh it rewrites the 120
uh 127.0.0.53 on startup every time
you're on a 192 network right so
create a client you create a cron job as
root
here's your cron job at reboot
this is an actual command so at reboot
no space
space echo and then in quotes
192.168.0.1
which presumably is your correct dns
server right right
and then unquote space
[Music]
etc resolve okay dot
c-o-n-f and then at reboot every single
time your cron is just going to kick in
and rewrite the file with the correct
setting
and then if that's hacky then yeah i
know it works
but it depends on when it runs because
the the existing
reboot well it will but then also
the dynamic dns process will start at
reboot as well
it may come right behind that job yes
okay
at reboot space sleep 20
ampersand okay yeah all right all right
yeah
so wait wait 20 seconds and then go yeah
or have it run have it run have it run
every 15 minutes
so just go star star slash 15
space star space star space star space
star
and then the command and that will run
once i
do it once i do it and make the change
it never changes after that not until i
reboot so there you go
yeah so i only have to worry about
reboot so
anyway back to you doug you were
we rooted rudely interrupted you
that was the next question doug no i was
just saying i'd have to
switch to something a little bit more
suitable the um
that's very probably probably wouldn't
be able to handle it it's too slow
doesn't have enough memory not enough
ram i should say
the pie hole your hole is pretty
lightweight i would just suggest you
turn off the logging
just turn off logging so it's not
constantly writing to the sd card
otherwise it's gonna
ah okay kill it a lot sooner yeah
but but i mean it's just about a by nine
server
at its heart so with a with a blacklist
so you just
it's not really doing much outside of
ram as long as it's not logging
so a raspberry pi 2 would do it just
fine okay
yeah okay yeah i've got a raspberry pi 3
so perfect yeah
that worked just fine just watch the
logs yeah
and whatever you do put it on a ups or
something because if it ever
loses power unexpectedly it could work
that sd card yeah the kid will have to
put it into a
voyager on it what's that rob
uh pi voyager is my favorite uh from
omslow
um just do a search supply
yes but it it's a smart intelligent
battery backup so if the battery
depletes
it will safely shut down the raspberry
pi
uh i'm like i'm like just plugging it in
oh yeah but i don't have to
i don't have to worry about the arduino
shutting down because it's all firmware
right once you've programmed it
that's it you're in you know even if the
power goes off unexpectedly it just
comes right back
back up again but uh i have a battery
backup for the arduino
so that works all right
peter how is your wife
please please let us know yes last
coffee break she had a call
yeah yeah she um got some uh batches
where she sticks them in the place where
urged
uh and uh these batteries are
painkillers
uh they don't work very well she told me
is she still in the hospital peter no no
no no
she's here at the moment you just give
him a treat
so she's walking around him yeah we
should walk awhile and
try and walk around walk around
on crutches or on crutches or on a
walker or whatever
you've got a walker okay okay
uh it's got uh i told that the person
who gave the walkers
they got faster and she got to go five
stickers on it because she's got two of
them
she's got one upstairs and one
downstairs you know
and she's got toilets as well which is
the most funny thing of everything
uh that's right that's all they've got
toilet humor but uh
it's on wheels it's got a safety belt
you could say and you could wear the
down to the shops
oh it's an electric cart thing no it's
pushable you i have to push it
you can have it while there what it was
you go down the thing because it's good
she says on it and the toilet bowl
underneath where you can
believe yourself with the safety
very well and how long will she be in
how long will she be in the chair uh
probably to december oh wow
okay and then again are they gonna take
the place
stuff back out or are they going to
leave that stuff that hardware all in
place they did they did they
it's a bone and a
wedding
tell me more what's going on well
to get more internet goes away for two
hours or an hour
certainly coming back on again i don't
do anything that's brutal that was the
day i was asking peter questions about
electronics
and then he suddenly just disappears for
two hours
did you forget to pay your internet bill
again uh
peter you forget to pay your internet
bill again
i'll show you what i was doing peter
peter these are the lights
can you guys see these yeah so this is
this is the deal
yeah these are the lights so what i want
to do is um they've got a 15 volt
power supply but they've all got these
bricks so they've all got these 15 volt
2 amp
no they're three amp i was wrong um
little power supplies so i got a i got
to wire them all
together so that i don't have to have
all those bricks
and then you you go six
and they're hanging from the roof i
don't and they're leds
yeah they're led yeah uh yeah
uh how um uh uh you can you put
a 14 in it or off six table today that
critical day
you know what i need to do i need to i
need to hook up my
kilowatt to it and see how many amps
it's actually drawing
because i don't i don't know it's a
three amp power supply it might only be
drawing one for all i know
so there may be some startup brush
current though it may take
it may take momentarily to get started
and then settle on
on like one amp that's an interesting
point
so if i got a power supply like like
peter was recommending i get this kind
of
uh universal power supply that had
enough amperage at 15 volts that i could
just wire everything in a circuit
but i wonder if i could like create a
bit of a relay
circuit that would like trip them after
like a timer so that
like light one comes on light two comes
on light three comes on
five five five dimensions by five timers
yeah right
what does that mean what are they called
there's an ic called a five five
five and it you can you put that in a
circuit
you can put that in a circuit to cause a
time for my
wouldn't that be that's clever i will
give you the circuit right bobby via
if things that doesn't go again i've
already had to go on
about that because i'm annoyed with that
i am very inaudible because he's been
doing this for a month
and uh they got you to find the fault i
asked them for about them
and um and they started to try to charge
me
and i pointed out to him that uh i'm
going to get an 80
my internet because i'm saying
you know you're not playing you're
you're not doing or you're part of the
bulk in
the contract so i i use that on them
are you like out in the boonies or
something or like why have you only got
such miserable internet because they
could because
because we're out in some around sticks
everywhere
we live out i don't know we're out of
nowhere
yeah peter peter bt means british
telecom right
yeah well i'll give me something else as
well but don't worry
well yeah i know i know
let's let's keep it clean this is a pg
uh
in network tools i've got an mfd as well
so uh
please uh i do know what i'm doing i've
been doing this for
ted so i've been 20 now i'm 60 i think
i've been doing this for 40 years you
know
them off about that one as well that's a
problem
especially especially when they set a
time of day somewhere between eight
o'clock in the morning and one o'clock
in the afternoon
right i mean yeah what can you do yeah
um
you know i'm trying to eliminate
problems uh
but regardless well you rent all that
you rent all that from british telecom
right so they they should be able to
replace them they've done that for me
not not bt but uh my local um
that's
can you get 3g 2g or wherever g and i
said no
you did be gone again they couldn't send
me out to g uh
thingy bobby was thinking yeah i said he
can't do that
he doesn't work in this village with
about uh um
a mobile said well the mobile don't work
either because the air will face in a
long way
typical irish you know well it's holding
up all right peter so that's
it's holding up all right so that's a
good feeling
yeah it seems
so we've only got
we've only got a few minutes left um so
i wanted to okay
if you're very quick if you're very
quick yeah robbie i don't think you get
dessert you've got early days because
it's only when you get searched with a
light you know uh um
but the best thing is a one one power
supply
and the other thing i was doing was i i
uh the thing would actually didn't work
and i discovered why it didn't work
because they didn't connect the
the pen to
a rod down the middle with an allen key
well these this one
split like like a banana before
different
we modeled another one on it and uh i
got it to work again
uh it was all very good it's uh it
must be white band you know but uh i've
never had anyone
really in any any real real play
uh real success with them it seemed to
be a bit uh
you know up and down up and down wrong
anyway uh but uh okay
good good good to know peter good to
know all right
um i've got some homework for the rest
of you a lot whenever
whenever we get back together next week
because i'm i'm trying i'm trying to
understand the difference between
ssl certificates and public private key
encryption because when you when you
look at ssl
it seems like there's a public and a
private key in there somewhere
but what i'm doing is i'm trying to use
the private key
to verify the identity of the person or
the the
you know the person who's connecting to
the uh to the server
and it seems to me ssl won't do that ssl
will encrypt the communication between
the client and the server
but i don't think that is an adequate
way
to verify a person's identity
i think the the the solution is public
private key
but i'm i'm looking at the gcrypt
library at the moment that comes on
um that comes standard with linux and i
think i figured out how to do it but um
i'm trying to understand as i say i'm
trying to understand the difference
between public and private key
and ssl i always thought that
ssl was just point to point encryption
i think that's true as well
but it seems to rely on some kind of a
third party to
trust the certificate to trust the
certificate chain
and i'm i'm i'm trying to come up with a
solution
trust no one right if i if i generate a
private key as my client
uh at me running the client when i talk
to the server i want to give the server
my public key
say right here's my public key and
um and use that
anytime you want to talk to me um
but the the thing when i'm reading
through the documentation is it looks
like you can only
encrypt with a private key and i'm not
going to give the server
my private key so that's that's your
homework for the uh
for the evening they're all for the week
steve see if you can help me figure that
out
bt-9 um i said something about uh
lazarus the other day uh did you
understand that uh
when you uh impose a ladder you put on
a uh a nexus package on it and you have
to run on
windows day your thing to take the
baggage off it's uh
it's for debugging stuff did you get
information on thank you i i understood
that i understood i've worked with
pascal before
both free pascal and
and with turbo pascal do you have to do
it with lenovo that's why i wanted to
did he put the baggage on in linux as
well oh
probably i didn't i didn't get that deep
into it i just got into it deep enough
to be able to compile the package that i
was
trying to compile the latest version of
and it just compiled and ran
so there's a fold called
uh there's a following windows which you
you run with the program i've got a
script folder i'll run
and uh it takes off all this package
level
and it makes it nice and slim i don't
know if you have to do that then
yeah i'm not doing this i'm not doing
this to distribute it so i do not care
whether it has debug symbols in it or
any of that mess
so i'm quite happy just to uh just to
run it
as it comes out of the compiler because
i'm writing a program to that
actually doesn't be sold it's an aerial
uh design program to design matching
different types of magic
uh there's a lot of horrible maps in
there as well
and uh i need to uh
would be to check google or check the
documentation for
lazarus or free pascal which is the
pascal compiler
there'll be documentation oh okay
all right good okay yeah yeah
dude
yeah we don't we don't have time to get
into we don't have time to get into that
peter i'm sorry
no i know that we're up to 30 minutes so
this is your baby now
bp9
i'm just sitting here quietly
i have the button i could i could click
the button right now it will be done
all right um this is we're up to 30
minutes
we're done so um uh so
doug thank you and and peter thank you
for your
uh for your time and especially you
robbie uh i appreciate you
i appreciate your time hope you can
hopefully
come in you know thank you for watching
for the community man i mean this has
become
i mean yeah
there's a handful of other people reid
has been joining us as well
and it's just like this to be able to
keep this going is
is really a special thing for our
community so thank you bp9
cool yep you're welcome no problem at
all all right i'm going to end the
meeting now so
let me say cheerio to everybody and and
thanks very much for your participation
see you next week bye all right bye-bye
bye everybody