Tag Archives: raspberry pi

More NAS Fun

We live, we learn. A year ago, I had this post about my raspi-NAS failing. One of the things I said was I’d look into building a real RAID 1 based NAS on a Raspberry Pi.

Yeah, researching that subject while rebuilding my home network a few weeks ago, I found out that USB and RAID don’t work together like that. So, if I want a NAS with RAID, I’d have to do something else. Like a rack-mounted server running FreeNAS. Yes, I know it’s being rebranded TrueNAS Core.

I tried Open Media Vault (OMV) with my existing powered external hard drives. It didn’t like them. OVM could see the drives but wouldn’t let me do anything other than formatting them.

I’m sorry, I’m not interested in losing all my data. So I just set up the Raspberry Pi to run Samba again. It works fine.

I might try to rerun OVM someday when I have free time and free hardware to set it up, but I have a long list of things to do before then.

Raspi-NAS rebuild and data recovery

Shortly after rebuilding my Raspberry NAS last year, it stopped working again. The system wouldn’t boot right, even after changing the micro-SD card with a new build of Raspbian. A few weeks ago, I bought a new Pi 3 b and rebuilt the NAS again. When the system powered on, one of the USB drives wasn’t working. It looked like the file system was corrupt. During attempts to recover the USB drive, it stopped being readable. Both my Windows and Linux computers could see the USB drive, but not the file system, or the data. I re-formatted the disc drive, and it started working fine, it just had no data on it.

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Raspi-nas

A couple of years ago, I don’t remember when, I built a small NAS using a Raspberry Pi 2 B version 1.1, and two 128G USB flash drives from Microcenter.  It is called “raspi-nas”, and  I built it following the How-To Geek Guide: How to Turn a Raspberry Pi into a Low-Power Network Storage Device.  It worked well to back up our phones.  Which is all it is used for.  It used wireless for the network connection.

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Different ways to use TOR

While catching up on SANS’ Internet Storm Center Storm Cast during my drive, I heard this episode. In it Johannes Ullrich was mentioned this article about using DRM Decloaking TOR users. Short version, users running the Tor Browser Bundle click a link, and Microsoft Windows launches the media player not using the TOR network, exposing the user’s real IP address.

This attack could be mitigated by using TAILS or something else that forces all traffic through TOR. Which made me think I should share all the ways I use TOR.

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Why I don’t have a lab

An industry mailing list I’m on recently had a conversation that started asking about Master Degrees but had some hiring managers chip in. They said a question they tend to ask is to have the candidate tell about their home lab.

I’ve been asked this question a few times in the past, and I’ve asked people this question in job interviews. I know it’s to find out what kind of passion the candidate has for the job, but I think it’s starting to become a bad question to ask.

Here is why I don’t have a home lab.

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Rough Outline for Circle City Con

Just so people have an idea of what the class is going to cover:

1. Basic theory of electromagnetic radiation known as radio waves
2. Install SDR# software and configure Dongle on Windows to monitor broadcasts (FM radio, Ham Radio, Other bands).
3. ADBS (Track airplanes, basically how FlightAware does it, with remote sensors people run)
4. Frequency counting (finding what Freqs are popular in an area to do more of item 2).
5. Radio Directional Finding, using RTL-SDR dongles on a Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen and gui software.
5a. (for licensed HAMS) how to turn the Raspberry Pi in to a broadcasting radio

RTL-SDR for Circle City Con

Remember I said you only need 1 of these. These are how they came from Amazon (where I got them all), see last post for links.

RTL-SDR.com: Again I like this because it’s a metal case and came with 2 antenna.

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The NooElec in the aluminum case. This is a bare USB stick put in to the block. The picture on Amazon is blue, but what I got was black with silver lettering (I like that look).
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The Blue NooElec, like the one in the block case, it comes with a telescoping antenna.
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Lastly the NooElec cheap option, with the stick antenna, that doesn’t collapse.
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Parts list for Circle City Con’s SDR talk

I’ll be teaching an Introductory class at Circle City Con this year, on Software Defined Radio.

Introduction to Software Defined Radio with the RTL-SDR on Windows and the Raspberry Pi 2

4-hour introduction to Software Defined Radio, using the RTL2832U chipset, covering both Microsoft Windows and the Raspberry Pi. We will be going over how to track airplanes, scan radio frequencies to find people talking, and covering a little radio theory. Covering RTL-SDR due to the cost of equipment. A list can be provided to students prior to the course.

Here is the part list you’ll need if you’re taking the class (Note the links got to RTL-SDR.com, Amazon, or Ada Fruit, and I am not associated with either of them). If you can get parts elsewhere that is fine :

All the RTL-SDR dong’es with antennas I’ve gotten so far have had magnetic mounts, and you need a ground plane for them to work right.

Raspberry Pi WPA_Supplicant setup taking way longer than it should

—- TL/DR —-
If you want to connect a raspberry pi to a hidden access point your wpa_supplicant.conf needs to have the following in the network statement.

Don’t put a ” or a ) in your ASCII PSK it causes problems. I couldn’t get it to work with the hex psk using wpa_passphrase but I broke the rules of troubleshooting making multiple changes at a time instead of one and resetting it.

—– End TL/DR —-

I got a new phone. Nexus 5x.  But this isn’t what this post is about. My SO got a new phone last August. It was an unplanned by after the last one went for a porta-john swim. Again. not what this is about.

A co-worker suggested setting up a NAS to back up the pictures to. Being a poor college student, yes still grad school isn’t cheap, that really isn’t an option. Then he said well if it’s just the phones, why not use one of your Raspberry Pis?

The problem is getting the wpa_suplicant.conf file talking. It has taken me 2 days. Mainly because I don’t mess with that file much.

it hated my passphrase because of the ” and the ) in the middle example:

I tried wpa_passphrase with the file, but it didn’t like that either. (although I kind of want to go back and test it again, in case I missed something.

Which I couldn’t find out until after I set the AP to broadcast. So after more digging I found that

scan_ssid=1 has to be in the config.

Sigh. This is taking way longer than need be, and I’d just wire it, but it’s going to not be near the cables, because of power.