Fail2ban is great, but with the rise of AI bots and other malware I am finding that maintaining 10’s of thousands of IP addresses to ban is causing slowdowns on the server. I’ve long wanted to be able to ban a class C when any IP address in the range matches, but I could not find out a way to do this online. Its not actually that hard to implement. Here is how I did it. I created a new rule in action.d. The rule is closely based on the iptables.conf rule, but modifies it to replace the last octet with “0/24” and thus bans and unbans a class C instead of a single IP address. I…
Read More
In my day job I recently needed to disconnect a web server system from Serverpilot. There is very little third party documentation on this, and the documentation from Server Pilot does not tell the whole story. One of the slightly hidden Gotchas of moving off Server Pilot is – as far as I can see – that once you disconnect from it, any domains using autorenewal/Letsencrypt will no longer be renewed as renewal appears to be initiated through Server Pilot. So a couple of things for future me or any one else dedicated enough to find this post. To disconnect from Server Pilot (on the server side – this does not cancel the account) – systemctl disable…
Read More
I have a Solax X1 Hybrid system and a complex power plan which the in-built logic of the Solax system can’t take full advantage of. I also have a bit of a complex about sending my data overseas (still working on that, but these scripts help, along with documentation I have found in obscure places online). Hopefully the information and the trivial scripts below are of use to others. The key to this is described in a document I found online titled “Hybrid X1&X3-G3 ModbusTCP&RTU V3.21- English” online. The discussion at https://github.com/squishykid/solax/issues/14 makes for very interesting reading. I present here 3 trivial python scripts (indeed the first scripts I’ve written in Python!) which communicate with the Solax…
Read More
I have an older Panasonic Microwave oven (model NN-ST680S). Other then the light not working (and the replaced light failing after a few days!), the unit has worked well until recently. One of the roller wheels on the the oven decided to come off recently – and after popping it back, it kept on coming off. After tossing up whether to get a replacement ring for about 1/10th the cost of replacing the new oven or ditching the oven I came up with a better idea. My first attempts at fixing the ring failed, but I worked out a simple, elegant and fairly professional looking solution. I simply popped the wheel off the ring, cut a roughly…
Read More
After my previous debacle getting an IR Blaster to work with Tasmota, I purchased a Neo Coolcam from Aliexpress (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33040426244.html) – and I’m glad I did. Other then the firmware version this proved to be really good for hacking. The board is trivial to open (just rotate the top off, like opening a jar). The board itself is well laid out, with everything on 1 side, and exposed pads grouped together. I soldered on headers – and indeed these can remain on the board permanently as there is ample space for them. I used Tasmota to flash. I had no problem getting this to work with Tasmota-IR, following the details at https://templates.blakadder.com/neo_coolcam_NAS-IR03W.html although while my Air conditioning…
Read More
This article is for those with a technical bent looking for information on this product – as I did not find anything meaningful I leave my observations below. I purchased one of these units off Aliexpress for a pittance – and I did not get a bargain. While it is possible that this unit worked out-the-box, the design is “not great”. I attempted to use tuya-convert to flash this unit with Tasmota. That failed and left me with something of a brick. (ie it corrupted the existing firmware) I then opened the unit to attach leads and flash Tasmota on it that way. The connection points are tiny and scattered all over the board – and in…
Read MoreI recently got my hands on an Aercus Weathersleuth Weatherstation. This is a fairly nice piece of kit. One of its benefits is it can talk to the internet or an arbitrary server. A bit of poking around revealed it communicates by way of an HTTP post request which looks as follows – http://ADDRESS.SPECIFIED.IN.CONFIG/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php?ID=IDINCONFIG&PASSWORD=PWINCONFIG&tempf=64.8&humidity=79&dewptf=58.1&windchillf=64.8&winddir=48&windspeedmph=2.46&windgustmph=2.46&rainin=0.00&dailyrainin=0.00&weeklyrainin=0.00&monthlyrainin=0.00&yearlyrainin=0.00&solarradiation=152.45&UV=1&indoortempf=-9999&indoorhumidity=-9999&baromin=-9999&lowbatt=0&dateutc=20165-10-0%202:29:46&softwaretype=Weather%20logger%20V2.1.9&action=updateraw&realtime=1&rtfreq=5 On the back of this I wrote a trivial script (which does not yet do authentication) – <?php # Script to take data from Aecus weather station and convert to MQTT # Stations is an array which defines the devices we accept.# Format of each sub-array is “Name”,”Password”,”IP address” ## This script requires php-mqtt – see https://github.com/php-mqtt/client# Acquired with “composer require php-mqtt/client” …
Read More
I purchased a kit-set clock/alarm kit for my kids to build to learn to solder. Unfortunately, while it came with soldering instructions (which it didn’t need), it did not come with programming instructions and the supplier is no more. Below are partial instructions I’ve discovered through the web and playing around. The clock has 2 buttons – S1 and S2. Clicking S2 cycles through different settings A-I. When you click S2 the left digit on the screen represents A,B (8), C, D (0), E,F,G,H and I Clicking S1 then cycles through the options for that setting. The corresponding settings are roughly (and slightly incorrectly still) – A = Clock Hour B = Clock Minute C = Beep…
Read MoreI purchased said Treadmill from Torpedo 7 a few months ago, and the manual has been sitting around the machine, looking ugly. As its only 16 pages, black and white, I cant be bothered finding a place to keep it. (It would make my library of exercise machinery manuals to large), so I’ve digitized a copy for myself. I have emailed Torpedo 7 confirming I am OK to redistribute this work for free. ( I doubt this is an issue as they have not asserted copyright, so hopefully we are helping each other) The manual number is 4130K3-90004-1400, and can be found here.
Read More
Some months ago I acquired a dead-on-arrival time release lock – the type that typically sells on Aliexpress and eBay for about US$20, appropriately described as “Multipurpose Time Lock” but more commonly “Fetish Electronic Timer” or, in the type of English unique to China “Adult Game Fetish Handcuffs”. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a lot of choice if you want an inexpensive electronically controlled time-release lock. The issue with the unit I got my hands on was clearly a dead battery – as best I can tell the unit contains a small lithium polymer battery which must have been sitting in a state of discharge in a warehouse somewhere causing permanent damage – it no…
Read More