UPS for Ubuntu 20

Recently purchased two new UPS, one for Windows, another one for Ubuntu workstation. (UPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply)

Model: APC UPS, 1500VA UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector, BX1500M

(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06VY6FXMM/)

Plugged in the workstation, mid-size LCD monitor, USB hub with external power, having several devices with it, and 8 bay USB external drive.  UPS shows it can run on battery for about 60 min with everything turned on.

With recent frequent storms, power goes out briefly occasionally and this will save me from the trouble while I'm working on my computer.

S/W on Ubuntu

• apcupsd: daemon process communicating with APC UPS
  
• apcupsd-cgi: providing Web UI for APC UPS status
  
• There was an old GUI application, but it no longer runs on Ubuntu 20, and not supported.

Install

$ sudo apt-get install apcupsd

If Web UI is desired, install apache:

$ sudo apt-get install apache2 apcupsd-cgi

$ apt list --installed | grep apcupsd

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

apcupsd-cgi/focal,now 3.14.14-3build1 amd64 [installed]
apcupsd-doc/focal,focal,now 3.14.14-3build1 all [installed,automatic]
apcupsd/focal,now 3.14.14-3build1 amd64 [installed]

 

I installed apcupsd-cgi although web server is not installed.  This is to analyze the CGI programs to see if I can build a front-end app without web server.  It turns out that the CGI programs are not necessary to build a GUI front-end.  I'll explain this in later section of this posting.

• apcupsd user manual, http://apcupsd.org/manual/manual.html 
• man page, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/apcupsd

 

Files

Configuration files:
/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf   # main
/etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf     # if other computers use this UPS
/etc/apcupsd/multimon.conf  # fields to use in CGI

Executables are in this directory,
/etc/apcupsd      
/sbin/apcaccess
/sbin/apctest

Logs,
/var/log/apcupsd.events

CGI Files,
If Apache is installed, the Web UI screen can be accessed with this URL:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/apcupsd/multimon.cgi

/usr/lib/cgi-bin/apcupsd/multimon.cgi    #
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/apcupsd/upsfstats.cgi   # works as /sbin/apcaccess
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/apcupsd/upsimage.cgi    # graph generator
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/apcupsd/upsstats.cgi    #

 

Set up

For my environment, there is only one computer using this UPS, attached via USB, and email is not configured.

$ sudo vi /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf
UPSNAME APC_BX1500M
UPSCABLE usb
UPSTYPE usb
BATTERYLEVEL 5  # shutdown at battery level percentage
MINUTES 5       # remaining runtime in minutes in case of power failure to shutdown
DEVICE          # blank entry for USB

$ sudo vi /etc/default/apcupsd
ISCONFIGURED=yes

$ sudo cp /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol.orig /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol 

$ sudo systemctl restart apcupsd.service

CGI output analysis

All the CGIs come with the apcupsd-cgi package can run in console with proper environment variable set up.  The output is stored at:

https://gist.github.com/keithkim/9210a84d68730f1a71c3cffe4fd4e681

(short URL, https://bit.ly/2QyVTvD)

Upon examining the output HTMLs from the CGIs, it's nothing but providing nice looking web interface by parsing output from running apcaccess, and the log.

By issuesing man apcaccess you will see what the apcaccess output fields mean.

To build a simple GUI app just like gapcmon (see below under Reference), parsing this output is sufficient.  To provide GUI configuration screen, then it needs to provide a form and updating the configuration file, restarting the daemon process -- this will require privileged access level.

Idea - gnome shell extension would be nice, or wxPython or Tk app is good also.

Reference

• apcupsd source code, https://sourceforge.net/projects/apcupsd/
• gapcmon - old GUI app, no longer works, http://gapcmon.sourceforge.net
• code, https://sourceforge.net/projects/gapcmon/files/

Voilà for Jupyter

 

https://blog.jupyter.org/and-voil%C3%A0-f6a2c08a4a93

"Voilà turns Jupyter notebooks into standalone web applications."

$ conda install voila -c conda-forge

 

Kali Linux 2020.3 Release

https://www.kitploit.com/2020/08/kali-linux-20203-release-penetration.html

VirtualBox download, 

https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-vm-vmware-virtualbox-image-download/

 

Misc Linux Tips: anaconda, vim, screen

Anaconda

Channels

• Show all channels, $ conda config --show channels
• Adding a channel, $ conda config --add channels https://channel_url
  $ conda config --set show_channel_urls yes
• Remove channel, $ conda config --remove channels https://channel_url

Anaconda Config commands:
https://docs.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/commands/config.html

 

Vim 

copy & Paste

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-copy-cut-paste-in-vim/

Y=Yank

yy: copy current line

3yy: copy 3 lines (or any number)

y$: copy til to the end of the line

y^: copy from the start of the line

yw: copy until the end of the word, e.g. 12345[6]789 --> 6789 (6 is where cursor is)

yiw: copy the current word

dd: delete the line

3dd: delete 3 lines

d$: delete until the end of the line

p: paste

<visual mode>

v: visual mode

V: visual line mode

Ctrl+v: visual block mode

y: copy

d: delete

 

Screen

http://www.softpanorama.org/Utilities/Screen/screen_logging.shtml

screen -r   # reattach
screen -ls  # list sessions

- Logging: Ctrl-a, H
- screen output: Ctrl-a, h

High CPU usage by tracker

$ tracker reset --hard                # reset index

$ /usr/libexec/tracker-miner-fs -v 3  # examine issues

 

Typora

wget -qO - https://typora.io/linux/public-key.asc | sudo apt-key add -
# add Typora's repository
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://typora.io/linux ./'
sudo apt-get update

# install typora
sudo apt-get install typora

[this post will be updated with more entries]

Linux Antivirus

This post is about using free antivirus programs on Ubuntu/Linux.

What doesn't work:

• Sophos - couldn't install.  Downloaded, unzipped, no installer for Linux.
• Comodo - .deb file downloaded, requires libssl0.9.8.  You could force install that version, but I decided not to.
• F-prot - EOL, no uninstaller, no instruction to remove.
  

 What works:

• ClamAV
  
• Check Rootkit
• Rootkit Hunter

Unfortunately, no real-time detection is available with non-commercial s/w.

ClamAV 

$ sudo apt-get install clamav clamtk

Comes with GUI.  When scanning, GUI could look frozen.

Start, Stop
$ sudo systemctl start|stop clamav-freshclam

Disable,
$ sudo update-rc.d clamav-freshclam disable


Configure
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure clamav-freshclam


Command line
$ sudo clamscan --infected --remove --recursive
$ clamscan -r-i --bell ~/Downloads

Signature DB path= /var/lib/clamav/

 

 

 

Check Root Kit

$ sudo apt-get install chkrootkit

$ sudo chkrootkit

Rootkit Hunter

$ sudo apt-get install rkhunter

$ sudo vi /etc/rkhunter.conf.local

and add "PKGMGR=DPKG" for Ubuntu

$ sudo rkhunter -c

Visual Studio Code PyLint issue

Problem: For Visual Studio Code, valid Python code has red-squiggles.

 

Visual Studio Code is a great tool for python programming.  Recently, I found a strange issue: a valid python code line has red squiggles.  It is a method call of some package I installed, and VSC correctly pops up available methods for the package fine.  It's there, why red squiggle then?

This red squiggle is work of Linting telling me that something is wrong.  VSC supports different Lint programs, and PyLint is one of them that works for me the best. 

But this red squiggle for valid method -- this turns out to be a security feature: Pylint does not import non-stdlib C extensions as it is a security risk.

 

Solution:

Tell Pylint to load the extension anyways.

1. File → Preferences → Settings → User settings tab

2. Type in "python.linting.pylintArgs"  This will bring up Pylint Argument setting.

3. Click on "Add Item" button and add this line:

--unsafe-load-any-extension=y

All working well now.

ADDITION - Disable warnings

[1]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4341746/how-do-i-disable-a-pylint-warning

$ pylint --generate-rcfile > stndard.rc 

In [MESSAGES CONTROL], and check/add messages to disable:

disable=

Add this as an argument --rcfile="...standard.rc"

[2] Within VSC

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7877522/how-do-i-disable-missing-docstring-warnings-at-a-file-level-in-pylint

In preferences, add:

"python.linting.pylintArgs": ["--errors-only"]

References

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28437071/pylint-1-4-reports-e1101no-member-on-all-c-extensions
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59739526/why-are-pylints-error-squiggle-lines-not-showing-in-python-visual-studio-code
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/linting
• http://pylint.pycqa.org/en/latest/
  

[Note] Ada on Ubuntu 20

Installing Ada

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29

Apt has two packages.  GNAT-GPS (IDE) didn't work properly for me:

• gnat-gps - integrated development environment for C and Ada
• gnat - GNU Ada compiler

Get this file from here and install instead -- it will install everything in one directory:
https://www.adacore.com/community

GNAT Studio Tutorial - http://docs.adacore.com/gps-docs/tutorial/_build/html/

Compiling in console

$ vi helloworld.adb

with Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Hello is
begin
    Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line("Hello, world!");
end Hello;

$ gnatmake helloworld.adb

$ ll
total 52
drwxrwxr-x 2 kkim kkim  4096 Aug  8 20:02 ./
drwxrwxr-x 4 kkim kkim  4096 Aug  8 20:00 ../
-rwxrwxr-x 1 kkim kkim 30000 Aug  8 20:01 helloworld*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kkim kkim   211 Aug  8 20:02 helloworld.adb
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kkim kkim  1662 Aug  8 20:01 helloworld.ali
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kkim kkim  1640 Aug  8 20:01 helloworld.o
$ ./helloworld
Hello, world!

 

Tutoria, misc

 

• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming
• https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gnat_ugn/Running-a-Simple-Ada-Program.html
• http://cowlark.com/2014-04-27-ada/
• https://ideone.com/a1ky4l
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPD9U4Wuh5A&list=PLdyq3-oDP5jyjlHZIJGC4mlqCWYOJaOTs
• Intro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-WK6Iaqlns
• Ada core, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntO2sjQU9IE
• Lesson-1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wneklxryk
• Embedded system, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBU1Grr-Yyk
  

Ada on RPi/Arudino

• https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/50368/raspberry-pi-and-ada-compiler-gnat-on-raspbian-gpio
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/raspi-i2c-ada/
• GPIO, https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/raspberry-gpio/all
• Programming Arduino with Ada
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15723946/programming-arduino-with-ada#15724642 
• https://www.academia.edu/2490736/Integrating_8_bit_AVR_Micro_Controllers_in_Ada
  

Open Source Ada projects

Search, https://sourceforge.net/directory/os:linux/?q=ada

• https://sourceforge.net/projects/raspi-i2c-ada/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/mathpaqs/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/coterminalapps/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenslider/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/fuzzyml/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/worldcupsokerban/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/rufascube/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/minipacman/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/warborg/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnat-math-extn/
• neural network, https://sourceforge.net/projects/anpe/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/coldframe/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/unzip-ada/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/matta/
• 3D framework, https://sourceforge.net/projects/globe3d/

[Note] Kinect2 on Ubuntu

This is NOT about XBox-360 Kinect.

Environment: Ubuntu 20.04

Kinect v2, XBox One version + USB adapter for PC

For Win10 and more info, see - https://blog.keithkim.com/2020/02/kinect2-on-windows-motion-detection.html

Install

The whole step is just about downloading, compiling and installing libfreenect2

• Requires gcc version 8
• Requires CUDA sample code
• Requires a lot of apt packages

[1] multiple gcc versions

Default was version 9.  I had to install version 8 and made it as default.

$ sudo apt -y install gcc-7 g++-7 gcc-8 g++-8 gcc-9 g++-9
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-7 7
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-7 7
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 8
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8 8
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-9 9
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-9 9

# select v8:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config gcc
$ sudo update-alternatives --config g++

# check version

$ gcc --version
$ g++ --version

[2] install CUDA sample code

See, https://blog.keithkim.com/2020/08/note-cuda-on-ubuntu-2004.html

[3] Install lots of APT packages

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake autoconf pkg-config doxygen \
 libusb-1.0-0-dev libtool libudev-dev \
 libturbojpeg libjpeg-turbo8-dev \
 mesa-common-dev libgl1-mesa-glx \
 freeglut3-dev libxrandr-dev libxi-dev libva-dev libva-drm2 \
 openni2-utils

[4] compile libfreenect2

If want to disable CUDA, change cmake line as below,

$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/freenect2 -ENABLE_CUDA OFF

If CUDA is installed, and you have the sample, type this before make to point where the sample is installed,

$ export CPATH=$CPATH:$HOME/NVIDIA_CUDA-10.1_Samples/common

$ git clone https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect2.git
$ cd libfreenect2
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ make install
$ sudo cp ../platform/linux/udev/90-kinect2.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
 

# Unplug, plug in Kinect first
# you may have to add yourself to 'plugdev' group.

$ ./bin/Protonect

 

Closing

 Using it in Python, OpenCV will be another posting.

Reference

• https://www.programmersought.com/article/8067544172/
• https://www.programmersought.com/article/29234538661/
  
• https://www.notaboutmy.life/posts/run-kinect-2-on-ubuntu-20-lts/
  
• https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-switch-between-multiple-gcc-and-g-compiler-versions-on-ubuntu-20-04-lts-focal-fossa
• https://www.kdab.com/setting-up-kinect-for-programming-in-linux-part-1/
• https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-samples/issues/15
• https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect2/issues/777
  

 

[Note] CUDA on Ubuntu 20.04

Install Options

A couple of ways to install CUDA:

1. get everything from NVIDIA CUDA site
2. apt-get
3. docker
   

 

For the latest CUDA version,  do method #1.  For easier way, #2.  I chose to do #2.  But after went through it, I'm not sure if it's really easier. 

And #2 method, the CUDA version is 10.1.  I haven't tried docker method.

 

Install

Checking driver version:

$ nvidia-smi

Fri Aug  7 18:35:38 2020      
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.100      Driver Version: 440.100      CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0   Quadro P2000        Off  | 00000000:09:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 53%   47C    P8     7W /  75W |    663MiB /  5057MiB |     17%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
...

Install packages using apt-get

$ sudo apt-get install build-essentials nvidia-cuda-toolkit

Check nvcc version:

$ nvcc --version

nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2019 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Sun_Jul_28_19:07:16_PDT_2019
Cuda compilation tools, release 10.1, V10.1.243

Install cudnn

1. Download cudnn, https://developer.nvidia.com/cudnn
2. uncompress
3. sudo cp cuda/include/cudnn.h /usr/lib/cuda/include/
   sudo cp cuda/lib64/libcudnn* /usr/lib/cuda/lib64/
   sudo chmod a+r /usr/lib/cuda/include/cudnn.h /usr/lib/cuda/lib64/libcudnn*
   

Install sample codes

Using apt-get, it doesn't come with sample codes.  For installing Kinect2 (will be on another posting), the sample is needed.  Install only if you need it.

Download from github, https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-samples/tree/10.1.2 

And store it anywhere you want.  Note that some other dependent code may look for it in a certain path, such as /usr/local/cuda-X-Y...

A couple more things to do:

[1] 

nvcc is installed in /usr/bin/  -- examples and some programs I use (sorry didn't write it down and forgot what it was) looks for it in /usr/local/cuda/bin.  Create a sym link there.

[2] vi .vashrc

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/cuda/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/cuda/include:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Reference

• https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/How-To-Install-CUDA-10-together-with-9-2-on-Ubuntu-18-04-with-support-for-NVIDIA-20XX-Turing-GPUs-1236/
• https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html#recommended-post
• https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/How-To-Install-CUDA-10-1-on-Ubuntu-19-04-1405/
• https://medium.com/@patrickorcl/install-cuda-10-and-cudnn-on-ubuntu-18-b28b59bae279
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/1230645/when-is-cuda-gonna-be-released-for-ubuntu-20-04
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/1230645/when-is-cuda-gonna-be-released-for-ubuntu-20-04
  
• https://medium.com/@patrickorcl/install-cuda-10-and-cudnn-on-ubuntu-18-b28b59bae279 
  

 

CUDA Samples

1. https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-samples/index.html
2. https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-samples/tree/10.1.2
3. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/How-To-Install-CUDA-10-together-with-9-2-on-Ubuntu-18-04-with-support-for-NVIDIA-20XX-Turing-GPUs-1236/#step-6-test-cuda-by-building-the-samples-from-source-for-both-cuda-92-and-cuda-100

Nvidia Docker

• https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker#quick-start
• https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-docker-gpu-server-application-deployment-made-easy/
• https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker 

 

SikuliX on Linux - vision based automation

http://sikulix.com

It's a vision based automation tool, you give an image, it will find a match and do automation.  It's a great open source tool.

I used this on Windows, and now my main OS is Ubuntu, and this is some information and note on it.  It uses OpenCV and Tesseract OCR.

Install On Ubuntu 20.04

Installing and using SikuliX on Window is simple and straightforward.  On Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 for my case), it needs little bit more work.

Requirements

• OpenCV
• Tesseract OCR
• Java 11 or later

1. Download SikuliX

Download it from https://raiman.github.io/SikuliX1/downloads.html
or do
$ wget https://launchpad.net/sikuli/sikulix/2.0.4/+download/sikulixide-2.0.4.jar

2. Install Java 11 or later

• This will not work with Java8. 
• OpenJDK works fine.
• Dealing with multiple Java versions: I have Java 8, 11, 14, and Oracle JDK8 as well.  My default Java is set to 8.  To run this software with Java 14, I used bash script, and added using Alacarte (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alacarte)

3. Install/Set up OpenCV, Tesseract OCR

$ sudo apt-get install libopencv4.2-java libopencv4.2-jni
$ sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr
$ cd /usr/lib/jni/
$ sudo ln -s libopencv_java420.so libopencv_java.so

4. Bash script

#!/usr/bin/bash
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-14-openjdk-amd64
SIKULIX_HOME=/opt/sikulix
SIKULIX_JAR=sikulixide-2.0.4.jar
LOG=$SIKULIX_HOME/sikulix.log
$JAVA_HOME/bin/java -jar $SIKULIX_HOME/$SIKULIX_JAR >> $LOG 2>&1

SikuliX Resources

• SikuliX GIT, https://github.com/RaiMan/SikuliX1
• Quick start, http://sikulix.com/quickstart/
• Guide, https://sikulix-2014.readthedocs.io/en/latest/extensions/sikuli-guide/
• Install, https://digitalfinancelearning.com/how-to-install-sikuli/

Other Resources

• OpenCV, https://github.com/tesseract-ocr
• Tesseract OCR, https://github.com/tesseract-ocr

Other opensource or free automation tools

• Linux
• Actiona
• https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id=:en:start
• https://github.com/Jmgr/actiona
• Windows
• AutoHotkey, https://www.autohotkey.com
• AutoIt, https://www.autoitscript.com
• Web/REST API
• Cucumber, https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber-ruby
• Karate, https://github.com/intuit/karate