today's howtos

• Force Users To Use Strong Passwords In Debian And Ubuntu - OSTechNix

  This brief tutorial explains how to force users to use strong passwords using Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) in Debian, Ubuntu and other DEB-based systems.

• How to Get the MAC Address of a Network Interface Card - TREND OCEANS

  You are about to learn what a MAC address is, where they are stored, how they are assigned, the relationship between MAC addresses and IP addresses, and finally, how to get the MAC address of a network interface card.

• How To Install KTorrent on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install KTorrent on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, KTorrent is a full-featured BitTorrent application that allows you to download files using the BitTorrent protocol. Also enables you to run multiple torrents at the same time and comes with extended features to make it a full-featured client for BitTorrent. KTorrent is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the KTorrent torrent client on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

• Ryan Kavanagh's /dev/brain

  I’ve been using OpenIKED for some time now to configure my VPN. One of its features is that it can dynamically assign addresses on the internal network to clients, and clients can assign these addresses and routes to interfaces. However, these interfaces must exist before iked can start. Some months ago I switched my Debian laptop’s configuration from the traditional ifupdown to systemd-networkd. It took me some time to figure out how to have systemd-networkd create dummy interfaces on which iked can install addresses, but also not interfere with iked by trying to manage these interfaces. Here is my working configuration.

EasyOS Dunfell-series 4.2

EasyOS was created in 2017, derived from Quirky Linux, which in turn was derived from Puppy Linux in 2013. Easy is built in woofQ, which takes as input binary packages from any distribution, and uses them on top of the unique EasyOS infrastructure. Throughout 2020, the official release for x86_64 PCs was the Buster-series, built with Debian 10.x Buster DEBs. EasyOS has also been built with packages compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, the Dunfell release of OE has been used, to compile two sets of binary packages, for x86_64 and aarch64. The latter have been used to build EasyOS for the Raspberry Pi4, and first official release, 2.6.1, was in January 2021. The page that you are reading now has the release notes for EasyOS Dunfell-series on x86_64 PCs, also debuting in 2021. Ongoing development is now focused on the x86_64 Dunfell-series. The last version in the x86_64 Buster-series is 2.6.2, on June 29, 2021, and that is likely to be the end of that series. Releases for the Pi4 Dunfell-series are still planned but very intermittent. The version number is for EasyOS itself, independent of the target hardware; that is, the infrastructure, support-glue, system scripts and system management and configuration applications. The latest version is becoming mature, though Easy is an experimental distribution and some parts are under development and are still considered as beta-quality. However, you will find this distro to be a very pleasant surprise, or so we hope. Also: EasyOS Dunfell-series version 4.2 released

today's leftovers

• Learn C++ Programming Step by Step – A 20 Day Curriculum!

  Although there are numerous programming languages available in the market to work upon, but C++ has never lost its charm since its inception and still has a strong impact in the development world. As per the reports, C++ comes under a few top programming languages across the world. Alike the C programming language, C++ also makes it easier for you to understand the underlying architecture of programming, although it also supports other additional features such as object-oriented programming, exception handling, etc. Moreover, various IT giants Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. offer numerous career opportunities to C++ professionals, hence you’re strongly recommended to give it a try and start to learn C++ Programming.

• Security by Diversity: Designing Secure, Reliable and Robust Systems

  This is the first in a series of blog posts on Security by Diversity. Here we'll focus on the scaling properties of reliability through diversity. Later blog posts will introduce the business and economic aspects of security through diversity and discuss not only technical security but also how to secure coordination and similar organisational aspects.

• Firmware updates, part 2: Transporting the update

  This is the second post in a series about doing device firmware updates (DFU) over the air (OTA) and continuous deployment of firmware for embedded devices. We'll explore the different parts of a complete end-to-end system with this capability.

  This post will be about the different networks and how you can manage firmware updates using them.

• A mystery with Fedora 36, fontconfig, and xterm (and urxvt)

  As of Fedora 36, Fedora changed their default fonts from DejaVu to Noto. This changes what the standard names 'serif', 'sans', and especially 'monospace'. When I upgraded my desktops to Fedora 36, I had a very bad reaction to the 'monospace' change, because the result looks really bad. It turns out that part of the reason that the result looks bad (although not all of it) is specific to xterm, and that is where the mystery comes in.

• App Rules Are Twisted to Absurdity

  Apple and Google have twisted their decade-old rules for their app stores like a pretzel to the point where they may no longer make sense. This has made buying digital stuff in apps convoluted as heck.

  One example: In theory, although not yet in reality, you can use your Amazon account to buy an e-book from Kindle’s iPhone app. You cannot buy an e-book in the Android version of the app. Until recently, Kindle purchases were effectively a no-go under Apple’s rules but fine under Google’s. Now it’s the opposite.

  Confusing? Yep. Apple and Google have written long, complicated guidelines for apps and have frequently revised those rules to protect their own interests. (I’ve noted before that Apple’s app rules are much longer than the United States Constitution.)