ubuntu

Fresh Ubuntu (WSL) Tweaks

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I’ve recently found myself doing more Linux based tasks so brushing up on my CLI and getting my head back around Ubuntu and it’s derivatives was a must.

Here’s my list of essential Ubuntu and Ubuntu WSL fresh install tweaks…

Installing the following apps – all are command line driven and can be installed with:
sudo apt install ...

nmap – Great for port scanning individual IP addresses either broadly or for specific port and protocols, very good if used to probe a range or subnet as well if you want to get quick visibility. One of my favourite one liners with this at the moment is:
nmap -p80 192.168.0.0/24 -oG - | grep 80/open
This will run a sweep across the IP subnet or range you enter along the given port and print a clean list of what responds.

net-tools – Over the years I’ve seen Ubuntu change the way it handles networking and sometimes you just need a fast way of getting what you want. A common one for me is needing your gateway IP on the computer you are using by using, annoyingly Windows does this well with ipconfig but this allows you:
route

ncdu – I found this super handy little app when trying to figure out what was eating away at my home directory, it’s a disk usage visualiser, you can run it broadly or point it at a particular directory and it will calculate disk usage and allow you to drill down through sub folders:
ncdu /path/to/directory
ncdu /

htop – Very common one, let’s you see what’s going on with your system in a similar way to top but with a nicer and colourful graphic:
htop

iperf – Not one I use too often as rarely do I have the luxury of a Linux box at either end of the network I’m working on. Still good for testing throughput in your network though. I do need to get around to switching towards iperf3 but for the rarity I use it – original iperf does me well for now:
iperf -s
iperf -c IP.OF.SERVER.HERE

whois – A good IP lookup tool, ideal if you’re trying to figure out what or where owns the IP you’re seeing traffic going to or from. It gives credible information back and offers larger network information if you are trying to build firewall rules or access lists:
whois IP.ADDRESS.YOU.WANT

arping – Another one I don’t use massively regularly but is very handy in situations where you suspect a duplicate LAN IP or need some more info on the MAC address:
sudo arping IP.ADDRESS.YOU.WANT

Other tweaks I like to make…

Command history adjustment: This one allows you to use the “page up” and “page down” to scan through your command history, ideal if you can remember the first letter or word but need a nudge to remember the full command (aside from history of course):
sudo nano /etc/inputrc
Then search for the lines with the following and remove the “#” pre-cedeing these lines:
alternate mappings for "page up" and "page down" to search the history
"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

Bonus Tweak
This one is shortly about to become “not a thing” and I know it uses the oh so dirty “snap” which has it’s security issues.
MikroTik Winbox Easy Installation:
sudo snap install winbox

There you go!
From being a Linux daily driver, forced migration to Windows for 5 years and then re-emerging back towards Linux primarily with the use of WSL this is where my starting point is and for going forwards as I undoubtedly start rebuilding my virtual estate.

Transitional Week Ubuntu to Windows

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This week has been a bit of a milestone week for me in computing. Traditionally I’ve always maintained a Windows for gaming and Linux/Ubuntu for my work.

I’ve been keeping a track of the whole Bash on Windows thing though, as much as I do/did love my Ubuntu machines I did find myself getting a bit aggravate, simple things like Winbox not fully working as well as it should, not being able to use my copy of Adobe PS CS. Jobs where I’d normally switch my Windows machine on and then RDP into it to complete the work.

So this week I’ve made a joint move and moved both my laptop and work desktop over to Windows 10 with the alluring factor being that I won’t lose all the benefits or command-line-fu I’ve learned from my now 5 years on the CLI with Ubuntu.

An honest and unbiased review here, I’m in a great place. Windows 10 is great to use, it feels faster around the desktop and doing simple things like web browsing with Firefox. I’ve got PS back and I’m really enjoying not having to use apps which are like a cheap knock off of the “real” thing.

I’m really happy using the Windows Store in fact as well, there are some great usability apps now such as Plex an Amazon music which just bring that better level of integration to the whole experience. Also L2TP/IPSEC works without any messing about! Amazing times!

So that’s where my week has been, I’ve been concentrating on that as well as trying to put some effort into the CHR build I’ve got going on. Hopefully over the weekend the CHR build will complete and I’ll bring that up and online and I’ve recently had to do some work bringing up a guest network so I have a great video planned on ensuring they get a filtered experience that can’t be worked around!

What’s happening? 04/03/2018

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I’ve pumped out a fair amount of tutorials recently and then had a bit of a hard stop. The work is carrying on in the background. I have loads of plans for more tutorials primarily based on MikroTik but there will be some Ubiquiti elements thrown in.

Project home router is at an odd point, I’ve re-ignited it but not done any further work to it. I’m currently waiting for a full iDrac setup to come through from China to see if I can quiet it off and I’m also waiting for the opportunity to re-paste the CPU to make sure I’m getting the best possible thermal setup out of it. I’m still undecided what to do with it, I have a quad port NIC but reality is I wish it was an SFP card and I can’t run both. Either way it can’t be any worse (apart from noise) than the RB3011 which is dropping ports and getting a lot of hard CPU usage under load.

I’ve also had to reinstall my trusty laptop, Ubuntu was aggravating me and some apps just weren’t what I wanted so have reinstalled to Windows 10 and have spent a few days getting it set up exactly how I want it. Some new editions to my Windows portfolio include Notepad++ which I’d never used until now but is absolutely awesome especially when combined with a user defined RouterOS language and the biggest surprise was the Bash on Windows functionality that W10 offers, simply it’s brilliant and now I genuinely have no drawbacks to moving back to Windows. I may drop a few posts about that in the future as simple stuff like SSH tunnelling is now so much easier from the Windows desktop.

As time has been short I’ve not managed to put a lot up to YouTube however have had a couple of gaming sessions which I’ve streamed to Twitch. I’ve been playing with some frames and scrolling text and I think I’m about there with those now. I’ve also ony just discovered StreamLabs which I have set up but am still waiting to sit down and learn intimately and get it set up to the standards I want.

Having a great time with my tech at the moment, I never seem to have enough time to do what I want and I’m eagerly waiting the launch of the new Ryzen+ or Ryzen2 kit in a couple weeks time as I’m definitely upgrading. 4Ghz seems to be the way to go!