Category: Blog

Given the current state of the world, you might be in need of a webcam to participate in meetings and prove that you actually wear clothes and/or pay attention. Given the current state of the world you might also have noticed that webcams have shot up in price.

However, fear not. You can use your smartphone as a webcam. Elgato is currently shilling EpocCam for iPhones, which is what lead me to take a look at these applications in the first place. One of the more popular solutions for Android seems to be Droidcam. There is an early access version that is specifically tailored for use with OBS called Droidcam OBS. However, for a solution aimed at streamers, this software gets it wrong so very very badly.

So, what is wrong with the software? Well, it comes with its own OBS plugin to feed the data into OBS, however, misses out on the most basic of the basic things any OBS user would expect: A way to actually change white balance, exposure and focus from within the plugin. In its current state, the video transmission works beautifully with a stable framerate at great performance. However, there are no remote controls that allow you to change the camera settings.

An app that is designed specifically so you can use the back camera of your phone as a webcam expects you to fiddle with a touchscreen on the front which you cannot possibly use when putting the phone in it’s intended capture position. All while the image within the smartphone app is only visible after you have already connected to OBS.

Now I can already hear you typing away “but Tsukasa, if you connect a camera to a Camlink you also have to set the parameters on the camera, you dummy”. This is true. But this is not a Camlink. This is a two-way communication that only works if OBS instructs it to. In other words: There is a channel that could potentially be used for these tasks.

But hey, the app is still in early access, so perhaps this will come at a later date. And surely other solutions offer remote adjustment of the camera parameters, right? Wrong. All the solutions I tested either expect you to fiddle with the touchscreen within the app on your phone or simply do not allow any adjustments at all.

So I suppose my criticism of Droidcam OBS is a bit harsh since every other app I tested is just as bad or even worse in this regard. I merely think that a ton of potential is being wasted due to one design decision here because the rest of the app is top-notch.

Today I restored this blog from an old backup. The entire process took about an hour with an additional hour of trying to clean up old datasets and get rid of some encoding errors that the blog has had since I last migrated things around in the early 2010s.

This demonstrates not only the usefulness of backups (do your backups!) but also illustrates the point I wanted to make for a while.

The data on my server is mine. I own it. If I feel like it, I can replace every occurance of the word “blog” with “benis”. There is no moderation team that will judge my now-benised posts to be inappropriate, racist or immoral and delete them.

I can take every last bit of my data to modify and/or move it. Something your preferred platform might not allow you to do.

Yes, I have been a terrible, terrible sloth. I neglected this blog (although not the server it is running on) and did not provide any interesting content in quite a while.

In my defense I must say that there are very few problems I need to solve these days. Long gone are the days when I pulled my hair over IR remote controls that would work with LIRC. No more stunts with automatically mirroring certain websites, filtering the local content and presenting it. Building a failsafe fileserver from scratch is no longer required.

Simply put: Things finally work.

Why would I still bother with crawling through hardware compatibility lists to find a cheap USB IR receiver on eBay when I can use my smartphone to control applications? Why mirror and process websites, when there are easier ways. Rolling your own solution gives you all the control – but also means that you are pretty much on your own. And that is fine if you have the necessary time to solve the problems you might run into.

Call it “growing up” or “becoming lazy” – but I like my solutions to be time-efficient and often pre-packaged these days. Yes, it bites me in the buttocks sometimes; Yahoo! Pipes closing put me in a rough spot for about 2 months – parts of my automation infrastructure depended on Pipes doing data transformation. I had to build my own custom solution that would replace Pipes for me. But due to the fact that I used Pipes for years and therefore knew my exact requirements helped me a lot. I knew where I could cut corners without hurting the end result, my own data transformation tool went online 2 weeks before Pipes finally shut down and has been working great ever since. Yes, I no longer run a Solaris fileserver and rely on a Synology NAS instead. And yes, I run Windows instead of Linux these days.

This does not mean that I have lost my passion for tinkering. It means I am more careful with what I spend my time on.

If you are using Unlocator, a DNS-based service to bypass region locks on popular streaming services, you might have run into some small troubles as of late. I know a few of the people I assist with their IT-troubles have.

Most prominently the digital storefront Steam presents itself in a somewhat broken fashion and Nvidia’s download sites won’t work.

Why is that? Unlocator tries to inject it’s own SSL certificate into Akamai’s connections, causing all sensible software to abandon the connection.

The only workaround currently present is to not use Unlocator. Simple as that.

Ah Garry’s Mod, a game that is both ingenious and infuriating. And it supports the Steam Workshop to add content.

The Workshop has a nice feature called “linked collections” which basically allow you to put all the maps in one collection and all the models into another. You can then add a third collection to link both together. In theory.

Practically this feature does not work in Garry’s Mod, the game processes all items returned from the Workshop API as downloadable content, regardless of whether that’s true or not (hint: if the filetype is 2, it’s a collection, not an addon!).

Being sick of waiting for Facepunch to fix this trivial problem, I figured I could simply rewire the request to another host which will do the pre-processing of collection data for me. The basic idea is that all the contents of collections linked to the primary collection will get “pushed” into the primary collection so Garry’s Mod will be fooled into downloading the contents of three collections “as one”.

Here’s how I did it (warning: Windows only!), I’m sure there are plenty of better ways to go about this:

1. Install Fiddler, enable traffic capture and customize the rules for OnBeforeRequest by adding code like this:

   // Rewrite the Steam Workshop request for getting collection contents to target our emulator.
   if (oSession.HostnameIs("api.steampowered.com") && (oSession.PathAndQuery=="/ISteamRemoteStorage/GetCollectionDetails/v0001/")) {
     oSession.hostname="example.com";
     oSession.PathAndQuery="/steam_collections.php";
   }

2. Create a new PHP script named steam_collections.php on your webserver example.com and edit $process_collection to fit your needs:

   <?php
   
   // Prepare the output header!
   header('Content-Type: text/json');
   
   // Only this collection will be processed, all other collections are passed through.
   $process_collection = '123456789';
   
   $api_url = "//api.steampowered.com/ISteamRemoteStorage/GetCollectionDetails/v0001/";
   
   // These values will be delivered by srcds's POST request.
   $api_key = $_POST['key'];
   $primary_collection = $_POST['publishedfileids'][0];
   $collectioncount = $_POST['collectioncount'];
   $format = $_POST['format'];
   
   // Must be global so every collection can access it.
   $sortorder = 1;
   
   function AddToPrimaryCollection(&$target_collection, $keys_to_add)
   {
    foreach($keys_to_add as &$key)
    {
    $target_collection[] = $key;
    }
   }
   
   function GetCollectionDetails($collection_id, $is_primary_collection = false, $process_children = false)
   {
    global $api_url;
    global $api_key;
    global $collectioncount;
    global $format;
    global $sortorder;
   
    $final_data = array();
   
    $post_fields = array(
    'collectioncount' => $collectioncount,
    'publishedfileids[0]' => $collection_id,
    'key' => $api_key,
    'format' => $format
    );
   
    $post_options = array(
    'http' => array(
    'header' => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
    'method' => 'POST',
    'content' => http_build_query($post_fields),
    'timeout' => 120
    ),
    );
   
    $request_context = stream_context_create($post_options);
    $request_result = file_get_contents($api_url, false, $request_context);
    $json_data = json_decode($request_result, true);
   
    if($process_children)
    {
    if ($is_primary_collection)
    {
   
    foreach ($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] as $key => &$collection_item) {
    if ($collection_item['filetype'] == '2')
    {
    // Grab the subcollection contents and add them to the mix list
    $sub_collection = GetCollectionDetails($collection_item['publishedfileid'], false, false);
    AddToPrimaryCollection($final_data, $sub_collection['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children']);
   
    // Get rid of the collection reference
    unset($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'][$key]);
    }
    }
   
    // Now mix the aggregated list of all subcollections with the primary collection
    AddToPrimaryCollection($final_data, $json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children']);
    $json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] = $final_data;
    }
    
    // When in the primary collection, return the merged data array.
    if ($is_primary_collection)
    {
    foreach ($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] as $key => &$collection_item)
    {
    $collection_item['sortorder'] = $sortorder;
    $sortorder += 1;
    }
    }
    }
   
    return $json_data;
   }
   
   if($primary_collection == $process_collection)
    // It's our target collection with subcollections, process it!
    $result = GetCollectionDetails($primary_collection, true, true);
   else
    // It's something else... don't bother!
    $result = GetCollectionDetails($primary_collection, true, false);
   
   // Now encode the data back to json and let srcds do it's thing...
   echo json_encode($result);
   
   ?>

3. Launch srcds with the +host_workshop_collection 123456789 parameter and watch the magic happen. The start might take a little longer than usually.

It would be really nice if this would finally get fixed, it has been reported ages ago.

Yesterday I migrated one of my services from one server to another. Since the protocol used by the service does not support a HTTP-esque redirect and the Windows Server version used did not have the RRAS roles available, I had to get a little creative.

Enter Komodia Relay, a great (and free, to boot!) tool to forward a TCP/UDP port to a different system. The basic idea here is that it works like a proxy, clients connecting to the old server will transparently be proxied to the new one through Komodia Relay.

Usage is outstandingly easy and even under loads of several hundred connections the application still performs beautifully.

If you are more the GUI-oriented type and do not mind to pay for your ride, Network Activ’s AUTAPF might be worth checking out.

I am not a big fan of EA’s Origin. The software itself misses a simple list-view and looks like it loves to tell me how little it thinks of me. One of the prominent examples of this behaviour is that I cannot use Steam overlay and Origin overlay. It’s either Origin or nothing. Up to now.

With Titanfall being released I have one more game in my Origin library I am probably going to play quite a bit. So I while looking around I found the usual subpar solution of adding Origin.exe as a non-Steam game. Unacceptable.

Thankfully I came across NoFate’s wonderful homepage and his PAR remover. Simply navigate to your Titanfall game directory, make a copy of the original Titanfall.par and upload the original PAR file to NoFate’s PAR remover site. You will receive a new PAR file that will allow you to directly start Titanfall – and use the Steam overlay.

But what about your friends on Origin? They will still see you playing the game, they will still be able to join you – but you cannot use the Origin overlay anymore. Well, that’s a shame but does not bother me as much because most of my friends are on Steam.

South River’s WebDrive is one of the most important tools for me. It connects to several servers and mounts them as drives on my Windows machine.

If you work with a WebDAV or FTP connection and do not have quotas enabled, WebDrive will, by default, assume a total capacity of 100GB for the drive/connection. Especially if you are moving tons of files, 100GB is nothing and the limit gets in your way.

Thankfully you can set the limit per connection via the Windows’ registry:

• Start regedit
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\South River Technologies\WebDrive\Connections\YOUR_CONNECTION_NAME
• Set the QuotaMB key from 102400 to something else, i.e. 1024000

After disconnecting/reconnecting, the new limit should show up. Cool stuff.

A colleague once told me that building your own storage-server is way too much work. “Just order one,” he used to say, “it’s not worth the time and the trouble. Just unbox, pop in the disks, install and you are good to go”. That was seven years ago and I remember arguing about SOHO use-cases where a small NAS would have been too little and a rack-mounted storage would have been too much. “Just get two smaller units,” he laughed at me.

As it turns out he was right. While I was busy replacing obscure hardware, sniffing through HCLs and tinkering with different OpenSolaris’ upgrade paths (side note to myself: Never again upgrade to Solaris Express, go with OpenIndiana!), he called the manufacturer’s tech-support and was good to go.

Almost a decade later I am older and (arguably) a little wiser now. To replace my patchwork Solaris file-server I decided to go with something pre-made: The Synology DiskStation 2313+.

On paper it does everything I need:

• Comes with 12 hot-swappable 3.5″ SATA disk bays
• Small, non-rackmounted form factor suitable for storage in offices
• Supports growing the total volume by replacing a number of disks (combination of lvm/md)
• Supports encryption (Note: Only via SMB, no support for encryption via NFS!)
• 2x 1GB Ethernet ports (LACP supported)
• Support for Infiniband-based expansion with a second unit, giving me a [theoretical] total of 24 bays
• Intel x86 architecture system with 2GB of memory (can be upgraded to 4GB)

The base unit without any disks set me back 1200 EUR. Instead of continuing the tragic history of getting the largest consumer hard-disk I could find, I opted for longevity by choosing 12x Seagate Constellation CS 2TB drives, giving me 18GB of usable storage in a SHR2 RAID6 configuration. The disks set me back another 1200 EUR, an investment well worth it (I hope?).

So the first conclusion we can draw here: If you want to fully use the DS2413+, it’s not a very cheap device.

The build-quality of the device is pretty nice with no cheapo plastic parts on the exterior. The disk trays are well made, have no splinters, rough edges or deformations so disks slide right in and sit on a nicely padded base.

Synology ships the DS2413+ with a number of stuff; the only noteworthy being the included ethernet cable: A 2m CAT5e cable – haven’t seen one of those in years.

The disk bay can be locked with one of the two included keys. There is no way to lock individual disks, only the entire bay.

After starting the DS2413+ for the first time it needs to install the operating system, Synology’s Linux-based “DSM”. Installation is simple, browse to the DS2413+’s IP-address and follow the web-based wizard which will download the newest DSM automatically. About 10 minutes later the device was online.

You can configure the entire device through a nice-looking web-interface. DSM takes some strong cues from OSX in terms of it’s UI design. If you have ever used a Macintosh with OSX you should have no problems finding the options you want.

Synology gives you the option to install additional packages to extend the functionality of your NAS. Unfortunately all packages get installed onto your storage pool, so when you swap all disks, the packages will be gone. This is a major problem for me, the DS2413+ does not have a dedicated system drive.

The packages range from useless stuff like cloud-backup or media-streaming to Python, Perl or Java. You can install a LAMPP stack on your NAS if you wish to do so. Honestly, this looks more like a gimmick than a really useful feature, especially considering the Linux flavour on the DS runs a bare busybox with a few additional binaries.

The volume management is where things get interesting. Since this is a Linux system, there is no ZFS. Surprisingly, the only file-system supported by DSM is ext4. There are some HFS tools installed as well but they are useless for my use-case and I did not spot any option to create HFS+ volumes.

The DS2413+ supports all common RAID levels and sports it’s own lvm/md-based “SHR” RAID level which allows for dynamic growing of volumes.

I hope that the introduction of DSM5 in January 2014 will bring the option to migrate to btrfs. I enjoyed the option to snapshot file-system states and it has come in handy several times before.

Network performance is okay. LACP works, the setup is a little bit weird and throws away the first ports configuration instead of using it as the aggregated adapter’s configuration, though. It may just be a Linux thing.

SMB2 performance seems to suffer quite a bit when the device is busy, FTP and/or WebDAV do work fine in these cases. NFS works – except on encrypted folders. There are no SMB-to-NFS permission problems.

When changing SMB or NFS options, the DSM will restart all sharing services, meaning that if you change an SMB option and have a client connected via NFS, the client will be disconnected as well. Meh.

So, am I happy to have this device or would I recommend to roll your own build? Simply put: I am happy. There is much to see and tinker with, I have not mentioned any of the energy-saving options or the sound-levels of the device. Both are great.

There are a few nitpicks but the overall build-quality and software is fantastic, making the device easily usable for all target-groups. The option to extend the DS2413+ with another unit via Infiniband is a great idea and hopefully the extension unit will still be for sale in a few years.

Whether you are a passionate home-user with hunger for storage or a small business unwilling to get a rack, the DS2413+ is worth your attention. Otherwise there are plenty of great rack-mounted options for the same price that do the same.

UT2004 requires a bit of harsh love to run on Windows 7. The game insists that it is not yet configured for the Windows Firewall, despite all rules being in place.

To circumvent this behaviour, add the following lines to your ut2004.ini:

[FireWall]
IgnoreSP2=1