June 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Archive for the ‘Scripting’ Category

Twitter wayback_exe generates screenshots of old websites in old browsers every two hours

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/22

Classic browsers

Going back to in time old web-pages using old web-browsers is fun!

[Archive.is] wayback_exe (@wayback_exe) | Twitter automatically does it for you.

A short introduction is at [Wayback] muffinlabs – @wayback_exe.

There is a playground at [Archive.is] oldweb.today where you can choose which classic browser to use for viewing and what page to view with it.

You can fiddle around with the node.js based code that is available on GitHub: [Wayback/Archive.is] muffinista/wayback_exe: code for twitter bot @wayback_exe

Some screenshots:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Fun, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Node.js, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Web Browsers | Leave a Comment »

Busybox ash/dash – Hexadecimal To Decimal in Shell Script (via Stack Overflow)

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/21

This works fine on “BusyBox v1.29.3 (2019-05-21 15:22:06 PDT) multi-call binary.” that is included with VMware ESXi 6.5 update 3:

[Wayback] bash – Hexadecimal To Decimal in Shell Script – Stack Overflow

Dealing with a very lightweight embedded version of busybox on Linux means many of the traditional commands are not available (bc, printf, dc, perl, python)
echo $((0x2f))
47

hexNum=2f
echo $((0x${hexNum}))
47
Credit to [Wayback] Peter Leung for this solution.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, ash/dash, ash/dash development, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Getting the primary IP address (plain and CIDR) on Linux and OS X, then nmap scan on the associated subnet

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/13

The below answer works on my Linux and OS X systems (each having multiple network adapters configured):

[WayBack] bash – How to get the primary IP address of the local machine on Linux and OS X? – Stack Overflow

ip route get 1 | awk '{print $NF;exit}'

For Linux, I have this bash function:

# note the ";exit" lists the first default route interface, as there can be multiple
function nmap-fingerprint_network_of_default_interface() {
        default_if=$(ip route list | awk '/^default/ {print $5;exit}')
        default_if_cidr=$(ip -o -f inet addr show $default_if | awk '{print $4}')
        nmap -sP $default_if_cidr
}

And for OS X this one:

# requires ipcalc
function nmap-fingerprint_network_of_default_interface() {
        default_if=$(route -q -n get default | awk '/interface:/ {print $2;exit}')
        default_if_address=$(ifconfig $default_if | awk '/inet / {print $2;exit}')
        default_if_netmask_hex=$(ifconfig $default_if | awk '/inet / {print $4;exit}')
        default_if_network_bit_count=$(ipcalc --nocolor --class $default_if_address $default_if_netmask_hex)
        default_if_cidr=$(echo "$default_if_address/$default_if_network_bit_count")
        nmap -sP $default_if_cidr
}

These are the variables used:

default_if: network interface of the default route
default_if_cidr: IPv4 CIDR of the network interface of the default route (see Classless Inter-Domain Routing: CIDR notation – Wikipedia)
default_if_address: IPv4 address of network interface of the default route
default_if_netmask_hex: hexadecimal IPv4 network mask of network interface of the default route
default_if_network_bit_count: number of set bits in the IPv4 network mask of the network interface of the default route

Links used to get the above functions:

[WayBack] linux – How to get netmask from bash? – Unix & Linux Stack Exchange (I split the commands and results-capture over multiple lines to make it more clear what happens)
[WayBack] linux – cut or awk command to print first field of first row – Stack Overflow
[WayBack] macos – How to get default gateway in Mac OSX – Stack Overflow
- [Archive.is] route(8) [osx man page] indicates -q does not provide output, but I found out that in practice -q -n and -n are equivalent in output.
On MacOS, I converted the hexadecimal netmask to the number of set bits using [WayBack] ipcalc / ipcalc · GitLab:

A modern IPv4/IPv6 ipcalc tool, assisting in network calculations in command line and as a tool for scripts.
[WayBack] Target Specification | Nmap Network Scanning

Nmap supports CIDR-style addressing. You can append /<numbits> to an IP address or hostname and Nmap will scan every IP address for which the first <numbits> are the same as for the reference IP or hostname given.

For example, 192.168.10.0/24 would scan the 256 hosts between 192.168.10.0 (binary: 11000000 10101000 00001010 00000000) and 192.168.10.255 (binary: 11000000 10101000 00001010 11111111), inclusive. 192.168.10.40/24 would scan exactly the same targets.

I might have gotten away with a pure bash solution (see [WayBack] Bash script for calculating network and broadcast addresses from ip and netmask or CIDR Notation · GitHub or my post Getting your local IPv4 addresses, netmasks and CIDRs), but the above works and is way shorter, and easier to maintain.

In stead of ipcalc, subnetcalc can do the same calculations and also supports IPv6, so that is something for a future try:

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, bash, Color (software development), Development, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

console convert pcap to wav: not easily possible; use the WireShark GUI to do

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/01

Wanting a simple way on the console to convert a .pcap file to a .wav file, I searched for [Wayback] console convert pcap to wav – Google Search.

The reason is that [Wayback] fritzcap (written in Python) sometimes crashes while doing the conversion of a phone recording, so then only the .pcap file is available. I still want to figure this out, but given my health situation, I might not be able to in time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Audio, Development, ffmpeg, Fritz!, Fritz!Box, fritzcap, Hardware, Media, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Python, Scripting, Software Development, Wireshark | Leave a Comment »

Some notes on forwardemail.net

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/01

Some notes, as I’m looking to a stable, simple to maintain email forwarding system that is also secure and – yes – can cost money.

I need to leave IT-infrastructure behind that is easy to maintain for my heirs.

Some links:

[Archive.is] mausdompteur 💉 on Twitter: “Email! Yes, Email. Need to Set Email for a domain, basically forward only. Has anyone ever heard of https://t.co/v29TbMXrrl? Is it good? Any alternatives I should consider?”
[Wayback] The Best Free Email Forwarding Service for Custom Domains | Forward Email

The best open-source and free email forwarding service for custom domains. We do not keep logs nor store emails. We don’t track you. Unlimited aliases, catch-alls, wildcards, API access, and disposable addresses. Built-in support for DKIM, SRS, SPF, ARC, DMARC, and more. No credit card required.
[Wayback] FAQ | Forward Email has a truckload of information, but the main points for me are these:

What is the max email size limit

We default to a 50MB size limit, which includes content, headers, and attachments. Note that services such as Gmail and Outlook allow only 25MB size limit, and if you exceed the limit when sending to addresses at those providers you will receive an error message.

An error with the proper response code is returned if the file size limit is exceeded.

…

What is the difference between Free and Enhanced Protection

The Free plan requires you to use public DNS records to store your forwarding configuration. Anyone with a computer can lookup your forwarding configuration in a terminal if you are on the Free plan. Unlike the Free plan, the Enhanced Protection plan uses a cryptographically generated random string to store your forwarding configuration privately.

Free Plan Enhanced Protection Plan

forward-email=user@gmail.com forward-email-site-verification=m8d7o8K4Il
[Wayback] About | Forward Email with this very important point for me:

Privacy

We have a “zero tolerance policy” privacy policy, which states that we don’t store logs nor emails, and we don’t track users. Our statement clearly states that we do not collect nor store forwarded emails, metadata, server-side nor client-side logs, IP addresses, or browser information.

Only an email address is required to create and configure the Enhanced Protection Plan, which hides DNS email alias information on the free plan through a managed and hosted service.

User’s accounts, domains, and all related information can be permanently deleted at any time by the user.
[Wayback] Pricing | Forward Email (levels: free / enhanced protection / team / enterprise)

Free email forwarding for domains with features including Custom Domain Email Forwarding, Disposable Addresses, Multiple Recipients, Wildcards, and more!
It’s open source too (written in JavaScript using Node.js), but running it requires you to keep up with versions and security: [Wayback/Archive.is] forwardemail/free-email-forwarding: The best free email forwarding for custom domains. Visit our website to get started (SMTP server)

Free Plan	Enhanced Protection Plan
`forward-email=user@gmail.com`	`forward-email-site-verification=m8d7o8K4Il`

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, eMail, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Node.js, Power User, Scripting, SocialMedia, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »

VFrontDe/ESXi-Customizer-PS: PowerCLI script that greatly simplifies and automates the process of creating fully patched and customized VMware ESXi installation images

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/30

On my list of things to try, as it allows me to have an ISO at hand in case I ever need to quickly re-install a machine to the current patch level (for instance when the USB boot stick breaks down: these things happen in reality): [Wayback] VFrontDe/ESXi-Customizer-PS: PowerCLI script that greatly simplifies and automates the process of creating fully patched and customized VMware ESXi installation images

ESXi-Customizer-PS is a Powershell script that greatly simplifies and automates the process of creating fully patched and customized ESXi 5.x and 6.x installation ISOs using the VMware PowerCLI ImageBuilder module/snapin.

…

Requirements

A Windows computer (XP or newer) with Powershell 2.0 or newer

VMware PowerCLI version 5.1 or newer

…

You can get the code from [Wayback] ESXi-Customizer-PS/ESXi-Customizer-PS.ps1 at master · VFrontDe/ESXi-Customizer-PS.

The old site (which still has most of the documentation) can be reached at two places:

[Wayback] esxi-customizer-ps.v-front.de which redirects to
[Wayback] www.v-front.de/p/esxi-customizer-ps.html

A video showing how to use it is below the signature.

The above links via [Wayback] Custom ESXi ISO with ne1000 driver for install on Intel NUC Frost Canyon – seanwalsh.dev.

Oh: you can check if you have a PXE, USB or HDD installation of ESXi via the steps here: Determining the ESXi installation type (2014558) | VMware KB.

Some scripts and tips for easing the maintenance of a postfix based SMTP system

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/24

A few scripts and tips I found Googling around.

Deleting queued messages by regular expression pattern

I have seen the below delete-from-mailq.pl script numerous time, usually without any attribution (for instance [Wayback] Postfix Flush the Mail Queue – nixCraft and [Wayback] postfix-delete.pl – Following script deletes all mail from the mailq which matches the regular expression specified as the first argument · GitHub).

The earliest version I could find was in [Wayback] ‘Re: delete messages from mailq’ – MARC by [Wayback] ‘Ralf Hildebrandt ‘ posts – MARC:

--- snip ---
#!/usr/bin/perl

$REGEXP = shift || die "no email-adress given (regexp-style, e.g. bl.*\@yahoo.com)!";

@data = qx</usr/sbin/postqueue -p>;
for (@data) {
  if (/^(\w+)\*?\s/) {
     $queue_id = $1;
  }
  if($queue_id) {
    if (/$REGEXP/i) {
      $Q{$queue_id} = 1;
      $queue_id = "";
    }
  }
}
                                
#open(POSTSUPER,"|cat") || die "couldn't open postsuper" ;
open(POSTSUPER,"|postsuper -d -") || die "couldn't open postsuper" ;

foreach (keys %Q) {
  print POSTSUPER "$_\n";
};
close(POSTSUPER);
--- snip ---

And then use:
% delete-from-mailq "^test"

Tips

[Wayback] How do I check the postfix queue size? – Server Fault

Lots of great answers and pointers to useful guides/software there.

`qstat`

[Wayback] Postfix Bottleneck Analysis points to [Wayback] Postfix manual – qshape(1): qshape - Print Postfix queue domain and age distribution, then explains about different scenarion and queues:

[Wayback] Introducing the qshape tool

[Wayback] Trouble shooting with qshape

[Wayback] Example 1: Healthy queue

[Wayback] Example 2: Deferred queue full of dictionary attack bounces

[Wayback] Example 3: Congestion in the active queue

[Wayback] Example 4: High volume destination backlog

[Wayback] Postfix queue directories

[Wayback] The “maildrop” queue

[Wayback] The “hold” queue

[Wayback] The “incoming” queue

[Wayback] The “active” queue

[Wayback] The “deferred” queue

`postqueue`

postqueue -p | tail -n 1

Last line in the postqueue -p shows how many requests and size:

-- 317788 Kbytes in 11860 Requests.

View queues size

I tried finding the original posting of the below script, but could not. If you find it, please let me know.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

# postfix queue/s size
# author: 
# source: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/postfix-users/message/255133

use strict;
use warnings;
use Symbol;
sub count {
        my ($dir) = @_;
        my $dh = gensym();
        my $c = 0;
        opendir($dh, $dir) or die "$0: opendir: $dir: $!\n";
        while (my $f = readdir($dh)) {
                if ($f =~ m{^[A-F0-9]{5,}$}) {
                        ++$c;
                } elsif ($f =~ m{^[A-F0-9]$}) {
                        $c += count("$dir/$f");
                }
        }
        closedir($dh) or die "closedir: $dir: $!\n";
        return $c;
}
my $qdir = `postconf -h queue_directory`;
chomp($qdir);
chdir($qdir) or die "$0: chdir: $qdir: $!\n";
printf "Incoming: %d\n", count("incoming");
printf "Active: %d\n", count("active");
printf "Deferred: %d\n", count("deferred");
printf "Bounced: %d\n", count("bounce");
printf "Hold: %d\n", count("hold");
printf "Corrupt: %d\n", count("corrupt");

Various commands

[Wayback] Inspecting Postfix’s email queue – Tech-G explaining about:

mailq

postqueue -p

postcat -vq XXXXXXXXXX (where XXXXXXXXXX is the message ID)

postqueue -f / postfix flush

postsuper -d to delete messages

More of these in [Wayback] Postfix Mail Queue Management – Linux Hint and [Wayback] Postfix Bottleneck Analysis: queues.

`Makefile`

Based on [Wayback] Using “make” for Postfix file maintenance

MAPS = relays.db aliases.db transport.db relocated.db \
        virtual.db sender_checks.db rejected_recips.db \
        helo_access.db

all : $(MAPS)

aliases.db : aliases
        newaliases

%.db : %
        postmap $*

This is my Makefile that runs fine on Tumbleweed (note: all 8-space indents are TAB characters):

MAPS =  /etc/aliases.db \
        transport.db \
        virtual.db \
        helo_access.db \
        canonical.db \
        sasl_passwd.db \
        relocated.db \
        relay.db \
        access.db \
        relay_ccerts.db \
        sender_canonical.db

all : $(MAPS)

aliases.db : aliases
        @echo "Rebuilding $@."
        newaliases

%.db : %
        @echo "Rebuilding $@."
        postmap $*

In the future, I might try [Wayback] Makefile.postfix · GitHub, though I think it is convoluted:

	## Postfix: Makefile to update *.db files

	POSTCONF= /usr/sbin/postconf
	POSTMAP= /usr/sbin/postmap

	default: postmap

	postmap: Makefile.postmap
	@echo 'Updating database files …'
	$(MAKE) -f Makefile.postmap

	Makefile.postmap: main.cf
	@echo 'Updating $@ …'
	@set -e; \
	rm -f $@.$$$$.tmp; \
	echo 'POSTMAP=$(POSTMAP)' >>$@.$$$$.tmp; \
	echo 'postmap::' >>$@.$$$$.tmp; \
	config_directory="$(PWD)"; \
	{ $(POSTCONF) -c $(PWD) \|\| kill $$$$; } \
	\|tr ' ' '\n' \
	\|sed -n \
	-e 's/,$$//' \
	-e 's#^hash:\$$config_directory/##p' \
	-e 's#^hash:'"$$config_directory/##p" \
	\|sort -u \
	\|while read mapfile; do \
	echo "postmap:: $$mapfile.db" >>$@.$$$$.tmp; \
	echo "$$mapfile.db: $$mapfile" >>$@.$$$$.tmp; \
	echo " \$$(POSTMAP) $$<" >>$@.$$$$.tmp; \
	done; \
	mv $@.$$$$.tmp $@

view raw

Makefile.postfix

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

[Wayback] Ralf Hildebrandt

Ralf Hildebrandt is an active and well-known figure in the Postfix community. He’s a systems engineer for T-NetPro, a German telecommunications company and has spoken about Postfix at industry conferences and contributes regularly to a number of open source mailing lists.

Co-author of this book: [Wayback: Book of Postfix State-of-the-Art Message Transport ISBN 9781593270018] (which used to have its own site: [Wayback: The Book of Postfix]

Book of Postfix

State-of-the-Art Message Transport

By Patrick Koetter, Ralf Hildebrandt

Publisher: No Starch PressRelease Date: March 2005Pages: 496

Best practices for Postfix–the popular alternative to Sendmail. Developed with security and speed in mind, Postfix has become a popular alternative to Sendmail and comes preinstalled in many Linux distributions as the default mailer. The Book of Postfix is a complete guide to Postfix whether used at home, as a mailrelay or virus-scanning gateway, or as a company mailserver. Practical examples show how to deal with daily challenges like protecting mail users from spam and viruses, managing multiple domains, and offering roaming access.

This is a great review of the book: [Wayback] The Book of Postfix (Ralf Hildebrandt, Patrick Koetter)

For my postfix studies… « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, bash, Communications Development, Development, Internet protocol suite, Makefile, postfix, Power User, Scripting, SMTP, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Random User Generator | Home

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/23

Cool tool for when you ever need random users to test a system [Wayback] Random User Generator | Home:

Random user generator is a FREE API for generating placeholder user information. Get profile photos, names, and more. It’s like Lorem Ipsum, for people.

This was used when extracting Parler data to substantiate evidence around the 20210106 USA Capitol riots.

You can even use a simple HTTP GET like [Wayback] randomuser.me/api and get a JSON result like this.

{"results":[{"gender":"female","name":{"title":"Miss","first":"Malou","last":"Mortensen"},"location":{"street":{"number":2669,"name":"Lyngbyvej"},"city":"Sundby","state":"Syddanmark","country":"Denmark","postcode":48047,"coordinates":{"latitude":"-35.1307","longitude":"113.7480"},"timezone":{"offset":"+1:00","description":"Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris"}},"email":"malou.mortensen@example.com","login":{"uuid":"981747de-66fe-40b0-87ea-adfe403fe1be","username":"purpleostrich871","password":"sweets","salt":"x86aQbIB","md5":"55497ac53530b428f98b9d36267ceeef","sha1":"358b94ffabe7d827c34da15791e5d6717c594428","sha256":"6e357e887877e29b7e6d53073f648174382c53c24f83479e25fed9c82075ed32"},"dob":{"date":"1995-06-05T04:50:35.145Z","age":26},"registered":{"date":"2018-07-21T00:59:50.523Z","age":3},"phone":"02990797","cell":"94800012","id":{"name":"CPR","value":"050695-9954"},"picture":{"large":"https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/women/27.jpg","medium":"https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/med/women/27.jpg","thumbnail":"https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/thumb/women/27.jpg"},"nat":"DK"}],"info":{"seed":"8971869bb62b73d7","results":1,"page":1,"version":"1.3"}}

Via:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Communications Development, Development, HTTP, Internet protocol suite, JavaScript/ECMAScript, JSON, Python, REST, Scripting, Software Development, TCP | Leave a Comment »

Tool for debugging makefiles – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/23

I’m not good at makefiles, so I needed a tool to help me debug some relatively simple ones.

[Wayback] Tool for debugging makefiles – Stack Overflow came to the rescue.

The suggestion in the first answer was enough: run make -n.

But the other suggestions are great too, so here I quote them (thanks [Wayback] Rob Wells and [Wayback] User Rajish):

Have you been looking at the output from running make -n and make -np, and the biggie make -nd?

Are you using a fairly recent version of gmake?

Have you looked at the free chapter on [Wayback] Debugging Makefiles available on O’Reilly’s site for their excellent book “Managing Projects with GNU Make” ([Wayback] Amazon Link).

I’m sure that [Wayback] remake is what you are looking for.

From the homepage:

remake is a patched and modernized version of GNU make utility that adds improved error reporting, the ability to trace execution in a comprehensible way, and a debugger.

It has gdb-like interface and is supported by mdb-mode in (x)emacs which means breakponts, watches etc. And there’s [Wayback] DDD if you don’t like (x)emacs

The free chapter: [Wayback] https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/make3/book/ch12.pdf

Remake documentation: [Wayback] remake – GNU Make with comprehensible tracing, profiling, extended error messages, and a debugger — remake 4.3+dbg-1.4 documentation

Tutorials

[Wayback] Makefile Tutorial by Example

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Makefile, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

GitHub’s commitment to npm ecosystem security | The GitHub Blog – no npm package can historically ben tracked to be authentic

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/18

What started as [Wayback/Archive] GitHub’s commitment to npm ecosystem security | The GitHub Blog with this qoute:

on November 2 we received a report to our [Wayback/Archive] security bug bounty program of a vulnerability that would allow an attacker to publish new versions of any npm package using an account without proper authorization. …

This vulnerability existed in the npm registry beyond the timeframe for which we have telemetry to determine whether it has ever been exploited maliciously. … the timeframe for which we have available telemetry, which goes back to September 2020 …

This basically means you cannot trust the authenticity of any npm package published through the registry.

It sparked reactions like these:

[Archive] npm on Twitter: “an update on recent security incidents across the registry as well as a look into our ongoing investments in maintaining the security of the registry (including 2FA requirements) ⬇️ “

…

You buried the lede big time: arbitrary package publishing vulnerability, for unknown period of time.

…

remember how we discussed what determines a package name? Npm was not sure either

…

you missed the part where they said the vulnerability has been around since before they even put in vulnerability telemetry. There exists no way of knowing which snapshot is safe.
[Archive] Dustin Ingram on Twitter: “Wow: “we received a report… of a vulnerability that would allow an attacker to publish new versions of any npm package… This vulnerability existed in the npm registry beyond the timeframe for which we have telemetry to determine whether it has ever been exploited maliciously”… “
- [Archive] Dustin Ingram on Twitter: “PyPI has supported uploading signatures along with distributions for quite a while: … But few people do it in practice, and there are other problems as well: … “
[Archive] Kristian Köhntopp on Twitter: “And with this tweet the entire npm ecosystem and every machine npm ever touched turns instantly into a radioactive toxic wasteland.… “

–jeroen

Posted in Development, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Node.js, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries

Next Entries »

	xyzzy, Relay Confere… on Sad and Useless about Competit…
	jpluimers on Windows warned me of disk full…
	jpluimers on Started making people walk me…
	jpluimers on Stack Overflow’s forum is dead…
	jpluimers on Some links on getting the most…

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

Subscribe

Archives

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Blog Stats

Meta title

Tag Cloud Title

Top Clicks

Top Posts

My badges

My Flickr Stream

Pages

All categories

Email Subscription

Archive for the ‘Scripting’ Category

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

What is the max email size limit

What is the difference between Free and Enhanced Protection

Privacy

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Deleting queued messages by regular expression pattern

Tips

qstat

postqueue

View queues size

Various commands

Makefile

[Wayback] Ralf Hildebrandt

Book of Postfix

State-of-the-Art Message Transport

Related

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Tutorials

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

`qstat`

`postqueue`

`Makefile`