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

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Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

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 »

75 Funny Wifi Names (besides Disconnected and Access Denied)

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/26

[WayBack] 75 Funny Wifi Names (as I already run “Disconnected” and “Access Denied”).

Related blog posts:

–jeroen

Posted in Fun, Network-and-equipment, Power User, WiFi | Leave a Comment »

PiKVM v3 HAT by Maxim Devaev » Shipping in progress — Kickstarter

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/22

Oh cool: should arrive during the holiday season:

~500pc have been shipped to the backers in the USA and CanadaWe are planning to ship ALL pledges that don’t contain the case by Nov, 19.We are planning to ship ALL pledges that include the case by Dec, 3.Depending on your location it might take from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to actually receive the shipments.Important: we send a notification with a tracking number for every shipment. Please check your Spam folder from time to time.

Source: [Wayback/Archive] PiKVM v3 HAT by Maxim Devaev » Shipping in progress — Kickstarter

Documentation is at [Wayback/Archive] PiKVM v3 HAT guide – PiKVM Handbook via [Wayback/Archive] Thank you for buying PiKVM v3 HAT! showing that the ATX case bracket needs to be 3D-printed separately:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, KVM keyboard/video/mouse, PiKVM / Pi-KVM, Power User | Leave a Comment »

GitHub – JanDerogee/TeleJukebox: A project based on the concepts of the Wonderfoon and Arduinofoon

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/18

[Wayback/Archive.is] GitHub – JanDerogee/TeleJukebox: A project based on the concepts of the Wonderfoon and Arduinofoon which simplfies the design of the Wonderfoon keeping the most important music playback feature down to

a simple PCB in a small case where you plug the phone in

The completed project works very simple:

  • Pick up the phone, you hear the “dial tone” MP3, Dial a number, you hear the MP3 0..9 playing (depending on the dialed number), When the song is over, you hear the “disconnected” MP3, You can dial another number and hear another song or hang up the phone.
  • Some phones also have a button on the front. When you press this button, the phone randomly playes one of the songe 0..9 and when that song is over, it automatically plays a new song, randomly. This will allow the person on the phone to continuously listen to the music. This may be of help to those who can’t figure out how it works but love to hear the songs over and over again.
  • You can configure the music folder from which the MP3s are played, you can use up to 10 different folders
  • You can configure the volume of the device
  • Configurations are done through the phone itself (dial 738 OR hold the button while picking up the handpiece), you hear a voice that guides you through a menu and all you need to do is dial in your settings value.

You can power this design through a USB port cable. This way the device can be fed using a simple mobilephone charger OR be connected to the PC. When connected to a PC, the TeleJukebox identifies itself like a USB-stick and you can easily modify the file without removing the card from the system. Meaning that you do no even need to open the case in order to change the collection of MP3 files. Keep in mind that when the device is in USB-stick mode, it cannot playback MP3 files meaning that in this mode it will not act like a TeleJukebox.

Music rights

Especially when using this in a professional environment. be sure the music that plays is rights free (there are music therapists for treating people with Alzheimer’s and dementia that can help you with that).

Steps, reasoning, and building instructions

A less in depth Dutch article (with 13 minute explaining video below) explaining most of the steps and all the reasoning is this multi-part one:

  1. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Bouw een Wonderfoon voor iemand anders – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    It works with these and younger phones as long as they can do pulse-dialing:

    De T65, W65 en T65 TDK

  2. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Wat is een Wonderfoon? – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    The small regular and debug boxes under the PTT/KPN phone connector box:

    .Build Wonderfoon - Twee keer TeleJukebox

  3. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Een goedkopere variant – Achtergrond – Tweakers
  4. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Slopen is zonde – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    Both boards with electronics soldered:

    .Build Wonderfoon - Beide varianten van de TeleJukebox

    The non-debug board with components to be soldered:

    .Build Wonderfoon - Onderdelen TeleJukebox

  5. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – T65 bewerken – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    The small cleanup and modification steps (shorting the microphone) for the T65 phone:

    .Build Wonderfoon - Contact haakT65 schoonmaken.Build Wonderfoon - Contact haakT65 schoonmaken

    .Build Wonderfoon - Aansluitingen T65.Build Wonderfoon - Aansluitingen T65.Build Wonderfoon - Aansluitingen T65.Build Wonderfoon - Aansluitingen T65

  6. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Solderen maar! – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    Schematics:

    .Build Wonderfoon - Schema TeleJukebox

    Shopping list:

    – 1x Pcb of perf board (€ 1,01)
    – 1x Arduino Pro Micro (€ 7,95)
    – 1x DFPlayer mp3-speler(€ 0,73)
    – 1x TIL111 optocoupler (€ 0,41)
    – 2x Weerstand 4K7 Ohm (€ 0,16)
    – 7x Weerstand 2K7 Ohm (€ 0,56)
    – 1x Weerstand 560 Ohm (€ 0,08)
    – 1x Elco 1000 µF 6.3 V (€ 0,23)
    – 1x Condensator 330nF (€ 0,13)
    – 1x Condensator 100nF (€ 0,05)
    – 2x Led (€ 0,06)
    – 1x USB, type B, pcb (€ 0,67)
    – 1x Tactile switch (€ 0,09)
    – 1x Pinheader, male, 6 breed (€ 0,03)
    – 4x Jumper kabel, female (€ 1,95)
    – 1x Micro sd-kaart (€ 2,50)
    – 1x PTT-wandcontactdoos (€ 2,99)
    – 1x Behuizing (€ 1,22)
    Totaal € 20,82

    Voor de compacte pcb kun je de switch, een led, een weerstand van 2k7 Ohm en de twee weerstanden van 4k7 Ohm weglaten.

  7. [Wayback] .Build – Bouw een Wonderfoon – Voor wie gaat hij worden? – Achtergrond – Tweakers

    The inside of the non-debug box:

    .Build Wonderfoon - TeleJukebox

 

Wonderfoon got more versatile

Note that the most recent Wonderfoon products got more versatile allowing more songs, warnings for taking pills, and ring-reminders based on morse code.

[Wayback] Home | Wonderfoon

. De Wonderfoon-Centrale

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Arduino, Arduino, Development, ESP32, ESP8266, ESP8266X, Hardware, Hardware Development, Hardware Interfacing, Raspberry Pi, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Some links on Wireguard as DHCP clients were not supported back then yet

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/12

Wireguard seems more light-weignt and secure than OpenVPN and IPsec. So I’m anxious to know how it is supposed to work for road warriors that often depend on receiving DHCP addresses into the network of the VPN server.

Some links that hopefully get me started to install a Wireguard VPN server and provide services to road warrior clients.

First the Twitter thread that got me investigating:

Then some links I found:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Tailscale, VPN, Wireguard | Leave a Comment »

In case I ever need to jail-break a Mikrotik device

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/11/02

Some links in case I ever need to jail-break a Mikrotik device:

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Internet, MikroTik, Power User, routers, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

DELL fans use a different pin-layout than normal fans, so watch out before connecting them!

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/28

Some links on IBM X-series and DELL versus standard fan pin lay-outs (one day I will try to merge them into a better overview story):

  • [Wayback] 3 pin and 4 pin Fan Wire Diagrams | Cooler Master FAQ

    3 pin Fan Connections
    *cable coloring varies from fan to fan

    User-added image

    Pin Name Color Color Color Color
    1 Ground Black Black Gray Black
    2 +12v Red Black Gray Yellow
    3 Tach/Signal/Sense Yellow Black Gray Green

    4 pin Fan Connections
    *cable coloring varies from fan to fan

    User-added image

    Pin Name Color Color Color Color
    1 Ground Black Black Gray Black
    2 +12v Red Black Gray Yellow
    3 Tach/Signal/Sense Yellow Black Gray Green
    4 Control/PWM Blue Black Gray Blue
  • [Wayback] IBM X-series system fan connectors: sysxfanconn.png

  • [Archive.is] Solved: 780, CPU fan pin out – Dell Community
    Dell sometimes swaps the wires around so that you will fry a dell fan on standard and the other way round.
    It has 5 pins but only 4 wires are used.
    Dell does not publish this. And some dells use standard wiring.
    I believe this is correct.
    YMMV
    4PINS.png4pin PWM on 3 pin
    Dell MB
    Pin Number
    Function
    Dell wire color
    Std Fan
    Pin Number
    Std Fan wire color
    Description
    1
    Sens (TACH)
    White/Yellow
    3
    Green
    Sens (TACH)
    2
    +12v
    Red
    2
    Yellow
    +12v
    3
    Gnd
    Black
    1
    Black
    Gnd
    4
    PWM
    Blue
    4
    Blue
    PWM
    5
    Key
    unused
     
    DELLFANWIRES.pngDELL FAN WIRES AND COLORS

    [Archive.is] Solved: Fan pin out order – Dell Community

    The order is what is required for your specific model.
    I have seen no difference in the colors only the order of the pins.
    Note the Difference in this adapter.
    DELLFAN5.JPG
    So if your fan is NON standard you may need to remove the pins and re order them to be correct.  The fans are not any different only the wire order.
    Dell started making all the wires black so you cannot tell.  its not documented and its not the same on all dells all models all years.
    dell fans.jpgDELL VS INTEL FAN COLORSFANDAPTER.jpgDELL To Standard 4 pin adapterdellfanny2.jpgNote The KEYWAYdellfanny.jpgAnother ay to look at it
  • [Archive.is] Proprietary fan header issues – Dell Community
    Dell uses standard fans and the wires are swapped around in such a way that if you plug a standard fan onto the dell header you will fry the fan and the motherboard.
    None of this is documented.
    SOME models use standard wiring.
    Some Models use all black wires so you cannot tell.
    Dell Fan Wire  Black Red White or Yellow
    Dell 3 wire fan
    Dell 4 wire fan
    Dell 5 wire fan
    If you use adapter or re wire the standard fan to the way Dell does it there wont be any issues.
    Dell sometimes swaps the wires around so that you will fry a dell fan on standard and the other way round.
    It has 5 pins but only 4 wires are used.
    Dell does not publish this. And some dells now use standard wiring.
    I believe this is correct.
    YMMV
    4PINS.png4pin PWM on 3 pin
    Dell MB
    Pin Number
    Function
    Dell wire color
    Std Fan
    Pin Number
    Std Fan wire color
    Description
    1
    Sens (TACH)
    White/Yellow
    3
    Green
    Sens (TACH)
    2
    +12v
    Red
    2
    Yellow
    +12v
    3
    Gnd
    Black
    1
    Black
    Gnd
    4
    PWM
    Blue
    4
    Blue
    PWM
    5
    Key
    unused
     
    DELLFANWIRES.pngDELL FAN WIRES AND COLORS
    Dell does not use standard wiring or Pinouts on their fan headers.
    Dell fan wires are deliberately swapped round.
    PWM and Tach and 12v and Ground.
    For 3 wire they reverse 12v and tach. 
    Black Red White not
    Black White Red
    DELL3PIN.JPGDELL 3 PIN
    This can lead to self destruction for a dell fan on standard motherboard or the other way round.
    STANDARD.jpg
    This is the CPU FAN for Example.
    Dell MB
    Pin Number
    Function
    Dell wire color

    Pin #
    INTEL Fan wire color
    Description
    1
    Sens (TACH)
    White/Yellow
    3
    Green
    Sens (TACH)
    2
    +12v
    Red
    2
    Yellow
    +12v
    3
    Gnd
    Black
    1
    Black
    Gnd
    4
    PWM
    Blue
    4
    Blue
    PWM
    5
    Key
    unused
     
     
      
    DELLFANS.pngDELL FAN WIRING

–jeroen

Posted in Hardware, Power User | Leave a Comment »

M.2 SSD PCIe 3.0×4 vs 2.0×4 | Tom’s Hardware Forum

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/27

I wanted to know the influence of PCIe versions to NVMe support, and found [Archive.is] M.2 SSD PCIE 3.0×4 vs 2.0×4 | Tom’s Hardware Forum answering:

You already know that the Z97 motherboard has one M.2 port. The problem is there are several M.2 variations. Here are the current possibilities:

M.2 3.0 x4 – State of the art M.2 SSD that uses 4 PCIe 3.0 channels for proper operation. The M.2 port on the motherboard is sometimes referred to as an Ultra M.2 port. It is the appropriate port for the Samsung 950 Pro SSD.

There are other M.2 SSDs that either use PCIe 2.0 or use fewer PCIe channels:

  • M.2 2.0 x4
  • M.2 2.0 x2
  • M.2 SATA 3

You will need to check your motherboard manual or the company web site to determine if the M.2 port can support an M.2 3.0 x4 SSD like the 950 Pro. A lot of the Z87 and Z97 motherboards had M.2 ports for M.2 2.0 x2 SSDs that would not fully support an M.2 3.0 x4 SSD. With the exception of ASRock, the other motherboard manufacturers did not do a very good job of fully identifying the M.2 ports. You will have to find a little more information about the M.2 port on your motherboard. Hopefully the information is in the owner’s manual or the manufacturer’s web site.

The addition of M.2 ports on the the motherboard required the use of additional PCIe channels. Unfortunately Intel resisted adding chipset support for additional PCIe channels until recently. The lack of a sufficient number of PCIe channels resulted in some awkward solutions:

  • Some motherboards reduced the number of channels available to graphic cards. The cards might be reduced from PCIe 3.0 x16 down to PCIe 3.0 x8. Graphic card performance is reduced by about 5%. That is not a terrible hit in performance.
  • Some motherboards reduce the number of SATA 3 ports that are available. For example,the MSI Z107 Titanium motherboard has two M.2 3.0 x4 ports. If I install a 950 Pro in each port, then all of the standard SATA ports are disabled except for two ports. The M.2 ports do not reduce the performance of graphic cards
  • Some high end motherboards add an expensive PLX chip to handle M.2 SSDs. An example would be the ASRock Z97 Extreme9 motherboard. The PLX provides direct data transmission between the M.2 SSDs and the cpu. It is actually possible to run two graphic cards in SLI at PCIe 3.0 x16 each and still be able to run two M.2 SSDs.

The Samsung 950 Pro uses the new NVMe protocol instead of AHCI. A motherboard would have to have a UEFI BIOS, an Intel chipset, and a Microsoft Windows operating system that support the NVMe protocol. You would have to do the following:

  • Check for any BIOS updates. Sometimes the updates include new and improved support for the NVMe protocol.
  • Check for any Intel chipset updates. Sometimes the updates include new and improved support for the NVMe protocol.
  • Windows 7, 8, and 10 can support the NVMe protocol. Again you will have to check for updates or fixes that can improve NVMe support. NVMe is new so things could get a little complicated.
  • Finally Samsung has issued their own NVMe driver for the 950 Pro. Reviews and articles indicate the Samsung NVMe driver is better than the Windows NVme drivers.

Some modern motherboards still provide a PCIe 2.0 slot. That does not mean you should purchase a PCIE 2.0 SSD or an M.2 SSD with an adapter card. M.2 3.0 x4 SSDs are backwards compatible.

It might be confusing but for all practical purposes it is just a matter of checking requirements and specifications.

Note I have bulleted some entries for readability and bolded some text relevant to some motherboards I still have running and fixed some typos.

On connectors and B/M keying:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, NVMe, Power User, SSD | Leave a Comment »

Shodan (via SCADA systems accessible through the internet)

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/27

Just 2 years ago I bumped into shodan.io through [Wayback] Onderzoekers: zestig slecht beveiligde Nederlandse scada-systemen op internet – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers and saved the entry [Wayback] Shodan (website) – Wikipedia:

Shodan is a search engine that lets the user find specific types of computers (webcamsroutersservers, etc.) connected to the internet using a variety of filters. Some have also described it as a search engine of service banners, which are metadata that the server sends back to the client.[1] This can be information about the server software, what options the service supports, a welcome message or anything else that the client can find out before interacting with the server.

Shodan collects data mostly on web servers (HTTP/HTTPS – ports 80, 8080, 443, 8443), as well as FTP (port 21), SSH (port 22), Telnet (port 23), SNMP (port 161), IMAP (ports 143, or (encrypted) 993), SMTP (port 25), SIP (port 5060),[2] and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP, port 554). The latter can be used to access webcams and their video stream.[3]

It was launched in 2009 by computer programmer John Matherly, who, in 2003,[4] conceived the idea of searching devices linked to the Internet.

It looked promising, but I was really pressed for time (having impromptu arrange all care for my mom, and became even more so when I got diagnosed with rectum cancer later that year), so did not pay much attention apart from registering.

Last year in the midst of my chemos I noted [Archive.is] Nate Warfield on Twitter: “https://t.co/16969jRfuL The latest Citrix vulnerability looks bad but there might be time to fix them before PoC comes out. The @shodanhq query above might help. (support.citrix.com/article/CTX269106 has more details)… “ (I think via @jilles_com) , so put it on my list of things to look into a bit further.

Since then, I found out a lot of people dislike Shodan and want to blacklist it because they see it as a threat. It feels like people think the internet is like the [Wayback] Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal | Hitchhikers | Fandom

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a vicious wild animal from the planet of [Wayback] Traal, known for its never-ending hunger and its mind-boggling stupidity. One of the main features of the Beast is that if you can’t see it, it assumes it can’t see you.

(This by the way is one of the reasons for Towel Day – Wikipedia)

Anyway: a few lists of Shodan IPv4 addresses and hostnames, and means to maintain them for the ones interested:

Reality is that the internet is much smarter, so if you block Shodan from seeing you, others from the internet still will and if you have vulnerable services, one day they will be abused. For instance, this personal anecdote:

I forgot I had a port redirection on my router for RDP access a non longer existing Windows system any more. I forgot that this Windows machine had no fixed DHCP-lease while in use (it kept it’s lease as it was always on).

When that machine was long gone, another temporary Windows machine obtained the same internal machine (the router had been rebooted and after reboot hands out previously handed out IP address), and boom: the new Windows machine was bombarded with RDP logon requests.

In the end, the new Windows machine was not compromised, so I was lucky as it could have been.

Back when registering, shodan.io sent SMTP mail via sky.census.shodan.io, so you might want to not blacklist it if you blacklist at all (incidentally, when writing the IP address  servicing that hostname was hosted in The Netherlands: [Wayback] 80.82.77.33 – sky.census.shodan.io – Netherlands – IP Volume inc – IP address geolocation).

It is good to think of you use Shodan, as not all usage might be legal where you live or where you travel to.

Some discussion in Dutch on the risks of using Shodan are in the above Tweakers.net link. It boils down to:

  • Searching should be OK
  • Accessing the devices found can be totally illegal

That’s basically with anything you find on the internet, for instance by Googling, so nothing new here.

I mainly use Shodan to see if I have any known vulnerabilities exposed. There are not that many ports open, but given the anecdote above, I might screw up again and not be so lucky.

This article has a balanced explanation of Shodan, how you use it, and how to stay safe: [Wayback] How to remove your device from the Shodan IoT search engine.

jeroen

 

Posted in Development, IoT Internet of Things, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Security, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »

Some videos on defining ScanSnap scan destinations (Folder, Acrobat, …)

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/25

For my link archive some videos below.

Note that I dislike ScanSnap Cloud, as I do not want an intermediate party in between me and my cloud provider.

I much more prefer providers like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc to configure locally and have them upload to the cloud instead of ScanSnap Could also seeing my scanned content.

–jeroen

Posted in Fujitsu ScanSnap, Hardware, ix100, ix1500, ix500, Power User, Scanners | Leave a Comment »