• Push RouterOS metrics to InfluxDB

    Here is a really simple and easy way to push metrics (or any value) from RouterOS right into InfluxDB: #this script grabs some simple measurements #and POSTs them to an influxDB server using the HTTP API. #influx details :local server 12.34.56; :local port 8086; :local host routername; #collect up the measurements and store for performance…

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  • Stream to youtube from Unifi NVR

    Here is a short script which uses ffmpeg to stream video from a Unifi NVR straight to Youtube. I experimented with a few different ffmpeg options and found this one produces the best stream with the best audio. #!/bin/bash while : do echo `/usr/bin/ffmpeg -rtsp_transport tcp -i rtsp://[your-nvr]:7447/5a45afdg76256bcec92c377_0 -tune zerolatency -vcodec libx264 -t 12:00:00 -pix_fmt…

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  • Fix for nonfunctioning power window in 2007 Mazda3

    I’ve been having trouble with the driver’s side power window on my 2007 Mazda3 for a while. The window would go down, but wouldn’t go back up. Researching the problem online, this is a super common issue, but the suggested fixes are to replace whole assemblies, slam the door hard (to release a jammed mechanism),…

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  • Sonoff, meet powerstrip

    I recently became super fascinated with ESP8266 hardware, and it wasn’t long before I also found out about and ordered a couple of ESP8266-based Sonoff AC switches to play with (immediately flashing them with some generic MQTT firmware). They work wonderfully and are just too cheap to resist. It also wasn’t very long until I began…

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  • Netinstall for RouterOS in Virtualbox (on Mac OS)

    I recently ‘bricked’ my Mikrotik HAP AC Lite router – the router didn’t have enough room on its flash memory to install an update, but – in an unexpected turn of events – tried to apply the firmware update anyway, and became un-bootable. Fortunately, Mikrotik supply a bit of software (‘Netinstall’) which is able to re-flash the devices using…

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  • Quick RouterOS script for hurricane electric 6to4 tunnel dynamic updating

    If your ISP doesn’t offer IPv6 you may have set up an IPv6 6to4 tunnel using Hurricane Electric’s free ‘tunnelbroker.net‘ service. To operate the tunnel, tunnelbroker.net requires that you configure an IPv4 endpoint/client IP in their tunnel configuration. Additionally, the Mikrotik RouterOS ‘6to4’ tunnel interface requires this same IPv4 address is (redundantly) entered as the…

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  • Send Slack messages from Mikrotik RouterOS

    This is a quick RouterOS script hack which I just wanted to get up online; it’s not anywhere near perfect but it might be useful to others. My objective here was to post a message to any Slack channel from Mikrotik RouterOS: Slack has a super-simple to use ‘incoming webhook‘ integration but unfortunately, this requires that your…

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  • Quota-based traffic usage alerts in LibreNMS

    Out of the box, LibreNMS does not readily expose traffic transfer measurements – it is geared towards network operators who buy (and sell) transit bandwidth wholesale, and not really for the home-gamer who just wants to stay under their ISP’s data cap. As per the documentation, LibreNMS’ billing module can be enabled in config.php, and this will…

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  • Phone casing out of hot-melt glue

    I’m travelling, and was getting desperate for a case for my phone (a Moto X) – I just couldn’t find one anywhere, so thought I would try a technique I saw somewhere.

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  • Closed terrarium from IKEA Sinnerlig and Ledberg

    In a previous post I examined a Ledberg LED lamp. I actually bought the lamp, along with a ‘Sinnerlig’ glass jar, to make this little tabletop terrarium:

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  • Reverse-engineering the IKEA “Ledberg” LED

    This is an “Ledberg” LED downlight from IKEA: I really like it – the LED is a nice, warm white, it has a very high output (up to 3W) and the diffuser lens makes a nice soft spot. It’s low-profile, easy to mount, doesn’t require heatsinking, and is a complete solution including a 24VDC power…

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  • Read the RFCs

    I recently moved a bunch of websites over to a VPS (likely the one you are reading this from). It runs Ubuntu with a LEMP stack. I ran into some problems when I went to reconfigure my DNS Zones to reflect the change. The zones (combined) I created looked more-or-less like this: NAME TYPE VALUE…

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  • Monitoring and reporting 3G radio signal-strength (RSSI, dBm) on Mikrotik Routerboards

    Monitoring a large number of Mikrotik Routerboards is easy using software and tools like LibreNMS and Oxidized, but it is unfortunately not possible to retrieve values for 3G/4G/etc signal-strength RSSI (in dBm) via SNMP when using interfaces like the Sierra MC8705 Mini-PCIe card. However, using some RouterOS scripts, we can read and push the value for…

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  • Raspberry Pi internet streaming radio station

    My partner has been overseas for a few months and was desperately missing a local radio station. It doesn’t have an online stream that she can listen to and so she asked me whether I could record the station for ten hours – this just sounded like a hassle, so I set up an internet streaming…

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  • Modbus TCP Temperature Sensor with Arduino and LM335

    I used to hate on Arduino a bit, but have recently come around. I was having a conversation with a work colleague along the lines of how super easy it would be nowadays to build a temperature sensor with ethernet connectivity and a modbus interface. Remembering that I had an old Arduino board (with Ethernet)…

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  • LibreNMS network monitor with Slack integration and Oxidized config versioning

    I used to use Observium for network monitoring. After evaluating a couple of options – Cacti, Zabbix, Nagios – I found Observium, and loved its beautiful, well organised and extremely usable interface. Observium has two main drawbacks for me though: Like many FOSS products, it has a ‘community’ version and a ‘commercial’ version. Even though the commercial…

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  • Install Request Tracker 4 from source with lighttpd and postfix on Ubuntu 14.04

    Request Tracker is a tried-and-tested ticketing system, written in Perl. The manual installation documentation is pretty clear but not tailored to any particular distribution or configuration and I still had to do a bit of digging around to complete the installation, so I am posting my notes in case they help others. Unpack the latest…

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  • Terrariums are fun

    I’ve been playing with terrariums. I made a lot, to try out different ideas. One was made with a LED in the bottom of the lid providing illumination. A few months on and a friend is looking after it for me. The plants (well – the weed) has gone crazy and a little mushy has…

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  • 3G Weather Station using MangoES and RouterBoard

    I thought I would share a recent little side-project that I did at work, putting together a neat and tidy solution to take wind measurements over a three month period for a customer who is interested in installing small wind turbines at some of their rural radio repeater sites. With a tame sparky on hand…

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  • MiniPCIe cards on RB912 boards – how to make the interface appear

    If you’re using MiniPCIe 3G cards on Mikrotik Routerboards, the new RB912 may be a much better choice than the older and cheaper RB411u, as the RB912 has the capability to interrupt or cycle power to the miniPCIe interface via software, which the RB411 lacks. In some particular circumstances*, such a full ‘power cycle’ of…

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  • Pulse Metering using ADAM-6051 units

    We (at work) needed a quick and cheap solution for remotely collecting data (in pulses per 100L) from some gas volume meters so I built these two boxes. An Advantech ADAM-6051 unit in each box each reads and counts the pulses from two meters, and then the pulse count values (there are two pulse count channels per…

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  • Prius Panel Repairs

    Oops. Prius v. concrete pole.

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  • Reading SNMP values from Mikrotik RouterOS into Mango Automation

    If you use Mikrotik routerboard devices in your networking environment or for remote telemetry applications, you may be interested in retrieving some datapoints from the Routerboard using Mango’s SNMP datasource module. In this example, I am going to monitor the up/down state of an interface, as well as the DC supply voltage to the routerboard…

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  • ISP congestion monitoring with Raspberry Pi

    The ISP I use at home is suffering from pretty bad congestion and the service has become barely usable during peak times. Despite multiple reports from other customers, they won’t admit that there is a problem, so it’s time to show them some data! I put together a really quick and hacky shell script that…

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  • Rancilio Silvia mods – PID temperature control, repaint, and open bottom portafilter

    I installed a cheap chinese PID controller inside my Rancilio Silvia V2 espresso machine. Modifying the machine with PID control is not an entirely new concept, however my decision to mount it inside the front panel of the machine (rather than in an external enclosure) is reasonably novel. When I did it, I was not aware…

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  • Ghetto Lab PSU

    Old ATX PSUs can easily be made into really great, regulated, high-current power supplies. It’s an old idea. Banana posts for output (3.3V, 5V, 12V) with a 5A fuse on the AC side plus a neon indicator whenever AC is connected. An pushbutton with LED illumination (driven from 3.3V rail with some current limiting) starts…

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  • 2003 Prius (NHW11) stock stereo replacement

    I installed a JVC KD-R80BT in the CD Changer slot (the single-DIN slot just below the air con controls) of my NHW11 2003 Prius. It works perfectly and I’m really happy with how it turned out – I’d recommend the JVC unit to others wanting the same. The bluetooth speakerphone functionality and music streaming means I can…

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  • Monitor a SMA Power Reducer Box with Mango Automation

    The SMA Power Reducer Box is a device for control of PV plants via some external control (usually ripple receiver from the grid operator). It has 4 digital inputs to select from up to 16 states of active and reactive power limitation. For whatever reason, reading the current active power limitation setpoint value via Modbus is not possible. Nor…

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  • Misc logos and graphics

    I dug up some old logos and graphics that I had created for various purposes (circa 2008-2011). Concept logos for a university drama society/club:

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  • Counselling Centre business cards

    I designed and printed these cards for a local counselling centre. Recycled stock, vegetable ink. The typeface is Gotham. I also designed a custom WordPress theme (this is an earlier screenshot – I have since warmed the tones up).  

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