Logging to remote syslog servers

September 9, 2022 - 1 min read

The logger(1) tool in your system, /usr/bin/logger, standardized in IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”), has many different implementations. For Linux users the most common one is part of the util-linux package. I’ve always considered this one of those weird Linux:isms. The logger tool is closely tied to the system log daemon, so in the sysklogd project we ship our own implementation of logger. Our implementation is derived from the Finit project’s logit tool.

Static Multicast Routing Daemon

September 4, 2022 - 2 mins read

SMCRoute is a daemon and command line tool to manipulate the multicast routing table in the UNIX kernel. Both FreeBSD and Linux kernels are supported, but it may work on other systems as well. SMCRoute can be used as an alternative to dynamic multicast routing daemons like mrouted or pimd when (only) static multicast routes should be maintained or no proper signalling exists. The full documentation of SMCRoute is available in the manual pages, see smcrouted(8), smcroutectl(8), and smcroute.

Your Own Operating System

April 17, 2022 - 2 mins read

This post shows how you can create your own operating system based on Buildroot. Add your own packages, patches, and your very own flavor to the experience. My own take on this is myLinux, which started out as a TroglOS, and before that as miniroot, by Henrik Nordström. Please feel free to dig around myLinux for more inspiration and tips on how to solve common use-cases. The manual, section 9, describes the basic process of setting up a our customizations as a BR2_EXTERNAL tree.

Linux Kernel Development Checklist

April 11, 2022 - 3 mins read

Because I always tend to forget steps, and haven’t half replaced myself with a shell script (yet), here’s a reminder to myself on how to post a patch to the Linux netdev mailing list.

Finit in Linux Containers (LXC)

February 13, 2022 - 3 mins read

This is a mini-HowTo on running Finit in an LXC system container. We will be using a variant (external) of Buildroot, called NetBox to create a squashfs (read-only) image for the root filesystem. Then we will give the container a single writable directory from which it then uses bind mount to emulate a full-blown system.

It is expected you have LXC installed and all the relevant build tools needed to create the image. How to set that up is not covered by this tutorial.

Gmail and git send-email

January 24, 2022 - 2 mins read

As a follow-up to my previous Buildroot mailing-list post about the git format-patch and git send-email commands, this post covers how to set up the latter.

Finit v4.2 Released!

January 16, 2022 - 3 mins read

I’m very pleased to announce Finit v4.2! It comes seven months after the last release, v4.1, with a bunch of fixes and some new features. See the release notes for details.

Micro Tetris™

December 26, 2021 - 1 min read

Micro Tetris — one of the smallest Tetris implementations in the world! Utilizing only ANSI escape sequences to draw the board, no external library dependencys other than a standard C-library, like uClibc or musl libc. Hence, it is very suitable for small embedded devices in need of an easter egg ;-) The game is based on a 1989 International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) entry made by John Tromp.

HowTo: Set up Merecat with cgit

December 9, 2021 - 2 mins read

merecat

This post details how to set up cgit with Merecat httpd. It began as a GitHub issue report by Mr Alok G. Singh, who had run into problems setting it up, and ended up as a HowTo.

HowTo: Set up Merecat with Ikiwiki

December 9, 2021 - 1 min read

merecat

This is a HowTo for setting up ikiwiki with Merecat httpd. First install ikiwiki $ sudo apt install ikiwiki libcgi-session-perl libcgi-formbuilder-perl Follow the steps to setup a new Wiki or Blog. In this example we set up a wiki in our ~/public_html: $ ikiwiki --setup /etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup ... Successfully set up wiki: url: http://localhost/~jocke/wiki srcdir: ~/wiki destdir: ~/public_html/wiki repository: ~/wiki.git To modify settings, edit ~/home.setup and then run: $ ikiwiki --setup ~/home.