[RaspPi] Install Kali Linux on RPi with HDMIPi

1.) Download Kali for RPi
https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-vmware-arm-image-download/

2.) Extract if with 7zip, format your SDCard with the Formatter from the SDCardAssociation and write the Image (kali-1.0.9-rpi.img) to your SD Card

2b.) If you plan on using Kali with your HDMIPi Screen, create an config.txt file with following content on the sdcard to have correct HDMI sizing:
hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080 hdmi_group=2 # HDMIPi for 1280 x 800 hdmi_drive=2 # for alternative modes get sound hdmi_mode=28 # 1280 x 800 @ 60 Hz Specifcations

3.) Boot it

4.) After boot, login with root / toor

5.) Install raspi-config using the terminal
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snubbegbg/install_raspi-config/master/install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

6.) Configure sdcard reseize, locale and stuff using sudo raspi-config and reboot

7.) Install Kali Metapackages
Kali comes kind of "blank" with no tools.
Choose your needed package from https://www.kali.org/news/kali-linux-metapackages/ and install it using apt-get.
But please look out for the installation size!
I.e. for the kali-linux-top10 package:
apt-get update
apt-get install kali-linux-top10
Or the complete ISO package (9 GB!):
apt-get install kali-linux-full

8.) Reboot
sudo reboot

9.) After rebooting and login with root / toor, enter startx to use Kali

[RaspPi] Faintly glowing steady green LED on Raspberry Pi

I got some serious issues with one of my Raspberry Pi, Modell B Rev. 2.0.
With an recent image, the Raspberry Pi refused to boot, but did only light up the red ACT LED as well as an really faintly glowing steady green PWR LED.
After my shop of trust sadly declined to help me with that issue, I tried to come up with every possible fix possible.

So, what can it be?
- Powersupply not beefy enough
- Micro USB Cable damaged
- Image was damaged during download / extract
- SD Card is not correctly flashed
- SD Card is damaged
- Wrong SD Card Type or RPi does not like it
- High Power drawing devices attached to USB Port
- SD Card Slot on the RPi is damaged / no contact

In my case, the solution was quite easy:
The SD Card did not connect correctly to the SD Card Reader in the RPi.
I just needed to rebend the legs of the SD Card Slot on the RPi, after that, it just worked perfectly again.

The faintly glowing green LED says that the bootcode.bin could not be loaded, the first file that is pulled from the SD Card.
So it is a good hint for everything what could have gone wrong.

Other than that, a lot of good hints are shown on: http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting

[RaspPi] Snappy Ubuntu Core on Raspberry Pi 2

Well, I finally got my Raspberry Pi 2 and just could not hold back and wanted to test Snappy Ubuntu Core and give a little introduction and how that thing works.

Ok, but short into: What is Snappy Ubuntu Core?
Well it is meant to be a secure operating system for embedded applications.
It is based on an transactional system-management and can even rollback upgrades of the system core.
There are three kinds of Snappy Ubuntu Core Components:
Snappy Ubuntu Core itself (Core), Frameworks and Apps.
Frameworks can access the Core in certain ways and thus need to be reviewed by the Ubuntu Team.
Apps are completly isolated from each other and have limited access to the system, therefore they don't need special security profiles or reviews, which makes publishing easier.
Ok, and everything is controlled via the command "snappy".

Let's install Snappy Ubuntu Core:
1.) Get the Image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ and a Raspberry Pi 2. It needs the ARMv7 architecture and won't run on a RPi 1.
2.) Use the SD Formatter ( https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/ ) with Size Adjustment (you'll find it under Options) ON to format your Micro SD Card and the latest Win32 Disk Imager ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ ) to burn the Image to that Micro SD Card.
3.) Plug your RPi 2 into your Keyboard / Monitor / Network Connection, insert the Micro SD Card and let it boot.
4.) The Login Credentials are ubuntu / ubuntu

Ok. Now that we got Snappy Ubuntu Core running on our RPi 2 - how about using it?
We can login via Keyboard / Monitor using the CLI, or use SSH - if we know the IP Address of our RPi2.
Login Credentials remain the same.
Additionally, we can browser from any PC on the same network to http://:4200/ - which is the unsecured (NO LOGIN!) web device manager called WebDM. We can use it to install new Apps and work on the RPi 2. But as said, it has no authentication in this version - so... Don't use this box for anything more than testing / dev work!

After login in, we can find out the most important things via uname -a, top, df -h, date and ifconfig.

Snappy Ubuntu Core uses about 128 MB of RAM while beeing idle.

The most important thing is to activate the NTP Client on your Box. Otherwise the RTC will start at somewhere around 1970 and your system won't be able to update anything, as the certificates on your device will be invalid. So enable that via the command sudo timedatectl set-ntp true. You could also set the time manually via i.e. sudo date -s "Tue 2 Mar 21:33 UTC 2015".

After that is done, we can watch or current installed apps, frameworks and system via snappy info. An exact view on our system with version numbers and which part is active (due to the transactional style we can have multiple versions installed and even switch back to the older version if something fails on the upgrade) can be seen via sudo snappy versions -a. To get the latest version information (i.e. like sudo apt-get update), we use the command sudo snappy update-versions and watch the new versions via sudo snappy versions -a. We can finally upgrade the system via sudo snappy update ubuntu-core for i.e. updating the core. After an sudo reboot, the latest version will come up and also be shown on the sudo snappy versions -a screen.

Little Hint: On my last test, Snappy showed this output:
ubuntu@localhost:~$ sudo snappy versions -a Part Tag Installed Available Fingerprint Active ubuntu-core edge 2 3 f442b1d8d6db3f * ubuntu-core edge 3 - d3fe721a35104a R webdm edge 0.1 - 1604c8b7c9f6c5 * Run 'snappy update' and reboot to use the new ubuntu-core.
Which means the new Version should come up on Reboot ("Active, R") - however, even after rebooting several times and other trys - I could not get it to work and change to Version 3 of the Ubuntu Core :/!

Last but not least: How to find and install new apps? Very easy.
Just enter i.e. snappy search to find the App you're looking for and install it with sudo snappy install or via the WebDM System.

More infos can be found on the Website of Snappy Ubuntu Core: https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/

PS: As already added, this release is still in its beta stages and is not really "snappy" in terms of speed compared to an Raspbian or similiar Image. Also there are not a lot of Apps to choose from and there are several security problems like the complete open WebDM. Be advised that Snappy Ubuntu Core is NOT YET READY FOR PRODUCTION USE.

[RaspPi] HDMIPi Repair and VGA Upgrade

Sadly, some weeks ago, the Micro USB Port of my HDMIPi broke.
I wrote an letter to Alex Eames, which is quite known for HDMIPi, RasPi.TV and his lattest Kickstarter Project the RasPiO Duino.
Alex is an awesome guy and gave me his blessings to try to repair that problem myself.
With some flux, a fine solder tip and soem patience, you can get that repaired in no time.
After succeeding, I created some strain-relief by using two-component epoxy resin to glue it down a bit. Highly recommended!

As I already saw the unused VGA pinout on the HDMIPi and had the screen taken apart, I decided to hack an old VGA Connector from an even older VGA ATI/S3 Trio/Dunno-something-very-old Graphics Card :). I just soldered it in - in it worked right away! However, due to the fact of the included 12mm M3 Spacers and the additional height of the board due to the VGA Connector, I could not attach the back plate of the HDMIPi. I don't recall the exact size, but I think I came up with 18mm M3 Spacers which I only used to replace the original 3 Spacers on the bottom part of the HDMIPi. That way, the buttons of the Display would still be seated nicely and I could access the GPIO Ports of the RPi quite well.

Some photos:

[1841] Reset Password / Config, ROMMON Upgrade and Software Upgrade on Cisco 1841

1.) Reset Password / Config

- Connect to the router via Serial Cable

- Power on the router, but send a break during the first 60 seconds of boot time to get to the rommon CLI

- enter confreg 0x2142 followed by a reset

- Router is booting up, as soon as it does enter the system configuration dialog, answer the question with no

- enable

- conf t

- config-register 0x2102

- exit

- wr mem (because I just want to overwrite the old config :)!)

2.) ROMMON Upgrade

- Get the latest / needed ROMMON upgrade from Cisco

- Copy it i.e. to your CF card via Card Reader, TFTP or other means

- Boot up the router and enter privleged / enable mode

- Enter the upgrade command: upgrade rom-monitor file flash:<Filename>

- Answer yes to get the process starteted

- After the upgrade the router will reload

3.) Software Upgrade

- Get the latest/needed image from Cisco

- Just copy it to the CF card via Card Reader, TFTP or other means

- Reload

[PiAndMore] Raspberry Pi Einführung / Workshop Presentation

Here is my presentation to the Raspberry Pi Einführung @ PiAndMore 6 (Saarbrücken, 24.01.2015):

RPiEinführung_PiAndMore6.pdf (4 MB, PDF)

and to the Workshop:

RPiGrundlagenWorkshop_PiAndMore6.pdf (3 MB, PDF)

[PiAndMore] MQTT - Glue that keeps the IoT together

Here is the presentation to my MQTT Talk @ PiAndMore 6 (Saarbrücken, 24.01.2015)

MQTT_PiAndMore6.pdf (0,9 MB, PDF)

[Python] Python HTTP Server One Liner

As fidepus learned the "Python HTTP Server One Liner" from anyk, I needed to duplicate this wisdom myself - because I'll forget it as well ;)!

These commands will start an HTTP server on the current directory, listening on Port 8080.

Python 2.X:
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Python 3.X:
python -m http.server

Original Post and Kudos to: http://www.fidepus.de/2014/05/python-server-one-liner/

[Office] Quotes

You can actually turn of typographical quotes in i.e. PowerPoint using File, Options, Check on Document, Autocorrection Options, Autoformat while typing. Just uncheck "Typographical Quotes", to get the only " " quotes.

[Win8.1] ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 on Windows 8.1 / 64 bit

As I wanted to use an older Notebook with ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 Graphics Chip, I needed to get an recent driver.
Sadly, ATI/AMD does not provide drivers for Win 8.1 / 64 Bit for this old chips.
However, with Digitalflem you can create your own "old/new" Driver:

1.) Download the ATI Catalyst 10.2 Windows 7 | Vista (64-bit) legacy driver, start the installation and abort it - so you got the files unzipped
( i.e. from http://downloads.guru3d.com/ATI-Catalyst-10.2-Windows-7-%7C-Vista-%2864-bit%29-download-2478.html )

2.) Download the latest ATI Catalyst Driver for Windows 8.1 (64-bit), start the installation and abort it - so you got the files unzipped
( i.e. from http://support.amd.com/de-de/download/desktop?os=Windows+8.1+-+64 )

3.) Download and install Digitalflem 2.0 from: http://digitalflem.mydiscussion.net/download

4.) Start Digitalflem 2.0 and follow the Guide: http://digitalflem.mydiscussion.net/guide