Root Access

Journeyman Geek

12:56 AM

@Michael false ceilings man

great for hiding anything but bodies.

DavidPostill

11:49 AM

A police search team would look there if they are competent.

MiG

@XKCD I'll take plutonium!

@DavidPostill the last word is the keyword there

When Sheldon built an actual nuclear reactor in his parents' garden shed :D

Journeyman Geek

12:34 PM

@DavidPostill they would need to know its there

MiG

The idea of a sweep is to find things you don't know are there, I assume that in prisons this is a regular occurrence

And the basic rule is you have to assume anything's possible, after all there's a bunch of guys in there with almost infinite time on their hands

no idea who didn't think a false ceiling would not end up being a hiding place

barlop

do you guys ever use %userprofile%\documents, for any of your data, or do you use another partition of the hard drive that is in the computer, or do you just use an external hard drive?

MiG

different dir altogether

Even in the XP days I'd be concerned by automated cleanup tools and whatnot, so I keep my data outside of the existing structure

bertieb

@barlop I don't use Windows primarily but I do keep things in the profile dir and back that up, yeah

I tried the 'use junction points to move profile to another drive' way back in the distant past but it was more pain than it's worth

barlop

12:54 PM

I find junction points useful for CDing though I wouldn't use them re backing up...

.

barlop

In these days of SSDs I find I need to use an external drive for my data

If I used the profile then backing up seems trickier

If you have some filse on C.. And most of them on an external drive. And then you need to backup.. you'd haev to copy the files off of C onto the external drive. And then from the external drive onto another external drive

Whereas if you have all the data on an external drive then you just back that up

And using the profile would get worse with multiple computers

That said.. the multiple computer thing is tricky to solve

MiG

just using an external drive != having a backup

barlop

right

I wasn't saying it is

but copying from one external drive to another, is

MiG

and junctions I mostly use for pigehaded apps that download bulky stuff that doesn't need to be on the SSD

I prefer not to have to use an external drive to access day to day files though

if I have time this weekend I'm gonna set up nextcloud or something similar and have that sync between both the laptop, phone and two physical sites

got the raspberry pi sitting on the desk right next to me right now :)

Journeyman Geek

lol

MiG

1:00 PM

test setup with an old 256GB SSD, if that works out I might attach a NAS

first iteration of that NAS being a SATA cradle with two spare 8TB drives :)

Journeyman Geek

@MiG heh, I need to work out my backup system again ._.

(mostly cold data - and I have a decent tool for that. Hot data just goes into onedrive)

barlop

Makes sense to sync a portion of the stuff on a big hard drive I guess?

Journeyman Geek

@barlop and keep it on it

I don't really have a decent nas at the moment :D

I have an old (legacy) licence of bvckup I used to use for that (and send files over smb), very nice for realtime syncing of local files

barlop

What's a decent NAS? Isn't any computer that just sits there and has file sharing on it and a hard drive with all your data on it, a NAS?

Journeyman Geek

and rsync on linux

@barlop yes, I vaguely lack that right now :D

barlop

1:05 PM

Well, right now i'm on a laptop with an external hard drive connected to it with all my data.. so basically a NAS?

I have file sharing

Journeyman Geek

well I shove everything into USB drives

barlop

Well, an external hard drive is basically a giant USB drive..

Journeyman Geek

I have a (limited) amount of sharable space, but not enough to do things 'right'

barlop

I don't store my data locally. And I have loads of it so it goes on an external hard drive.. So maybe i'm doing something right there!

Journeyman Geek

which also comes to a question of how you sync and organise it

barlop

1:08 PM

Well.. it has loads of subdirectories on it really deeply nested. I use SUBST to ease CDing into some of the directories that I access a lot. I also have a keyboard shortcut I made with autohotkeys of "SA" that opens a deeply nested subdirectory called "software annoyances", in which I have text files with nots on various software i've used.. and notes re them

I don't have a nextcloud style auto syncing solution..

I back up that hard drive onto another hard drive with software called Beyond Compare

Which only copies changed files and lets me see any changes.

One weakness in the system is a lack of auto syncing of a portion of it..

So if i'm on another laptop other than my main one, then i'd have to either use that laptop's local storage, temporarily.. Or, use file sharing to access the external drive on my main laptop

If i'm in a remote location, I can access my other computers via VPN. I use zerotier which somebody here recommended

yeah zerotier probably recommended here by you @JourneymanGeek !

Journeyman Geek

Possibly

its something I was looking at

barlop

Does NextCloud do autosyncing of a portion of a hard drive, or do you use rsync for that? (nextcloud only handling e.g. web interface for docs and txt files)?

Journeyman Geek

Oh, I don't use thar

@Bob does?

I mostly handle files 'locally in lan' so rsync between linux boxen, and bvckup for local and smb shares from/to windows boxen

barlop

Have you used Beyond Compare?

Journeyman Geek

nope

barlop

1:17 PM

it's great software, works for Mac OSX too

heres an example image

You can put in on the left hand side. e.g. H:\ and on the right hand side K:\

and it will show clearly all the differences

and you can copy to left or to right, syncing them like that

So you can see the differences really well

barlop

1:43 PM

BC software is very simple.. NextCloud is not so simple.. Looks like nextcloud besides being like a google docs server, it can sync too as it has a desktop client docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/user_manual/uk/files/…

Maybe NextCloud syncing would be like dropbox syncing i.e. automatic

Beyond Compare's syncing is more manual, which has its uses.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek ?

Journeyman Geek

2:20 PM

Oh

You run nextcloud no?

Michael

4:31 PM

@barlop I have been using OneDrive and Google Drive for a lot of my document storage lately. I use the integrated OneDrive software that comes with Windows, and the Google Drive app, which mounts your cloud storage as a Windows drive letter. At work, I save everything to a flash drive, and then back it up daily to my OneDrive work account.

Vikas

Hello everyone. Is a FHD 24" bad for work? I know its very common for gaming but I want to know if the pixel density too bad for work?

Michael

@barlop There's a 4 person department at my workplace that I set up a QNAP NAS for. They use it for file storage and it has been running nicely.

Canadian Luke

5:05 PM

@barlop Yes, NextCloud has a native app to support syncing like Dropbox would

Source: I run multiple NextCloud instances - one for each work site, and one at home

barlop

@CanadianLuke Presumably for syncing you only sync things like documents? Is one of your nextcloud instances on the hard drive that has all your files on it?

Canadian Luke

The instances are all on servers. I run one in my home. I can use it to sync any folder I choose

barlop

how does the syncing fit in with your overall backing up?

well, I suppose the google drive thing isn't syncing. It's just all your documents stored on google servers. There's no local copy.

Do you bother backing up your google drive documents?

You're going to have a lot of data not on google drive e.g. too big for it. And that needs to be backed up. So would you have a data partition and then make a directory on your data partition , copy the google drive stuff onto there. Then backup the data partition onto another hard drive. So the backup , if it's to include google drive stuff, involves not just backing up a partition of data (call it P1), to another drive, but copying all the google drive stuff to P1. And then backing up P1.

ah I think I might have mixed together what you said and what michael said .. so i'll be clearer...

@CanadianLuke Would I be correct in thinking that what NextCloud gives you, is a web interface to access particular text files or doc files on each computer. And an ability for any computer to have a local copy of files from another computer, and sync it. Is that right?

@CanadianLuke also, you have multiple nextcloud instances but do you believe in the idea of having your data in a central location for the purposes of backup?

djsmiley2kStaysInside

5:46 PM

how do you get a file that's too big for google drive?¬!

only stuff I can think of off the top of my head is media files

and I concider them disposable

barlop

@djsmiley2kStaysInside there are websites for sending big files they can store them temporarily

(btw nextcloud has an option for it, though nextcloud is a bit complex and does many other things).

Canadian Luke

1. NextCloud started off as a web-based solution, but can use APIs and WebDAV to allow connections NOT from only a web site. Accessing documents and media are where it excels at. Choosing where to sync it is up to you.
2. Backing up. NextCloud is my phone backup (and my family's phones' backups) in terms of pictures and videos we take with the cameras. It goes to a server that has redundancy (RAID), and then 2 external HDDs I switch out on a daily basis, keeping one off site. If I trusted the cloud more, I could also tell NextCloud to backup to Google Drive, AWS, etc - but as a Canadian, we…

If a file is too big for Google Drive, you could host it on NextCloud, set its permissions to public, and share the link. You're letting them use your bandwidth then

barlop

@djsmiley2kStaysInside SFTP is another option.. So if you have a big hard drive with an SSH server that can do SFTP. And you can also rent a VPS and some storage for it and run SSH on that.

djsmiley2kStaysInside

I also have that :D

I'm just confused as to what files you're trying to store in google cloud that are too big

barlop

oh you were asking me about my situation. Well my data is on a 4TB Hard Drive. I don't want to buy 4TB from Google. I store things myself. Not reliant on google for that! Also very few people would use Google to back up absolutely everything! So i'm no different there

djsmiley2kStaysInside

5:53 PM

ah ok

so it's not the individual files that are too large, just the overall capacity.

barlop

@djsmiley2kStaysInside right

@CanadianLuke What does "NextCloud is my phone backup " mean? 'cos, NextCloud isn't a backup solution!

Canadian Luke

Using the NextCloud app on our phones and tablets, we set Auto Upload to ON for our DCIM folders. Then anytime we take pictures or videos, it copies it onto NextCloud for us, creating a backup of our media from our phones

So yes, it is a backup solution

barlop

6:09 PM

@CanadianLuke ok well that certainly backs up images and videos from your phones. What about the devices that aren't phones?

e.g. how much of them do you backup?

Canadian Luke

Everything else goes to my server (if it's in my LAN), then the server gets externally backed up

I backup everything except stuff that can be downloaded from the Internet again (i.e. Google Drive documents)

My git repos, for example, are stored in gitlab and github remotely, so I don't back those up

In terms of media (like my DVD collection I've ripped), it gets backed up once after it's on my server. I'm not as critical of those since things like Netflix and Disney+ takes care of most of it now

barlop

When you say "Everything else goes to my server(if it's in my LAN)" .. Suppose you have a laptop, on your LAN, do you mean an image of your laptop's hard drive, goes to your server, or do you mean the only important things on the laptop, are stuff it accesses from the server using file sharing?

Canadian Luke

Not a complete image, but the data itself. Essentially, things within my profile folder (C:\Users\USERNAME for Windows, or /home/USERNAME for Linux). I create the backup scripts as I get new client systems, and set them to run on a daily or weekly basis

Windows (or Linux or OSX) can be replaced or upgraded or break... But my data needs to stay safe

barlop

When you have a device on your LAN looking to access a file on your server, do you tend to do it via A)file sharing B)Http access to nextcloud to view eg txt or doc or C)syncing so it copies for itself a local instance of the files and syncs them?

(C involves nextcloud syncing)

Canadian Luke

Usually file sharing through SSH (since my servers are Linux based, and my clients have SSH keys, making it appear transparent to them). I only use Samba for my Windows 3.11 VM for getting older DOS games and the like. Everything else has an interface - Plex for media, Nextcloud for documents and pictures...

If I'm not on my LAN, then I use Wireguard and pop onto my LAN

barlop

6:25 PM

When you say " file sharing through SSH" <-- Do you mean SSHFS(so a mounted SFTP)?

as I understand it, SSH keys wont make anything transparent to anybody it just skips login. SSH without SFTP is a bit limited re file transfer. As I understand it normally to do file transfer with SSH you'd use SFTP.. (I'm saying file transfer though i guess that's what you mean by file sharing). And SFTP won't be that seamless to programs unless it's done with SSHFS. Then you've got what you could call "transparent to them" so is that what you mean?

Canadian Luke

I don't use SSHFS. At least, I don't believe I do. In my File Explorer, I can add the "remote" server, choose my username, and the remote path, and it just appears. On Windows, I use scp if I need to grab a file from my server, otherwise everything else I need is already local

barlop

When you write "In my File Explorer".. and later mention what you'd do on Windows. Is the phrase "In my File Explorer" referring to a particular File Explorer on a *nix system?

Canadian Luke

Yes, on elementaryOS, it's called File Explorer

barlop

6:44 PM

Suppose it's a text file or doc file.. Editing a text file or doc over a network whether with file sharing or with a file explorer with integrated SSH, seems a bit risky 'cos the network could go down when you want to save the file. (I know some programs don't or didn't handle that well..). Isn't it safer to use an HTTP interface to edit it (as nextcloud provides)? Or NextCloud syncing? Also if away from your LAN then that's an even bigger issue because risk of losing connection is higher.

Canadian Luke

A majority of what I would want to edit would be text, so I can open that in nano or vim, edit away... And if the network goes down, I'll save it locally and upload it later. If I need a complex document, then I can use Google Drive online (faster than NextCloud). If I need to edit a complex document that's on my server, then I'll download it, edit it, then copy it back.

A lot of the rich-text documents I've been making lately are only in markdown - simple plain text documents.

barlop

7:07 PM

What would you use if editing text in Windows?

Canadian Luke

Notepad++ or VSCode (VSCode is great for markdown)

barlop

Does NP++ and VS Code tell you when the server goes down, or do you only find out when you try to save and get an error?

@CanadianLuke and ok you use google docs for some stuff like editing a complex document.. and you have files on google drive .. Do you use a script to copy your google drive stuff to your server? And Do you use NextCloud for anything besides syncing the DCIM folder of your phones(or perhaps sending somebody a link to one of your files)?

Canadian Luke

7:50 PM

Pretty much use NC for syncing the phones. And no, I don't have a script for copying GDrive items to my server, but I know they're out there

barlop

9:06 PM

So in Windows did you make the decision not to make a drive letter for a remote connection?

(aside from file sharing(samba?!) with win 3.11 dos games)

btw samba is linux's emulation of windows file sharing, so what did you mean by samba for your win3.11 vm?

Transcript for