Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) + Google Drive mount

Motivation

There was a need to access files mounted to Windows 10 machine via Google Drive File Stream (GDFS, as G: drive) from WSL, to be able to work with them on the same machine with Linux tools like vim, bash, etc., not to be dependent on separate Linux machine, nor inefficiently installing those tools in Windows (some could work, some not without problems or at all), nor copy them after modifications from local to GDFS locations other way (manually).

Components

Solution consists of:

• Windows 10 OS
• drive G: mounted by Google Drive File Stream
• OpenSSH server for Windows (running as Windows 10 service)
• SFTP Net Drive
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Tools used during implementation:

• Windows PowerShell
• WSL Bash

Hacks honorable to be mentioned

• sharing files between Windows 10 and WSL (files outside WSL needs to be mounted from WSL, not the opposite way)
• symlinking (on Windows!) Google Drive G: File Stream to Windows user profile (e.g. C:\Users\%user\GDrive\...) - free version of SFTP Net Drive does not support changing SSH default directory in SSH session
• GUI way
• command-line way
• OpenSSH workaround for unsupported GDFS mount in WSL (works also with compression)
• changing default user in WSL (avoiding knowing root or any other user password)
• setting up OpenSSH for Windows using public key authentication (avoiding saving any user password)

Steps

1. install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS based WSL in Windows
2. install Google Drive File Stream and connect to the service (mount as e.g. G:)
3. install OpenSSH Server for Windows - optional feature (Settings > Apps > Manage optional features > Add a feature > OpenSSH Server > Install
4. via Services management enable, set to start automatically & start OpenSSH Authentication Client and then via administrative PowerShell:
• Start-Service ssh-agent
• Start-Service sshd
• Install-Module -Force OpenSSHUtils
5. comment AuthorizedKeysFile in C:\ProgramData\ssh\sshd_config
6. non-administrative PowerShell:
• ssh-keygen
• bash -c 'cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
• (bash is used instead of PowerShell, because various versions of PowerShell inconsistently handle character encoding on redirection, what could result to this)
7. (troubleshoot if needed) and restart OpenSSH Server
8. download SFTP Net Drive and install it (+ register to start on OS startup), connect with authorized username to localhost (mount as e.g. N:), there are these alternatives:


• SFTP Net Drive Free - legacy version from EldoS, supporting directory symlinking on Windows to mounted Google Drive, but: it seems, running scripts via WSL with mounted Google Drive with this version of SFTP Net Drive causes BOSD below, when trying to run bash script stored on Google Drive inside WSL (but maybe you won't need this):
  
  
       (cbfs6.sys is component used by SFTP Net Drive...)
• SFTP Net Drive V2 (or Full) - current version from /n software, supporting directory junctioning, but seemingly not symlinking (so if you need symlinking instead of junctioning and don't need running scripts directly from Google Drive, you can also try legacy version, or contact /n software with support ticket or feature request - see also known issues and how to get support)
9. set installed program to start automatically after log-on (click on program in start menu, open file location, Windows+R: shell:startup, create shortcut of the program there)
10. make directory symlink (if using SFTP Net Drive Free) or directory junction (if using SFTP Net Drive V2 or Full) on Windows from mounted user profile to G: - now G: can be accessed also from WSL as /mnt/n, but after mount in WSL:
11. from cmd.exe: ubuntu
12. mount N: from WSL: sudo mkdir /mnt/n; sudo mount -t drvfs N: /mnt/n

Further hacks

There were problems with perpetually changing inodes of files trying to write modifications by vim, therefore this workaround is currently in place:

cat ~/.vimrc

set nobackup

set backupcopy=yes

set noswapfile

set noundofile

set nowritebackup

Automatic mount of N: in WSL with owner's privileges:

tail -n 10 ~/.profile

if [ ! -d "/mnt/n/" ]; then

        sudo mkdir /mnt/n

fi

sudo mount -t drvfs -o uid=1001,gid=1001 N: /mnt/n

# mount some folder

if [ ! -d "SYMLINKED_FOLDER_NAME" ]; then
        rm -f SYMLINKED_FOLDER_NAME

        ln -s /mnt/n/GDrive/... SYMLINKED_FOLDER_NAME

fi

Requires user to be in admin or sudo group in /etc/group and this settings in /etc/sudoers (via visudo in WSL) - not very secure setup, but WSL is not "mission critical server" :) :

sudo cat /etc/sudoers

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges

%admin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command

%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is me to be able re-run these steps on another computers or user profiles and can be continually improved in the future, to be more exact.

Inspirations for open-source business

There are various ways, how to produce open-source and make profit at the same time. There are some inspirations:

• Open-Source UnderDogs
• 5 Ways Open-Source Companies Make Money

Distributed/paralelized TSDB on PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB

There are one-week-old news from Timescale about their addition to rapid increase of possible throughput and data volume using their TimescaleDB. Click here.

Timescale's article illuminates also its taking into account so called CAP theorem.

How to enable and use firewall management on CentOS/RHEL/Fedora/Docker (firewall-cmd)

Firewalld is daemon for management of IP filtering (firewalling) rules based on iptables.

How to install and enable it:

sudo yum install firewalld
sudo systemctl enable firewalld
sudo systemctl start firewalld

This tool can be used for simple opening or protecting TCP/UDP ports, or more detailed/sophisticated whitelisting or blacklisting via rich rules (based not only on TCP/UDP ports, but also source or destination IP address, etc.), on Linux system, and various other IP filtering configurations.

More detailed information can be found e.g. in this article from Mark Cunningham.

ZABBIX migration from version 2.4.8 to 4.2-PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB

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Preconditions

• old ZABBIX server 2.4(.8) + PostgreSQL DB (alternatively MySQL/MariaDB)
• RHEL/CentOS 7 VM(s) for new ZABBIX server+DB+frontend
• review TimescaleDB licensing

---

Installations on RHEL/CentOS 7

---

• PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB 1.4
• DB creation (just for new ZBX installation and its verification, but won't be used for migration):
• sudo -u postgres psql
• CREATE ROLE zabbix_server_db_login LOGIN PASSWORD '***********';
• CREATE DATABASE zabbix_server_db OWNER zabbix_server_db_login;
• \q
• PHP 7.3
• ZABBIX server+frontend 4.2 - leave the server shut down before next steps

---

Download & unpack ZABBIX 2.4.8 DB original schema to new DB server - deployment preparation

---

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/zabbix/files/ZABBIX%20Latest%20Stable/2.4.8/zabbix-2.4.8.tar.gz

tar xvzf zabbix-2.4.8.tar.gz

cd zabbix-2.4.8/database/postgresql/

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Export ZABBIX 2.4.8 instance DB data (without schema)

---

pg_dump -h old-ZBX-address -d old-ZBX-DB-name -U old-ZBX-DB-read-permitted-user-name --no-owner --no-privileges --data-only --exclude-schema repeatedly-custom-not-migrating-schemas -T repeatedly-custom-not-migrating-tables -T acknowledges -T alerts -T auditlog -T events -T service_alarms -T 'history*' -T 'trends*' > zabbix_server_db_DML.sql

In case of migration from non-PostgreSQL DB (e.g. MySQL/MariaDB), PostgreSQL-compatible dump needs to be created in this step (e.g. via mysqldump -c -e -t --compatible=postgresql --no-create-info --skip-quote-names --skip-add-locks zabbix > zabbix.dmp) - not tested when writing this article.

---

Deploy ZABBIX 2.4.8 instance DB data (with original schema) to new PostgreSQL server

---

Re-create DB for import:

sudo -u postgres psql -c "DROP DATABASE zabbix_server_db_imported;" -c "CREATE DATABASE zabbix_server_db_imported OWNER zabbix_server_db_login;"

Import original schema and instance data:

psql -d zabbix_server_db_imported -U zabbix_server_db_login -f schema.sql -f zabbix_server_db_DML.sql

---

Check & disable hosts

---

psql -d zabbix_server_db_imported -U zabbix_server_db_login

zabbix_server_db_imported=> SELECT status, COUNT(status) FROM hosts GROUP BY status ORDER BY status;

status	count
0	count of enabled ZBX hosts
1	count of disabled ZBX hosts
3	count of all ZBX templates
5	count of all ZBX proxies

The same count as displayed for status=0 has to be updated in following step:

zabbix_server_db_imported=> UPDATE hosts SET status=1 WHERE status=0;

zabbix_server_db_imported=> \q

---

Start ZBX server (upgrade) & check log

---

tail -f /var/log/zabbix/zabbix_server.log

sudo service zabbix-server start

Check log for possible errors, warnings, exceptions and fix what needed. After a while, old ZBX DB should be upgraded according to new ZBX DB schema.

---

Install TimescaleDB into new ZBX DB

---

sudo -u postgres psql zabbix_server_db_imported

zabbix_server_db_imported=# CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS timescaledb CASCADE;

zabbix_server_db_imported=# \q

zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-pgsql*/timescaledb.sql.gz | psql zabbix_server_db_imported -U zabbix_server_db_login

For more details about TimescaleDB ZABBIX-supported deployment, read this.

ZABBIX name origins :)

Finally we know, what the name of ZABBIX comes from :)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zabb

How to share mRemoteNG connections on more Windows computers via Google Drive

The situation

Using mRemoteNG on several Windows computers and not wanting making the same configurations of connections on each of them.

The setup

• Windows 10 (Home, Pro, ...)
• Google Drive (GDrive) synchronized via Drive File Stream

The procedure

1. Move your %APPDATA%\mRemoteNG somewhere on your GDrive.
2. Open command-line terminal (cmd.exe) as Administrator.
3. Make symbolic directory link from original location of moved folder, e.g.:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>mklink /D "%APPDATA%\mRemoteNG" "G:\My Drive\***\***\AppData\Roaming\mRemoteNG"

symbolic link created for C:\Users\******\AppData\Roaming\mRemoteNG <<===>> G:\My Drive\***\***\AppData\Roaming\mRemoteNG

(Directory junction won't work instead of symbolic directory link, because it is working only in the scope of local NTFS drives.)

Repeat those steps on each Windows computer. Maybe (depending on your specific situation) you will need to do some merge of mRemoteNG connection configuration files.