Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

August 7, 2022

Winamp is back in action (!) after 9 years of no releases

Filed under: Computer Software,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 11:59 PM

Anyone who was using computers in the late 90’s and 2000’s knows that the best MP3 player of all time was Winamp, it really whips the llama’s ass. First released back in 1997, it spread like wildfire. I used it as my primary music player till I switched to Linux and even then I used a player that was skinned to look and work like Winamp.

Development for the player was paused back in 2013 and then resumed in 2018. It took 4 years of hard work and the Winamp 5.9 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download. Most of the changes in this version as in the backend as the code was migrated from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2019. This modernizes the whole setup and the next release will focus on new features.

The only downside of this is that it is not available for Linux so I still have to use some other software rather than the original. I wonder if it would work over Wine/Crossover? If so then that would be awesome. Let me go try that out and see if that works (I will update this post if it actually works).

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

Update (8/8/2022): It Works on Linux! I downloaded and installed the latest RC on Linux using Crossover and it works flawlessly. (Although the preset names are in Chinese for some reason)

– Suramya

August 6, 2022

Post Quantum Encryption: Another candidate algorithm (SIKE) bites the dust

Filed under: Computer Security,Computer Software,Quantum Computing — Suramya @ 8:23 PM

Quantum Computing has the potential to make the current encryption algorithms obsolete once it gets around to actually being implemented on a large scale. But the Cryptographic experts in charge of such things have been working on Post Quantum Cryptography/Post Quantum Encryption (PQE) over the past few years to offset this risk. SIKE was one of KEM algorithms that advanced to the fourth round earlier this year and it was considered as an attractive candidate for standardization because of its small key and ciphertext sizes.

Unfortunately while that is true researchers have found that the algorithm is badly broken. Researchers from the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography group at KU Leuven published a paper over the weekend “An Efficient Key Recovery Attack on SIDH” (Preliminary Version) that describes a technique which allows an attacker to recover the encryption keys protecting the SIKE Protected transactions in under an hours time using a single traditional PC. Since the whole idea behind PQE was to identify algorithms that are stronger than the traditional ones this immediately disqualifies SIKE from further consideration.

Abstract. We present an efficient key recovery attack on the Supersingular Isogeny Diffie–Hellman protocol (SIDH), based on a “glue-and-split” theorem due to Kani. Our attack exploits the existence of a small non-scalar endomorphism on the starting curve, and it also relies on the auxiliary torsion point information that Alice and Bob share during the protocol. Our Magma implementation breaks the instantiation SIKEp434, which aims at security level 1 of the Post-Quantum Cryptography standardization process currently ran by NIST, in about one hour on a single core.

The attack exploits the fact that SIDH has auxiliary points and that the degree of the secret isogeny is known. The auxiliary points in SIDH have always been an annoyance and a potential weakness, and they have been exploited for fault attacks, the GPST adaptive attack, torsion point attacks, etc.

This is not a bad thing as the whole testing and validation process is supposed to weed out weak algorithms and it is better to have them identified and removed now than after their release as then it becomes almost impossible to phase out systems that use the broken/compromised encryption algorithms.

Source: Schneier on Security: SIKE Broken

– Suramya

August 5, 2022

Happy to report that I have successfully cleared the Certified Network Defender exam

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 4:42 PM

I am really happy to report that I have cleared my Certified Network Defender exam. This is the second Cyber Security certification that I have done (I have 3 more pending) as they were included in my Cyber Security degree. It was a lot more interesting and had less stuff to memorize than the CSA exam but required a lot more study.


Certification Number Certification Name Issue Date Expiry Date
ECC1609574283 Certified Network Defender July 28, 2022 July 27, 2025

I will be completing the rest of the certifications shortly. Well this is all for now, will write more later.

– Suramya

– Suramya

August 4, 2022

Microsoft needs to fix their Windows registration/Activation system as it doesn’t work

Filed under: My Thoughts,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:59 PM

A lot of people claim that Windows is easier to use than Linux and I think that is because they never had to install windows on their system as it is almost always preinstalled. Based on my experience it feels like Microsoft is almost trying to make sure that people pirate their software because their systems suck, especially their license activation process. Over the past few months I have spent almost 48+ hours trying to get my installation of Windows to accept my Windows Pro license key that is part of my MS account and yesterday I spent 6.3 hours on call with their support with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Some background, I purchased a license for Windows 10 Pro back in 2020 so that I have a fully functional windows system that I can use for my Testing and research. This was the second license key that I purchased for Windows 10 because the previous one I had that I got from Amazon was locked to my old computer and as per the support there was no way to migrate to a new system as it was not purchased from MS directly (Which is very strange and doesn’t make sense at all). So, they told me that I needed to get the license from their online store so that it would be associated with my MS account and that way it could be moved to a new computer without issues. (Yeah right!)

I got the license, used it on my old system for a bit and then switched to a new laptop. I unregistered the key from the old laptop and tried registering it on the new laptop. It absolutely refused to work. Even though it was connected to my MS Account and the license was being validated using the digital license it was still working as a Windows Home Single user.

Spoke to the support and while they were super nice they couldn’t solve the issue. We tried reinstalling, upgrading, other license keys but nothing worked. Got escalated to senior folks but same issue. I had just about given up and was actually considering just downloading a pirated copy as that would be easier to install when I thought I should give it one last try. So I reinstalled Windows again and then didn’t connect it to my online account, instead I tried changing the product key using the key given to me by the support team to upgrade and that finally worked. My copy of Windows finally was upgraded to Windows Pro. After that the system upgraded to the latest version that took forever and a ton of reboots.

The same issue is there in their other software, MS Teams refuses to open when you click on a meeting link in Firefox on your mobile, but when I copy the same like to Chrome it works. Why do I have to use Chrome when all it is doing is launching a native application when I click on the link. Other applications like Zoom, GotoMeeting etc manage to do this without issues, but MS with their super smart team of people have hard coded it to work only with Chrome/Edge. LinkedIn is another major mess and I will post about it in a different post as that is a long story as well.

You need to make it easy for users to install/register licensed software else if using pirated software is easier/faster then people will just use that. I mostly use open source products along with a few Linux licensed software but they are so much easier to use/register.

In any case I now have a licensed version of Windows Pro running after wasting days of my life trying to get it to work. Ask any end use to do registration and then they will feel differently about how easy Windows is to use.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

July 30, 2022

Identifying the least used packages on Debian

Filed under: Computer Software,Computer Tips,Linux/Unix Related,Software Releases — Suramya @ 4:14 AM

My main system was running low on disk space in the root partition and I wanted to clean out some of the unused software from the system. In order to do that I thought that I should find out what the least used applications on my system were and then remove them. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any existing way of doing this so it was a dead end. However, the problem remained stuck in my head and I came up with a quick and dirty way of identifying the packages and when they were last used.

The way it works is:

  • Get a list of all files on the system (using locate, since its already there so why duplicate effort)
  • For each file figure out what package it belongs to using dpkg-query -S
  • If the file belongs to a package, get the last access time (using stat) and log it
  • Once we do this for all files, sort the results.

This gives us a list of packages and the latest access date for each package (based on the latest access date for any of the files in it). Since this is a quick and dirty implementation, it is slow as molasses, doesn’t have any error checking or anything but still gets the job done. Would love to get some feedback. The code is available at: https://github.com/suramyatomar/leastUsedPackage.

The output of the script looks like:

...
...
xz-utils | 2022-07-18
yelp-xsl | 2022-04-05
yelp-xsl | 2022-04-05
youtube-dl | 2022-07-17
zim | 2022-07-17
zip | 2022-07-17
zlib1g-dev | 2022-07-17
zlib1g-dev | 2022-07-17
zlib1g-dev | 2022-07-17
zstd | 2022-07-18

Feel free to try it out if you have a similar usecase. Let me know if you have any suggestions on improving the script or if you found it useful.

– Suramya

July 10, 2022

It’s a wrap: Done with my Cyber Security Degree!

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 6:12 AM

After a bit more than a year and half of studying, I have completed my Degree in Cyber Security from EC Council University. The course was quite interesting and I learned a lot during the classes.

I am happy to tell you that I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the course along with being on the President’s list.


Final score

Now that things are done, it’s the beginning of a new chapter in life for me to work on some new and interesting things.

– Suramya

July 9, 2022

Some lesser known Useful Linux commands

Filed under: Computer Tips,Knowledgebase,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 7:15 AM

In this post I am sharing some useful Linux commands originally posted by Traw on Twitter. As it is almost impossible to find stuff on Twitter (even if you favorite it) I am consolidating the entire thread here as a blog post for my reference:

lsmem:

lsmem lists the ranges of available memory with their online status. The listed memory blocks correspond to the memory block representation in sysfs. The command also shows the memory block size, the device size, and the amount of memory in online and offline state. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsmem
RANGE                                  SIZE  STATE REMOVABLE  BLOCK
0x0000000000000000-0x00000000cfffffff  3.3G online       yes   0-25
0x0000000100000000-0x000000052fffffff 16.8G online       yes 32-165

Memory block size:       128M
Total online memory:      20G
Total offline memory:      0B

lsusb

lsusb lists all the USB buses in the system and the associated devices connected to them. A good way to figure out what USB devices are connected and what the vendor ID and the product ID associated with them. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsusb
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 032: ID 03f0:3b17 HP, Inc LaserJet M1005 MFP
Bus 005 Device 029: ID 8564:4000 Transcend Information, Inc. microSD/SD/CF UHS-II Card Reader [RDF8, RDF9]
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0b05:18f3 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. AURA LED Controller
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 8087:0029 Intel Corp. AX200 Bluetooth
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:2113 Dell Computer Corp. KB216 Wired Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0951:16bc Kingston Technology HyperX Pulsefire FPS Gaming Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

lsb_release

The lsb_release command displays LSB (Linux Standard Base) information about your specific Linux distribution, including version number, release codename, and distributor ID. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid
Release:        testing/unstable
Codename:       n/a

lsfd

lsfd is a replacement for lsof and lists the file descriptors On Linux systems, it is tailored to the Linux kernel and supports Linux-specific features such as namespaces etc. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsfd |more
COMMAND            PID    USER  ASSOC MODE TYPE              SOURCE MNTID      INODE NAME
syncthing         1134 suramya    exe  ---  REG                sda5     0     265927 /usr/bin/syncthing
syncthing         1134 suramya    cwd  ---  DIR                sda5     0          2 /
syncthing         1134 suramya    rtd  ---  DIR                sda5     0          2 /
syncthing         1134 suramya cgroup  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531835 cgroup:[4026531835]
syncthing         1134 suramya    ipc  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531839 ipc:[4026531839]
syncthing         1134 suramya    mnt  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026533012 mnt:[4026533012]
syncthing         1134 suramya    net  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531840 net:[4026531840]
syncthing         1134 suramya    pid  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531836 pid:[4026531836]
syncthing         1134 suramya  pid4c  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531836 pid:[4026531836]
syncthing         1134 suramya   time  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531834 time:[4026531834]
syncthing         1134 suramya time4c  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531834 time:[4026531834]
syncthing         1134 suramya   user  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531837 user:[4026531837]
syncthing         1134 suramya    uts  ---  REG                 0:4     0 4026531838 uts:[4026531838]
syncthing         1134 suramya    mem  r-x  REG                sda5     0     265927 /usr/bin/syncthing
syncthing         1134 suramya    mem  r--  REG                sda5     0     265927 /usr/bin/syncthing
syncthing         1134 suramya    mem  rw-  REG                sda5     0     265927 /usr/bin/syncthing

lsof

The command lsof stands for List Of Open Files. This command displays a list of files that have been opened. Essentially, it provides information to determine which files are opened by which process. The output looks like:

root@StarKnight:/tmp# lsof |more
COMMAND      PID    TID TASKCMD               USER   FD      TYPE             DEVICE    SIZE/OFF       NODE NAME
systemd        1                              root  cwd       DIR                8,5        4096          2 /
systemd        1                              root  rtd       DIR                8,5        4096          2 /
systemd        1                              root  txt       REG                8,5     1841792     277271 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      161864     280226 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgpg-error.so.0.33.0
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5     3081088     264360 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.1
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5       26984     273912 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcap-ng.so.0.0.0
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      633512     270536 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre2-8.so.0.11.0
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5     1321424     264366 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm-2.33.so
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      158400     279628 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5.2.5
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      751840     263041 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1.5.2
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      137568     269425 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1.9.3
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5       35280     262500 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libip4tc.so.2.0.0
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5     1332480     262198 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcrypt.so.20.4.1
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5       18768     264301 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl-2.33.so
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5      202680     264320 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypt.so.1.1.0
systemd        1                              root  mem       REG                8,5       38864     267169 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcap.so.2.44

lscpu

lscpu gathers CPU architecture information from sysfs, /proc/cpuinfo, and any architecture-specific libraries that are applicable (e.g. librtas on Powerpc). The command output can be optimized for parsing or human readability. This can include the number of CPU’s, threads, cores, etc. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lscpu
Architecture:            x86_64
  CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
  Address sizes:         43 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                  16
  On-line CPU(s) list:   0-15
Vendor ID:               AuthenticAMD
  Model name:            AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor
    CPU family:          23
    Model:               113
    Thread(s) per core:  2
    Core(s) per socket:  8
    Socket(s):           1
    Stepping:            0
    Frequency boost:     enabled
    CPU(s) scaling MHz:  52%
    CPU max MHz:         4558.8862
    CPU min MHz:         2200.0000
    BogoMIPS:            7786.11
    Flags:               fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse
                         3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_p
                         state ssbd mba ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd arat npt lbr
                         v svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif v_spec_ctrl umip rdpid overflow_recov succor smca sme sev sev_es
Virtualization features: 
  Virtualization:        AMD-V
Caches (sum of all):     
  L1d:                   256 KiB (8 instances)
  L1i:                   256 KiB (8 instances)
  L2:                    4 MiB (8 instances)
  L3:                    32 MiB (2 instances)
NUMA:                    
  NUMA node(s):          1
  NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-15
Vulnerabilities:         
  Itlb multihit:         Not affected
  L1tf:                  Not affected
  Mds:                   Not affected
  Meltdown:              Not affected
  Spec store bypass:     Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Spectre v1:            Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Spectre v2:            Mitigation; Retpolines, IBPB conditional, STIBP conditional, RSB filling
  Srbds:                 Not affected
  Tsx async abort:       Not affected

lslogins

lslogins displays information about known users in the system. It examines the wtmp and btmp logs, /etc/shadow (if necessary) along with /etc/passwd to get the desired data.

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lslogins
  UID USER              PROC PWD-LOCK PWD-DENY  LAST-LOGIN GECOS
    0 root               306                   Apr06/15:36 root

lspci

lspci is a command on Unix-like operating systems that prints detailed information about all PCI buses and devices in the system. It is based on a common portable library libpci which offers access to the PCI configuration space on a variety of operating systems. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse IOMMU
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse GPP Bridge
00:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
...
0b:00.4 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller

lsipc

lsipc shows information on the System V inter-process communication facilities for which the calling process has read access. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsipc
RESOURCE DESCRIPTION                                              LIMIT USED  USE%
MSGMNI   Number of message queues                                 32000    0 0.00%
MSGMAX   Max size of message (bytes)                                 8K    -     -
MSGMNB   Default max size of queue (bytes)                          16K    -     -
SHMMNI   Shared memory segments                                    4096    4 0.10%
SHMALL   Shared memory pages                       18446744073692774399 1728 0.00%
SHMMAX   Max size of shared memory segment (bytes)                  16E    -     -
SHMMIN   Min size of shared memory segment (bytes)                   1B    -     -
SEMMNI   Number of semaphore identifiers                          32000    0 0.00%
SEMMNS   Total number of semaphores                          1024000000    0 0.00%
SEMMSL   Max semaphores per semaphore set.                        32000    -     -
SEMOPM   Max number of operations per semop(2)                      500    -     -
SEMVMX   Semaphore max value                                      32767    -     -

lslocks

lslocks lists information about all the currently held file locks in a Linux system. It also lists OFD (Open File Description) locks which are not associated with any process (PID is -1). OFD locks are associated with the open file description on which they are acquired. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lslocks |more
COMMAND            PID  TYPE  SIZE MODE  M      START        END PATH
pipewire          1483 FLOCK       WRITE 0          0          0 /run/user/1000/pipewire-0.lock
firefox-bin      18608 POSIX       WRITE 0          0          0 /mnt/data/Configs/.mozilla/firefox/6hzbxva3.default/.parentlock
firefox-bin      18608 POSIX       READ  0          0          0 /tmp/MozillaUpdateLock-CBDE0CC28E6567B7
plasmashell       1742 POSIX   88K READ  0 1073741826 1073742335 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database
plasmashell       1742 POSIX   32K READ  0        128        128 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database-shm
systemsettings    2116 POSIX   88K READ  0 1073741826 1073742335 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database
systemsettings    2116 POSIX   32K READ  0        128        128 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database-shm
cron               900 FLOCK       WRITE 0          0          0 /run...
kactivitymanage   1754 POSIX   88K READ  0 1073741826 1073742335 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database
kactivitymanage   1754 POSIX   32K READ  0        128        128 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database-shm
firefox-bin      18608 POSIX   75M WRITE 0 1073741826 1073742335 /mnt/data/Configs/.mozilla/firefox/6hzbxva3.default/places.sqlite
firefox-bin      18608 POSIX 74.3M WRITE 0 1073741826 1073742335 /mnt/data/Configs/.mozilla/firefox/6hzbxva3.default/favicons.sqlite
kactivitymanage   1754 POSIX   32K READ  0        124        124 /home/suramya/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database-shm

lsmod

lsmod shows the current status of loaded modules in the Linux Kernel. It nicely formats the contents of the /proc/modules , showing what kernel modules are currently loaded. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
loop                   32768  0
dm_crypt               61440  0
dm_mod                172032  1 dm_crypt
mptcp_diag             16384  0
tcp_diag               16384  0
udp_diag               16384  0
raw_diag               16384  0
inet_diag              24576  4 tcp_diag,mptcp_diag,raw_diag,udp_diag
unix_diag              16384  0
af_packet_diag         16384  0
netlink_diag           16384  0
uinput                 20480  0
xfrm_user              49152  2
xfrm_algo              16384  1 xfrm_user
...
...
twofish_generic        20480  0
twofish_avx_x86_64     53248  0
twofish_x86_64_3way    32768  1 twofish_avx_x86_64

lsirq

lsirq is a utility to display kernel interrupt information. The output looks like:

IRQ     TOTAL NAME
LOC 438495596 Local timer interrupts
RES 395250211 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL 244198954 Function call interrupts
TLB  50704087 TLB shootdowns
 43  36669756 IR-PCI-MSI 2621443-edge enp5s0-tx-0
 44  33219249 IR-PCI-MSI 2621444-edge enp5s0-tx-1
 42  29631348 IR-PCI-MSI 2621442-edge enp5s0-rx-1
 41  24214613 IR-PCI-MSI 2621441-edge enp5s0-rx-0
 63   5830480 IR-PCI-MSI 3670016-edge ahci[0000:07:00.0]
 45   4564010 IR-PCI-MSI 3147776-edge xhci_hcd
105   4129317 IR-PCI-MSI 4718592-edge nvidia
 64   3354988 IR-PCI-MSI 4194304-edge ahci0
 69   1788338 IR-PCI-MSI 4194309-edge ahci5
 65    157846 IR-PCI-MSI 4194305-edge ahci1
104     27444 IR-PCI-MSI 5775360-edge snd_hda_intel:card1
..
..

lsns

The lsns command lists information about all currently accessible namespaces or a given namespace. The namespace identifier is an inode number. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsns
        NS TYPE   NPROCS    PID USER    COMMAND
4026531834 time       87   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531835 cgroup     87   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531836 pid        87   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531837 user       75   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531838 uts        87   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531839 ipc        76   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531840 net        76   1134 suramya /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart --logflags=0
4026531841 mnt        85   1454 suramya /lib/systemd/systemd --user
4026532954 user        1 267290 suramya /usr/local/firefox/firefox-bin -contentproc -parentBuildID 20220705093820 -prefsLen 44808 -prefMapSize 237085 -appDir /usr/local/firefox/browser 267229 true socket
4026532955 ipc         1 267290 suramya /usr/local/firefox/firefox-bin -contentproc -parentBuildID 20220705093820 -prefsLen 44808 -prefMapSize 237085 -appDir /usr/local/firefox/browser 267229 true socket
...
...

lsattr

lsattr lists the file attributes on a second extended file system. The chattr command modifies the attributes of files, and lsattr lists (displays) them. File attributes are flags which affect how the file is stored and accessed by the filesystem. They are metadata stored in the file’s associated inode. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsattr
--------------e------- ./node_modules
--------------e------- ./Temp
--------------e------- ./Screenshot_20220704_122444.png
--------------e------- ./go
--------------e------- ./LinkedIn

lsblk

lsblk is used to display details about block devices and these block devices(Except ram disk) are basically those files that represent devices connected to the pc. It queries /sys virtual file system and udev db to obtain information that it displays. And it basically displays output in a tree-like structure. This command comes pre-installed with the util-Linux package. The output looks like:

suramya@StarKnight:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   3.7G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0  18.6G  0 part /
└─sda6   8:6    0  89.4G  0 part /mnt/data
sdb      8:16   0   2.7T  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0   2.7T  0 part /mnt/Backup
sdc      8:32   0 223.6G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   0 223.6G  0 part /mnt/storage
sdd      8:48   0  12.7T  0 disk 
└─sdd1   8:49   0  12.7T  0 part /mnt/repository

There are a lot more useful Linux commands and no blog post can possibily list all of them. But some of these were new to me so I thought I should share.

– Suramya

June 30, 2022

Help NASA find clouds on Mars to solve the mystery of the low atmospheric pressure on Mars

Filed under: Astronomy / Space,Science Related — Suramya @ 3:29 AM

If you have some free time and are fascinated by Mars, you can use your spare time to help NASA figure out why Mars’ atmosphere is just 1% as dense as Earth’s. The air pressure on mars is so low that liquid water just vaporizes from the planet’s surface into the atmosphere. The really interesting part is that originally (a few billion years ago) Mars had a lot thicker atmosphere.

You don’t need special skill to help with this, as the project is focusing on the study of Martian clouds. Specifically, volunteers will be looking at scientific data collected over 16 years to identify cloud formations. It might seem like a simple thing but once the clouds are identified we can look at other data captured at the same time such as temperature, time of the day, season etc which will help scientists create maps of where they form, determine what they’re made of (water, carbon dioxide, or dust), and see how they change throughout the day and through the seasons.


Cloudspotting on Mars asks members of the public to look for arches such as this one (center) in data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (Source: NASA)

It will involve looking at graphs such as the one above to look for arches (spikes) that can indicate clouds. If you are interested, you can join from the project’s website.

Thanks to Digital Trends: NASA wants your help to solve an enduring Mars mystery for the link.

– Suramya

June 26, 2022

Learning Bash by playing bashcrawl

Filed under: Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 9:19 PM

If you have been wanting to learn how to use a Linux/Unix commandline but find most of the tutorials too boring and dry, then I suggest you check out bashcrawl. It is a D&D type text based adventure that is actually quite fun to play. If you just want to try it out and don’t mind losing your progress then you can play it online by visiting here. Once you click Wait a few seconds to a minute until the launcher appears and then click on the Terminal icon to start.

It is pitch black in these catacombs.
You have a magickal spell that lists all items in a room.
To see in the dark, type: ls
To move around, type: cd
Try looking around this room.
Then move into one of the next rooms.

EXAMPLE:

$ ls
$ cd cellar

Remember to cast “ls“ when you get into the next room!

Thanks to Hack a Day for the link.

– Suramya

June 25, 2022

Attended Siddesh’s wedding reception today

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 11:35 PM

Today I attended the wedding reception for one of my close friends who we all thought would never get married. Siddesh had always told everyone that he wasn’t planning for ever getting married so it was a surprise to get a message from him stating that he was getting married and the reception was on 25th. His wife was also someone I knew so it was a certainty that I would attend the reception. So today me and Jani went over to the reception and met up with a few of the old Goldman co-workers who had come for the event as well.

It was great catching up with everyone even though we didn’t get a chance to talk much with Siddesh & Soumya much since they were busy with the traditional photo session at the reception. Things have really changed in the past 5 years since I left GS so it was great meeting everyone again. I will try to catch up with the both of them post the completion of my finals tomorrow assuming they are still in town.


Gaurav, Saloni, Subbarao, Rakesh, Jani and myself at Siddesh’s reception

We do have a pic with Siddesh & Soumya as well but that was taken by the official photographers so will get it once the official pics are shared. Wishing the two of them a very Happy Married life together.

– Suramya

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