Smith-specific documentation

Smith is my desktop computer. It is now running Arch Linux.

Restore ratpoison setup after bootup

This usually had to be done after a reboot.

Login as john.

Open a terminal:

ctrl-t ! xterm

Run a ls ~/.ratpoison to see what desktops you can choose

Run:

ctrl-t : setenv rpdesk_current other

(or any other desktop)

Check that everything is okay:

rpdesk.sh --current

should return your desktop.

Launch the modeline:

modeline-start.sh

Split the window:

ctrl-t : vsplit

Resize it using:

ctrl-t : resize 0 -100

Adjusting the -100 until you are satisfied of the result

Do a:

ctrl-t : dedicate

on the modebar window, so that nothing else oversteps it.

Do a Win+G and Win+F to switch desktops. Creating the necessary frame arrangements using ctrl+f 1 and ctrl+f 0 to switch frames

Backup setup

This describes how smith is backed-up using darwrap. In short, everything but the multimedia content is backed-up to another hard drive, and also to an Amazon S3 bucket. . This is implemented in the darwrap-config package.

Hard drive backup

A darwrap profile named smith-ihd is run every 24h of uptime. It backups everything to the second internal hard drive of smith. The only content excluded

  • The temporary and system kernel (/proc, etc...) files
  • External files from mounted devices (/mnt)
  • GPG secret keyring and random seed: this should be kept under physical control
  • multimedia: films and music: too heavy, all of them should be kept on an external hard drive.

The backup configuration is stored in /etc/darwrap-config/config.xml.

Net backup

A darwrap profile named smith-s3 is run every 24h of uptime. It backups everything to an Amazon S3 bucket, john-smith, with path backup. The content excluded is the same as for the hard drive backup. The backup configuration is stored in /etc/darwrap-config/config.xml.

S3 Archiving

To minimize the risk of having one of my machines compromised and all my S3 archives erased, I do a monthly copy of my bucket to smith. I use s3archive for this, and I keep the archives for 3 months. They are stored on smith's second internal hard drive.

External hard drives

I have two external hard drives plugged on smith. One is plugged whenever I am here (it is my "mobile" drive), and the other is always plugged in. Every day, a full rsync mirroring is done from smith's second internal hard to the mobile drive, and then from the mobile drive to the permanent one. This way I also keep copies of my backup and S3 archives on my external drives.

Tests setup

The following tests are run on smith:

  • The disk space test is run every 10 minutes. Removable devices are excluded.
  • The daemon test is run every 10 minutes, checking for various daemons (see configuration file in svmonitor-config for more).
  • The webpage test is run every 10 minutes for svasey.org.

Passwords kept on smith

See Keys and passwords stored on smith (login required)