Updated my OMV NAS to latest 2.X

It has been a while since I built my own NAS, it was running DEBIAN from the start but I've somehow installed OpenMediaVault somewhere between 2009 and 2015 :) It has been quite a long time since I last turned it on and it had OMV version 0.5.29. The last time I tried to turn it on was a month or so ago and it failed to start but somehow when my daughter asked if she could retrieve her old backup files, it started without a problem. When she was done with her tasks, I used the chance to update the OMV to the latest one, 2.X. Had few hiccup updating from 0.5 to 1.0 and then to 2.0 but everything was resolved (yes, who else did I turn to other than Uncle Google). After successful upgrade, I shut it down without any problem.

The problem came back this evening when my daughter said she need to copy few more files. Pushing the start button will start the fan/light for few seconds and it turned back off. Tried few times without success, changing power cable etc won't solve the problem. Luckily, I've another old AMD PC that staying around in my server rack, no idea how long it has been there but the PSU seems to be okay. Replaced the PSU and wallah, it is working again.


Original configuration:

1. Intel Atom D945GCLF2 (ATOM 330) w/ Built-in 1.6Ghz Dual Core ITX Mobo 
2. Kingmax 1GB DDR2/800
3. Aopen G326/Black  
4. 1TB WD HDD

Added to the original:

1. 1TB Samsung HDD 
2. 40GB Hitachi 2.5" Notebook HDD connected via USB (holding the OMV)

 

Getting your WX station out to RF using weewx + aprx

I have been using my WH1080 since two years ago and it is still working great until few days ago when I found out that the anemometer doesn't seem to give any reading anymore. Anyway, other than that, everything still working just fine.

I have been experimenting with Raspberry Pi for quite sometime and I've moved my WX and aprx along with few local server apps into Raspberry Pi (previously on my router running OpenWRT). Anyway, for this post, I'm going to guide you on how to get the WX data into RF without a need of the Internet connection after the first setup.

What needed?

1. Raspberry Pi, I'm using raspbian. I'm not going in details on how to set it up. By now you should've been able to get this up and running.
2. weewx software, more information can be found in http://www.weewx.com/. Installation guide can be found here: http://www.weewx.com/docs/debian.htm
3. A weewx extension that I've adopted from cwxn extension so it could produce an aprx ready beacon file can be found here: weewx2aprx-0.4.zip (old deprecated package ->) weewx2aprx-0.1.tgz
4. Aprx package which can be found here (prepackaged): http://thelifeofkenneth.com/aprx/debs/

After you've got everything installed, the weewx and aprx package. You can install the weewx2aprx extension, to do this, just use the following command:

wee_extension --install weewx2aprx-0.1.tgz

          wee_extension --install weewx2aprx-0.4.zip   

You need to edit the /etc/weewx/weewx.conf. Toward the end of the configuration file, there is a new section created by the above extension installer. Edit as required, the necessary fields are the lat, lon and the note.

# Options for extension 'aprx'

[Weewx2APRX]

    lat = 0312.81N

    note = "WH1080+weewx+aprx Sg Buloh, Malaysia"

    symbol = /_

    lon = 10133.17E

    filename = /var/tmp/aprx_wx.txt 

Change the above to suite your preference and rerun the weewx's service by issuing the following commands:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/weewx stop 

$ sudo /etc/init.d/weewx start 

Edit your /etc/aprx.conf file and add the following information under the beacon, change the callsign as necessary :

        beaconmode radio

        beacon srccall 9M2TPT-13 \                                             

              via WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2 \                                            

              file /var/tmp/aprx_wx.txt

 That should be it.

SAP - Creating customer with multiple company codes using IDOC - Message type = DEBMAS

I had a hard time to make this thing working, replicating customer from CRM and extending the company codes to more than one. The standard CRM -> R/3 won't have a company code and some of the information available during the replication. However this can be added in few places, one of them is using BTE (transaction FIBF->Infosystem P/S), event DE_BALE. We can add our own entries into the CT_IDOC_DATA or manipulate the entries.

To get the multiple company codes to work, it seems that the sequence of segments in the CT_IDOC_DATA is important. I was reading the problem found here:  http://scn.sap.com/thread/3257644 which says that someone had the same problem as me, "Fill all required fields " kind of error.  It took me few hours replicating the sequence, trials and errors and found out that the sequence of segment in CT_IDOC_DATA is important. I couldn't get pass the error if I have the E1KNB1M segment (and it's child segments) earlier than the E1KNVVM segment. Moving the E1KNB1M segment to the end seems to solve my problem. So, if you've problem with your DEBMAS IDOC, trying to create multiple company codes for the customer, try move the segments around, best is to follow the sequence found in the DEBMAS which is:

I passed my Extra! I'm KT2O (was AC8SH) too now.

Passed the three elements of FCC amateur radio license exam in a day, whew ..  It was all started few months back when my friend invited me to sit for the exam which was conducted by VE team from Thailand and Malaysia. Didn't take it seriously at first until it was very near to the exam date. I believe some will think that we're trying to undermine the local RAEs but in fact, we are not. There are quite few advantages of having an FCC radio license and I took the challenge to learn new things which I've almost forgotten after I passed my local RAE in 2007. 

Anyway, materials that I've used to study for the exam:

1. http://www.hamstudy.org (the flash cards really helpful, with some of the description explaining the answers)

2. Gordo's General Class FCC Element 3 book (bought it from Amazon along with ARRL Handbook 2014 & ARRL Antenna Book)

3. Extra Class License Study Guide by K4VRC (didn't bought the book, but studying the guide)

4. Sample online tests at http://www.hamstudy.org, http://qrz.com and http://eham.net, they are really helpful

I've used hamstudy.org website pretty regularly, I went through the entire exam questions for all three elements. Spent hours on the website whenever I'm in front of my PC or whenever I've access to the net. Else, the two books, the Gordo's and study guide by K4VRC were with me whenever I'm out of the house. 

--

Update: 31/01/2015
Just got my vanity callsign, I'm now known as KT2O.

Activating objects in note outside SNOTE

When implementing SAP notes via SNOTE, we do sometime faced a problem in activating an object due especially those ENHS & INTF where those two types need to be activated first. We can go to SE80 and find inactive objects or the easiest, use SCWB_NOTE_ACTIVATE ABAP to activate the note.

HRD 5.24 Logbook + QRZ lookup problem

Few months back, there were quite a number of cases where someone could get your QRZ account by phishing and that caused me to change my password. I haven't work on my digital mode for quite sometime and for demo that I need to do today, I wanted to show them the PSK31 and RTTY.. but one thing I observed, a callsign that I've grabbed from the conversation doesn't automatically added the name. I went to the setting, made myself sure that I've put my correct password and I did a callsign lookup test but I kept getting the error. After few tries, I've almost given up until I realised that I've non-alphanumeric in my password and this causes the failure. So, changed my QRZ password to remove this non-alpha and this resolved my problem. So, if you're getting the same problem, changing your QRZ password to remove the non-alpha characters will work.

TP-Link Archer C7 V2 - OpenWrt - Barrier Breaker

Was looking for the best AC wifi router to replace my Buffalo WHR-G300NH and found that TP-Link has just released an Archer C7 V2 which has wifi card supported by ath10k driver based on the information found here.

Here is the packaging, it says that it supports Unifi & Maxis Fiber but the support is not out of the box. You need to ask the seller a beta firmware which has VLAN support but I couldn't get mine working using even the beta firmware on my Maxis Fiber. Emailed TP-Link support but got a reply saying that they don't have Unifi/Maxis Fiber ready firmware and asked if I want to swap with one that already have, but nah, I bought the router not for running the stock firmware anyway.

Ver 2.0 hardware as per the sticker.

Anyway, I waited for a week or so and someone came up with the new hardware profile which creates the correct firmware image for OpenWrt. If you've this new V2.0 hardware and wanted to run OpenWrt on it but couldn't wait to get the patches into the trunk, check this patches:

https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2014-March/024459.html

To build your own OpenWrt firmware for this ver 2.0 hardware, followed these steps:

1. Have Debian 6.0 or any development system which could cross-compile the OpenWrt firmware. There are many guides available on the net, but for me, I've a VMWare Debian 6.0 VM ready on my Hackintosh machine. 

2. Follow the guide found in: http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/obtain.firmware.generate. Follow the steps to get the trunk, untar the file and apply the above patches.

3. To generate the image, I was using the following command, I need the ath10k and luci support in the image:

$ make image PROFILE=ARCHERC7V2 PACKAGES="ath10k luci"

4. The generated image ready to be flashed can be found in the bin/ar7xxx/ as openwrt-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin

UPDATE: The profile has been updated into the mainstream trunk distribution and the trunk now contains the image for Archer C7 V2.0. The image can be downloaded here:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin

1-4: Do not forget that the trunk images do not contain LUCI, so, you may need to login into your router using ssh or telnet. Get it to the net and install LUCI using command line or, if you want to, you could follow the step 1-4 above, have you own image rebuild with the necessary LUCI packages.

UPDATE: The latest Barrier Breaker RC3 can be downloaded now. This has the fixes for 5GHz band which includes the calibrated setting etc. I've tested this with multi devices that support the 5GHz band and they work just fine. Please head up here to download the latest image:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/barrier_breaker/14.07-rc3/ar71xx/generic/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin

LATEST UPDATE: Barrier Breaker has been available for many months now, so, please download it from the official website. Please read the comments left by visitors, they may contain important information that is helpful to make full use of the features available for this router.

5. Go and flash the firmware, do remember, the default IP address for OpenWrt router is 192.168.1.1.

To get Maxis Fiber to run, just go to network->vlan and have the following, surely don't forget to set the PPPOE userid and password:

That should be it.