Applications

CloudFlare does not allow port 22 (usual SSH port) on domain 3

 in Applications  tagged cloudflare / DNS / port / server / ssh / ubuntu by

When you try to connect via ssh on a domain for which you are using CloudFlare as a HTTP proxy, you will get the following error:

$ ssh [email protected]
 ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

You have a few options to resolve for this issue:

  1. Either connect directly to the IP of the machine.
  2. Or, setup a CNAME record with no HTTP proxy for the SSH (so that you do not need to remember the IP).
    This solution does not offer any additional benefits than connecting directly to the IP of the server.
    To do that, you need to visit the configure DNS page for your site: e.g. https://www.cloudflare.com/a/dns/example.com,
    then create the CNAME named ssh, use as target your domain (e.g. example.com) and disable HTTP proxy by clicking on the orange cloud and making it gray before pressing the Add Record button.

    Then, you will be able to connect via ssh [email protected].
  3. Last solution but not least is configuring your server to listen for SSH on one of the ports of CloudFlare that are open.
    When this post was written, the following ports were available/open for any site in CloudFlare:
    For requests made via HTTP:

    80
8080
8880
2052
2082
2086
2095

    For requests made via HTTPS:

    443
2053
2083
2087
2096
8443

    At the time, we were using an Ubuntu GNU/Linux server, to instruct Ubuntu SSHD to listen to multiple ports we edited the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and right after the lines:

    # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22

    we added another line with the new port we wanted to use:

    # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22
Port 2053

    After restarting the service
    service ssh restart;
    we were able to connect to our page as follows:
    ssh -p 2053 [email protected];

 

JetPack: Cannot Verify Site Ownership using pinterest 6

 in WordPress  tagged jetpack / pinterest / wordpress by

Recently, we tried to verify the ownership of a site running WordPress with JetPack in Pinterest.

As the instructions say, we logged in to Pinterest and visited the settings page to Claim Website paragraph.

Using the meta tag solution we received a code similar to the one below:

<meta name="p:domain_verify" content="8525e3384b3545fb80b9e21f0910de21"/>

When we tried to add the code in the JetPack site verification page (https://example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack#/traffic) we got the following error:
Error updating settings. Invalid parameter(s): pinterest (Status 400).

To resolve the issue, we just added a space character right before the end of the tag /> and our code became:

<meta name="p:domain_verify" content="8525e3384b3545fb80b9e21f0910de21" />

Trying again, it worked properly!

ffmpeg: Create a video countdown 1

 in Applications / Bash  tagged countdown / create / ffmpeg / video by

The code below was used to generate the video countdown timers that are available in the following playlist using ffmpeg:

#This example will create a 3 second video, with 100 frames per second and it will print the elapsed and remaining times using a two second accuracy.
fps=100;
seconds=3;
mantissaDigits=2;
upperFont=600;
lowerFont=100;
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i ~/Pictures/Black-Background.png -c:v libx264 -r $fps -t $seconds -pix_fmt yuv420p -vf "fps=$fps,drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf':fontcolor=yellow:fontsize=$upperFont:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:text='%{eif\:($seconds-t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod($seconds-t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}',drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf':fontcolor=yellow:fontsize=$lowerFont:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=((h-text_h)/2)+$upperFont:text='Elapsed\: %{eif\:(t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod(t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}'" "$seconds seconds countdown timer.mp4";

Notes:

  • We used a single black frame for the background that defined the size of the video frame as well.
  • Using the fps variable we defined the number of Frames per Second for the video.
  • The seconds variable defined the number of seconds the duration of the video should be.
  • The mantissaDigits variable defines how many decimal digits should be shown after the dot.
  • upperFont and lowerFont define the size of the fonts in the upper row and the lower one respectively.
  • We used the drawtext directive twice to write to the frames.

Notes on the first drawtext:

  • fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf' defines the font to be used for the text.
  • fontcolor=yellow defines the color of the font of the text.
  • fontsize=$upperFont defines the size of the font of the text.
  • x=(w-text_w)/2 defines the X-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text horizontally on the frame.
  • y=(h-text_h)/2 defines the Y-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text vertically on the frame.
  • text='%{eif\:($seconds-t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod($seconds-t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}' We print the remaining seconds for the video to finish with specific decimal digit accuracy.

Notes on the second drawtext:

  • drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf' defines the font to be used for the text.
  • fontcolor=yellow defines the color of the font of the text.
  • fontsize=$lowerFont defines the size of the font of the text.
  • x=(w-text_w)/2 defines the X-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text horizontally on the frame.
  • y=((h-text_h)/2)+$upperFont defines the Y-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here shift the text from the vertical center  of the frame.
  • text='Elapsed\: %{eif\:(t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod(t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}' We print the elapsed seconds since the video started with specific decimal digit accuracy.

LibreOffice Calc: get the distinct/unique values in a column or a list of elements 4

 in Applications / Office  tagged calc / distinct / LibreOffice / unique by

These videos demonstrate how to get the distinct/unique values in a column or a list of elements in LibreOffice Calc.

Procedure to get the distinct values in a column or a list of elements:

  1. Select the column (or the list of data) that you want to process
  2. Click on the top menu Data
    then click on the option group More Filters
    and finally on the option Standard Filter...
  3. In the new window, change the Field Name on the first row to - none -
  4. Click on the Options label and enable the No duplications checkbox
  5. Finally press the OK button

Video demonstrating how to get the distinct values in a column:

Video demonstrating how to get the distinct values in a list of elements: