Using HDSentinel in Ubuntu 16.04

If you are still using spinning harddrive, concerned about the health of your harddrive and using Linux/GNU, in particular, Ubuntu 16.04, you are in the right place

Running HDSentinel is quite simple in Linux. You need to download the file Hard Disk Sentinel LINUX (FREE) from http://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

After extracting the file into your preferred directory, we export the path which is the directory using the command 'export' : export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/bin . Then, we can preserve the path enviroment to run HDSentinel using administrative sudo command: sudo -E env "PATH=$PATH" HDSentinel. Alternatively, we may need to edit the sudoers file to include the /path/to/bin using the command: sudo -E visudo and add /path/to/bin  in the line below Defaults  mail_badpass like this : Defaults        secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin:/path/to/bin"

The change above in /etc/sudoers is differentated in light green (and yellow highlight) from the original in dark green. To double check the path in environment, use the command : sudo echo $PATH.

We are done and ready to run the command to check the health of our spinning Harddisk: sudo HDSentinel .





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KeePass in Firefox on Fedora 25/Ubuntu 16.04: Passwords No Fear

If you are using KeePass on Fedora 25 or Ubuntu 16.04, you are in luck. There may be other addons or applications that may do the same task, KeePass is the used and tested application for storing passwords.

Background history: KeePass is built using Xamarin
 
Do try to use the default theme for Firefox, as there may be interface issue on a 3rd party theme.


Addons needed: PassIFox (either), KeeFox (either), KeePass Helper (optional).

First, you have to install the either one of the addons in Firefox:  KeeFox, or PassIFox. These are the two available addons to act as a go-between for KeePass and Firefox. Personally, i prefer KeeFox, since it has better support at keefox.org

After adding this, we need to install the Mono files (which the application is built on) and extract the pre-built KeePass zip file.

To install Mono is a breeze, just go to the official Fedora community website and execute the Quick command. In Ubuntu, use the apt-get command to install the package 'mono-complete'.

The Keepass Professional file is found here: http://keepass.info/download.html.

Download and extract the lastest to a directory you found convenient, for e.g., /home/your_username/KeePass

In this directory, create a 'plugins' folder and paste the keepassRPC.plgx file into 'plugins'. The plugin can be found at the developer github repository:
https://github.com/luckyrat/KeeFox

You are ready to create a new database in a local directory (in .kdbx format) ,create a key file (in .key format) and a master password.

Remember to set the database or one of the subcategory as KeeFox start group as shown in the picture below.

Now you are ready to go with Keepass integration with Firefox.

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