Its_All.Lost

Because hope just breeds everlasting misery…

ClearOS and FTP

Getting that same problem? Well apparently you are not alone, seems ProFTP and ClearOS don’t really work well out of the box. FileZilla would constantly timeout on listing the directories, so it would never actually connect. Transmit would timeout too, but it would spit out different errors, usually Error 162 Port Fail. After hours of digging I did find the problem, and the solution. It was actually pretty easy to fix (makes you wonder why the fix is not implemented?). Depending on your ClearOS setup YMMV and other steps may be required. I am running my ClearOS box in gateway mode, it is my server and router.

Start by forwarding all those ports required. Clear uses different ports for different things with FTP.
21 standard ftp port (internet say this is for home folders, but it connects me to flexshares). 60,000-61,000 are used for port 21 PASSIVE connections 2121 standard ftp port (internet says its for flexshares). 65,000-65,100 are used for port 21 PASSIVE connections. 989/990 SFTP ports.

To ditch the unroutable address warning toss this in your proftpd.conf file:
sudo nano /etc/proftpd.conf MasqueradeAddress ftp.mydomain.com  # using a DNS name

This did allow me to finally connect with Transmit with no issues. A friend of mine was able to connect with FileZilla after I made the changes. I had to change my FileZilla settings to use an Active connection versus a Passive or mine would refuse to connect. Odd.

I found these sites to be helpful, and thats where I got my information.
http://www.proftpd.org/docs/howto/NAT.html
https://www.clearos.com/clearfoundation/social/community/remote-ftp-access-through-nat-router-solved
https://www.clearos.com/clearfoundation/social/community/ftp-problem
http://forum.slicehost.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4491/ftp-error-162-port-failed/p1
http://www.theserverpages.com/articles/servers/cpanel/tweaks/Getting_passive_FTP_connections_to_work_through_a_firewall_properly.html
https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=7315

ClearOS – broken system updates, thanks hal

So during my Plex not working NIC rearranging fiasco I was doing some digging to try and find the cause. It may have been related to some broken system update, not 100% sure. I did do a system update the other day, which had some broken dependencies,

This was the command that updated my broken hal dependency and got my system updated. Apparently the system was not configured to update with the clearos-core? Anywho, this did the job, and as soon as the update was finished Plex was working.

yum --enablerepo=clearos-core,clearos-contribs upgrade hal* libvirt* yum -y update

After doing a bit of searching I came up on this post that had the answer. I find the ClearOS forums search function to be horrible, and Google doesn’t seem to pick up on it much. Maybe this helps?

ClearOS and Plex hate me today

Everything worked fine 100% last night. Zero issues. Apparently technology is giving me a big middle finger today. My cellphone provider is telling me I used 15gb of data in just a few hours and then Plex decided to stop working out of the blue – won’t load at all. So I logged into my ClearOS 6.5 server to see what’s going on, no its not disabled, apparently Plex decided it didn’t want to be here anymore and deleted itself. Sweet! So I had to browse the market at reinstall Plex (I have had to do this once before if I remember correctly).

Plex reinstalled all is well? Hahaha NO. So after the reboot of the server ClearOS also decided to change its primary NIC. What the fuck is wrong with you Clear? I have five (5) ethernet ports (two cards). One 1000gb on-board and another Intel Pro/1000 Quad-Port PCI-E ethernet card. The on-board is the NIC for the modem and the quad card was all my internal stuff. Was using one port to go to the switches and I have been trying to get a Hot-LAN to work with no success – won’t give me DHCP. My internal IP is X.X.X.1 (others are .11-14), after the reboot the system decided to dump everything on .13 as if it were my primary. Why did you do that? I had to delete ALL of the active NIC settings on the ClearOS machine boot screen and re-add them back in. I only added the .1 address to speed things up and not cause issue. And then another reboot.

Now things appear to finally be back to where they were last night – working. After reconfiguring the NICs and waiting a few minutes after the reboot Plex is back as well. Now…what the fuck happened? Wasn’t an update, Plex is still complaining about needed one…

Roku, your remote is crap

Like your average American family we have a few TVs in the house. Of course we have DVDs and Bluerays, and the players to go with them. But today its all about going digital, right? So over the last few years we have made the push to go digital and away from discs. Enter Roku. We have a few Rokus, a Roku 1 and two Roku sticks.

Let me start by saying I love our Rokus. It is a great device (overall). Sure there are a few things I would have done differently but we are happy with them. Then lets bring in the remote. The Roku 1 remote works flawlessly. Zero issues with the IR remote. The two other Roku Stick remotes however, are a piece of fucking shit. Both of them equally. The sticks were purchased about a year apart so they are not the same batch either. The remotes are even slightly different from one another. The original is fat and glossy while the newer one is slim and matte. Both of them however, never fucking work. We consistently have to re-pair them to the Roku. About. Every. Single. Day. No joke, and because the remote doesn’t work we have to use a phone to do it. Or power cycle the entire thing, cause thats a quick thing to do. I have found a quicker way to get the damn thing to work – removing a battery for a second seems to wake it back up, most of the time.

Yeah, i know i can use my phone as a remote and you know what – that is completely unfucking acceptable. If i wanted to be stuck tethered to my phone I would have saved money and bought a Chromecast. But I didn’t because I wanted a Roku, and specifically i wanted the physical remote. I guess asking for the remote to actually work was a bit much.

The little bit of research i have done leads me to believe that it is an issue with the remote itself not the Roku. It seems that remote goes to sleep. How stupid is that. Lets make a remote that sleeps so it doesn’t work. Genius right there. Not sure if it is Bluetooth or RF, and I really don’t care. Although I’m guessing some sort of RF otherwise we could pair the phone and not rely on wifi.

The design is so poor that the remote will actually cease to function right in the middle of using the damn thing. Great sleep function Roku, really awesome, lovin’ it. On top of all that, the thing eats through AAA batteries like they’re going out of style.

Stay away from the Roku streaming stick and their craptactular RF remotes. I am all for Roku (1, 2 or 3), but these sticks can go in the fucking garbage. Not to mention TV USB ports don’t supply enough power so you still need cables and dongles. Whats the fucking point of the stick again? If you get the MHL stick version you dont even get a remote (they make you rely on your TV remote), yeah cause everyone still actually uses it – anyone with cable TV has 3″ of dust on their actual TV remote (because we cant use them). Manufacturers need to get their shit together.

And Roku, fix your shitty remotes.

Vizio Smart TV and Netflix – No login (updated, again)

(Update at the bottom)

A few months back I decided to drop the multi-monitor setup (I had three at the time) and get one large screen. Since my job takes me in and out of peoples home everyday I get a lot of opportunities to see many different setups. So over the years I have gravitated to the larger screens, I’m talking 27″+.

I bought a 32″ HD Vizio M-Series Smart TV (model M322i-B1) with all the fixins. Had the best picture at the time I was in the store, glossy screen, super light and thin – it was perfect. It has been perfect, I love this thing. The only downside now is that I want two, and… the TVs native Netflix app will not work.

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