Monthly Archives: September 2016

Install TVHeadend in a Proxmox LXC Container running Ubuntu 16.04

TVHeadend is my favourite TV Server.

There weren’t too many battles setting up the install but there were some.

Step 1 of course is to create your “CT’. It doesn’t need much so I just gave it the following:

root@pve01:/etc/pve/lxc# cat 102.conf 
#TVHeadend
#Plex
#SABnzbd
#CouchPotato
#Sonarr
arch: amd64
cpulimit: 4
cpuunits: 4096
hostname: media
memory: 4096
net0: name=eth0,bridge=vmbr1,gw=10.69.10.1,hwaddr=00:0A:DE:01:02:10,ip=10.69.10.43/24,ip6=auto,tag=10,type=veth
onboot: 1
ostype: ubuntu
rootfs: ssdmirror:subvol-102-disk-1,size=32G
startup: order=4,up=5,down=5
swap: 4096
root@pve01:/etc/pve/lxc#

4 cores, 4 gigs of RAM/swap and a 32G disk. This is because I’ll also have Plex, SABnzbd, CouchPotato and Sonar in the same CT.

A few things tripped me up. The debian sources aren’t optimal for me, the local timezone wasn’t set, and TVH wouldn’t auto start.

After creating CT, some housekeeping:

root@media:/home/hts/.hts# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse

### TVH source
deb https://dl.bintray.com/tvheadend/ubuntu stable main

Those “au” ones are much better for Australia. You can possibly find even faster ones with this guide, although I don’t know if that works with Ubuntu. It certainly works in Debian.

The “tvheadend” source for Ubuntu is as per here: I just go the sable branch, as I’m not after any new features and like things to not break. The stable branch is regularly updated so I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

The timezone wasn’t set so I fixed that with:

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Then I went to work with apt:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get autoremove
apt-get install tvheadend

I started tvheadend with “service tvheadend start” and saw it all looked good. The only problem is that it doesn’t start on reboot. I traced this down with a google search to the installer being not quite compatible with systemd, but there is a fix that works fine for me (as per this bug ID: https://tvheadend.org/issues/3027)

root@media:~# systemctl enable tvheadend.service
tvheadend.service is not a native service, redirecting to systemd-sysv-install
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable tvheadend
root@media:~#

Picons

For Australia you can get the TV icons by:

cd /usr/src
git clone https://bitbucket.org/beyonwiz/picons-australia.git

Then prefer picons over channel names in the settings and set the path to:

file:///usr/src/picons-australia/picon

Migrating from another Server

I found this post to be very handy. In a nutshell:

## the "FROM" box
sudo service tvheadend stop
sudo -s
cd /home/hts/.hts
sudo tar cvfp ../tvheadend.tar tvheadend
cd /home/hts/

## the "TO" box
new box
sudo service tvheadend stop
sudo -s
cd /home/hts/.hts
sudo mv tvheadend tvheadend-backup
tar xvfp ~/tvheadend.tar

I was very glad I didn’t need to manually copy all my old settings across!

Install dnsmasq in a Proxmox LXC Container running Ubuntu 16.04

dnsmasq is a very handy DHCP server for the LAN. I also use it as a DNS forwarder, so I can use hostnames for all my virtual machines under the gavowen.local domain.

I had a few little battles setting this up so thought I’d share the step by step.

Step 1 of course is to create your “CT’. It doesn’t need much so I just gave it the following:

root@pve01:/etc/pve/lxc# cat 100.conf
#dnsmasq DNS/DHCP server%0A%0A
arch: amd64
cpulimit: 1
cpuunits: 1024
hostname: dnsmasq
memory: 512
nameserver: 203.8.183.1 192.189.54.17
net0: name=eth0,bridge=vmbr1,gw=10.69.10.1,hwaddr=00:0A:DE:01:00:10,ip=10.69.10.41/24,ip6=auto,tag=10,type=veth
onboot: 1
ostype: ubuntu
rootfs: ssdmirror:subvol-100-disk-1,size=8G
searchdomain: gavowen.local
startup: order=1,up=10,down=5
swap: 512

1 core, half a gig of RAM/swap and a 8G disk is plenty. That’s by standard amount for smaller containers (CTs).

A few things tripped me up. The debian sources aren’t optimal for me, the local timezone wasn’t set, and “resolvconf” was screwing up dnsmasq.

After creating the CT, some housekeeping:

root@media:/home/hts/.hts# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse

Those “au” ones are much better for Australia. You can possibly find even faster ones with this guide, although I don’t know if that works with Ubuntu. It certainly works in Debian.

The timezone wasn’t set so I fixed that with:

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Then I went to work with apt:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get autoremove
apt-get remove resolvconf
apt-get install dnsmasq

The resolvconf fix I found here. If you don’t remove resolvconf, or fix the issue up another way you get something like this:

root@dnsmasq:/etc# service dnsmasq status 
* dnsmasq.service - dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dnsmasq.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /run/systemd/generator/dnsmasq.service.d
           `-50-dnsmasq-$named.conf, 50-insserv.conf-$named.conf
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2016-09-18 03:24:07 UTC; 3s ago
  Process: 910 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/dnsmasq systemd-stop-resolvconf (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 953 ExecStartPost=/etc/init.d/dnsmasq systemd-start-resolvconf (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 944 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/dnsmasq systemd-exec (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 943 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/dnsmasq --test (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 952 (dnsmasq)
   CGroup: /system.slice/dnsmasq.service
           `-952 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq -x /var/run/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.pid -u dnsmasq -r /var/run/dnsmasq/resolv.conf -7 /etc/dnsmasq.d,.dpk

Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[943]: dnsmasq: syntax check OK.
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: started, version 2.75 cachesize 500
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt DBus i18n IDN DHCP DHCPv6 no-Lua TFTP conntrack ipset au
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq-dhcp[952]: DHCP, IP range 10.69.10.100 -- 10.69.10.149, lease time 12h
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: using local addresses only for domain gavowen.local
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: no servers found in /var/run/dnsmasq/resolv.conf, will retry
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: read /etc/hosts - 5 addresses
Sep 18 03:24:06 dnsmasq dnsmasq[952]: read /etc/banner_add_hosts - 0 addresses
Sep 18 03:24:07 dnsmasq dnsmasq[953]: /etc/resolvconf/update.d/libc: Warning: /etc/resolv.conf is not a symbolic link to /run/resolv
Sep 18 03:24:07 dnsmasq systemd[1]: Started dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server.

The DHCP part of dnsmasq works fine, but DNS breaks like this (tcpdump)

03:38:02.900866 IP dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain > 10.69.10.80.59954: 48699 Refused 0/0/0 (45)
03:38:03.887415 IP 10.69.10.80.58335 > dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain: 4837+ A? img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net. (45)
03:38:03.887523 IP dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain > 10.69.10.80.58335: 4837 Refused 0/0/0 (45)
03:38:04.076221 IP 10.69.10.80.52683 > dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain: 59968+ A? img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net. (45)
03:38:04.076306 IP dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain > 10.69.10.80.52683: 59968 Refused 0/0/0 (45)
03:38:05.068785 IP 10.69.10.80.54085 > dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain: 24507+ A? img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net. (45)
03:38:05.068892 IP dnsmasq.gavowen.local.domain > 10.69.10.80.54085: 24507 Refused 0/0/0 (45)

Now for my /etc/dnsmasq.conf

root@dnsmasq:~# cat /etc/dnsmasq.conf
# Configuration file for dnsmasq.

############
## SERVER ##
############

# listen interface and address
except-interface=lo0
listen-address=10.69.10.41

#########
## DNS ##
#########

local=/gavowen.local/  # domain(s) to search local /etc/hosts
cache-size=500 # set DNS lookup cache to 500 entries
no-negcache    # don't do negative caching
domain-needed  # never forward plain names
bogus-priv     # never forward bogus private (RFC1918) addresses

# block 'sitefinder' wildcard redirects from VeriSign and others for bogus A records
bogus-nxdomain=64.94.110.11
bogus-nxdomain=194.168.4.100
bogus-nxdomain=194.168.8.100
bogus-nxdomain=81.200.64.50
bogus-nxdomain=67.215.65.132

# no LDAP server for the local domain
#srv-host=_ldap._tcp.gavowen.local # no LDAP server for the local domain

# route rDNS to this server
server=/10.69.10.in-addr.arpa/10.69.10.41


##########
## DHCP ##
##########

dhcp-leasefile=/var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases
dhcp-authoritative

dhcp-range=10.69.10.100,10.69.10.149,255.255.255.0,12h
dhcp-option=option:router,10.69.10.1 # default route
dhcp-option=option:dns-server,10.69.10.41
# dhcp-option=option:dns-server,10.69.10.41,203.8.183.1
dhcp-option=option:ntp-server,10.69.10.1
dhcp-option=23,50 # set default IP TTL to 50

# Windows clients and Samba
dhcp-option=19,0              # option ip-forwarding off
dhcp-option=44,10.69.10.20    # set netbios-over-TCP/IP nameserver(s) aka WINS server(s)
dhcp-option=45,10.69.10.20    # netbios datagram distribution server
dhcp-option=46,8              # netbios node type
dhcp-option=252,"\n"          # send an empty WPAD option. Windows 7 and possibly later
dhcp-option=vendor:MSFT,2,1i  # Windows release DHCP lease when it shuts down
# http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/a70f1bb7-d2d4-49f0-96d6-4b7414ecfaae1033.mspx?mfr=true
# These are the node types for netbios options:
#   1 = B-node, 2 = P-node, 4 =M-node, 8 = H-node

# FQDN settings for DHCP
expand-hosts
domain=gavowen.local 

# static leases
dhcp-host=c4:4e:ac:0d:d4:8e,Kodi,10.69.10.60,infinite
dhcp-host=00:18:dd:23:03:9d,HDHR-123039DD,10.69.10.61,infinite
dhcp-host=fc:f1:52:a2:68:de,STR-DN850,10.69.10.63,infinite
dhcp-host=b8:27:eb:db:27:28,OldKodi,10.69.10.64,infinite
dhcp-host=00:17:88:2b:96:47,Philips-hue,10.69.10.70,infinite
dhcp-host=30:85:a9:93:8a:5c,Vader,10.69.10.80,infinite
dhcp-host=cc:20:e8:c4:42:64,Gavs-iPhone6S,10.69.10.81,infinite
dhcp-host=34:ab:37:1e:cb:c1,Gavs-iPadAir2,10.69.10.82,infinite

touch the following DHCP leases file:

touch /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases #DHCP leases file

Also update /etc/hosts so you can easily ping hosts on your network:

root@dnsmasq:~# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
# --- BEGIN PVE ---
10.69.10.41 dnsmasq.gavowen.local dnsmasq
# --- END PVE ---
.69.10.40 pve01.gavowen.local pve01
10.69.10.42 crashplan.gavowen.local crashplan
10.69.10.43 media.gavowen.local media
10.69.10.50 sarlacc.gavowen.local sarlacc

much easier than IP addresses:

root@dnsmasq:~# ping sarlacc
PING sarlacc.gavowen.local (10.69.10.50) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from sarlacc.gavowen.local (10.69.10.50): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.333 ms
64 bytes from sarlacc.gavowen.local (10.69.10.50): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.234 ms
64 bytes from sarlacc.gavowen.local (10.69.10.50): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.214 ms
^C
--- sarlacc.gavowen.local ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 1998ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.214/0.260/0.333/0.053 ms
root@dnsmasq:~# ping media
PING media.gavowen.local (10.69.10.43) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from media.gavowen.local (10.69.10.43): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.283 ms
64 bytes from media.gavowen.local (10.69.10.43): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.031 ms
64 bytes from media.gavowen.local (10.69.10.43): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.027 ms
^C
--- media.gavowen.local ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 1998ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.027/0.113/0.283/0.120 ms

last but not least start up dnsmasq:

service dnsmasq start
service dnsmasq status

Hopefully now you are up and away with a nify little DNS and DHCP server.

iPhone7 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Australian Phone Bands

After the underwhelming iPhone 7 launch and the lack of dual SIM, I’m now well in the market for a dual SIM Android phone, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is currently in the lead – after the exploding battery recall is complete!

Before purchasing though, I thought I’d look at the mobile bands to make sure the dual SIM grey-market import is compatible with Australian carriers – particularly Vodafone and Telstra, which will be the carriers I’ll use (one SIM from each).

I googled “dual SIM Samsung Galaxy Note 7” and found a model ID #N930FD (“D” for “dual”), and found a great website that lists all the frequencies supported. Apple of course lists the details for the iPhone 7 specs.

As for details of what’s used in Australia, the Mobile Network Guide was very handy in putting this together, as was the Whirlpool article on the Australian Mobile Networks.

Putting the Aussie frequencies in a table:

Tech	Band	iPhone 7 Plus	Galaxy Note 7	Carrier*	Notes
2G	900 (E-GSM)	Y	Y	(T), (O), (V)	Telstra to shut down by end of 2016. Optus to shut down by April 2017. Optus and Vodafone have been refarming in regional and rural areas to 3G. Vodafone have as yet not announced shutdown plans. Update – http://www.itnews.com.au/news/vodafone-to-kill-2g-network-438523 Vodaphone to exit 2G by 1st October 2017.
2G	1800 (DCS)	Y	Y	retired	Australian carriers have all refarmed to 4G on this band

3G	B1 (2100)	Y	Y	T, O, V	Optus refarmed to 4G in some areas
3G	B5 (850)	Y	Y	T, (V)	Telstra “NextG” rural coverage. Vodafone have deployed in predominantly metro areas but refarming to 4G
3G	B8 (900 GSM)	Y	Y	O, V	Optus “YesG”. Predominantly used in rural areas, according to vodafone.

4G	B1 (2100)	Y	Y	T, O	Telstra in a handful of sites. Optus in select areas such as Cairns, Darwin, Hobard and Sunshine Coast
4G	B3 (1800 +)	Y	Y	T, O, V	All 3 carriers well established in this band. Ex-2G spectrum
4G	B5 (850)	Y	Y	V	Vodafone in early stages of roll-out, as they phase out 3G 850MHz
4G	B7 (2600)	Y	Y	T, O	Telstra and Optus in early stages of roll-out. TPG has spectrum. Oputs in selected regional centres and holiday towns, and busy areas in major cities
4G	B8 (900)	Y	Y	T	Telstra in a handful of sites utilising spectrum previously used by 2G. They have since stopped extending the expansion of this band, instead focusing their efforts on the B28 700 APT band
4G	B28 (700 APT)	Y	Y	T, O	Telstra and Optus in early stages of roll-out. Ex TV spectrum. Used in capital cities, and major regional and holiday destinations, with Telstra’s reach extending further in the bush. Good indoor use. Telstra call their rollout 4GX as they have twice the spectrum of optus
4G	B40 (TD 2300)	Y	Y	O	Optus Plus (Vivid wireless spectrum). In big cities and select metro areas. Not in NBN fixed wireless areas
4G	B42	N	N	O	Optus, NBN (trials)

*Carrier: T = Telstra, O = Optus, V = Vodafone

The FrequencyCheck page on Australia is yet to list Telstra’s use of B8 (900).

Happy to see that the Samsung covers all the bands that I need. 🙂

Global Roaming

FrequencyCheck can do a comparison between the two phones. The only bands missing from the Samsung are as follows:
LTE B27 (800 SMR) – doesn’t seem to be used anywhere currently.
LTE B29 (700 de) – doesn’t seem to be used anywhere currently.
LTE B30 (2300 WCS) – only used by a few carriers in the USA.

So in terms of global roaming – I don’t look to be at a disadvantage vs iPhone7.

Carrier Info

Telstra – with some extra info here

Optus

Vodafone – They say they only do 4G in metro, so for regional/rural areas you’d get 900 or 2100 MHz 3G or 900 MHz 2G only, although based on the coverage map, that info seems to be out of date. They do VoLTE which is nice.