Caffeine (Simplified)

 

Found my old Turbo Pascal book on the bookshelf. Just so happen I was searching for a Windows program to prevent screen lock and found the open source Caffeine also written in Pascal.

Forked the repository and fired up Lazarus. Revised the UI a bit. Now it starts as a tray icon and can be controlled by the right-click menu.

Source code and executable available on github.

The Sins of the Fathers

 

Heard someone mentioned about the author Lawrence Block and found the ebook The Sins of the Fathers available from the library.

Overall not bad. Kind of nostalgic reading about the 70s. Will definitely see if can find the whole series.

Here is a review from Bing Chat:

The Sins of the Fathers is a gripping and gritty introduction to Matthew Scudder, a former cop turned private eye who operates in the dark and dangerous streets of New York City. Scudder is hired by a wealthy father to investigate the murder of his estranged son and his girlfriend (Bing's mistake. This should have been "his estranged daughter and her roommate"), but soon discovers that the case is more complex and twisted than it seems. The book is a masterful blend of mystery, suspense, and character study, as Scudder delves into the lives and secrets of the victims and their families, while also confronting his own demons and flaws. The Sins of the Fathers is a classic of hard-boiled fiction that will keep you hooked until the end.

Self-hosted Wyze Cam v3 camera without internet access - Part 1

This is part 1 of the notes on how to self-host Wyze Cam v3, without internet access, as a RTSP camera. 

Here Part 1 will focus on preparing the network setup. Part 2 (TBC) will be on configuring the Wyze camera.

Background 

For testing purposes, I have a Home Assistant(HA) setup with several Zigbee devices running Zigbee2MQTT and Mosquitto.

To add NVR feature, I have since installed Frigate and added a Google TPU card for accelerating event detection. The IP cameras used are Wyze Cam v3 patched with custom firmware to output two RTSP streams (a lower resolution for preview and event detection, and a higher resolution for recording).

Here are some highlights of the original setup

• The ISP dual-band router supports 5GHz network
• The HA machine is setup in a separate room running openSUSE Tumbleweed. It is connected to an Access Point (AP) via LAN cable
• The AP is an old dual-bank router flashed with DD-WRT custom firmware. It serves two purposes: the 5GHz network is configured as a wireless bridge to provide internet access to the HA machine and allow other devices on the home network to access HA, while the 2.4GHz network (with a different SSID) is configured as access point for IP cameras

The setup runs fine with one issue: the IP cameras have internet access. I don't like the idea that the IP cameras can "phone home" anytime. Ideally, after initial setup, I would like to remove the Internet access from those cameras.

Tried to setup virtual networks, bridges, and firewall rules etc on the AP. But none worked reliably.

So here is the new idea:

• since I have several USB wifi adapters not in use, I could add one to the HA machine and configure it as an AP with a different SSID and subnet. It will be running in 2.4GHz to minimize interference with the 5GHz home network
• with the HA being a Linux machine, I will have the flexibility on routing (or not routing) traffic around i.e. effectively blocking internet access for the cameras
• I don't need to access the IP cameras remotely (i.e. when away from home), don't need to receive any notifications on my phone, and don't mind giving up using the Wyze app. If I really need to access the cameras remotely, I could VPN back to my home network first.

A few things needed to be configured on the HA Linux machine.

USB wifi adapter

The wifi adapter I will be using has the Realtek 8812 chipset. The driver can be installed via `rtl8812au` package. However, installing it caused the Coral TPU dkms driver stopped working. Eventually, needed to install the newer version and recompile.

Next is to configure the wifi adapter as AP. Since the openSUSE machine is using NetworkManager, I used `nmcli` to configure it. The steps are similar to those mentioned here for Centos.

EDIT 2023-11-18. Some addition useful commands:

- disable WPA: sudo nmcli con modify "connection name" 802-11-wireless-security.proto rsn

- disable WPS: sudo nmcli con modify "connection name" 802-11-wireless-security.wps-method 1

EDIT 2023-11-25. To disable the excessive logging of the driver, change the log level to none

For the examples below, assume the new wifi interface is "wlan0" and has the IP address of 192.168.20.1/255.255.255.0. The two IP cameras will be assigned with address 192.168.20.91 and 192.168.20.92.

DHCP setup

Each IP camera will be assigned the same IP address via DHCP service provided by dnsmasq. Following these steps for a minimal setup.

local-service

conf-file=/etc/dnsmasq.d/trust-anchors.conf

dnssec

# only serve dhcp on the wifi interface

interface=wlp0s16f0u1

# some dynamic ip in case needed to connect for troubleshooting

dhcp-range=192.168.20.80,192.168.20.89,255.255.255.0,6h

# fixed ip for the ip cam

dhcp-host=d0:3f:27:xx:yy:zz,192.168.20.91

dhcp-host=d0:3f:27:aa:bb:cc,192.168.20.92

# announce the HA machine (192.168.20.1 here as an example) as DNS server and ntp server

dhcp-option=6,192.168.20.1

dhcp-option=option:ntp-server,192.168.20.1

conf-dir=/etc/dnsmasq.d/,*.conf

DNS setup

The dnsmasq will also be serving as DNS server for the cameras. To avoid them to keep querying the hard-coded NTP severs, create a conf file under /etc/dnsmasq.d directory to redirect them to local machine.

address=/time-a.inst.gov/192.168.20.1

address=/time-b.inst.gov/192.168.20.1

address=/time-a-g.inst.gov/192.168.20.1

address=/time-b-g.inst.gov/192.168.20.1

address=/clock.fmt.he.net/192.168.20.1

address=/ntp0.cornell.edu/192.168.20.1

NTPD time server

I like to configure the IP camera to overlay timestamp on the video. Unfortunately the Wyze camera firmware contains a binary that only query several hard-coded NTP servers. But the wz_mini_hacks firmware actually comes with a NTP process to update the time. More on how to set it up in part 2.

For now, make sure the HA machine has NTPD setup properly and ready. Run `sudo ntpq -c lpeer` to check

IP Masquerading

During the initial setup, the Wyze camera needs internet access. To allow the traffic routed to internet and back using NetworkManager and firewalld:

# assuming wlan0 is the device id of the wifi adapter configured with nmcli

sudo nmcli con up wlan0

# move the interface to trusted zone to allow all traffic

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=trusted --change-interface=wlan0

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=trusted --add-masquerade

# assuming eth0 is the LAN interface with internet access

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --add-rule ipv4 nat POSTROUTING 0 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --add-rule ipv4 filter FORWARD 0 -i wlan0 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --add-rule ipv4 filter FORWARD 0 -i eth0 -o wlan0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

When we are done configuring IP cameras and making sure Frigate can access them, revoke the access and isolate the cameras from internet.

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --remove-rule ipv4 nat POSTROUTING 0 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --remove-rule ipv4 filter FORWARD 0 -i wlan0 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT

sudo firewall-cmd --direct --remove-rule ipv4 filter FORWARD 0 -i eth0 -o wlan0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=trusted --remove-masquerade

For a proper setup, should probably also move the wifi adapter to another zone. But well...

That is it for the Linux machine setup. Next part of the notes will focus on setting up the Wyze camera for self-hosting.

Coral USB Accelerator

 

Finally arrived after placing the order over a year ago. But I have since then ordered the mini pcie version and installed it on the Home Assistant machine for the Frigate NVR.

Now need to figure out what to do with this USB accelerator.

Microsoft Edge not redenering anything

 

Encounter issues with Microsoft Edge a few days ago on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed running on Ryzen APU. All contents are rendered as background color.

Starting it from command line shows the "Skia shader compilation error" and is a know bug affecting chromium.

Running it with "--disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds" can resolve it. Or, just delete the folder "~/.config/microsoft-edge/Default/GPUCache".

The Bullet That Missed

 

Third book in the series. The plot is definitely more complicated and more characters introduced. 4 out of 5.

Summary generated by ChatGPT:

"The Bullet That Missed" is the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman. The book follows the Thursday Murder Club as they investigate a decade-old cold case that leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Elizabeth, a member of the Thursday Murder Club, is visited by a new foe with a mission to kill or be killed. The book is about 400 pages long and has received positive reviews from critics and readers alike.

Trying out generative AI

 

(image generated with Bing)

Notes on trying out generative AI.

Google has a free online learning path on generative AI. Finished first few activities. Nothing technical and just high level concepts.

---

Has been trying to run the Facebook's LLaMA models locally. There is a project llama.cpp to run the models with c/c++ program. Support both CPU and GPU acceleration. So far only tried the 7B and 13B models. Not impressed. Should give the 65B model a try. But even with quantization, it will need almost 40GB just for loading the model. Will need to get more RAM first.

BTW, to download the LLaMA models, just google "download llama". There is a shell script to help to pull the files quickly

---

There is a new open source generative Falcon that clams to be better than LLaMA (at least for now).

The Man Who Died Twice

 

Quick read during the weekend. Second book for the series. Same plot feels old. And it seems a bit overstretch for a handful of people to take down the mafia boss, the MI5, and a local cartel at the same time. 2.5 out of 5.

Auto-generated summary:

The book “The Man Who Died Twice” is set in a retirement village and combines narrative tension and a fast-paced, complex plot with humor and naturalistic dialog. Although its tone is witty, the text addresses serious themes such as aging, mortality, friendship, and revenge. The story is told through dual narratives. Chapters alternate between the first-person diary entries of Joyce and a third-person narration covering multiple viewpoints.

Beasts and Beauty

 

Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales. a quick read for a long weekend. Recommended.

A generated review:

"Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales" by Soman Chainani is a delightfully wicked and humorous collection of stories that will keep readers hooked from start to finish. With his signature blend of fantasy and wit, Chainani takes classic fairy tales and gives them a dark twist, adding unexpected layers and surprises. The characters are richly developed, each with their own quirks and flaws, and the author's clever writing style adds an extra dose of charm. From mischievous beasts to cunning beauties, this book is a wild ride through a world where nothing is as it seems. Prepare to be enchanted and entertained!

Using Google Coral TPU on OpenSUSE

Installing the TPU driver

The official guide only covers steps for Debian. Third-party compiled binaries are available for Fedora, RHEL, and OpenSUSE etc. The RPM for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed can be downloaded directly here. 

Once downloaded, install the RPM file with "sudo zypper install gasket..."

Installing the userspace runtime driver

The userspace driver can be built from source inside docker:

git clone https://github.com/google-coral/libedgetpu.git

cd libedgetpu

CPU=k8 DOCKER_CPUS="k8" DOCKER_IMAGE="ubuntu:18.04" DOCKER_TARGETS=libedgetpu make docker-build

Copy the files from "out" folder and install using ldconfig:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/lib/tpu/lib

sudo cp --preserve=links out/direct/k8/* /usr/lib/tpu/lib

echo /usr/lib/tpu/lib | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf.d/tpu.conf

sudo ldconfig

Grant permission

Running the Python examples may fail with error "failed to load delegate...". This is due to permission issue. Add your user to the group "apex" with the command "sudo usermod -aG apex [your username]".

Also, if using the USB accelerator instead, add two rules to the udev file "/etc/udev/rules.d/65-apex.rules" and reboot:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="1a6e",GROUP="apex"

SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1",GROUP="apex"

Running the examples

The "pycoral" package mentioned on the officail guide is kind of confusing. The "pycoral" from pypi is actually a totally unrelated package. What we need for the TPU can be found here.

Also, there is no support for Python 3.10 yet. So needed to use 3.9. To install packages in order to run the example:

python3.9 -m venv venv

. venv/bin/activate

pip install numpy pillow

python -m pip install --extra-index-url https://google-coral.github.io/py-repo/ pycoral~=2.0

Then follow the steps on the official guide to run the example.

$ python3 examples/classify_image.py --model test_data/mobilenet_v2_1.0_224_inat_bird_quant_edgetpu.tflite --labels test_data/inat_bird_labels.txt --input test_data/parrot.jpg
----INFERENCE TIME----
Note: The first inference on Edge TPU is slow because it includes loading the model into Edge TPU memory.
12.8ms
2.8ms
2.8ms
2.8ms
2.8ms
-------RESULTS--------
Ara macao (Scarlet Macaw): 0.75781