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+---
+title: Vineet's site
+---
diff --git a/content/blog/kobo_clara-custom-distro.md b/content/blog/kobo_clara-custom-distro.md
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+title = "Kobo Clara HD Custom Linux Distro/RootFS"
+date = 2021-07-22
+draft = false
++++
+
+These are just some notes I made when creating my own mini-distro after
+wanting something more custom than just using buildroot or making the
+official firmware more slim. For people other than me, I suggest
+looking through (C)LFS or running postmarketOS instead once this
+reader's pull request[1] gets integrated into upstream.
+
+Two things that'll greatly help with this is having serial terminal
+access with the four uart pins near the top right in the back of the
+reader, near the uSD card slot (I don't connect the 5V pin as my reader
+doesn't really turn on anything other than the power LED). I suggest
+maybe soldering female pin headers to there to make your life easier
+(you can later cut out a hole in the back cover or desolder the headers
+once you're done). Other than that, I suggest installing QEMU with ARM
+userspace to test programs that you have built or running them on a
+separate ARM device like a Raspberry Pi.
+
+## Prelude
+Ever since I learnt that the official firmware for the Clara was just
+using a modified Linux kernel with busybox as coreutils and many other
+libraries, I just knew that I had to minimize it. I also saw that it
+was using glibc for it's libc, which I really dislike as statically
+linking C programs against it was a pain in my experience, compared to
+something like musl and uclibc. It's also much larger than them and I
+don't use any of glibc extensions so it seemed like a waste of space to
+me.
+
+Initially when I replaced Nickel with Plato, I was able to shave about
+100 MiB after I removed /usr/local (which contains Nickel, Qt and a few
+other things), from 189 MiB to 74 MiB, but I still wanted to make it
+smaller.
+
+Using buildroot, I was able to get it under 2 MiB (!!) which was a
+little less than half the size of an uncompressed armhf Alpine Linux
+minirootfs (4.9M for 3.14). With Busybox, it was pretty much working
+out of the box, with serial terminal access! But waiting around 15
+minutes for the toolchain to build each time I wanted to change
+something in the rootfs took way too long, although it could've been
+minimized if I used ccache with a fairly large cache size. I still
+found that it compiled and installed a lot of things I wouldn't be
+using (particularly in /usr) even after disabling almost all of the
+third-party packages.
+
+I've uploaded the config file and the resulting rootfs for
+buildroot 2021.05. The root password by default is changeme.
+EDIT 2022-10-21: gone, build it yourself
+
+Of course the rootfs I got from buildroot nor me making the official
+firmware smaller is the point of this article, and the actual point is
+making one yourself! (or rather what I did to make my own)
+
+## Cross-toolchain
+For now as of July 22, 2021, I'm using my distro (Void Linux)'s
+packaged cross toolchain for armhf musl, but eventually I would be
+using my own.
+
+I'm not compiling off of the device itself as it would be somewhat slow
+for bigger programs, which is currently primarily the Linux kernel,
+U-Boot, and the toolchain itself, considering that the ereader's CPU
+(Freescale i.MX 6SLL) is a single core running up to 1 GHz. Including
+the development tools and headers would also take up more space on the
+device itself, and since the terminal can currently only be accessed
+through it's serial/uart pins, I don't think it's ideal.
+
+TODO: include steps to create own toolchain (probably based off of gcc
+4.7.3 as that doesn't require c++)
+
+## Building the rootfs
+Assuming you made a new filesystem on your rootfs's partition, it'll
+likely be empty with no directories you'd expect to find on a regular
+distro. So you'll just have to make them.
+cd /path/to/rootfs
+mkdir bin dev etc proc sbin
+
+Your binaries would usually go in /bin, the uSD card, ttymxc0, and
+other devices would go in /dev, felker init's default program/script to
+execute is usually in /etc/rc, /proc is optional but I have it mounted
+to see what is currently mounted through /proc/mounts (or mount(1)
+without any arguments) as well as to see my disk usage through df(1).
+/sbin is there to place the init in as /sbin/init is the default init
+path the kernel looks at.
+
+## toybox
+Now on to the main part of the distro, the userspace. I intend to keep
+it fairly minimal so I've chosen to use toybox along with a slightly
+modified version of felker (musl dev)'s init[2], as well as dash[3] as
+the main shell since toybox doesn't include one as of 0.8.5 (though
+it'll probably be there by 1.0). I'll also be statically linking all
+the programs that'll be used so I wouldn't have to worry about shared
+libraries not being included/copied over, and also including LTO for
+slightly faster binaries. Originally, I tried going with sinit, sbase,
+and ubase but I was having trouble getting serial terminal access with
+getty to /dev/ttymxc0 (the default serial tty, at least with the
+vendor kernel). I didn't have this problem with busybox's and toybox's
+getty however. My config for toybox was also about 81K smaller than my
+trimmed sbase-box and ubase-box (352K compared to 267K+166K) where I
+removed programs that I won't use from ${BIN} in their respective
+Makefiles.
+EDIT 2022-10-21: also gone
+
+First I suggest exporting some environment variables to set the
+toolchain used as well as enabling static linking and LTO.
+
+  export CROSS_COMPILE="arm-linux-musleabihf-" # change to your cross-tc
+  export CC="${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc"
+  export LDFLAGS="--static"
+  export CFLAGS="-flto -static"
+  export ARCH=arm # for compiling the linux kernel
+
+To compile toybox, get the source from
+https://landley.net/toybox/downloads/ (or clone the upstream repo).
+Then run make menuconfig (optionally with make defconfig before it) and
+change it as you see fit. Personally, I disabled most of the programs I
+wouldn't use and kept only the ones that'll help with fixing a problem.
+Finally, make sure to run make.
+
+  make defconfig
+  make menuconfig
+  make
+
+To move it to your rootfs and set it's symlinks, you could probably run
+make install after setting PREFIX to your rootfs's /bin directory, but
+I did it manually.
+
+  # automatic (didn't test, check README)
+  make PREFIX=/path/to/rootfs/bin/ install
+
+  # (semi?) manual
+  cp toybox /path/to/rootfs/bin
+
+  # add symlinks if doing manual and you want them
+  cd /path/to/rootfs/bin
+  for prog in $(qemu-arm ./toybox); do ln -s toybox "$prog"; done
+
+## dash
+Also as of toybox 0.8.5, a shell still isn't included (probably would
+be included by 1.0 according to scripts/install.sh as well as a few
+other programs like gzip), so a separate shell would need to be built.
+Any can be used but dash would be shown as an example as I was able to
+get a static binary without too much trouble.
+
+First obtain the source[3] and cd into its
+untarred directory. Assuming your CC and CFLAGS are set, you can run
+these steps:
+
+  autoreconf -fiv
+  ./configure --host=$CROSS_COMPILE --with-libedit
+  make
+  ${CROSS_COMPILE}strip src/dash
+
+As this is going to be used as the main shell, I've decided to just
+copy it to /bin/sh in the rootfs directory, though copying it there but
+as /bin/dash and /bin/sh being symlinked to dash is also an option.
+
+  cp src/dash /path/to/rootfs/bin/sh
+  # or
+  cp src/dash /path/to/rootfs/bin
+  cd /path/to/rootfs/bin
+  ln -s dash sh
+
+## felker's init
+The init is just a single file that you can get from felker's site[2]
+or the gist on github[7]. I haven't had a good experience with the
+default startup program (/etc/rc) as a shell script with execve() run
+on it so I'd change it to execvp() and remove the third (specifies
+environment). To compile and install the init, all you need to do is
+run:
+
+  $CC $CFLAGS -o init init.c
+  cp init /path/to/rootfs/sbin
+
+Instead of /etc/rc being a shell script, you can also make a C program
+that does whatever you think is needed for a proper startup. I'll still
+use a shell script though which is linked here.
+EDIT 2022-10-21: you get the idea, it's gone.
+
+## /etc/passwd
+Copying the rootfs's contents to your device's/uSD card's root
+partition and then turning the device on should now work with a login
+prompt shown in the serial terminal. However, you probably wouldn't be
+able to login to any user. So you'll have to create a file at
+/path/to/rootfs/etc/passwd. For an empty password to root, you can use
+this, though I suggest setting a password as soon as you login:
+
+  # in rootfs's /etc/passwd
+  root::0:0:root:/root:/bin/sh
+
+With the passwd file created/updated, you should now be able to login
+to root after the rootfs is copied to your uSD card. Your rootfs so far
+should now be around 550-560K, which is much much smaller than the
+original firmware's, though it'll likely be much larger to maybe a few
+megabytes once a proper reader software is added.
+
+## Custom Linux Kernel
+WARNING: I haven't actually gotten the kernel to load in u-boot yet. It
+just hangs in the "Starting kernel ..." step and the init doesn't get
+loaded, so I'm assuming the kernel itself isn't either. If anyone out
+there has gotten a custom kernel working in the Kobo Clara HD, please
+send me an email or message on xmpp.
+
+UPDATE Jul 28, 2021: Gave up on it as I just couldn't get any kernels I
+built (both vendor and akemnade's mainline) to boot. But neither did
+postmarketOS boot beyond the initial initramfs messages without the log
+file being created. So I'll revisit this for later.
+
+EDIT 2022-10-21: I have gotten this working, but have been unable to
+get Plato build for musl, so I will have to either continue fighting
+with the crab or create my own with fbink, as that still works.
+Separate article on this later.
+
+My next big step is compiling my own kernel for the Clara HD. With the
+default configuration built for the vendor kernel, it appears to be
+about 3M, so my goal is to build a kernel that is smaller than that
+while retaining only the functionality that I need. I'm also not going
+to include networking support as that is unneeded for my purposes, but
+I suggest just keeping it if you're unsure. The wifi driver for the
+Kobo Clara HD is available as an out-of-tree driver[8].
+
+You should first obtain the kernel source, with two main options, the
+vendor kernel[9] and the mainline kernel (with akemnade's
+patches)[10]. For the latter, you need to clone the repo and switch to
+the latest kobo/drm-merged branch (kobo/merged-5.13 as of July 25,
+2021).
+
+After you've got them and assuming the CROSS_COMPILE and ARCH
+environment variables are set, you'd want to configure the kernel.
+
+I had a hard time compiling the vendor kernel with many things
+disabled, so I've kept my config somewhat similar to the default
+config. The config I used is available here (EDIT: dead).
+
+  make menuconfig
+  make zImage
+
+Assuming it compiles properly and arch/arm/boot/zImage exists, all
+that's needed to is to write it to your uSD card at the 1M offset.
+dd if=/path/to/kernel/zImage of=/path/to/uSDdev bs=512 seek=2048
+
+## Custom U-Boot
+I have not done this yet, nor really plan to, but if you do manage to
+compile the Kobo's vendored u-boot source, then all you'd have to do to
+install it is:
+
+  dd if=u-boot-file of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=128k count=1 seek=6
+
+If I remember correctly, this command was included in an older
+firmware's startup script/rcS for updating udev, and it should still
+work.
+
+## Links
+[1]: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/2334
+[2]: https://ewontfix.com/14
+[3]: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/dash/dash.git
+[4]: https://github.com/akemnade/linux/tree/kobo/merged-5.13
+[5]: https://misc.andi.de1.cc/kobo/uboot-env.txt
+[6]: https://misc.andi.de1.cc/kobo/
+[7]: https://gist.github.com/rofl0r/6168719/raw/183525e0f0007169a49392b21ceee5b507e3aee8/init.c
+[8]: https://github.com/jwrdegoede/rtl8189ES_linux/tree/rtl8189fs
+[9]: https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Reader/blob/master/hw/imx6sll-clara/kernel.tar.bz2
+[10]: https://github.com/akemnade/linux/tree/kobo/drm-merged-5.12
diff --git a/content/blog/kobo_clara-nickel.md b/content/blog/kobo_clara-nickel.md
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+++ b/content/blog/kobo_clara-nickel.md
@@ -0,0 +1,245 @@
++++
+title = 'Kobo Clara HD Notes for Nickel'
+date = 2021-01-13
+draft = false
+layout = "post"
++++
+
+My ereader of choice is the Kobo Clara HD and I particularly like it
+because my eyes hurt less when reading for long periods of time
+compared to when I read on my phone or when I still had my iPad. It
+also had much longer battery life and only need to charge it about once
+every two weeks when I read for about 4 hours on average daily.
+
+However, the two notable things I don't like about it is it's included
+telemetry, like using Google Analytics by default and keeping a unique
+salt
+
+Spyware/Anti-Features:
+- Google Analytics (a lot of actions, if not everything, is sent to
+Google)
+- Auto-update by default
+  - I prefer being able to review what the new update provides and
+    choose not to apply it
+  - I don't like the new redesign in firmware v4.23.15505
+
+I'm also assuming your Kobo reader and it's SD card's device file would
+be would located at `/dev/sdf` and be mounted at `/mnt/kobo`.
+
+If you're going to not be using Nickel and instead be using something
+like [Plato](https://github.com/baskerville/plato), there's a newer version of this article available
+[here](./kobo-clara-plato.html), but the notes are for ~KSM~ loading Plato directly and not
+though k/fmon because I don't want to load Nickel if I'm already using
+a different reader.
+
+## Upgrade/Backup Included SD Card
+While the included 8GB microSD card is decent for storing your ebook
+library that may not have a lot of images, that would likely not be
+enough if you were aiming to read some comics on your ereader as they
+can be pretty big (quite a few of mine are over a gigabyte, with some
+over. Luckily, you can replace the microSD card with another one.
+
+Before upgrading, you should backup the SD card to into an image file
+so the filesystem would be preserved when putting the contents of the
+image on the new SD card. I'm using the command dd but there might be
+another program doing the same thing. Even if you're not going to
+upgrade, I still suggest to backup the SD card in case something goes
+wrong.
+```sh
+dd if=/dev/sdf of=kobo_sd.img conv=sync
+```
+
+After this is done, you can plug in your new SD card and reimage
+kobo_sd.img onto it. With dd, you can do something like:
+```sh
+dd if=kobo_sd.img of=/dev/sdf conv=sync
+```
+
+Checking it's partition table via lsblk or fdisk -l should show three
+partitions. If you replaced the SD card with something bigger, than you
+should resize the third partition.
+
+## Bypassing Registration On Setup
+When setting up your Kobo, you will be asked to sign into a Kobo
+account. There are other options like logging in via Google, Walmart,
+and other stores, but I don't like having to login to a device that
+would likely not be connected to the public internet. Fortunately, you
+can bypass this by choosing that you cannot connect to a Wi-Fi network
+and mount your Kobo to your computer. In, `.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite`, you
+can run:
+```sh
+echo "INSERT INTO user(UserID,UserKey) VALUES('1','');" \
+     | sqlite3 KoboReader.sqlite
+```
+
+This way you don't have to install their application just to be able to
+use your device.
+
+Note: Do not try doing this when you still have your SD card mounted
+before you setup your device. The device's screen would likely not
+update, at least on an early firmware version like v4.7.10733.
+
+## Blocking Google Analytics and other Telemetry
+Just adding 0.0.0.0 analytics.google.com to `/etc/hosts` may be enough to
+block most of the telemetry from being sent. However, you can try
+intercepting what connections your Kobo is making via mitmproxy set to
+transparent mode or using a hosts file that blocks all connections to
+Google (but not necessarily to Kobo's servers) like [Baobab's hosts file](https://codeberg.org/baobab/hosts)
+[(raw)](https://codeberg.org/baobab/hosts/raw/branch/master/hosts).
+EDIT 2022-10-21: Baobab has deleted his account from Codeberg for quite a
+while, so these two links are dead. Instead, I now recommend [Steven Black's](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)
+instead [(raw)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts).
+
+To put the hosts file without root (which will be detailed in another
+section), you can make a directory called etc, put the hosts file in
+there, and tar it into a file called KoboRoot.tgz.
+```sh
+mkdir etc
+wget -O etc/hosts https://codeberg.org/baobab/hosts/raw/branch/master/hosts
+tar czvf KoboRoot.tgz etc
+cp KoboRoot.tgz /mnt/kobo/.kobo/
+```
+
+When you move a tar file with that name into your Kobo's .kobo folder,
+it's contents gets untarred into it's root at `/` when the device is
+turned on again, which is usually done for their updates but can be
+used for custom files like this and gaining root access.
+
+## Gaining Root Access via Telnet
+To gain root access, we first need to get the `/etc/inittab` and
+`/etc/inetd.conf` which you can get from mounting the SD card's first
+partition into your computer (the second partition seems to be like a
+backup). You should copy those two files into a folder called etc
+somewhere (probably not on the SD card).
+
+In the `etc/inittab` file, you should add these two lines:
+```
+::sysinit:/etc/custominit.sh
+::respawn:/usr/sbin/inetd -f /etc/inetd2.conf
+```
+
+You would want to rename the `etc/inetd.conf` file you copied into
+`etc/inetd2.conf` (or whatever the custom inetd.conf's filename is) and
+when editing that, you should add:
+```
+23 stream tcp nowait root /bin/busybox telnetd -i
+```
+
+However, if there is already a commented line for root telnet in the
+inetd2.conf, you should probably still add the above line and ignore
+the commented line as that may or may not work (didn't for me).
+
+To actually start inetd, you should add these lines somewhere in
+`/etc/custominit.sh`:
+```sh
+mkdir -p /dev/pts
+mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts
+/usr/sbin/inetd /etc/inetd2.conf
+```
+
+After that, you just have to tar the `etc/` folder again and copy it to
+your Kobo's onboard/third partition's `.kobo` folder.
+```sh
+tar czvf KoboRoot.tgz etc
+cp KoboRoot.tgz /mnt/kobo/.kobo/
+```
+
+Now you could put your SD card back into your Kobo provided that they
+are already unmounted and turn your Kobo back on.
+
+After connecting to the WiFi, simplying telnetting (?) into your Kobo
+and logging in as root should give you a root shell. :D
+```sh
+telnet $KOBO_IP
+```
+
+By default, root has no password so you should change it with passwd.
+
+## Getting SSH and SFTP access via Dropbear
+I'm using Dropbear instead of OpenSSH because it's better suited for
+embedded hardware like the Kobo Clara HD. Obviously we can't copy a
+binary compiled for amd64 or whatever architecture your compiling
+computer is running so we would have to cross-compile for our ereader.
+
+Fortunately, we are not required to cross-compile `gcc`/`clang` and friends
+as we can simply download the linaro arm toolchain which has the
+binaries for gcc and others included. You could get the toolchain
+[here](https://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/latest-7/arm-linux-gnueabihf/) and you should get the release that matches your host's
+
+architecture. After untarring the file, you should also set your PATH
+variable to the toolchain's `bin/` folder so you don't have to manually
+set the CC and CXX variables when building Dropbear.
+
+```sh
+wget https://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/latest-7/arm-linux-gnueabihf/gcc-linaro-7.5.0-2019.12-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
+tar xvf gcc-linaro-7.5.0-2019.12-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
+export PATH=$(pwd)/gcc-linaro-7.5.0-2019.12-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin:$PATH
+```
+
+Now you could get the source for Dropbear and cross-compile it. The
+source can be found on their [homepage](https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html) or [github](https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/releases) repo.
+```sh
+wget https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/releases/dropbear-2020.81.tar.bz2
+tar xvf dropbear-2020.81.tar.bz2
+cd dropbear-2020.81
+./configure --enable-static --host=arm-linux-gnueabihf
+# MULTI=1 combines the binaries like busybox does and is also smaller in size
+make MULTI=1 PROGRAMS="dropbear dropbearkey"
+```
+
+Now you only need to copy the dropbearmulti binary over to your Kobo.
+What I've done is running `python3 -m http.server` and downloading the
+file onto my Kobo but you could also just copy it onto the microSD
+card.
+```sh
+wget your.computer.ip:8000/dropbearmulti
+chmod +x dropbearmulti
+mv dropbearmulti /usr/bin
+cd /usr/bin
+# below are optional but dropbear(key) would be an argument for dropbearmulti
+ln -s dropbearmulti dropbear
+ln -s dropbearmulti dropbearkey
+```
+
+Now you only need to generate the host keys. My client key is ed25519
+so I'm not going to generate the others.
+```sh
+mkdir /etc/dropbear
+dropbearkey -t ed25519 -f /etc/dropbear/dropbear_ed25519_host_key
+dropbear -F -r /etc/dropbear/dropbear_ed25519_key
+```
+
+Now you could `ssh` into your Kobo and login as `root`. Remember to change
+`root`'s password beforehand though if you haven't already! I suggest
+copying your public key to your Kobo via `ssh-copy-id` so you don't have
+to enter root's password all the time and so password-based logins can
+be disabled in dropbear.
+
+To start it on boot, you could add the following line to
+`/etc/inetd2.conf`:
+```
+22 stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/dropbearmulti dropbear -i -r /etc/dropbear/dropbear_ed25519_key
+```
+
+For some reason, the symlink wasn't resolving for me inetd so I had to
+call the multi-binary directly. You could also add the command/args
+into `/etc/custominit.sh`.
+
+## FTP Access
+If you don't or can't use sftp or scp for some reason, there's always ftp :D
+There's a ftp daemon included in busybox so all we have to do is enable it
+in `/etc/inetd2.conf`:
+```
+21 stream tcp nowait root /bin/busybox ftpd -w -S /
+```
+
+This would share the entire filesystem so you may or may not want to
+restrict the shared directory to maybe just your ebook directory
+(`/mnt/onboard`) and move the files out via `telnet` or `ssh`.
+EDIT 2022-10-21: A chroot would also work.
+
+## References and Other Links
+- [Rémy's notes on hacking a Kobo Aura H2O](https://remy.grunblatt.org/kobo-aura-h2o-electronic-reader-hacking.html)
+- [Ying's notes on bypassing registration and setting up telnet, ssh, etc.](https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/30/kobo-rego.html)
+- [MobileRead forum thread on disabling Google Analytics on the Kobo Touch](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162713)
+- [MobileRead wiki on hacking the Kobo Touch](https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kobo_Touch_Hacking)
diff --git a/content/blog/kobo_clara-plato.md b/content/blog/kobo_clara-plato.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7de110
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/kobo_clara-plato.md
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
++++
+title = "Kobo Clara HD Notes for Plato (and KSM)"
+date = 2021-03-27
++++
+
+These are my notes for getting Plato on the Kobo Clara HD from scratch
+as well as some notes for getting KSM to work, but I now boot directly
+into Plato instead of through KSM.
+
+Previously, I didn't really like using KOReader because it was kind of
+slow and was written in Lua. At the time of using Plato, it seemed nice
+but it didn't cover thumbnails for books, which while it is a minor
+detail, I find books easier to be recognized with a cover thumbnail in
+addition to their title. This was added in release 0.9.10 but as an
+optional feature which I didn't somehow see until recently when I
+retried it. HOWEVER again, I didn't like using k/fmon as I had to still
+use Nickel to get back into KOReader/Plato/whatever alternate reader
+when I wanted to go away from using Nickel.
+
+<ignore>
+That was when I found out about KSM and how there was a working version
+for the Clara HD. KSM is like an alternate bootloader for the Kobo
+readers and it apparently doesn't work very well with newer models like
+the Clara HD and up, but someone got it to work with those devices.
+[KSM 09](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=c34e41df391c61810a6b06f991c29168&t=293804) is apparently not maintained anymore and I'm not sure if KSM
+10 is being developed or not since I'm pretty sure it's closed source.
+
+> Development and support for KSM stopped some time ago. Therefore, do
+> not use it!
+
+"That sign can't stop me because I can't read!" - Me imitating D.W.
+from the PBS Kids cartoon Arthur on Mar. 26, 2021 when I saw that it
+can be used on my Kobo
+
+The latest firmware version that KSM sort of supports is v4.25.15875
+but it can probably work with a newer version like v4.26+ that would
+likely only need a couple changes to /etc/init.d/rcS, if any changes
+were needed at all. I'll be using v4.26 for the rest of this
+article/guide.
+</ignore>
+
+Recently, after seeing how my Kobo boots into KSM and Nickel through
+the rcS file, I realized that I could've instead just booted directly
+into Plato, and plato.sh (the script that runs Plato) has a standalone
+option that supports just that! The KSM notes are still going to be
+here in case someone still wants to use KSM.
+
+## Installing Plato (or probably any other reader like KOReader)
+This part probably applies to any other reader other than Plato like
+KOReader but I haven't personally tested them. All you have to do is
+[get the latest release](https://github.com/baskerville/plato/releases/latest) at Plato's repo and unzip it's contents into
+a folder called plato in /path/to/kobo/mount/.adds, the latter folder
+of which should have already been created by KSM if you are using that.
+If you are using KSM, there should be a new option below "start nickel"
+called "start plato" when you have rebooted the device. Read below if
+you aren't using KSM.
+
+## Loading Plato on Boot
+Since I don't want to load Nickel only to load into another reader like
+the recommended options in Plato's forum thread (kfmon, fmon, and
+NickelMenu) suggest, I noticed that I could have booted into Plato
+directly. The only requirements for doing this having access to the
+rootfs, so either through a telnet/ssh session, or having the sd card's
+root/first partition mounted to your computer, or just ftp/rsyncing the
+files to your Kobo.
+
+First I suggest making a copy of rcS if you haven't already in case an
+update overwrites it. My copy is named custominit.sh. Next you'll want
+the Kobo's /etc/inittab to boot with custominit.sh instead of rcS:
+/etc/inittab:
+
+```
+#::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
+::sysinit:/etc/custominit.sh
+```
+
+The rest of the lines don't need to change. Then you should open
+custominit.sh in your favourite editor to add the lines at the bottom
+but before hindenburg is executed:
+
+```
+cd /mnt/onboard/.adds/plato     # or whereever Plato is
+PLATO_STANDALONE=1 ./plato.sh
+```
+
+You would probably also want to remove the lines where Nickel-specific
+programs/scripts are running like nickel, hindenburg, pickel, sickel,
+etc.
+
+Now on subsequent boots, Plato should automatically have been loaded.
+Boot times may also be slightly faster! :D
+
+## Installing KSM 09 (not doing anymore)
+First you would want to [download the Clara HD version of KSM 09](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?s=902078ac2e6fe8ff7a0947b56cbcade6&attachmentid=166556&d=1538176531) and
+[the fix for v4.25](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?s=902078ac2e6fe8ff7a0947b56cbcade6&attachmentid=184756&d=1610745905). Then, you would want to unzip the KoboRoot.tgz
+with separate filenames so they don't replace each other and we would
+untar those into the same directory. After that, we would cd into the
+directory and tar it's contents into a new KoboRoot.tgz and place it in
+/path/to/kobo/mount/.kobo/.
+
+An example of what I did after downloading and unzipping the files are
+below:
+
+```
+mkdir koboroot
+tar -xvf KoboRoot-main.tgz -C koboroot
+tar -xvf KoboRoot-v4.25-darkmodefix.tgz -C koboroot
+cd koboroot
+tar -czvf ../KoboRoot.tgz .
+cd ..
+rm -r koboroot
+```
+
+After your Kobo untars it and you wait a while, you should be presented
+with KSM's main screen :D ksm09's main screen running on the kobo clara
+hd
+
+## Auto-Boot into Plato instead of Nickel via KSM (not doing anymore)
+First make sure USB support is enabled in KSM and then mount your Kobo
+to your computer. Once mounted, go to
+/path/to/kobo/mount/.adds/kbmenu_user/confoptions and edit
+ksm_ini_options.txt in your favourite editor. You should see many
+options that are listed but the one that we're interested in is
+ksmAutoselectoption which may have start_nickel and start_koreader
+already and what we want to do is add ksmAutoselectoption=start_plato.
+After a quick restart to reload the options file, you should be able to
+see the new option in KSM's settings under [general] and add item if it
+wasn't already added. Now Plato should auto-boot on subsequent
+powerons.
diff --git a/content/blog/st-bitmap-font-fix.md b/content/blog/st-bitmap-font-fix.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..53e6740
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/st-bitmap-font-fix.md
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
++++
+title = "Fixing bitmap font fallbacks in the st terminal"
+date = 2023-11-24
+draft = false
++++
+tldr, change FC_SCALABLE in x.c from 1 to 0. (comes from the font2 patch)
+
+For some context, I have been using xterm for a long while when I'm on OpenBSD
+since it is included by default in Xenocara with Terminus as my default font,
+and the main reason why I did not use st again was that my bitmap fallback font
+for CJK was not loading. Instead, I get an ugly sans-serif scaled font that
+looked very out of place in my otherwise clean and crisp bitmap terminal.
+
+Yes, I did make sure that the font2 patch for st was applied correctly.
+
+The X11 font string for reference is Fixed:
+-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-ja-18-120-100-100-c-180-iso10646-1
+
+It also didn't help that fontconfig was unable to find the font either no
+matter how much I looked for it with fc-list and fc-match. The weirder thing is
+that when I installed GNU Unifont to my fonts directory, fontconfig was able to
+find it and st loaded it (I put a printf in the xloadfonts() function in x.c),
+but the same old ugly scaled font was still being shown for CJK. The weirderer
+thing was that Unifont was rendering just fine when being used as the main font
+instead of in font2.
+
+I thought to myself why this was happening and wasn't able to find out, until I
+reread the font loading portion in x.c's xloadsparefonts() function that came
+part of the font2 patch.
+
+It had set the FC_SCALABLE boolean to 1 (true). That explained why the fallback
+font rendered fine as the main font and not fallback. Setting that boolean to
+0 (false) fixed my fallback font not matching issue, and now I have clean and
+crisp looking text that I can read more easily.
+
+I already disliked fontconfig, freetype, xft, and friends (don't get me started
+on pango and harfbuzz), but this incident made me dislike it further.
diff --git a/content/blog/tmpfilehost.md b/content/blog/tmpfilehost.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c8356d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/tmpfilehost.md
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
++++
+title = "Creating a Temporary File Hoster"
+date = 2022-04-27
+draft = false
++++
+For the past couple years, whenever I wanted to upload a file, I would
+curl the file to [lainsafe](https://git.qorg11.net/lainsafe.git/), [i/u.kalli.st](https://gt.kalli.st/kallist/uploader), and recently [ttm.sh](https://tildegit.org/tildeverse/ttm.sh).
+
+Since I want to selfhost, I thought i can just use either of what those
+three used. Earlier today though, I realized I could just copy the
+file(s) I want to upload via rsync/scp to a public directory that gets
+served by an httpd or gopherd.
+
+From what I understand, the previous file hosters had a program running
+that read the file that the user uploads to them, does some renaming,
+and writes that to a directory that is served. After some time, that
+file is deleted. The first part can be handled via rsync/scp like
+mentioned previously. For automatic deletion, I recently saw in find's
+man page that it can list that haven't been modified via the -mtime
+flag, so that can be used with a cron job.
+
+But while thinking of this idea, I got stumped by how to print back the
+url to this file that is uploaded since printing the filename as is
+appended to its baseurl, there could be spaces and other invalid
+unescaped characters which programs trying to download it may not like.
+
+I thought I could just create a separate program for this. However,
+doing this seemed more complicated than just copying the file to the
+server. So, with the help of awk and some StackExchanging, I've been
+able to do it.
+
+`upfile.sh`:
+```sh
+#!/bin/sh
+urlencode() {
+     awk '
+BEGIN { for (i = 1; i < 256; i++) hex[sprintf("%c", i)] = sprintf("%%%02X", i) }
+{
+     for (i = 1; i <= length($0); i++) {
+             c = substr($0, i, 1)
+             printf("%s", c ~ /^[-._~0-9a-zA-Z]$/ ? c : hex[c])
+     }
+     printf "\n"
+}
+'
+}
+
+FILE="$1"
+SERVER="REPLACEME"
+BASEURL="https://u.$SERVER"
+
+[ -z "$1" ] && exit 1
+
+scp "$FILE" "$SERVER":files/ || exit 1
+printf "%s/" "$BASEURL"
+basename "$FILE" | urlencode
+```
+
+Then to purge these files after they become too old (e.g. 3 days), you
+can put something like this in a cron job to run daily (replace file
+directory):
+
+```
+0 0 * * * find /path/to/dir/ -mtime +3 -exec rm {} \;
+```
+
+You can also put this command in /etc/daily.local or /etc/cron/daily,
+or whatever file your root crontab's @daily runs (if there is one).
+
+And that's it! The only difficult part that I experienced was encoding
+the name of the file and originally did that in C. However, having a
+mixed C and shell program just for file uploading didn't sit right with
+me. It seems like whenever you're in doubt, you can rely on awk huh.
diff --git a/content/blog/vfio-win10.md b/content/blog/vfio-win10.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a24b78e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/vfio-win10.md
@@ -0,0 +1,318 @@
++++
+title = "VFIO Install Notes"
+date = 2020-10-17
+draft = false
++++
+You should first go look at [the Arch Wiki on it](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI%20passthrough%20via%20OVMF) or [Yuri Alek's guide on Single GPU passthrough](https://gitlab.com/YuriAlek/vfio) or [4chan's /g/ wiki on it](https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/PCI_passthrough) as these assume prior knowledge.
+
+# Prerequisites
+## UEFI Options
+Enable VT-d and VT-x (or AMD equivalent)
+
+## Kernel Config
+Enable KVM and VFIO
+> you can set VFIO as builtin but as a module is more flexible
+Also add `"iommu=pt intel_iommu=on"` to your kernel command line (or in CONFIG\_CMDLINE)
+
+### Current Options
+```
+...
+CONFIG_IOMMU_IOVA=y
+CONFIG_IOMMU_API=y
+CONFIG_IOMMU_SUPPORT=y
+CONFIG_IOMMU_DEFAULT_PASSTHROUGH=y
+# use the respective AMD options if using an AMD CPU
+CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU=y
+CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_SVM=y
+CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_DEFAULT_ON=y
+CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_FLOPPY_WA=y
+
+CONFIG_KVM_VFIO=y
+CONFIG_VFIO_IOMMU_TYPE1=m
+CONFIG_VFIO_VIRQFD=m
+CONFIG_VFIO=m
+CONFIG_VFIO_PCI=m
+CONFIG_VFIO_PCI_VGA=y
+CONFIG_VFIO_PCI_MMAP=y
+CONFIG_VFIO_PCI_INTX=y
+CONFIG_VFIO_PCI_IGD=y
+CONFIG_VFIO_MDEV=m
+CONFIG_VFIO_MDEV_DEVICE=m
+...
+```
+
+## Packages Required
+```
+app-emulation/qemu (actual program)
+sys-firmware/edk2-ovmf (UEFI firmware for Nvidia GPU)
+media-sound/scream (audio)
+looking-glass-client (compile from source if no package, or make your own)
+```
+
+`app-emulation/libvirt` can be used as well for easier configuration and autostart
+but I have had problems with it:
+- Service not starting properly, workaround is restarting service after it starts (Gentoo)
+- Networks and domains not autostarting, workaround is starting them manually (CRUX)
+
+### Gentoo USE Flags
+```
+app-emulation/qemu gtk opengl sdl sdl-image usb # (spice, ssh, vhost-user-fs, virgl, and virtfs are optional I think)
+media-libs/libsdl2 X gles opengl # for Looking Glass
+```
+note to self (2020-10-17): check how minimal you can make qemu to run vfio
+
+# IOMMU
+Run `dmesg | grep -E 'DMAR'` and see if `DMAR: IOMMU enabled` or something similar is in output
+
+# QEMU Script
+All code blocks in this section go in the qemu script file unless specified otherwise
+
+## Environment Variables
+```sh
+IMG=/path/to/windows-image-file
+VIRTIO=/path/to/virtio-iso
+WINDOWS=/path/to/windows-install-iso
+OVMF=/usr/share/edk2-ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd
+RAM=16G
+ULIMIT=$(ulimit -l)
+ULIMIT_TARGET=$(( $(echo $RAM | tr -d 'G')*1048576+100000 ))
+
+GPU_VIDEO=01:00.0
+GPU_AUDIO=01:00.1
+VIDEOID="10de 13c0"
+AUDIOID="10de 0fbb"
+VIDEOBUSID="0000:${GPU_VIDEO}"
+AUDIOBUSID="0000:${GPU_AUDIO}"
+```
+
+## VFIO Detaching and Attaching
+```sh
+vfio_on() {
+        # for nvidia card with proprietary drivers
+        rmmod nvidia_drm
+        rmmod nvidia_modeset
+        rmmod nvidia
+
+        # disable bumblebee service or use bbswitch to detach card if using bumblebee
+
+        modprobe vfio-pci
+
+        echo $VIDEOID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
+        echo $VIDEOBUSID > /sys/bus/pci/devices/$VIDEOBUSID/driver/unbind
+        echo $VIDEOBUSID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/bind
+        echo $VIDEOID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/remove_id
+
+        echo $AUDIOID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
+        echo $AUDIOBUSID > /sys/bus/pci/devices/$AUDIOBUSID/driver/unbind
+        echo $AUDIOBUSID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/bind
+        echo $AUDIOID > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/remove_id
+
+        # add rest of gpu devices if they are in the same group (I think 4 devices in 1000 or 2000 series nvidia)
+}
+
+vfio_off() {
+        rmmod vfio_iommu_type1
+        rmmod vfio_pci
+        rmmod vfio_virqfd
+        rmmod vfio
+
+        modprobe nvidia
+}
+```
+
+## Networking
+```sh
+net_on() {
+        ip tuntap add dev tap0 mode tap group kvm
+        ip link set dev tap0 up promisc on
+        ip addr add 0.0.0.0 dev tap0
+
+        ip link add br0 type bridge
+        ip link set br0 up
+        ip link set tap0 master br0
+        echo 0 > /sys/class/net/br0/bridge/stp_state
+        ip addr add 192.168.123.1/24 dev br0
+
+        sysctl net.ipv4.conf.tap0.proxy_arp=1 > /dev/null
+        sysctl net.ipv4.conf.enp0s31f6.proxy_arp=1 > /dev/null
+        sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 > /dev/null
+
+        iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o enp0s31f6 -j MASQUERADE > /dev/null
+        iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT > /dev/null
+        iptables -A FORWARD -i br0 -o enp0s31f6 -j ACCEPT > /dev/null
+}
+
+net_off() {
+        sysctl net.ipv4.conf.tap0.proxy_arp=0 > /dev/null
+        sysctl net.ipv4.conf.enp0s31f6.proxy_arp=0 > /dev/null
+        sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=0 > /dev/null
+
+        ip link set dev br0 down
+        ip link del br0
+
+        ip link set dev tap0 down
+        ip tuntap del mode tap name tap0
+}
+```
+
+Also add this to /etc/conf.d/net if using Gentoo ([source](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/QEMU/Options#Network_bridge))
+> replace `enp0s31f6` with the host/master interface
+```sh
+...
+tuntap_tap0="tap"
+config_tap0="null"
+bridge_br0="enp0s31f6 tap0"
+
+config_br0="192.168.123.2 netmask 255.255.255.0"
+routes_br0="default via 192.168.123.1"
+bridge_forward_delay_br0=0
+bridge_hello_time_br0=10
+
+depend_br0() {
+        need net.enp0s31f6
+        need net.tap0
+}
+...
+```
+
+## Hugepages
+```sh
+hugepages_on() {
+        PAGES=$(( $(echo $RAM | tr -d 'G') * 1048576 / 2048))
+        mkdir -p /dev/hugepages
+        mount -t hugetlbfs hugetlbfs /dev/hugepages
+        echo $PAGES > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
+}
+
+hugepages_off() {
+        echo 0 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
+        umount /dev/hugepages
+}
+```
+
+## QEMU Command
+### Before installing guest OS (Windows 10 used as example)
+```sh
+ulimit -l $ULIMIT_TARGET
+
+qemu-system-x86_64 \
+        -name 'vfio-vm' \
+        -vga qxl \
+        -nodefaults -enable-kvm -machine q35 \
+        -m $RAM -mem-path /dev/hugepages \
+        -cpu host,kvm=off,svm=off,topoext,hv_relaxed,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_time,hv_vapic,hv_vendor_id=novideobad43,hv_vpindex,hv_synic,hv_stimer,hv_frequencies \
+        -smp 8,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=2 \
+        -rtc clock=host,base=localtime \
+        -boot menu=on -boot d \
+        -nic tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=0,model=virtio-net-pci \
+        -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file=$OVMF \
+        -drive file="$VIRTIO",id=cd1,media=cdrom \
+        -drive file="$WINDOWS",id=cd2,media=cdrom \
+        -device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi0 \
+        -device scsi-hd,bus=scsi0.0,drive=rootfs \
+        -drive file="$IMG",id=rootfs,index=0,format=qcow2,media=disk,if=none
+
+ulimit -l $ULIMIT
+```
+### After installing guest OS
+```sh
+ulimit -l $ULIMIT_TARGET
+
+qemu-system-x86_64 \
+        -name 'vfio-vm' \
+        -vga none -nographic \
+        -nodefaults -enable-kvm -machine q35 \
+        -m $RAM -mem-path /dev/hugepages \
+        -cpu host,kvm=off,svm=off,topoext,hv_relaxed,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_time,hv_vapic,hv_vendor_id=novideobad43,hv_vpindex,hv_synic,hv_stimer,hv_frequencies \
+        -smp 8,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=2 \
+        -rtc clock=host,base=localtime \
+        -boot menu=on -boot c \
+        -nic tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=0,model=virtio-net-pci \
+        -device vfio-pci,host=$GPU_VIDEO,multifunction=on,x-vga=on \
+        -device vfio-pci,host=$GPU_AUDIO \
+        -device ivshmem-plain,memdev=ivshmem,bus=pcie.0 \
+        -object memory-backend-file,id=ivshmem,share=on,mem-path=/dev/shm/looking-glass,size=32M \
+        -device virtio-keyboard-pci \
+        -device virtio-mouse-pci \
+        -object input-linux,id=kbd0,evdev=/dev/input/by-id/usb-Corsair_Corsair_K70R_Gaming_Keyboard-if02-event-kbd,grab_all=on,repeat=on \
+        -object input-linux,id=mouse0,evdev=/dev/input/by-id/usb-Logitech_Gaming_Mouse_G502_0E5F335C3236-event-mouse \
+        -object input-linux,id=mouse1,evdev=/dev/input/by-id/usb-Logitech_Gaming_Mouse_G502_0E5F335C3236-if01-event-kbd,grab_all=on,repeat=on \
+        -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file=$OVMF \
+        -drive file="$VIRTIO",id=cd1,media=cdrom \
+        -device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi0 \
+        -device scsi-hd,bus=scsi0.0,drive=rootfs \
+        -drive file="$IMG",id=rootfs,index=0,format=qcow2,media=disk,if=none
+
+ulimit -l $ULIMIT
+```
+
+# Extra
+## Adding USB Devices
+Get vendor and product id from `lsusb` and add them to your QEMU command arguments:
+```sh
+        -device qemu-xhci,id=xhci0 -device usb-host,bus=xhci0.0,vendorid=0x<yourvendorid>,productid=0x<yourproductid>
+```
+Example for my USB bluetooth receiver:
+```
+$ lsusb
+...
+Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0b05:17cb ASUSTek Computer, Inc. Broadcom BCM20702A0 Bluetooth
+...
+```
+My vendorid is `0x0b05` and productid is `0x17cb`, so in QEMU it would be:
+```sh
+        -device qemu-xhci,id=<usb-bus-id> -device usb-host,bus=<usb-bus-id>.0,vendorid=0x0b05,productid=0x17cb
+```
+
+## Set CPU Affinity
+While libvirt makes this more simple, it appears we need a script/function to do it in bare QEMU
+Borrowed from [here](https://null-src.com/posts/qemu-optimization/post.php#taskset)
+> note: uses bash-isms so that's why I put it in a separate file
+```bash
+#!/bin/bash
+THREAD_LIST="0,4,1,5,2,6,3,7"
+NAME="vfio-vm"
+
+sleep 20 &&
+HOST_THREAD=0
+# for each vCPU thread PID
+for PID in $(pstree -pa $(pstree -pa $(pidof qemu-system-x86_64) | grep $NAME | awk -F',' '{print $2}' | awk '{print $1}') | grep CPU |  pstree -pa $(pstree -pa $(pidof qemu-system-x86_64) | grep $NAME | cut -d',' -f2 | cut -d' ' -f1) | grep CPU | sort | awk -F',' '{print $2}')
+do
+    let HOST_THREAD+=1
+    # set each vCPU thread PID to next host CPU thread in THREAD_LIST
+    echo "taskset -pc $(echo $THREAD_LIST | cut -d',' -f$HOST_THREAD) $PID" | sh
+done
+```
+
+## Additional Disk
+You can add another disk by simply copying the arguments for adding the rootfs and slightly modifying
+Example for a qcow2 image:
+```
+        -device virtio-scsi-pci,id=<scsi-id> \
+        -device scsi-hd,bus=<scsi-id>.0,drive=<drive-id> \
+        -drive file=<location>,id=<drive-id>,index=0,format=qcow2,media=disk,if=none
+```
+
+## No Drives During Installation
+Make sure virtio driver is loaded:
+- Click Load Driver
+- Choose virtio-cd disc > amd64 > w10 and press enter
+- Load Red Hat Virtio SCSI driver
+
+## Looking Glass Not Starting
+Make sure no virtual display like QXL is loaded too (`-nographic -vga none` in QEMU)
+
+## JACK Support
+To use JACK instead of Scream, you can use these QEMU arguments
+```sh
+-audiodev jack,id=snd0,in.client-name=default,out.client-name=default,in.start-server=off,out.start-server=off,in.exact-name=on,out.exact-name=on,in.connect-ports=system,out.connect-ports=system,in.frequency=48000,out.frequency=48000,timer-period=2048,out.buffer-length=5120 \
+-device ich9-intel-hda \
+-device hda-output,audiodev=snd0 \
+```
+You might need to change the timer-period and buffer-length if experiencing crackling.
+Also you might have to change the controller (ich9-intel-hda) and codec (hda-output) to something else.
+
+To list controller and codecs, run:
+```sh
+qemu-system-x86_64 -device help | grep hda
+```