npmrc locations

On a Windows machine the .npmrc configuration is loaded from the following locations in sequence.

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\npmrc

<project directory>\.npmrc

%USERPROFILE%\.npmrc

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\etc\npmrc

devcert config locations

Windows:
Current User\Trusted Root Certification Authorities\Certificates

Linux:
The config is:
~/.config/devcert

with the certificate installed:
/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/

dnsmasq

 Setting up
https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-dns-server/

Make sure that you have stopped the systemd-resolved service. I'm going to also mask it so it doesn't auto start on reboot.

sudo systemctl stop systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl mask systemd-resolved

To undo what you did:

sudo systemctl unmask systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl enable systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl start systemd-resolved

Adventures with turborepo

I was accessing a project that builds a nextJs website. 
It was originally launched with npm run dev.
The project used devcert as a local proxy to allow HTTPS access locally.

Normally I would launch it in an Ubuntu environment running on Windows with WSL2.

This time I ran it direct from Windows. After all, node is multiplatform.

However I started hitting some issues:

Running devcert to install the certificates.

requires OpenSSL and sh

devcert requires OpenSSL and the sh command. These are installed with Git for Windows. Ensure that "C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin" are part of your path.

devcert errors with Node 22

devcert was errorring because it uses a deprecated createCipher method. This is now deprecated in Node 22. To workaround this I used nvm, installed Node 21, and ran the installation code. This was a bit of a hack.

conditional sudo code

the installation script on Linux requires sudo permission, so package.json defined the following script:

"certificates:install": "sudo node ./src/install-certificates.js"

this wouldn't work on Windows. So instead a conditional script launcher was created:

"certificates:install": "node ./src/run-elevated.js ./src/install-certificates.js",

// This script detects the Operating System. If it is not Windows, it applies the sudo command before running the target script.
// Usage:
//    node ./run-elevated.js [script.js]
const { exec } = require("child_process");
const os = require("os");

const isWindows = os.platform() === "win32"; // Detect the OS
const targetScript = process.argv[2]; // The first argument after the script name

if (!targetScript) {
  console.error(
    "Error: No script specified. Usage: node run-script.js [your-script.js]",
  );
  process.exit(1);
}

// Command to execute
const command = isWindows
  ? `node ${targetScript}`
  : `sudo node ${targetScript}`;

// Execute the command
exec(command, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
    return;
  }
  if (stderr) {
    console.error(`Stderr: ${stderr}`);
    return;
  }
  console.log(`Output: ${stdout}`);
});

stdio not accessible

When creating a certificate, devcert prompts for a password.  The code above wouldn't work because stido was not available to the launching console.

The code was changed to:

// This script detects the Operating System. If it is not Windows, it applies the sudo command before running the target script.
// Usage:
//    node ./run-elevated.js [script.js]
const { spawn } = require("child_process"); // Consider cross-spawn (https://www.npmjs.com/package/cross-spawn)
const os = require("os");

const isWindows = os.platform() === "win32"; // Detect the OS
const targetScript = process.argv[2]; // The first argument after the script name

if (!targetScript) {
  console.error(
    "Error: No script specified. Usage: node run-elevated.js [your-script.js]",
  );
  process.exit(1);
}

// Spawn the child process and inherit stdio to enable user interaction
const child = isWindows
  ? spawn("node", [targetScript], {
      stdio: "inherit", // Inherit stdio streams from the parent process
    })
  : spawn("sudo", ["node", targetScript], {
      stdio: "inherit", // Inherit stdio streams from the parent process
    });

// Handle errors if the child process fails
child.on("error", (error) => {
  console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
});

// Handle when the child process exits
child.on("exit", (code) => {
  console.log(`Child process exited with code ${code}`);
});

cross-spawn should still be considered as an improvement.

devcert uses environment variables on Windows. turbo doesn't pass them

The final problem was that devcert tries to locate the certificates using environment variables on Windows:

function win32 (name) {
  if (process.env.LOCALAPPDATA) {
    return path.join(process.env.LOCALAPPDATA, name)
  }

  return path.join(process.env.USERPROFILE, 'Local Settings', 'Application Data', name)
}

If you launch the project with npm run dev, the environment variables are passed.

This was verified by adding the following script to package.json and running it with npm run dev and npx turbo run dev. The first logged the environment variables and the second didn't.

{ "scripts": { "check-env": "node -e \"console.log(process.env)\"" } }

If you launch it with turbo dev, they are undefined, and the code errors.

The solution was to add the following to turbo.json:

"globalPassThroughEnv": ["LOCALAPPDATA"],

Building a home NAS on a Raspberry Pi: RAID versus Rsync

The Pi 5 consumes about 4W under normal conditions. With a spinning 2.5" SATA drive it consumes about 6 Watts.

You can connect USB drives, but OpenMedia will not allow a RAID across USB drives. This is because they can be troublesome as they power down under energy saving conditions. They can also be disconnected leading to data loss.

Another option is to use a Pi Compute Module with a Compute IO board and a SATA adapter. However currently you can only use the PCI-E SATA adapter with the Compute Module 4 and the IO board only supports USB 2.

The Compute 5 IO board supports USB 3 but doesn't provide the PCI-E interface for SATA.

Use RAID or not?

There are opinions that RAID 1 provides a false sense of security. 

Delete a file, and it is deleted on both drives.

You could use a single drive, and periodic Rsync to another connected drive.

It allows disks of different sizes.

You could use addititve Rsync, so that only new files are added. If you accidentally delete a file, it may still exist on the destination drive.

You could plug in different destination drives for taking them offsite.

Power consumption

This article says that an SSD will draw 0.2A to 0.3A. A good option is a lower power option is to have a primary SSD for always-on reads and a 3.5" powered & spinning SATA for backup.

Running 8W will cost approximately 6p a day, (at 30p/kWh), or £21 per year. Far cheaper than cloud solutions.

FreeBSD mirror error: "geom: Not all disks connected"

Whilst copying data to my FreeBSD RAID1 mirror, one of the disks errored:

Jan 4 07:08:44    freenas     kernel: GEOM_MIRROR: Device RAID1: provider ad0 disconnected.

Jan 4 07:08:44    freenas     kernel: GEOM_MIRROR: Request failed (error=5). ad0[WRITE(offset=1632316556288, length=131072)]

Jan 4 07:08:44    freenas     kernel: ad0: FAILURE - WRITE_DMA48 status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=10<NID_NOT_FOUND> LBA=3188118402

I also got this error:

 "geom: Not all disks connected."

ad0 had errored, leaving the RAID operating only with ad1.

The solution was posted here:

gmirror forget RAID1

gmirror status

      Name    Status  Components

            mirror/RAID1  COMPLETE  ad1

gmirror remove RAID1 /dev/ad0

gmirror: No such provider: ad0.

gmirror insert RAID1 /dev/ad0

gmirror status

      Name    Status  Components

            mirror/RAID1  DEGRADED  ad1  ad0 (0%)

Resizing a UFS partition

UFS is really only supported on FreeBSD

Use a FreeBSD live CD.

gpart delete -i 1 /dev/da1

gpart destroy -F /dev/da1

gpart create -s GPT /dev/da1

gpart show

Note that it has a 40 sector (40*512 bytes) offset to allow for the GPT table. 
The previous sector I had started at 34 bytes and creating a partition warned that "added, but partition is not aligned on 4096 bytes"

gpart show

40 7814037088 da1 GPT (36T)
40 7814037088     - free - (3.6T)

gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -b 40 -s 7814037088 /dev/da1

gpart show

40 7814037088 da1 GPT (36T)
40 7814037088     1 freebsd-ufs (3.6T)