Category: Software

Install And Secure MariaDB In Ubuntu

I’ve recently purchased a couple of new VPSes (spelling?) and so today’s article is about how you install and secure MariaDB. As mentioned before, some articles are just going to be me scratching my own itch. In this case, I have a couple of virtual private servers that are doing nothing more than costing me money. I might as well put them to good use.

So, what is MariaDB? It’s a database management system that’s a fork of MySQL. Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems in early 2010 and MySQL went with it. Quite a few people didn’t trust Oracle’s stewardship of MySQL, they were already known for their own database management system, and so MariaDB was born.

MariaDB is actually a fork of MySQL. MariaDB is also permissively licensed, while the newer MySQL has an enterprise version with proprietary code in it. MariaDB is completely open and works just fine under a number of FOSS licenses.

MariaDB is just as fast, and faster in some operations. It supports the native languages used with databases. It’s well supported with a vast number of installs running some of the largest databases on the planet. MariaDB is one of many MySQL forks, which is to be expected. After all, MySQL was the first of its kinda – a free database management system that was released at a key  point (mid 1990s) of Internet development.

In my observation, and despite all its goodness, MariaDB a testament to exactly how much people dislike and don’t trust Oracle! So, then, why not…

Install And Secure MariaDB:

As this is server related, you’re likely to be doing this in a terminal and you’re likely to be using SSH to do so. So, I’m going to assume you already have a terminal open, saving us some time.

Make sure you’re fully updated before attempting this, so:

Now, we’ll go about installing MariaDB. It’s trivial, just run:

That’ll take a minute and, when done, you can verify that the MariaDB service is up and running properly. That needs this command:

MariaDB should be installed and running – but it’s woefully insecure. In order to secure the MariaDB installation, you will want to run the following command:

It’s going to first ask you for your root password. You’ll enter your default root (sudo) password. One of the questions will let you assign a different password for MariaDB and it’s strongly recommended that you do so. For the other few questions, you can read them or you can just answer yes to all of them, as all of them are the best choices for securing your databases.

That’s actually all there is to it. You’ve learned to install and secure MariaDB. It’s one of the many steps you might take if you wanted to set up your own server, so be careful when you’re doing so and opt for the best practices.

Closure:

There you have it! It’s another article, this one tells you how to install and secure MariaDB. In some cases, rare cases indeed, you might want to open it up to connections outside of localhost. If you do that, be sure to open up the correct port in the firewall. Other than that, you’re good to go.

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Install Brave Browser In Fedora

I keep hearing people talk about the Brave browser, so I decided to spin up a virtual machine and learn how to install Brave browser in Fedora. It’s actually one of the more complicated installs, but it’s not dreadfully difficult. If you’re looking to install Brave browser in Fedora, this article is for you.

If you’re unfamiliar with Fedora, it’s a distro that’s mostly sponsored by Red Hat and it is usually on the front edge of software. So, if you’re looking for a reasonably stable platform that also offers the latest and greatest software, Fedora is probably a good distribution for you.

Read: What is The Best Linux Distro?

So, if you’re a Fedora user, or are considering using Fedora, you might be pleased to know that you can install Brave browser. It’s not even all that difficult. While it’s generally advised that new users stick to the software choices in their default repositories, I’ve generally/mentally always made an exception for the browser. After all, which browser you prefer is such a personal choice. As such, you may need to reach outside the defaults to find the browser that best suits your needs.

Anyhow, today’s article is going to tell you how to install the Brave browser in Fedora. I’m not really a huge fan of Brave, but the growing popularity can’t be denied. So, you might as well know how to install it.

Install Brave Browser In Fedora:

Like so many articles, this one requires an open browser. That’s easily accomplished with the GUI application menu, or you can just go ahead and press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal open, let’s prep Fedora to install Brave browser. You’ll need to install dnf-plugins-core if you’ve not already done so. That’s done with this command:

We’ll then want to add the Brave repository, like so:

Note: That may change with newer Brave versions.

Next, you’ll want to make sure the software you get is genuine, using an .asc file – an ASCII version of a .pgp key file, and this requires this command:

That’s pretty much it, actually. All that’s left is to install Brave browser in Fedora – which is done with just this command:

Follow any on-screen prompts and you’re good to go. If you want proof that it works, see this:

freshly installed brave browser in Fedora
That may look a little funny, but it’s Fedora with LXDE – and the Brave browser!

See? It works! It wasn’t even all that hard to install the Brave browser. If that’s the browser you want to use, you can now jump to Fedora and know that the browser works just fine. You’re welcome!

Closure:

There you have it. There’s another article, this one telling you how to install Brave browser. I figured it’d be something folks are interested in, as Brave has increased in popularity and more folks are considering using Brave as their default browser.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Review: MetaClean (Clean Exif/meta Data From Email Attachments Automatically)

Today’s article is about MetaClean, a Thunderbird plugin that you can use to automatically clean Exif (and other meta data) from email attachments. This is not the type of article I usually write, but it’s a very interesting extension for the Thunderbird email client. It’s good enough to help make folks aware of it.

Just the other day, I updated this article:

How To: Sanitize Exif Data From Your Digital Images For Privacy Sake

The update was largely a link that went to a study regarding the privacy implications of Exif data. If you’re unfamiliar with Exif data and its importance, I would strongly encourage you to read the article. I’d also strongly encourage you to read the linked article. If you’re concerned with your privacy, or are regulated to be concerned with the privacy of others, this might just be one of the best extensions you’ve ever used.

See, Exif data is just one type of meta data. Lots of files, from pictures to text documents, contain meta data. For example, a file generated by a rich text editor (such as LibreOffice) will contain your username, may contain a record of edits, and may contain a list of usernames that have also edited it. Meta data contains all that and more.

Enter MetaClean…

Note: MetaClean is a proprietary product with an enterprise/business solution that offer their services free for personal use. It’s a closed source product and using it means you trust them to perform the services claimed and adhere to their claims.

The file remains on the server for the time necessary for its processing, depending on the size of the file the processing time varies from 10 milliseconds to 600 milliseconds, after this time the file is removed and it will be impossible to restore it (GDPR compliant).

Read on to learn more about using MetaClean.

MetaClean Automatically Removes Meta Data:

It’s easy enough to add MetaClean to Thunderbird. Just click on Add-Ons and Themes, and then in the search box put “MetaClean.” The search result should contain the extension and you can install it with a single click. It’s remarkably easy.

MetaClean basically uploads all of your attachments to their own server, strips out the meta data (but will leave their own branding in the field, for free users) and then returns the sanitized file to your computer before the email actually sends. I tested this with a number of files and it’s amazingly fast.

Again, it requires that you trust them – and not care that they leave a comment in your meta data. The comment is harmless and won’t lead to you in any way. Your privacy will not be compromised.

Here’s the amazing thing, it not only does all that – but it even works on compressed files – though it only currently supports 7Zip and .zip formats. With them supporting Thunderbird (and it working fine on Linux), we can hope that they’ll expand that to .gz and some folks may like it if it could also work with .rar files. For now, it works just fine with the compressed files I tested.

Meta data is in all sorts of things that you create or touch, though it’s not always a bad thing. It’s sometimes useful to have meta data. I, for one, like to include the ID3 tags with my music files. But, you don’t always want to share the meta data. In fact, in some industries you have to not share it – to be compliant with privacy laws. However, if that’s you, you might be interested in their professional options – where the server that strips the meta data is actually owned and run by you.

Basically, once you’ve added it as an extension, it will automatically sanitize your files – removing any personal meta data from the file. It does this all without any user intervention (once you tell it to automatically do so). If you want to send a file while including the meta information you can also tell the plugin to let that email through with the personal information attached.

Closure:

It’s really that simple. Just install MetaClean and forget it. You won’t have to wonder if you remembered to sanitize your meta data before you sent it. You can be pretty confident that it was sent without that private data still attached. It’s definitely one of the most beneficial and easiest Thunderbird extensions that I’ve worked with lately.

I realize that I forgot to give it a number rating! In this case, it does what it says on the tin. I wish their privacy policy (while excellent) spelled it out a bit better. The tools could be a bit more fine-grained. They could see about adding support for more compression formats. As for the rest, they do great. I’m going to award them a solid 8 out of 10.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Use ‘apt-cache’ To Find An Application’s Homepage

It can come in pretty handy to know an application’s homepage. You can find an applications’s homepage with ‘apt-cache’. I’ll show you how. This is a pretty easy article to follow and just another tool to add to your toolbox.

NOTE: This is only valid for systems that use apt. As the title indicates, it requires ‘apt-cache’. Without apt-cache, this page will do you no good. None good! That’s how much it will do you. None!

Why would you want to know the homepage – and, more so, the preferred homepage? For starters, in the days of GitHub and everyone forking, and awkward application names that aren’t easily searched for, it’s hard to know which site is the correct one.

Maybe you want to report a bug? Maybe you want to request a feature? Perhaps you want to make a donation? Maybe you just want to thank the author for writing such awesome software? Maybe you want to know where the homepage is because you need support and you’re not sure where to turn to?

There are all sorts of reasons why you might want to know the homepage of a piece of software. It’s actually something that’s important. It’s also something your system already knows and will happily show you if you know the proper magical incantation.

Find Application’s Homepage: 

Like many other articles, you’re gonna want the terminal for this. Let’s go ahead and get that opened by using your keyboard and pressing CTRL + ALT + T. 

Got your terminal emulator open? Good! Let’s start with the command.

If you do not have ‘inxi’ installed, feel free to use a different application. Note that you do not need to use sudo for this. Not all apt commands require sudo. You only need sudo when you’re actually doing administrative tasks. See? I saved you some typing!

Anyhow, in the text output from the above command you’ll see a line that starts with “Homepage:”. If you hadn’t already guessed it, that’s the line that tells you the authors homepage. You’ll also sometimes find the URL where they want you to report bugs, but that’s a topic for another day.

So, let’s go ahead and make the command a little more precise. We’ll pipe the output through grep and get rid of the cruft we don’t actually need. In that same terminal, go ahead and enter:

NOTE: The command contains a capitalized letter H because Linux is often case-sensitive and is certainly case-sensitive in this case. If you don’t believe me, try it with a lowercase h!

But wait, there’s more!

Not only is there homepage information in there, there’s sometimes some useful nuggets of information in there. If you have LibreOffice installed, go ahead and check (skip the pipe and grepping) to see what the output is. Inside, it has a ton of additional information, including listing ways that you can extend LibreOffice by installing more software.

Closure:

And there you have it. You can now easily find the application’s homepage for the applications you have installed or want to install. Should you need to contact the author, check for information, or just see if they did anything else, you now know how to do that. It’s a little hidden nugget that most folks don’t seem to know. Well, now they do…

Yay! You made it all the way to the bottom. You deserve a treat. Seeing as you’ve already got the terminal open, and seeing as we’re dealing with apt-cache, let’s just get some pretty neat stats with:

A careful reader would remember that from a previous article, but no matter. Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

‘sudo apt remove’ vs ‘sudo apt purge’

Today’s article is going to cover ‘sudo apt remove’ vs ‘sudo apt purge’ and will be in a different format than some articles. It’s a brief article meant to answer a specific question. It’s nothing more, and nothing less.

The question would be, “What’s the difference between sudo apt remove and sudo apt purge?” It’s a perfectly fine question, thanks. This article will answer it.

It does open up an idea. If you have any questions, you can always just “Ask KGIII” a question. For example, the question prompting this article might be, “What’s the difference between sudo apt autoremove vs sudo apt purge?” It’s a legitimate question, and a good example, of the kinds of questions I’d welcome.

So, for fun, we can pretend someone asked this question! 

If you don’t ask me any questions, I may just have to pretend you did and write my questions and answers all by myself! However, this is the kind of question I’d be looking for. Leave a comment with a question, thanks!

If you lie about your email address to ask a question, that’s fine – just don’t also opt to subscribe to responses. It results in some ‘spammy’ domain behavior and I’d like to avoid that. Use  @example.com, if you want. It should work but there is no example.com of note so bouncing emails won’t be a problem. On the other hand, others can attest to the fact that I’ve sent zero spam messages.

‘sudo apt remove’ vs ‘sudo apt purge’:

In this case, both of these commands are used to remove software from your system. These commands are valid in distros like Debian or Ubuntu, systems that use APT as the package management system. If you want to remove software, the commands would look like one of the following:

With both of these commands, you’ll remove the software. It will not only remove the software, it’ll mark the software as uninstalled in your database of installed applications. This means you can opt to install the software again.

But, there is a difference. When you use, you just remove the software itself. When you use sudo apt purge <package_name>, it not only removes the package, it also removes the configuration files.

In theory, you can do ‘apt remove’ and then re-install the application at a later date while keeping the pre-existing, pre-removal configuration. The regular ‘apt remove’ doesn’t touch configuration files, it only removes those things that were listed as files in the packages manifest and created during the installation process.

So, when you run ‘apt remove’ you’re removing it from your system. When you run ‘apt purge’ you’re making sure (ideally) no traces of it remain. I say “ideally” because it’s not as cut and dry as one might think. Package management isn’t all that smart and things like MySQL will leave behind a user, and other package installs will do similar. 

As a bonus, if you’ve seriously messed up an application’s configuration then you can purge it and have a clean slate, with (ideally) no previous configuration files left over. Of course, if you just use ‘apt remove’ then your configuration files may still exist. If you want to maybe install the application again, and you were happy with the way it was configured, you should use ‘apt remove’. Otherwise, use ‘apt purge’.

If you, like me, are curious as to how the purge command works (it’s not all that intelligent) then click here to learn how the purge command works. The answer is well-written and, more importantly, is correct (inasmuch as I understand). It’s well worth reading, for a better understanding. As I mentioned elsewhere, the package manager isn’t all that intelligent – but it is what it is and it’s much easier than doing it all yourself!

Closure:

And there you have it. You have another article! This one is kinda like a pretend person asked a question and I answered the question in the form of an article. I’d like to do that sort of thing every couple of weeks, but it’d require someone to ask me questions.

I don’t mind if they’re questions I have to research. I think it’d be an interesting new aspect to the site. We can call it ‘Reader Questions’ and maybe give out a prize of some type if your question is chosen. I mean, you shouldn’t need a prize but it might motivate a few of you. Leave a ‘Reader Question’ as a comment on this post and we’ll see how it goes! If it looks like it might work, I’ll add it as a new category.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

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