update-dnsomatic and dig

I have been using update-dnsomatic on my home server for some years now and it has worked well. Yesterday, I noticed that an update had 'worked' but the DNS entry had not propagated for some reason or other.

As a result of this, I have written a quick script that compares my public IP with a dig query which sends me a DM via twitter to let me know when they are different.

Files below: digip, cihip (Can I Haz IP), dmpr4wn

You need dnsutils (for dig) and a working copy of TTYtter for this to work.

Simply run digip every half hour or so and any discrepancy will be notified via twitter direct message.

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# digip

DIG=$(dig prawn.mooo.com | grep ^prawn.mooo.com | awk '{ print $5 }')

CIH=$(cihip)

if [ "$CIH" == "" ]
then
        echo "Public IP address is blank. Exiting."
        exit 1
fi

if [ "$DIG" == "" ]
then
        echo "DNS IP address is blank. Exiting."
        exit 2
fi

if [ "$DIG" != "$CIH" ]

then

       echo "Dig IP $DIG does not match public IP $CIH"

dmpr4wn "Dig IP $DIG does not match public IP $CIH"

else

echo "Dig IP $DIG matches public IP $CIH ok"

fi

###########################


#!/bin/sh
#cihip Can I haz IP
wget -qO - http://myip.dnsomatic.com/
echo

##########################

#!/bin/sh

#dmpr4wn

TWEET="/dm pr4wn"

ttytter -status="$TWEET $1" -hold

Tweeting uptime

I thought I'd write a quick bash script to tweet uptimes for my machines using TTYtter.

It's a simple enough script which I intend to run once a week (so as not to pollute followers timelines).

So, here it is:

#!/bin/sh
#twuptime.sh
TWEET="Uptime for $(hostname) is $(date '+%d/%m/%Y') $(uptime)" 
ttytter -status="$TWEET"

ttytter daemon with systemd

Now that Arch Linux has made a permanent move to systemd, I thought I should write up a guide on how to start a ttytter daemon to allow you to log your timeline into a MySQL database using the pwntter extension. Of course, these instructions will work on any such system that utilises systemd.

Service configuration file

Create a file /etc/conf.d/ttytterd and put what ever arguments this instance of TTYtter needs to run as a daemon

# Settings for the TTYtter daemon.
TTYTTERDARGS="-keyf=/root/.ttytterkey -rc=/root/.pwntterrc -exts=/usr/local/bin/pwntter.pl -daemon -hold -backload=500"

Service file

 

Create a file /usr/lib/systemd/system/ttytterd.service

[Unit] 
Description=A TTYtter daemon
Requires=mysqld.service
After=mysqld.service

[Service] 
Type=oneshot 
RemainAfterExit=yes 
# Change the arguments in the file below to suit
EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/ttytterd
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ttytter $TTYTTERDARGS 

[Install] 
WantedBy=multi-user.target 

Finally 

 

Enable and start the service.

systemctl enable ttytterd.service
systemctl start ttytterd.service



Further reading

ttytter documentation

pwntter documentation

Arch Linux systemd documentation

My stats page - warning, it's my home server and is as reliable as I am.

Not much to see, but here it is running automagically

cihip bash script

Just a quickie, I wrote a bash version of my Can I Haz IP script which does little more than display your public IP address by returning content from http://myip.dnsomatic.com. I use it more often than I imagined, so I thought I'd put a copy up here.

#!/bin/sh
#cihip Can I Haz IP?
IP=$(curl -sS http://myip.dnsomatic.com/)
echo $IP

Your last tweets as mail .sig

Just a quick note. I was enjoying a bit of banter with some TTYtter users (Spanish division) the other day, when the subject of using cowsay with tweets came up. This led on to suggestions of updating one's mail sig with one's latest tweet.

So, here's my take on it using my pwntter database. It does little more that look for my last tweet that is not a reply (starting with @) or an RT (starting with RT) and writing a to a .sig file.

#!/bin/sh

SIGDIR=$HOME/.sig
SIGFILE=$SIGDIR/tweet.sig

if [ ! -e $SIGDIR ]; then

  mkdir -p $SIGDIR

fi

TWEET=`mysql -u pwntter -ppwntter -B -h localhost pwntter << EOF
  SELECT DATE_FORMAT(created_at, '%d-%m-%Y at %H:%i') AS cdate, text
  FROM tweets
  WHERE screen_name = 'pr4wn' AND text NOT RLIKE '^@|^RT\b'
  ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
EOF`

echo -e "\nLast tweet by me [@pr4wn] on ${TWEET:11:19}\n" | tee $SIGFILE
cowsay -w -W 50 ${TWEET:31} | tee -a $SIGFILE


Sample output


Last tweet by me [@pr4wn] on 26-04-2012 at 07:47

 __________________________________________________
/ BLOG: TTYtter related again. Writing your latest \
| pearls of wisdom on twitter to a .sig file.      |
\ http://t.co/VuUvQ1SO                             /
 --------------------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (OO)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Simply run in crontab as frequently as you think sensible.

Suppressing DMs you have already read

I don't use direct messages often, so every time I fire up TTYtter, the same DMs appear in my timeline when it performs its "-- checking for most recent direct messages:" function.

It's not a huge issue, but I had a few minutes spare to write an extension to suppress them.

Download the extension here and read the TTYtter documentation on how to run extensions.

Note, the first time you use the extension, it will display the most recent DMs as it will not have stored the ids of them! 

$store->{last_dm_id} = 0; 
$store->{dmbookmark} = "$ENV{'HOME'}/.ttytter.dmbookmark";

if( open( DM, $store->{dmbookmark} ) ) {
 $store->{last_dm_id} = scalar( );
 close( DM ); 
}

$dmhandle = sub {

  my $ref = shift;

  if ( $ref->{id} > $store->{last_dm_id} ) {

    $store->{last_dm_id} = $ref->{id};
    &defaultdmhandle( $ref );

 }

};

$dmconclude = sub {

 if(open(DM, ">".$store->{dmbookmark})) {

   print DM $store->{last_dm_id};
   close( DM ); } 

  else { 
    print $stdout "Failed to write: $!\n"; 

  } 

  &defaultdmconclude; 

};

Hourly timestamp in your twitter stream

This is such a silly project that I'm only going to post the code here as a curio. I have uploaded the code here in order to keep all it in one place ;-).

I liked the idea of an hourly time code in my twitter stream so started following @big_ben_clock which helpfully BONGs on the hour. This is OK if you are in the same time zone as Big Ben and can quickly enumerate the BONGS at, say, 9 O'Clock but useless otherwise.

I thought it would be worth a couple of minutes of my time to convert the tweet text to a localtime time of the tweets generated by @big_ben_clock making the 'service' more universal and get rid of the BONGS - which wear thin after a while.

UPDATE
@RealIvanSanchez has pointed out that there's an account @coucou_suisse that performs a similar service. So, take your pick.

Here's the code for the TTYtter extension: (needs Date::Manip)

#bigben2localtime
use Date::Manip;

# Simply follow @big_ben_clock or @coucou_suisse and this will replace the tweet with a
# localtime conversion of the tweet timestamp.
# @pr4wn

sub bb_time_convert {
  my $date = shift;
  my $s;

  $s = substr( $date, 8, 5 ); # hh:mm
  return( $s );

}

$handle = sub {


my $ref = shift;

my $ESC = pack("C", 27);
my $BOLDON = ($ansi) ? "${ESC}[1;31m" : '';
my $BOLDOFF = ($ansi) ? "${ESC}[0m" : '';

if ($ref->{user}->{screen_name} eq 'big_ben_clock' || $ref->{user}->{screen_name} eq 'coucou_suisse' ) {
   
  my $created_at = ParseDate($ref->{'created_at'});
  $ref->{text} = $BOLDON . bb_time_convert($created_at) . $BOLDOFF;

}

&defaulthandle ( $ref );

}

Here's both accounts showing the same localtime despite being in different time zones.