How to get Airplay to work on a ddwrt router

I just brought an Airplay device (an Audio Pro Allroom Air One) because I wanted to stream music from my iPhone and Synology NAS.

I followed the installation instructions and connected the Airplay device to the network. The device appeared as an option when playing music on the phone. However, the streaming started and after about 5 seconds the network crashed and music stopped playing.

I logged into the router and checked the signal strength:

Airplay device on dd-wrt network
Airplay device on dd-wrt network

I knew it was a network crash because everything got kicked off. My Ubuntu laptop, the Airplay device and the phone all lost network connection.

The Solution

Step 1 – Disable the SPI Firewall.
On your router, go to Security -> Firewall. Disable the SPI Firewall, save changes and then apply them.

Disable the spi firewall on dd-wrt router to get airplay to work on network.
Disable the spi firewall on dd-wrt router to get airplay to work on network.

Step 2 – Change Network Security from WPA (TKIP) to WPA (AES)
Some of posts on Apples website suggest that changing from TKIP to AES will reduce the network crashes and this seems to be the case for me. To change this setting go to Wireless -> Security and select AES. Then save and apply changes. I found that I had to reconnect the AudioPro device to the network after making this change.

change_wireless_security_protocol_to_aes

Step 3 – Enable JIFFS2
I have no idea why enabling jiffs2 would make a difference but it seems to. On the router, go to Administration -> Management and stroll near the bottom to enable jiffs.

how_to_enable_jiffs2_on_ddwrt

Selection_010

Does this work for you?
If this works for you or if you find another way to stop Airplay freezing / killing your network then please let me know by leaving a comment.

How to test if Bacula-fd is running

I just installed a new Bacula client but for some reason the server could not connect to it. I found this out by trying to get the status of the client on the server with the following command:

sudo bconsole
status client=my.client-rd

Here is the things that I checked on the server.

Step 1 – Check that the service bacula-fd is started:

sudo service bacula-fd status

Step 2 – Check the bacula-fd process is bound to the port 9102

sudo netstat -an|grep 9102

Step 3 – Check that you can telnet into the client port from the server.

telnet ip.ad.dr.ess 9102

I found the the client configuration did have the correct client ipaddress but each of these checks enabled me to narrow down the problem.

The Teamviewer daemon is not running – please start the daemon ubuntu

I have just started using Teamviewer on Ubuntu 13.10 to help a few people setup some software on their computers. When I try and launch it pops up a dialogue saying:

The TeamViewer daemon is not running!

Please start the daemon (needs root permissions) before running TeamViewer

teamviewer –daemon start
….

Trying “sudo teamviewer –daemon start” doesn’t actually do anything – so the solution is to:

sudo teamviewer --daemon enable

php ini_set(“memory_limit”) isn’t working at all

If you are trying to set your php memory limit at the top of a php script using the php int_set() and it doesn’t appear to have any affect then there is a chance that you have the PHP Suhosin security extension installed. Suhosin stops a script from being able to increase the memory limit.

If you have the Suhosin extension installed then simply edit /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini and change:

;suhosin.memory_limit = 0

To:

suhosin.memory_limit = 1G

Or however much memory you would like to allow for the script. Then restart nginx / or apache.

sudo service apache2 restart

Note – if you use int_set() and attempt to set a higher memory limit than allowed in the suhosin settings then it will no have any affect at all.

How to make Teamviewer work on Ubuntu 13.10 – install lib32asound2?

I had a problem installing Teamviewer on Ubuntu 13.10. This is an awesome tool for helping to remote desktop into other Linux or Windows machines. I downloaded the .deb file but when installing it complained:

unresolvable dependency: lib32asound2

I did some research and some various solutions including installing the package which has been removed from Ubuntu:

The lib32asound2 package is deleted from saucy: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/saucy/amd64/lib32asound2
You can download lib32asound2 from: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/saucy/amd64/lib32asound2/1.0.25-4ubuntu4
Direct link for a .deb download for lib32asound2: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/139194357/lib32asound2_1.0.25-4ubuntu4_amd64.deb

So, I downloaded the .deb for this package but got even more dependency errors including:

dpkg: error processing lib32asound2_1.0.25-4ubuntu4_amd64.deb (–install):
cannot access archive: No such file or directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
lib32asound2_1.0.25-4ubuntu4_amd64.deb

The Solution:
The solution for me was to install a different Teamviewer installer:

http://download.teamviewer.com/download/teamviewer_linux.deb

God knows why this teamviewer.deb worked for me but it did.

How to reset your Apple password

I forgot the password to my Macbook Pro and it turns out that there aren’t very many short guides on this. However, it turns out that it is very easy to reset the password on a Macbook.

Step 1 – Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Step 2 – When the menu bar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu. Enter reset password at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow instructions in the dialog window that will appear.

How to repair / restore Grub on Ubuntu using Live CD

I just upgraded Ubuntu and selected the wrong location to install Grub onto. Basically, I installed Grub on /dev/sda1 and not /dev/sda and so I need to repair and installing grub.

I got out an Ubuntu installer cd which is essential a live cd and booted in it up. Then mounted the sda1 partition:

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Grub then needs to have access to /dev so:

sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

To install Grub on sda then:

grub-install /dev/sda --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

Note: we are using the –root-directory option rather than changing the root directory using the chroot command which sometimes doesn’t work on a live CD.

For a tutorial with more words these two pages might helped you learn more: