This post and the technique described here are thanks to claude.ai .

Prerequisites

sudo apt install open-vm-tools

Steps

1. Create the unit file

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/mnt-hgfs.mount << 'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=VMware Shared Folders
DefaultDependencies=no
Requires=open-vm-tools.service
After=open-vm-tools.service

[Mount]
What=.host:/
Where=/mnt/hgfs
Type=fuse.vmhgfs-fuse
Options=defaults,allow_other,auto_unmount,entry_timeout=0,attr_timeout=0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

2. Enable and start it

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mnt-hgfs.mount

3. Verify

systemctl status mnt-hgfs.mount
ls /mnt/hgfs/

Notes

• DefaultDependencies=no is required. Without it, systemd creates an ordering cycle: .mount units are automatically added to local-fs.target, but open-vm-tools starts after local-fs.target, so the mount can never satisfy its own dependency. DefaultDependencies=no removes the unit from local-fs.target ordering, breaking the cycle.
• An /etc/fstab entry is not a viable alternative — fstab-generated units have DefaultDependencies=yes and there is no fstab option to override it.
• The mount point /mnt/hgfs does not need to be created manually; the fuse driver creates it on first mount.
• Shared folders appear as subdirectories under /mnt/hgfs/ (e.g. /mnt/hgfs/shared).

Mafl LXC

Installation went smoothly. Access was in browser via port 3000. This results in a page that looks like this:

As far as I can tell, each of these icons is a link that by default is not enabled. I looked briefly at the documentation to find out what it takes to get them working but got impatient and moved on.

Heimdall Dashboard LXC

Again, install went smoothly. Access through port 7990, Used the builtin gui to add a couple of “apps” resulting in this:

These are clickable and I configured them to link to the plex and pi-hole web interfaces.

I’m starting to get the impression that a “dashboard” is just a fancy collection of bookmarks.

Homepage LXC

Again, install went without a hitch. Access using browser at port# 3000. Configure using scripts at /opt/homepage/config . I added plex and LMS to get a setup like this:

Thoughts

These seem pretty easy to install and configure but I don’t think they buy you all that much. I’ll probably stick with plain old bookmarks.

$ choco install openssh
Chocolatey v2.2.2
3 validations performed. 2 success(es), 1 warning(s), and 0 error(s).

Validation Warnings:
 - System Cache directory is not locked down to administrators.
   Remove the directory 'C:\ProgramData\ChocolateyHttpCache' to have
   Chocolatey CLI create it with the proper permissions.

Installing the following packages:
openssh
By installing, you accept licenses for the packages.
Progress: Downloading openssh 8.0.0.1... 100%

openssh v8.0.0.1 [Approved]
openssh package files install completed. Performing other installation steps.
The package openssh wants to run 'chocolateyinstall.ps1'.
Note: If you don't run this script, the installation will fail.
Note: To confirm automatically next time, use '-y' or consider:
choco feature enable -n allowGlobalConfirmation
Do you want to run the script?([Y]es/[A]ll - yes to all/[N]o/[P]rint): Y

Running on: Windows 10 Pro, (Professional)
Windows Version: 10.0.19045

************************************************************************************
************************************************************************************
This package is a Universal Installer and can ALSO install Win32-OpenSSH on
Nano, Server Core, Docker Containers and more WITHOUT using Chocolatey.

.... (more output)

Now, per OpenSSH instructions , open port 22 , install openssh as a service, and start the service

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c
$ cd 'c:/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64'

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$ netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=sshd dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=22
Ok.


dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$ powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-sshd.ps1
[SC] SetServiceObjectSecurity SUCCESS
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig2 SUCCESS
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig2 SUCCESS
sshd and ssh-agent services successfully installed

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$ net start sshd
The OpenSSH SSH Server service is starting.
The OpenSSH SSH Server service was started successfully.


dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$

That seems to be almost enough but when I try to log in remotely, ssh rejects my password:

dave@vbox:/tmp$ ssh -l dc202 192.168.8.146
dc202@192.168.8.146's password:
Permission denied, please try again.
dc202@192.168.8.146's password:

At this point I searched online a little for a solution but eventually gave up (for now).

I restored the machine to its previous state. Thanks to this superuser.com answer from “Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style” for telling how to undo the firewall changes.

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ net stop sshd

The OpenSSH SSH Server service was stopped successfully.


dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ netsh advfirewall firewall show rule status=enabled name=all | grep sshd
Rule Name:                            sshd

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="sshd"

Deleted 1 rule(s).
Ok.


dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ cd 'c:/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64'/

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$ powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File uninstall-sshd.ps1
sshd successfully uninstalled
ssh-agent successfully uninstalled

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files/OpenSSH-Win64
$ cd ..

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ choco uninstall openssh
Chocolatey v2.2.2
3 validations performed. 2 success(es), 1 warning(s), and 0 error(s).

dc202@DESKTOP-MAR8MAD /cygdrive/c/Program Files
$ rm -rf OpenSSH-Win64/

If anyone reads this and happens to know what the missing link is to get logins working, please let me know.

• For reddit.com/r/rust RSS feed, use : www.reddit.com/r/rust/new/.rss

• For stack overflow questions tagged rust use: https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/rust?sort=newest

• For google alerts, create the alert via alerts.google.com, edit the alert to “Deliver to” RSS feed, then follow the RSS icon for the new alert.

• For mastodon, use, for example, https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez.rss

• For twitter, use a nitter instance. For example: https://nitter.privacydev.net/nytimes/rss . Twitter seems to be a moving target.

  • As of 8/21/2023, the twitter/nitter technique here worked but it may not last.
  • As of 09/01/2023 it’s broken.
  • If anyone reading this knows a way to view a twitter feed as rss, please let me know.

Dropbox:

How to get dropbox image url.

Flickr:

How to get flickr image url.

github:

I got the image link by :

• Uploading the image to a github repository.
• Clicking on the image in the repository
• Right clicking on the download link and selecting “Copy link address”

imgur.com:

Just click on the uploaded image in imgur.com and use the “Direct Link”

imgbb.com:

use the “Direct links” option in the “Embed codes” menu for the uploated image in imgbb.com

Below is the markup for this page, included to show how to embed the images.

Later on, working in Ubuntu now, I searched the web and found these instructions that say to

• change /etc/default/grub to specify a default
• run update-grub.

I did this but nothing changed.

The reason that nothing changed is that Mint had taken ownership of the boot process. After booting into Mint and making the same changes, the default boot option was updated as expected.

Looking back, this should have been obvious but it cost me a few minutes.

At some point, I expect that an Ubuntu update will again rewrite the grub configuration and I’ll have to go through the process again on the Ubuntu side.

• Command line option: “–skip-repeats” to prevent saving results identical to previous run.
• Command line option: “–path-head” for specification of top level directory for results. Defaults to command name.
• Command line option: “–path-resolution” for specification of resolution of directory creation for output files. Defaults to “year”
• Pushes results to remote git repository.
• Partitions the output files by year directory. The github web interface complains about more than 1000 files in a directory.
• Implemented in two files: loggedcron.pl and gitsweep.pl . The first, loggedcron.pl runs a command and saves the output in ~/cron_logs . The second, gitsweep.pl, pushes the contents of ~/cron_logs into a remote git repo.

So, for example, if you want a record of how much free space you have every night at 1:02, enter the following in your crontab (with appropriate changes of course):

02 01 * * * /home/dave/bin/loggedcron.pl df -k
*  *  * * * /home/dave/bin/gitsweep.pl

In all its glory:

So, for example, if you want a record of how much free space you have every night at 1:02, enter the following in your crontab (with appropriate changes of course):

02 01 * * * /home/dave/bin/loggedcron.bash df -k

Here’s a way to configure Gnome to display some useful information on the Ubuntu Gnome desktop. I use a variety of virtual machines and it’s nice to be able to easily tell which machine I’m dealing with at any one time as well as having the ip address for ssh access to that machine. I use this extension to display the machine name and ip addresses. I also show some other information but that’s easy to configure so if you use this extension, you can decide.

The code resides on github . It consists of less than 50 lines of javascript and a few lines of json. Most of the code came from the answer to this stackoverflow question . I made a couple minor modifications.

Usage instructions are in the README for the project. They amount to copying the project to a path in your local machine and specifying a program for the extension to run. I use the following shell script:

This results in a desktop that looks like this: