KeePass: show password by default

version: KeePass 2.36

By default, KeePass masks the password with **** (asterisks). To disable it,
1. go to View > Configure Columns...
2. select the Password column
3. un-check Hide data using asterisks

Ref:
KeePass Password Safe 2.12: Unhiding Passwords? - Super User

KeePass: disable auto-generated password for new entries

version: KeePass 2.36

When adding a new entry in KeePass, it auto-generates a password for you by default. This may not always be desirable.

To turn off auto password generation:
1. go to Tools > Generate Password...
2. set length of generated password to 0
3. click the save icon
4. in the Save as Profile prompt, select (Automatically generated passwords for new entries)

Ref:
KeePass / Discussion / Help:How to disable Password Generator

AWS EC2: Setup Python 3 + Flask + Gunicorn + Supervisor + Nginx on an Amazon Linux AMI instance

Connect to your Linux instance

AWS user guide

Install Python 3.x

First thing first, update yum
sudo yum update

You can check which Python 3.x package is available:
sudo yum list | grep python3

Install Python 3.5 and pip
sudo yum install python35
sudo yum install python35-pip

Once installed, you can access it via python3 or python35, e.g.
python3 --version

(Optional) create a symbolic link to pip-3.5 as pip3
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/pip-3.5 /usr/bin/pip3

Setup virtual environment

Create a directory for our project
mkdir my_project
cd my_project

Try to create a virtual environment named env, you would get the following error:
pyvenv3 env
Error: Command '['/home/ec2-user/my_project/env/bin/python3.5', '-Im', 'ensurepip', '--upgrade', '--default-pip']' returned non-zero exit status 1

There's some issues with ensurepip. So we are going to setup the environment without pip, and then install it manually
pyvenv3 --without-pip env
source env/bin/activate
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python
deactivate
source env/bin/activate

Setup Flask and Gunicorn

Install flask and gunicorn
pip3 install flask gunicorn

Let's create a simple flask app. Create a file named hello.py with the following content.

from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host="0.0.0.0")

Start the flask server
python3 hello.py

Open another ssh terminal and ping the server. It should return Hello World!
curl http://127.0.0.1:5000

If you want to check this via your browser, you would need to update the security group through AWS Console and open port 5000 to your IP.

Now close the flask server and launch it through gunicorn instead.
gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 hello:app

In the command above, hello is name of the script, while app is the name of the flask app within hello.py.

Do another sanity check (notice the port has changed to 8000)
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000

Setup Supervisor

Install Supervisor
sudo easy_install supervisor

As a sanity check, print a sample Supervisor configuration
echo_supervisord_conf

Save the sample to /etc/
sudo echo_supervisord_conf > /etc/supervisord.conf

We need to make 2 changes to the config
1. Make /tmp/supervisor.sock writable for all users by updating chmod under unix_http_server to avoid this error
[unix_http_server]
chmod=0766

2. Add the following block for our flask app
[program:hello]
command = /home/ec2-user/my_project/env/bin/gunicorn hello:app
directory = /home/ec2-user/my_project/
user = ec2-user

Refresh configuration
supervisorctl reread
supervisorctl update
supervisorctl start hello

You can now use supervisor to control gunicorn
supervisorctl start hello
supervisorctl status hello
supervisorctl stop hello

Do another sanity check
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000

Now make supervisor to run on startup automatically

Create a a new config file
sudo nano /etc/init.d/supervisord

Copy-n-paste the content from here

We need to make 2 changes to the config
1. Update prefix path at line 27 so it can locate supervisor properly
PREFIX=/usr/local

2. Update line 41 from -n to -S (to set a soft limit) in order to avoid this error
ulimit -S 96000

Make it runnable
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/supervisord

Make supervisor starts automatically
chkconfig --add supervisord
chkconfig supervisord on
chkconfig --list supervisord

Now if you reboot the instance, supervisord should start automatically. You can check its status.
service supervisord status

Setup nginx

Install nginx
sudo yum install nginx

Create a server config
sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/hello.conf

Copy-n-paste the following content
server_names_hash_bucket_size   128;

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    #server_name _;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/hello.log;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
  }

Edit the main conf
sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

(Optional) comment out the first 2 lines of the server block to route all traffic to our hello.conf. Otherwise, you would need to set the proper server_name in hello.conf
server {
#listen 80 default_server;
#listen [::]:80 default_server;

Check for errors
sudo nginx -t

Make nginx to run on startup automatically
chkconfig nginx on
chkconfig --list nginx

Check status of nginx
service nginx status

Start nginx
sudo service nginx start
sudo service nginx reload

Once you update your security group setting on AWS Console to open up port 80, you should be able to see the Hello World! message when you browse to your EC2 instance public domain name.

For debugging
sudo tail -n 7 /var/log/messages
sudo tail -n 7 /var/log/nginx/access.log
sudo tail -n 7 /var/log/nginx/error.log
sudo tail -n 7 /var/log/nginx/hello.log
ps -u ec2-user


Ref:

1. python 3.x - How do I install Python3 on an AWS EC2 instance? - Stack Overflow
2. 7 Linux chkconfig Command Examples – Add, Remove, View, Change Services 
3. 14.04 - pyvenv-3.4 error: returned non-zero exit status 1 - Ask Ubuntu
4. imperialwicket - AWS: Install Nginx and PHP-FPM on Amazon Linux 
5. Deploying Gunicorn — Gunicorn 19.7.1 documentation  
6. 10.04 - Upstart script doesn't start - Ask Ubuntu
7. Deploying Python flask application using nginx/gunicorn on Amazon Linux EC2 instance - Stack Overflow
8. How To Serve Flask Applications with Gunicorn and Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04 | DigitalOcean 
9. Running Supervisor — Supervisor 3.3.3 documentation
10. Managing Gunicorn Processes With Supervisor – Onur Güzel 
11. How to Run Flask Applications with Nginx Using Gunicorn – Onur Güzel
12. ulimit - How do I increase the open files limit for a non-root user? - Ask Ubuntu  
13. python - How to automatically start supervisord on Linux (Ubuntu) - Server Fault
14. unix:///var/run/supervisor.sock no such file · Issue #480 · Supervisor/supervisor  
15. nginx - uwsgi upstart on amazon linux - Stack Overflow
16. How to see process created by specific user in Unix/linux - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange  
17. Server names 
18. How nginx processes a request
19. Serving Static Content | NGINX
20. HTTPS + NGINX with self signed SSL certificate / Articles / dracoblue.net 

Android: Install Google Play Store on Amazon Fire tablet

Assuming you know how to sideload/install an apk. To get Google Play Store to work, you need to install 4 apps in the following order. No root access is required. The key is to grab the right version for your device.

1. com.google.android.gsf.login - Google Account Manager
   
2. com.google.android.gsf - Google Services Framework
   
3. com.google.android.gms - Google Play Services
   
4. com.android.vending - Google Play Store

For Amazon Fire HD 8 2017 [7th Gen], Fire OS 5.4.0.1, Build 50.5.7.9_user_579278720

1. Google Account Manager, 5.1-1743759
   
2. Google Services Framework, 5.1-1743759
   
3. Google Play Services, 11.3.02 (240-161239932)
   
4. Google Play Store, 8.1.25.S-all [0] [PR] 163906778

For Amazon Fire HD 8 2016 [6th Gen], Fire OS 5.3.3.0, Build 49.5.7.0_user_570208520

1. Google Account Manager, 5.1-1743759
   
2. Google Services Framework, 5.1-1743759
   
3. Google Play Services, 9.8.77 (230-135396225)
   
4. Google Play Store, 7.8.16.P-all [0] [PR] 155590935

For Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 2014 [4th Gen], Fire OS 5.3.3.0, Build 22.5.7.0_user_570208620

1. Google Account Manager, 4.4.4-1227136
   
2. Google Services Framework, 4.4.4-1227136
   
3. Google Play Services, 11.0.55 (030-156917137)
   
4. Google Play Store, 7.8.74.P-all [0] [FP] 157113528

Android: v2 signing in Android 7.0

In Android 7.0, APKs can be verified according to the APK Signature Scheme v2 (v2 scheme) or JAR signing (v1 scheme). Older platforms ignore v2 signatures and only verify v1 signatures.

 

You can use apksigner to check if an app is signed with v2 scheme or not.
apksigner -verify -v <path_to_apk>

Ref:
APK Signature Scheme v2  |  Android Open Source Project
apksigner | Android Studio

Paperless: Opt-out from GEICO Now magazine

https://www.geico.com/contact-us/email/

Under subject "Opt out of GEICO marketing communications":

If you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from GEICO, or wish to stop receiving the GEICO Now magazine in the mail, please complete our opt out forms.

Clash Royale: Can’t Sign In with Google Play

I left Clash Royale for some time. Today, I re-installed it to try out something, but then it failed to recognize my Google Play account. After going through the tutorial, I went into settings and tried to link my Google Play account. Tapping on Google Play sign-in doesn't do anything. I didn't get any error message or anything.

Solution:
1. open Google's Play Games app
2. go to Settings
3. check Sign in to games automatically
4. launch Clash Royale, it should detect and load your game profile now
5. once you've logged in, you can go back and revert the auto sign-in setting if you want

Ref:
How to fix Can't Sign In with Google Play In Clash Royale