Has been all change. I havenât got the crib out of the box and couldnât find the Christmas lights. Itâs not really a problem as we are home and I have tonnes to do.
Been busy with the pruning some olives today and Christmas Eve. I have real cypress Christmas trees but saw no point in expending time and energy to decorate one.
Pruning with the help of the Wesco 8303
This is my nominated Christmas tree instead. Holmoak (Azeinheiro). It was about my height in 2014 and is now over five metres tall with a decent spread.
nominated Christmas tree - Holmoak/Azienheiro
I bought about 90 kgs of holmloak for firewood. 30 cents a kilogram. Burns slowly giving off a consistent amount of heat. I aim to get the rest of the firewood I need from around my property. I have enough trees. I am a bit late as the Stihl 370 chainsaw is out of action. I got the Wesco 8303 to help out. And it really does.
So we are home for Christmas. No traditional Goan Christmas sweets :). I did try to make some Perad (guava cheese) but it set too soft. I have to eat it with a spoon. Still very good. I hope to get it right next year. Made some very good guava jam.
So I got a traditional Portuguese Christmas cake (Bolo de Natal) and some Port :). The cake is covered in a variety of glazed fruit and has nut and raisins in it. Very good.
I finally ran out of fresh fruit this week. Ate the last of my persimmons. I now have stewed apples â nice with some yogurt. The stewed apples are easy to do and definitely worth the effort. My tangerine tree has failed to produced this year. So looks like there will be no fresh fruit for a few months.
last of the persimmons /diospiros) and now stewed apples ans yogurt
Been digging out my will olives slowly. The root ball is about a foot deep in the ones I am tackling. Then you have to severe the usually single, tap root. Itâs what keeps the olive tree alive during arid conditions.
Wild olive root stump
Thanks for reading. Thatâs all for now. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
Websites are increasing under brute force hacking attempts and distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) .
As a WordPress website administrator you can secure your site with a little bit of code if you feel confident enough. There are security plugins for WordPress should you wish to go down that route. I havenât tried any of them and so cannot make a recommendation. The advantages of not using unnecessary plugins is increased code processing efficiency and hence better performance of a website. In addition there is the benefit from the security perspective of avoiding the possibility of getting stuck with outdated and unsupported plugins.
The three setups described below that I recommend are limiting the number of login attempts , denying xmlrpc requests and hiding your wp-admin.php page.
Ideally, you should not edit the functions.php file of the theme you are using. This is because changes will be lost when the theme is updated by the themeâs developers. Instead you should create a child theme and edit the functions.php of this.
To do this you can put the following code in your WordPress themeâs functions.php file.
// code to limit no. of login attempts - lock for 30 mins function check_attempted_login( $user, $username, $password ) { if ( get_transient( 'attempted_login' ) ) { $datas = get_transient( 'attempted_login' ); if ( $datas['tried'] >= 3 ) { $until = get_option( 'transient_timeout' . 'attempted_login' ); $time = time_to_go( $until ); return new WP_Error( 'too_many_tried', sprintf( __( 'ERROR: You have reached authentication limit, you will be able to try again in %1$s.' ) , $time ) ); } } return $user; } add_filter( 'authenticate', 'check_attempted_login', 30, 3 ); function login_failed( $username ) { if ( get_transient( 'attempted_login' ) ) { $datas = get_transient( 'attempted_login' ); $datas['tried']++; if ( $datas['tried'] <= 3 ) set_transient( 'attempted_login', $datas , 1800 ); } else { $datas = array( 'tried' => 1 ); set_transient( 'attempted_login', $datas , 1800 ); } } add_action( 'wp_login_failed', 'login_failed', 10, 1 ); function time_to_go($timestamp) { // converting the mysql timestamp to php time $periods = array( "second", "minute", "hour", "day", "week", "month", "year" ); $lengths = array( "60", "60", "24", "7", "4.35", "12" ); $current_timestamp = time(); $difference = abs($current_timestamp - $timestamp); for ($i = 0; $difference >= $lengths[$i] && $i < count($lengths) - 1; $i ++) { $difference /= $lengths[$i]; } $difference = round($difference); if (isset($difference)) { if ($difference != 1) $periods[$i] .= "s"; $output = "$difference $periods[$i]"; return $output; } } // end code to limit no. of login attempts - lock for 30 mins
You can change the lock out time by changing the third argument in the set_transient function which is currently set to 1800 seconds (30 mins.) This code will stop bots making brute force dictionary attacks on your username and password.
Denying xmlrpc Requests.
XMLrpc is a legacy protocol that used to be used for WordPress ping backs. It relies on transmission of the username and password. So an attacker can use bots to try and gain access to your website by guessing at passwords and usernames.
Another from of attack that uses XMLrpc is DDOS where thousands and even hundreds of thousands of XMLrpc requests are made to a website overwhelming it.
Please refer to the excellent document by SiteGround in the Credits to understand more about the XMLrpc and the vulnerability it poses to WordPress websites.
To disable XMLrpc insert the following code in the functions.php file of your theme.
Important! Make sure you use the correct type of single quotes.
add_filter( 'xmlrpc_enabled', '__return_false' ); will work okay while add_filter( âxmlrpc_enabledâ, â__return_falseâ ); will generate Warning: Use of undefined constant âxmlrpc_enabledâ - assumed 'âxmlrpc_enabledâ' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in functions.php in a child theme.
You can also add the above code to the wp-config-php file. Add it after the require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php'); line. There are a couple more ways to block XMLrpc requests. One being via the web serverâs configuration file and the other via a plugin. Please refer to the SiteGround and the debugbar documents.
Hiding your wp-login.php file.
Some experts discourage doing it this as wp-login.php gets updated when the core WordPress version gets updated. If you remember this and update the changes manually this method is fine. It is also inadvisable if your website needs to provide login access to site members other than a handful of admin and authors.
Hiding your wp-login.php is very effective as bots target the wp-login.php either with password crackers or a DDOS attack once they know your website is powered by WordPress. Each wp-login request is costly as as information gets sent to and from the MySql database of the WordPress site.
The steps.
1) Backup your wp-login.php file. Then rename it on the web server. 2) Create a new .php file with a text editor like Notepad, Notepad++, Gedit (on Linux Ubuntu) etc. Name it whatever you want as long as you can remember it when you login e.g foxy-roxy.php 3) Copy all the contents from wp-login.php into foxy-roxy.php or whatever you named the new file. Use Crtl+Alt to select all and Paste. 4) Search and replace every occurrence of wp-login.php with foxy-roxy.php or whatever the file is called. Save the file. 5) The next step is to update the default login and logout URLs This is done via hooks in the themeâs functions.php . Add the following code to functions.php of the theme.
(remember to change âfoxy-roxyâ to whatever your file is called. )
Add the following code to handle a safe logout and redirect to your home page.
// WP Redirect the user to the homepage after logout add_action('wp_logout','auto_redirect_after_logout'); function auto_redirect_after_logout(){ wp_safe_redirect( home_url() ); exit(); } //end WP Redirect the user to the homepage after logout
6) Next test your new login page URL. Website name/ foxy-roxy.php. Attempting to login with Website name/wp-login should produce a resource not found error.
7) Finally, delete the renamed wp-login.php from the web server.
Notes: Known vunerabilities with the above method. Due to the login code being hard coded in several places in WordPress , the name of your secret login page can get exposed by calls made wp-admin by an intelligent attacker rather than a bot. I think this can be taken care of by some sort of redirect but I haven't got the time to experiment.
One way to mitigate against this is to limit access to the login process to trusted IPs. This is done by editing the .htaccess file in the root WordPress installation directory and adding the following code. Remember to backup your .htaccess file before editing it.
#Limit access to website administration
<Limit GET POST PUT>
order deny,allow
deny from all
# admins IP
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
</Limit>
where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP number. You can add as many allow from IPs as you need or allow a whole Class C subnet with allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.0/24
In closing.
These three methods will certainly help secure your WordPress site and help counter the effects of a DDOS attack if you are subject to one.
Credits.
Phpot.com on Limiting the number of login attempts (09/12/2022):
September was mainly about nuts. I picked them one by one, off the ground and trees. It was a slow process but not unpleasant as the ground around the trees was mainly clear. As ClĂĄudia A. mentioned on Facebook, picking nuts is a form of meditation. I may try using nets next year. These are a extra work to move around and can get damaged especially on your own.
Almonds / AmáșŒdoas
I managed to collect 130 kg of almonds this year. Many of the self seeded almond trees have begun producing. I sold about a third and will be using the rest. Definitely making some almond toffee and chopped almonds in breakfast cereal đ . Itâs a slow business cracking the almonds nut by nut with a small hand operated machine but far better than using a hammer.
Olives. My olive trees are resting this year. I managed to harvest about 13 kg. I dressed and pickled 3 kg. Could have done with double this amount of unblemished ones to preserve.
Olives for pickling / azeitonas para conserva
I had a go at trying to make olive oil. I started with about 9 kg of olives. I first mashed them. I found this step to be unnecessary and a waste of my energy.
Home made olive oil attempt / tento fazer azeite caseiro
I them blended them for 6 seconds with a bit of water. Two bursts of six seconds for each lot. You have to be careful as the seed (stones) can damage your blades.
blended the olives
An old T-shirt was used to strain the blend. The stones remained mainly whole.
strained blend and residue
I poured the stain liquid into a plastic bottle to settle. I the squeezed the residue and poured the stained liquid into another bottle.
oil olive settling and seperating into layers
After 3 weeks I can see about 1 cm of clear olive oil in the 5 litre bottle which is about 0.16 litres. In conclusion the juice is definitely not worth the squeeze and I wonât be doing this again without a press and better filtration.
I harvested all the sweet corn. Pleased with the result considering there were less than a dozen plants. I have collected some seed for next year.
sweet corn / milho
Had some pomegranates. The variety âAsyriaâ seems to give better pomegranates. These have a yellowish outer skin and the seeds are pink but still sweet. Pomegranates like the olives, carobs and almonds are drought resistant trees and do well here with minimal irrigation.
Pomegranates / Romas
Had some apples! I have two varieties one is yellowish mild, sweet and non acidic. These here are okay. Their skin has unpleasant flavour â mildly like kerosene (paraffin). I have stewed two kg for winter. It tastes like baby food đ .
apples / maça
Despite a lot of fruit drop, I was surprised that I still got a decent amount of persimmon. They are a delicious fruit. I regret my father did not have a chace to see and try them. I have been getting a stream of about 4 fruit a day for over a month. Going to plant some seeds. Apparently they grow true amd take about 5 years before you get a fruiting tree.
persimmon / diospiro
Thatâs all for now. The olives grow slowly. I have some to sell for âŹ3 a plant. If you know someone please put them in touch. dev1@bright-work.co.uk
Itâs a lot cooler which is nice. The average being about 26ÂșC . We had some unexpected rain yesterday which posed a threat to my almond harvest. I am picking these slowly off the trees by hand. I could use a net but I feel it is more work than the task merits. The harvest seems mixed. Some of almonds which were a very good size last year are miniscule this year. While others are fine. Could be due to the drought conditions and extreme heat. The almond trees are not irrigated.
Almonds / amĂȘndoas
While on the subject of extreme heat, my persimmon (diospiro) trees have dropped their fruit. I donât think itâs due to lack of water as the leaves are green and growing. Surprisingly, the apples are doing okay. I really expected them to drop all the fruit during the heat wave.
apples / maça
I have a decent amount of grapes to keep me going at the moment . âItaliaâ came good despite the vine collapsing due to neglect on my part. The Donna Maria Brancaâ are slowly ripening. They are definitely less bunches of this variety this year.
Donna Maria Branca variety
I still have a few plums on one tree. I managed to gain something useful from the black plums (ameixa preta) which were heavily infected with worms. I harvested them early and made some good jam and a lot of compote. Some of the compote borders on jam quality. I used 25% in weight of sugar to the plums. I use the compote in my cooking. In sweet and sour pork, pasta and even rice. I also use it to make a super dip for chips đ .
Super dip â chopped onion and chilli, a bit of chopped basil. I use the manjaricĂŁo which grows like a weed. To this I add 2-3 tablespoons of plum compote, a squirt of tomato ketchup and a pinch of black pepper. Sometimes I add a dash of cider vinegar.
I harvested and sold the bulk of my carobs. I had to take them down a couple of sacks at a time, 14 km round trip. It was okay but I hope to find a paid for transportation service for next year.
Pepe working hard
The maize is still growing well. Fingers crossed!
Maize /milho
Itâs too late for the melons. The plants are growing and flowering but it will soon be autumn. The olives are growing slowly.. . đ No olives for olive this year as the trees are resting.
Not much of a change from July. It has cooled down considerably.
Manage to take the terrible two for a dip in the Ria Formosa a couple of times. Still not made it to any of the beaches which are temptingly near. Lack of time is my excuse as I have to split myself between land management, retraining and looking for online work.
carobs/alfaroba
Been picking my carobs slowly. Still havenât found any suitable transportation to take them to Madeira e Madeira Lda in Monscarapacho to sell them. Looks like I will have to take them down sack at a time. Hey ho.
Almonds/Amendoas
The almonds are ready to be pecked too. Carobs, almonds and olives are the only true abundance of nature here in the Algarve, Portugal. The rest require irrigation as a minimum.
Figueira 'Lampa Preta'
The fig tree of âlampa pretaâ variety has grown and is giving me a decent amount of figs. The figs are very good. I must propagate it!
I have some other fig trees growing . No idea what variety and they have yet to produce some figs.
orange tree 'Valencia'
One orange tree of the dozen I planted in 2015 survived and is growing well this year. I have another two but I think they have a virus. The leaves have always been misshapen with bubble like structures. Still no oranges.. ._. .
Strawberry tree/Medroneira
Two of the four strawberry trees planted back in 2018 that survived are also growing well this year.
Nashi pera
Took off the nashi pears early to avoid spoilage by insects. They are ripening slowly indoors in a box. They are a firm type of pear.
grapes 'Italia'
Neglected to tend my only âItaliaâ variety vine but it is still giving me a decent amount of grapes. I think it was too hot for the green variety âDona Mariaâ brancaâ. These usually ripen in early September. They have already ripened this year and a a greater quantity of the bunches have petered out. The heat has been a problem for the persimmon/kaki trees too. Most of the fruit having dropped off. The leaves are fine so I donât think it is shortage of water.
Milho/Sweet corn
The corn is still growing well. Fingers crossed. I am pleasantly surprised as the soil is relatively poor. I just irrigate every two days with the hose pipe.
dark green curly leaf lettuce/ alface rizzo mais escuro.
That's all for now. The olives still grow slowly.. đ
tâs been a sweltering hot ,hot July. And very dry. Have been mainly here on the homestead. Irrigation has been the main field activity. The olives grow slowly.
Olives growing in the field
Bonji and I have been having lunch under the carob tree. Yes, unfortunately I have to keep ehr tied up now. Summer anthems have been lacking but I liked listening to bits of the International Music Festival at Sines transmitted by RTP3 radio. Limon and her girlfriends! đ . No beach as yet due to lack of time and logistical capability. I still have not found a Man and Van to transport my carobs. Not as easy to do as back in the UK if you require paperwork here.
Bonji under the carob tree
So I have had some decent tomatoes. Could have been a better crop if I had looked after them better. Especially the giant variety ones.I am growing corn/maize for the first time! Itâs going well. There were just twelve seeds in the pack. I got the growing tips from the BBCâs Gardeners World website. They also show you how to grow potatoes too. đ Unfortunately I donât have prepared soil for this. I planted some sweet potato but itâs not growing strongly.
Not quite a corn field but my first attempt đ
Plums. I had some good early red plums. And then some very good yellow plums. But after these it has gone wrong. The Santa Rosa (red skin/yellow flesh) and the black plums are heavily infested. Looks like the same small white fly whose larvae eats the leaves. The plums get bitten and then spoil.
Yellow Plum/Ameixa amareloSanta Rosa plums/ ameixa Santa Rosa
I have a pest problem with the peaches as well. They werenât many to start off with. And then the insects. The yellow peaches were/are full of worms. I got a single good one from two trees after spraying 5 times. The paraguiaya (rosy coloured flattened ones) have the same problem. I will take them off early and salvage what I can.
Yellow Peach/Pessago Amerelo
The pear trees have a problem too. Looks like a fungal or mite infestation. I am not sure which as yet. I will try soapy water. The pears have already mostly dropped off. They are tiny but good. Been using them in porridge. Oh I finally have figs from 1 good fig tree. It grew slowly. I planted it in 2016. Lampa preta variety! They are very sweet.
Pear tree infestation
The battery of guava trees is nice and green. Thatâs all for now. Have a good summer!
The month of May was taken up by constant clearing of the brush and and weedy grass. Together with a little pruning and digging up unwanted stumps. I have been relying on the 900W Bosch electric strimmer and the little 150cc Einhell mower. With the assistance of these two little machines I have managed a decent job of ground clearance. I am able to run the Bosch AFS 27-37 on the Solar P.V/Wind turbine system during sunny days, which helps keep the electricity bill down. My motto - a little at a time but regularly. It is all turning brown and dry but we had an unexpected spot of rain yesterday. Hopefully the weeds wonât spring back up.
I had a decent harvest of favas (broadbeans) this year. I managed to retain 1.6 kg surplus as seed for next season. They are good nitrogen fixers. This year I used the leaves of the plants, after pulling them up and the empty bean pods to make liquid compost. I am planting a few during the summer under some shade. I will do the same with a few peas. I had a poor harvest of peas. They didnât grow well in the mainly clay soil.
I have a single raised growing bed. The leeks and lettuce did very well in it. Something has been eating the leeks. Whatever it is, it shears them off at the base at the rate of about one a day. It could be either a rabbit or a mole. From past experience it is most likely a mole. I planted some turnips back in March but they simply disappeared.
This year looks to be good for almonds. The intermittent showers during spring and early summer have helped. Spring is an excellent time to see and
appreciate wild flowers in the Algarve.
Almond tree
I got apricots at the moment. I didnât spray them so about a third have worms. The plums should start to ripen towards the end of June.
Apricots
My main olive producing trees are having a rest this year. I may get some olives from the others. With prices escalating , I have an incentive to collect and press what olives appear this year.
Extra Virgin Olive oil - Azeite - Good enough to eat on it's own
Itâs been all change with the olives. I didnât attempt to combine with anyone this time round.
Azeitonas verde - green olives
So the only olives I harvested were my own. I picked these mid October.
The four main olive trees that I have, produced a very good bi-annual harvest as expected. They were the main contributors to the 157 kg that I collected to have pressed for olive oil. These produce green olives. I still have no idea as to their variety. I have young olive trees and a few not pruned large olive trees. These contributed about 15 kgs to this total. The 15kgs were a mixture of black and green olives. One of the varieties is the âcornicabraâ.
Oliveira grande - one of the big olive trees
I picked my olives mid October and essentially picked them by hand. I found this works better for me and is more conducive to a state of zen. When I got tired of the silence I tuned in on the portable radio đ I had to bash the olives which were higher up with a long cane. It went well. Because of limited time I have ended up leaving about 25% in the field. This is fine. I am happy my work efficiency and finished in a week. For my efforts I got 17 litres of olive oil. This will keep me in oil for a year, so I am pleased. I was reluctant to collect more this year due to difficulties in arranging transportation.
I got my olives pressed at Lagar Santa Catarina, Afra & Rocha Limitada. My olives got thrown into the mix with other mainly small holdings growers. The Lagar gives you your olive afterwards. I am not sure how much of the oil the Lagar retain for their work input. I didnât ask this time round. I think it is 25%. The oil produced by the lagar is of Extra Virgin quality and is, as always, very good.
O Pepe com as azeitonas - O Pepe being used as a work horse.
Pickled olives are nice to eat. Which you are waiting for your other dishes to cook. So about 3 weeks before the main harvest I picked some for pickling.
Pickled olives - azeitonas conservada.
That about wraps up my olive productivity for the year. I will for the rest of the year carry on with pruning and transplanting what the olive trees I have. I do have 100-150 young olive trees for sale if anyone wants some. Of the mainly Cobrançosa variety. A bargain at three euros a tree. Strictly by appointment đ Thank you.
eCryptfs is a POSIX-compliant enterprise
cryptographic "stacked" filesystem for
Linux. Please note that eCryptfs is not a partition/ disk encryption
subsystem like "Veracrypt".
eCryptfs is a stacked filesystem that can be mounted on any
directory and on top of the main file system.
Using eCryptfs, we can easily create an encrypted directory to store confidential data and mount it on any directory. Although it is good practice for the mount path to match the path of the underlying file system.
No separate partition or pre-allocated space is actually required. eCryptfs should work well on local filesystems such as EXT3, EXT4, XFS, JFS and ReiserFS etc.
eCryptfs also supports networked filesystems such as NFS, CIFS, Samba and WebDAV, but not does not have full functionality as it was designed to work with local filesystems.
It stores the cryptographic metadata in the headers of files, so the encrypted data can be easily moved between different users and even systems. eCryptfs has been included in Linux Kernel since version 2.6.19.
Installation
I have only tested it on Ubuntu 18.04 which runs on the
5.4.0-87-generic kernel obtained by running
$ uname -r
5.4.0-87-generic
To enable an utilize Ecryptfs install ecryptfs-utils
$ sudo apt install
ecryptfs-utils
How to use Ecryptfs
The method below explains how to encrypt a folder called temp2
located at /home/zephyr/temp2
Open terminal and run the following:
$ sudo mount -t ecryptfs
/home/zephyr/temp2 /home/zephyr/temp2
Passphrase: â enter your passphrase
Select cipher:
1) aes: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
2) blowfish: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 56
3) des3_ede: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 24; max keysize = 24
4) twofish: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
5) cast6: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
6) cast5: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 5; max keysize = 16
Selection [aes]: 1 â selected
Select key bytes:
1) 16
2) 32
3) 24
Selection [16]: 1 â selected
Enable plaintext passthrough (y/n) [n]: n â
selected
Enable filename encryption (y/n) [n]: n â
selected
Attempting to mount with the following options:
ecryptfs_unlink_sigs
ecryptfs_key_bytes=16
ecryptfs_cipher=aes
ecryptfs_sig=015fa84ce5a1043d
Mounted eCryptfs
temp2 is now and encrypted folder. Any files and folders moved
into it or created in it, will be automatically encrypted.
It is very important to remember your passphrase to be able to access your eCryptfs encrypted files and folders. It is also advisable to make note of your encryption settings for future mounting/access of your encrypted file/directory. Choose a password of 14 characters long made up of 3 random words. This is easier to remember and still secure. You can add symbols and numbers to it increase the strength of the passphrase.
A signature file named "sig-cache.txt" will be created under "/root/.ecryptfs/" directory. This file is used to identify the mount passphrase in the kernel keyring. It is a read only file except for the root user. I suggest saving a copy with a .bak extension as the signature number for each encrypted and mounted folder. It is a good reference to have.
Accessing your encrypted data.
Each time you reboot
your system the encrypted volume will be dismounted and you will not
be able to access your encrypted data.
To access your data you have to
remount the encrypted volume with:
$
sudo mount -t ecryptfs /home/zephyr/temp2 /home/zephyr/temp2
After which Terminal pops up prompting you for your passphrase
type in your passphrase
The problem with this is that you have to enter all the encryption options each time.
Automating the mount process
My solution to this is make an executable .sh file with a text editor. I use the default, gnome, gedit text editor
In this example, I have called it mount_temp2.sh
Paste the following code into it. Use whatever options you chose when you encrypted the file/folder.
#!/bin/bash $ sudo mount -t ecryptfs -o ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_passthrough=no,ecryptfs_enable_filename_crypto=no /home/zephyr/temp2 /home/zephyr/temp2
Save mount_temp2.sh
Right click, on the file in File Manager, go to the Permissions tab and tick the box âAllow executing file as a programâ
Next with your Text Editor, create a new executable file. Call it run_mount_temp2.sh for example. Paste the following code into it.
#!/bin/bash #start terminal and mount encrypted temp2 folder gnome- terminal -- sh -c './mount_temp2.sh'
Make
it executable as described
previously. Now when you
start your system, simply double click on
run_mount_temp2.sh
this it will call Terminal and prompt you to enter your passphrase. After entering the correct passphrase you will be granted full access to your encrypted folder and files within.
Automating the dismount process
You
can dismount (unmount) your encrypted folder at any time to make it
inaccessible. By default
to
unmount an encrypted drive manually,
open Terminal
an run
sudo umount /path/to encrypted/folder
so, in my test case it is
sudo umount /home/zephyr/temp2
To
Automate unmount/dismount:
Create
an executable file (refer to âAutomating the mount processâ for
the steps) called
unmount_temp2.sh and in it enter the following code. Paths and folders should match your own.
Next
create the run file that will open Terminal and run the previous
created executable.
Create an executable file called run_unmount_temp2.sh
Enter the following code into it:
#!/bin/bash #start terminal and unmount encrypted temp2 folder gnome-terminal -- sh -c './unmount_temp2.sh'
Double clicking on run_unmount_temp2.sh will run Terminal and execute the command to unmount the encrypted folder
Notes on Automation
All the automation files should be in
the same folder/directory
The folder/directory containing the automation files should not be encrypted.
Creating an encrypted folder on a USB drive
On your Linux machine format a USB stick with ext4 file system. The USB stick will only be accessible to machines with Linux operating systems.
In this example I have given the USB
stick a Volume Label called âSECRETâ.
Whenever you plug in this USB stick it
will be mounted as âSECRETâ by the operating system.
Next create a folder on âSECRETâ.
I called mine temp3.
Next mount and encrypt the temp3 folder by running the following command in Terminal. The path name should start with media/home directory name/usb volume name on a standard Ubuntu 18.04 install.
$ sudo mount -t ecryptfs /media/zephyr/SECRET/temp3 /media/zephyr/SECRET/temp3
The steps to automate are the same as described earlier on.
Note: Verify the volume name for the usb that you use in your scripts is correct and matches the one shown in Terminal when you type df .
In Conclusion
To further automate the mount process you could utilize the Startup Applications Preferences app
Start Program App
which comes pre-installed on Ubuntu 18.04 . This allows configuring applications to run automatically when logging in to your desktop. So just add the run_mount_temp2.sh example to the list of startup apps.
In the Command: field you need to enter bash U% followed by the path to your .sh executable.
bash %U /path/to/file/run_mount_temp2.sh
Alternatively you can create a .desktop file in /home/your home directory/.config/autostart . So for example mount_documents.desktop with the following code in it.
One quirk I noticed is that ecryptfs will allow you to carry on mounting your encrypted volume with an incorrect passphrase and proceed to create a new signature for it but you wonât be able to access your encrypted files and folders. Ecryptfs does warn you first that the passphrase you have entered maybe be incorrect and do you want to proceed with the mount. Best to abort if you are unsure about the passphrase you entered.
All in all , I think ecryptfs is a robust , fast and very flexible file encryption system.
Bougainvillea and Wind Power -my renewable energy dreams are still very valid .
Night time temperatures
have begun to fall, definitely a sign of the onset of autumn.
Still havenât fired up
the stove as itâs still above eighteen indoors during the night.
I havenât been doing much outside the past month and a half. Been busy doing a PHP certification course as well as learning javascript and such. Needs must etc.
Gathered and sold my own carobs and those of a friend. I donât mind picking carobs, itâs easy enough to do. Almonds are another matter. A mixed blessing as this yearâs almond harvest is looking to be poor. Almonds are great chopped up and added to your oatmeal porridge. I also throw in some chopped or grated seasonal fruit I have to hand. Like apples, plums, peaches, pears etc. The dogs love this too.
Picking almonds
My own carob harvest was poor this year. About half but what I had last year but I really didnât mind. Transportation for me is a still an issue. Something I haven't managed to resolve.
Lampa Preta variety of figs
I have had a decent amount of fruit this season. The plums were very good. Early June right upto mid September. I think I picked the last of the Santa Rosa variety today. I have had some decent peaches , a good number of nashi pears and a few melons.
At the moment I got some Persimmon (kaki) trickling through. They are delicious when properly ripe. I also had my first figs. Lampa preta (black lantern) . I had planted this way back in 2016. It finally managed to grow and is a properly established tree now.
Melons
I have snd have had , a fair amount of grapes for the table. I have 4 fruits vines at the moment. 1 red (Italia) and three white (Dona Maria Branca).
My first grow bed is working very well.I have lettuce, beetroot and sweet potato growing in it. As well as the edible weed purslane.
Grapes, Dona Maria Branca
I have not been cockling much. The new inflatable was cleverly punctured. There are some very dodgy foreigners about. It was busy where I had to make land and they were waiting for me to come in. They came with their dogs too. Poor Bonji was kept occupied. I left craft and Bonji unattended for less than a 5 minutes. I will be more careful next time.
Well thatâs all for now!
It pruning and the olive harvest next.
English 
Portuguese 
This will keep me in oil for a year, so I am pleased. I was reluctant to collect more this year due to difficulties in arranging transportation.
itâs easy enough to do. Almonds are another matter. A mixed blessing as this yearâs almond harvest is looking to be poor. Almonds are great chopped up and added to your oatmeal porridge. I also throw in some chopped or grated seasonal fruit I have to hand. Like apples, plums, peaches, pears etc. The dogs love this too.
