Mikelius

I’ll have to check out TrackerControl, that’s a new one to me!

I have seen app manager but currently use AppOps. I didn’t recommend AppOps above because I’m not sure it’s still supported or not, and it’s also not really Foss. It’s treated me well over the years, but I’m definitely interested in finding a better alternative. The last time I checked app manager, it wasn’t as good… But maybe that’s changed as it’s been several years now so I think I might be due for looking at it again!

My wireguard connection on my phone connects to my home network to an pi hosting my internal VPN… But the network is completely covered by a mullvad VPN through opnsense. I’ve got pihole setup using the mullvad anti-trackkng private DNS. With this setup, the only real need I have for root on my phone is because I do some pretty low level automation on it through crond and some backups of core app data that I’d really hate to lose… And the complex firewall rules lol.

This is where rooting the phone is required. I use wireguard without root and have AFWall granted with root at bootup so it doesn’t require acting as a VPN

1. AFWall+ firewall to allow list apps to internet using your preferred method (e.g. VPN, wifi, data, etc)
2. PcapDroid to help monitor and analyze packets, or to just confirm things aren’t communicating unexpectedly
3. AdAway if you’re not using your own dedicated dns over a permanent VPN connection

If not all 3 of these, AFWall is probably the best to go with. Having a way to not only block Apps, but also define your own custom firewall rules is very powerful. For example, I redirect all DNS requests to my own DNS with a custom rule (for apps, like Termux, using hardcoded DNS lookups instead of what the phone is set to)

Try using the private IP options instead and see if that works. The generic one being 10.64.0.1, but other options that include ad voicing and such ranging from 100.64.0.1 to 100.64.0.25 or something like that. I’ve got my entire network setup behind their VPN and a a pihole pointing to one of their private DNS addresses without any issues. I left their pubic DNS years ago so that I could make sure my DNS requests were always within the tunnel instead

Not much for myself, like many others. But my backups are manual. I have an external drive I backup to and unplug as I intentionally want to keep it completely isolated from the network in case of a breach. Because of that, maybe 10 minutes a week? Running gentoo with tons of scripts and docker containers that I have automatically updating. The only time I need to intervene the updates is when my script sends me a push notification of an eselect news item (like a major upcoming update) or kernel update.

I also use a custom monitoring software I wrote that ties into a MySQL db that’s connected to with grafana for general software, network alerts (new devices connecting to network, suspicious DNS requests, suspicious ports, suspicious countries being reached out to like china, etc) or hardware failures (like a raid drive failing)… So yeah, automate if you know how to script or program, and you’ll be pretty much worry free most of the time.

Plus 1 to openvas. UI is indeed horrendous though.

Be careful running high load tests against sensitive devices. I once ran it against a PoE switch I used for my cameras and it did something so crazy that it required me not to only power cycle the switch, but to disconnect all the cameras first and then power cycle. Was super confusing and felt like it found a way to short the device lol. Scared the hell out of me.

That being said, I’ve found many many things to improve on my devices thanks to openvas.

Even if a game doesn’t look like it’ll work based on protondb, try it anyway. Many times I’ve had games that were marked as low ratings start up without any changes lol. I remember even when d4 beta came out, I saw people struggling to install and play it on the first weekend… Worked out of the box for me.

I also use Linux mint with cinnamon… Is this not just the Ctrl + Fn + arrow key? I think that’s it, or maybe shift (not at my computer to check). Either way, I use this all the time to fit windows either on 50% of the left or right, or in one of the 4 corners. For example, if I want it in the top right, I just use the hot keys and target right then up.

I tend to find out about vulnerabilities before it hits the news outlets from the rss feed at https://seclists.org/oss-sec/

Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of other security feeds I follow and also have automated updates with just about everything.

I personally use it on a protectli with the 2.5G ports. I also replaced my ISP modern with a protectli running OpnSense. Decided to opt into that as my solution to have two different softwares protecting my network and also so I could scope internet facing devices at the OpnSense level instead of internal to the network. Just in case they get compromised, they can’t access the rest of the network. Call me paranoid… But I also find it much easier to manage lol.

If you have a pi or Linux box, try setting it up as a syslog server. Then tell opnsense to use that for forwarding logs to. Doesn’t guarantee you’ll see what went wrong, but maybe it’ll help.

I’m not sure opnsense has journalctl or something similar, but that would be a good place to look for some history, too.

Okay hopefully attaching images work on this app, never tried on Lemmy lol. I blocked the domain on my network firewall and then unblocked it from the DNS to confirm… and yes, the latest rustdesk appimage still calls out. I guess my memory of trying to disable the relay server was to try and force it to localhost in the settings. Could have swore there was a checkmark setting in there, but maybe that was some other software. The fields are default blank I believe.

However… I just tried to put 127.0.0.1 in ALL the fields (unlike the screenshot, which was when I checked what I had in there before), and it appears to now to call localhost. Either I goofed before, or it was fixed recently, because I am pretty sure I did try that before. It doesn’t get you around the very first call made when running the software of course… Opt out, not opt in, lol. But hey at least it’s possible now? I just tried on mobile and it worked there to when filling everything in with 127.0.0.1.

Noticed it with the android install (via fdroid) and I think I had the appimage on Linux (not at my machine to check, so going by my memory). I connected to a windows machine that had no internet connectivity so can’t speak to the windows installs working and ignoring relays or not, but Linux and android do phone the relay servers at least. I’ll see if I can pull some screenshots or details tomorrow when I get a moment! I’ll update the appimage too just in case (since I only validated the DNS call being made on my phone yesterday)

Either way, if I had to choose between it and TeamViewer for what I use it for, Rustdesk is still a clear winner lol.

If you have a custom DNS, be sure to block all the relay domains they use and block the respective ports from external access. Even if you disable the settings to avoid relays, they don’t acknowledge them and continue to try and phone home somewhere. Just checked the latest version on my phone, which has no relay setting configured, before commenting on this and sure enough, still true. Just logged an entry to rs-ny.rustdesk.com on my DNS, which of course was blocked. Desktop app has an option to disable them if I recall, but it never worked for me.

That out of the way, it is a very good local network software for remote access. Way faster than the alternatives I’ve tried.

Gentoo!

Just to get it out there… I checked this out about a year ago. It’s not completely open source. The project consists of many executables and “pre complied dependencies” that don’t appear to share matching checksums which may indicate modifications of some sort. Looks like a great tool, but I’m extremely skeptical of what’s going on under the hood.

Hopefully they do truly open source it and prove me wrong, I’d love to give it a try some day.

This post may have crashed Voyager twice… Once when scrolling by it, again when trying to reply. I don’t know why I can reply now.

Edit: lol I know why. My app auto updated at the same time I clicked reply. Perfect timing. Scrolling crash still unexplained though.

Rarely do I find software I need that’s not in the repo, but when I do, I just dusky build it myself. Not at my machine now, but I think I only have one PPA that’s not default added. In the other cases where I don’t want to build the app, it tends to be in Flatpak too.

That being said, although Mint is technically based on Ubuntu, it really doesn’t feel like it at all. I personally can’t stand Ubuntu, but again all personal opinions. If Debian-based systems didn’t work for you and an arch based distro did, then go with it. Everyone’s needs are their own and that’s why we have so many choices :D

I’m a Linux mint user for my main system and am no beginner. As others have said, it’s friendly to both beginners and advanced users, it’s good to see you’ve made that choice.

That being said, don’t stop there. Whether it’s in a virtual machine or some old laptop, also try one of the “from scratch” systems. I went with Gentoo and that is the root of where a ton of my Linux knowledge started. It’s my favorite distro simply because it has that history for me. You’ll find everyone has their own favorites for their own reasons, so be sure to explore and find the one that you enjoy and helps you learn.

This is what I use. The project is dead and had some bugs that kept it running on my system right away, but as it’s open source, I was able to fix the code a little bit to success. Just wish it was a little friendlier on cpu or could be selective on which apps to run instead of recording nonstop regardless. I have it start up with Steam for now though.