Curiosity I guess this would be common to most of us. While I grew up, right from the childhood itself, the sky was always an intriguing view. The Stars, the Moon, the Eclipses; were all fascinating. As a child, in my region, religion and culture; the mythology also built up stories around it. Lunar Eclipses have a story of its own. During Solar Eclipses, parents still insist that we do not go out. And to be done with the food eating before/after the eclipse. Then there s the Hindu Astrology part, which claims its own theories and drags in mythology along. For example, you ll still find the Hindu Astrology making recommendations to follow certain practices with the planets, to get auspicious personal results. As far as I know, other religions too have similar beliefs about the planets. As a child, we are told the Moon to be addressed as an Uncle ( ). There s also a rhyme around it, that many of us must have heard. And if you look at our god, Lord Mahadev, he s got a crescent on his head

Lord Mahadev

Reality Fast-forward to today, as I grew, so did some of my understanding. It is fascinating how mankind has achieved so much understanding of our surrounding. You could go through the documentaries on Mars Exploration, for example; to see how the rovers are providing invaluable data. As a mere individual, there s a limit to what one can achieve. But the questions flow in free.

• Is there life beyond us
• What s out there in the sky
• Why is all this the way it is

Hobby The very first step, for me, for every such curiosity, has been to do the ground work, with the resources I have. To study on the subject. I have done this all my life. For example, I started into the Software domain as: A curiosity => A Hobby => A profession Same was the case with some of the other hobbies, equally difficult as Astronomy, that I developed a liking for. Just did the ground work, studied on those topics and then applied the knowledge to further improve it and build up some experience. And star gazing came in no different. As a complete noob, had to start with the A B C on the subject of Astronomy. Familiarize myself with the usual terms. As so on PS: Do keep in mind that not all hobbies have a successful end. For example, I always craved to be good with graphic designing, image processing and the likes, where I ve always failed. Never was able to keep myself motivated enough. Similar was my experience when trying to learn playing a musical instrument. Just didn t work out for me, then. There s also a phase in it, where you fail and then learn from the failures and proceed further, and then eventually succeed. But we all like to talk about the successes. :-)

Astronomy So far, my impression has been that this topic/domain will not suit most of the people. While the initial attraction may be strong, given the complexity and perseverance that Astronomy requires, most people would lose interest in it very soon. Then there s the realization factor. If one goes with an expectation to get quick results, they may get disappointed. It isn t like a point and shoot device that d give you results on the spot. There s also the expectation side of things. If you are a person more accustomed to taking pretty selfies, which always come right because the phone manufacturer does heavy processing on the images to ensure that you get to see the pretty fake self, for the most of the times; then star gazing with telescopes could be a frustrating experience altogether. What you get to see in the images on the internet will be very different than what you d be able to see with your eyes and your basic telescope. There s also the cost aspect. The more powerful (and expensive) your telescope, the better your view. And all things aside, it still may get you lose interest, after you ve done all the ground work and spent a good chunk of money on it. Simply because the object you are gazing at is more a still image, which can quickly get boring for many. On the other hand, if none of the things obstruct, then the domain of Astronomy can be quite fascinating. It is a continuous learning domain (reminds me of CI in our software field these days). It is just the beginning for us here, and we hope to have a lasting experience in it.

The Internet I have been indebted to the internet right from the beginning. The internet is what helped me be able to achieve all I wanted. It is one field with no boundaries. If there is a will, there is a way; and often times, the internet is the way.

• I learnt computers over the internet.
• Learnt more about gardening and plants over the internet
• Learnt more about fish care-taking over the internet

And many many more things. Some of the communities over the internet are a great way to participation. They bridge the age gap, the regional gap and many more. For my Astronomy need, I was glad to see so many active communities, with great participants, on the internet.

Telescope While there are multiple options to start star gazing, I chose to start with a telescope. But as someone completely new to this domain, there was a long way to go. And to add to that, the real life: work + family I spent a good 12+ months reading up on the different types of telescopes, what they are, their differences, their costs, their practical availability etc. The good thing is that the market has offerings for everything. From a very basic binocular to a fully automatic Maksutov-Cassegrain scope. It all would depend on your budget.

Automatic vs Manual To make it easy for the users, the market has multiple options in the offering. One could opt-in for a cheap, basic and manually operated telescope; which would require the user to do a lot of ground study. On the other hand, users also have the option of automatic telescopes which do the hard work of locating and tracking the planetary objects. Either option aside, the end result of how much you ll be able to observe the sky, still depends on many many more factors: Enthusiasm over time, Light Pollution, Clear Skies, Timing etc. PS: The planetary objects move at a steady pace. Objects you lock into your view now will be gone out of the FOV in just a matter of minutes.

My Telescope After spending so much of the time reading up on types of telescopes, my conclusion was that a scope with high aperture and focal length was the way to go forward. This made me shorten the list to Dobsonians. But the Dobsonians aren t a very cheap telescope, whether manual or automatic. My final decision made me acquire a 6" Dobsonian Telescope. It is a Newtonian Reflecting Telescope with a 1200mm focal length and 150mm diameter. Another thing about this subject is that most of the stuff you do in Astronomy; right from the telescope selection, to installation, to star gazing; most of it is DIY, so your mileage may vary with the end result and experience. For me, installation wasn t very difficult. I was able to assemble the base Dobsonian mount and the scope in around 2 hours. But the installation manual, I had been provided with, was very brief. I ended up with one module in the mount wrongly fit, which I was able to fix later, with the help of online forums.

Dobsonian Mount

In this image you can see that the side facing out, where the handle will go, is wrong. If fit this way, the handle will not withstand any weight at all.

Correct Panel Side

The right fix of the handle base board. In this image, the handle is on the other side that I m holding. Because the initial fit put in some damage to the engineered wood, I fixed it up by sealing with some adhesive. With that, this is what my final telescope looks like.

Final Telescope

Clear Skies While the telescope was ready, the skies were not. For almost next 10 days, we had no clear skies at all. All I could do was wait. Wait so much that I had forgotten to check on the skies. Luckily, my wife noticed clear skies this week for a single day. Clear enough that we could try out our telescope for the very first time.

Me posing for a shot

Telescope As I said earlier, in my opinion, it takes a lot of patience and perseverance on this subject. And most of the things here are DIY. To start with, we targeted the Moon. Because it is easy. I pointed the scope to the moon, then looked into the finder scope to center it, and then looked through the eyepiece. And blank. Nothing out there. Turns out, the finder scope and the viewer s angle weren t aligned. This is common and the first DIY step, when you plan to use your telescope for viewing. Since our first attempt was unplanned and just random because we luckily spotted that the skies were clear, we weren t prepared for this. Lucky enough, mapping the difference in the alignment, in the head, is not very difficult. After a couple of minutes, I could make out the point in the finder scope, where the object if projected, would show proper in the viewer. With that done, it was just mesmerizing to see the Moon, in a bit more detail, than what I ve seen all these years of my life.

Moon

Moon

Moon

Moon

The images are not exactly what we saw with our eyes. The view was much more vivid than these pictures. But as a first timer, I really wanted to capture this first moment of a closer view of the Moon. In the whole process; that of ground work studying about telescopes, installation of the telescope, astronomy basics and many other things; the most difficult part in this entire journey, was to point my phone to the viewing eyepiece, to get a shot of the object. This requirement just introduced me to astrophotography. And then, Dobsonians aren t the best model for astrophotography, to what I ve learnt so far. Hopefully, I ll find my ways to do some DIY astrophotography with the tools I have. Or extend my arsenal over time. But overall, we ve been very pleased with the subject of Astronomy. It is a different feel altogether and we re glad to have forayed into it.

$ whois -BrG 2a0a:e805:400::/40
[ ]
inet6num:       2a0a:e805:400::/40
netname:        FR-BLADE-CUSTOMERS-DE
country:        DE
geoloc:         50.1109 8.6821
admin-c:        BN2763-RIPE
tech-c:         BN2763-RIPE
status:         ASSIGNED
mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt
remarks:        synced with cmdb
created:        2020-05-19T08:04:58Z
last-modified:  2020-05-19T08:04:58Z
source:         RIPE
route6:         2a0a:e805:400::/40
descr:          Blade IPv6 - AMS1
origin:         AS64476
mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt
remarks:        synced with cmdb
created:        2019-10-01T08:19:34Z
last-modified:  2020-05-19T08:05:00Z
source:         RIPE

$ bgpq4 -6 -S RIPE -b AS64476
NN = [
    2a0a:e805::/40,
    2a0a:e805:100::/40,
    2a0a:e805:300::/40,
    2a0a:e805:400::/40,
    2a0a:e805:500::/40
];

Code The module takes a list of RPSL objects to synchronize and returns the body of an email update if a change is needed:

- name: prepare RIPE objects
  irr_sync:
    irr: RIPE
    mntner: fr-blade-1-mnt
    source: whois-ripe.txt
  register: irr

Prerequisites The source file should be a set of objects to sync using the RPSL language. This would be the same content you would send manually by email. All objects should be managed by the same maintainer, which is also provided as a parameter. Signing and sending the result is not the responsibility of this module. You need two additional tasks for this purpose:

- name: sign RIPE objects
  shell:
    cmd: gpg --batch --user noc@example.com --clearsign
    stdin: "  irr.objects  "
  register: signed
  check_mode: false
  changed_when: false
- name: update RIPE objects by email
  mail:
    subject: "NEW: update for RIPE"
    from: noc@example.com
    to: "auto-dbm@ripe.net"
    cc: noc@example.com
    host: smtp.example.com
    port: 25
    charset: us-ascii
    body: "  signed.stdout  "

You also need to authorize the PGP keys used to sign the updates by creating a key-cert object and adding it as a valid authentication method for the corresponding mntner object:

key-cert:  PGPKEY-A791AAAB
certif:    -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
certif:    
certif:    mQGNBF8TLY8BDADEwP3a6/vRhEERBIaPUAFnr23zKCNt5YhWRZyt50mKq1RmQBBY
[ ]
certif:    -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
mnt-by:    fr-blade-1-mnt
source:    RIPE
mntner:    fr-blade-1-mnt
[ ]
auth:      PGPKEY-A791AAAB
mnt-by:    fr-blade-1-mnt
source:    RIPE

Module definition Starting from the skeleton described in the previous article, we define the module:

module_args = dict(
    irr=dict(type='str', required=True),
    mntner=dict(type='str', required=True),
    source=dict(type='path', required=True),
)
result = dict(
    changed=False,
)
module = AnsibleModule(
    argument_spec=module_args,
    supports_check_mode=True
)

Getting existing objects To grab existing objects, we use the whois command to retrieve all the objects from the provided maintainer.

# Per-IRR variations:
# - whois server
whois =  
    'ARIN': 'rr.arin.net',
    'RIPE': 'whois.ripe.net',
    'APNIC': 'whois.apnic.net'
 
# - whois options
options =  
    'ARIN': ['-r'],
    'RIPE': ['-BrG'],
    'APNIC': ['-BrG']
 
# - objects excluded from synchronization
excluded = ["domain"]
if irr == "ARIN":
    # ARIN does not return these objects
    excluded.extend([
        "key-cert",
        "mntner",
    ])
# Grab existing objects
args = ["-h", whois[irr],
        "-s", irr,
        *options[irr],
        "-i", "mnt-by",
        module.params['mntner']]
proc = subprocess.run("whois", *args, capture_output=True)
if proc.returncode != 0:
    raise AnsibleError(
        f"unable to query whois:  args ")
output = proc.stdout.decode('ascii')
got = extract(output, excluded)

The first part of the code setup some IRR-specific constants: the server to query, the options to provide to the whois command and the objects to exclude from synchronization. The second part invokes the whois command, requesting all objects whose mnt-by field is the provided maintainer. Here is an example of output:

$ whois -h whois.ripe.net -s RIPE -BrG -i mnt-by fr-blade-1-mnt
[ ]
inet6num:       2a0a:e805:300::/40
netname:        FR-BLADE-CUSTOMERS-FR
country:        FR
geoloc:         48.8566 2.3522
admin-c:        BN2763-RIPE
tech-c:         BN2763-RIPE
status:         ASSIGNED
mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt
remarks:        synced with cmdb
created:        2020-05-19T08:04:59Z
last-modified:  2020-05-19T08:04:59Z
source:         RIPE
[ ]
route6:         2a0a:e805:300::/40
descr:          Blade IPv6 - PA1
origin:         AS64476
mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt
remarks:        synced with cmdb
created:        2019-10-01T08:19:34Z
last-modified:  2020-05-19T08:05:00Z
source:         RIPE
[ ]

The result is passed to the extract() function. It parses and normalizes the results into a dictionary mapping object names to objects. We store the result in the got variable.

def extract(raw, excluded):
    """Extract objects."""
    # First step, remove comments and unwanted lines
    objects = "\n".join([obj
                         for obj in raw.split("\n")
                         if not obj.startswith((
                                 "#",
                                 "%",
                         ))])
    # Second step, split objects
    objects = [RPSLObject(obj.strip())
               for obj in re.split(r"\n\n+", objects)
               if obj.strip()
               and not obj.startswith(
                   tuple(f" x :" for x in excluded))]
    # Last step, put objects in a dict
    objects =  repr(obj): obj
               for obj in objects 
    return objects

RPSLObject() is a class enabling normalization and comparison of objects. Look at the module code for more details.

>>> output="""
... inet6num:       2a0a:e805:300::/40
... [ ]
... """
>>> pprint( k: str(v) for k,v in extract(output, excluded=[]) )
 '<Object:inet6num:2a0a:e805:300::/40>':
   'inet6num:       2a0a:e805:300::/40\n'
   'netname:        FR-BLADE-CUSTOMERS-FR\n'
   'country:        FR\n'
   'geoloc:         48.8566 2.3522\n'
   'admin-c:        BN2763-RIPE\n'
   'tech-c:         BN2763-RIPE\n'
   'status:         ASSIGNED\n'
   'mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt\n'
   'remarks:        synced with cmdb\n'
   'source:         RIPE',
 '<Object:route6:2a0a:e805:300::/40>':
   'route6:         2a0a:e805:300::/40\n'
   'descr:          Blade IPv6 - PA1\n'
   'origin:         AS64476\n'
   'mnt-by:         fr-blade-1-mnt\n'
   'remarks:        synced with cmdb\n'
   'source:         RIPE' 

Comparing with wanted objects Let s build the wanted dictionary using the same structure, thanks to the extract() function we can use verbatim:

with open(module.params['source']) as f:
    source = f.read()
wanted = extract(source, excluded)

The next step is to compare got and wanted to build the diff object:

if got != wanted:
    result['changed'] = True
    if module._diff:
        result['diff'] = [
            dict(before_header=k,
                 after_header=k,
                 before=str(got.get(k, "")),
                 after=str(wanted.get(k, "")))
            for k in set((*wanted.keys(), *got.keys()))
            if k not in wanted or k not in got or wanted[k] != got[k]]

Returning updates The module does not have a side effect. If there is a difference, we return the updates to send by email. We choose to include all wanted objects in the updates (contained in the source variable) and let the IRR ignore unmodified objects. We also append the objects to be deleted by adding a delete: attribute to each them them.

# We send all source objects and deleted objects.
deleted_mark = f" 'delete:':16 deleted by CMDB"
deleted = "\n\n".join([f" got[k].raw \n deleted_mark "
                       for k in got
                       if k not in wanted])
result['objects'] = f" source \n\n deleted "
module.exit_json(**result)

---

The complete code is available on GitHub. The module supports both --diff and --check flags. It does not return anything if no change is detected. It can work with APNIC, RIPE and ARIN. It is not perfect: it may not detect some changes,³ it is not able to modify objects not owned by the provided maintainer⁴ and some attributes cannot be modified, requiring to manually delete and recreate the updated object.⁵ However, this module should automate 95% of your needs.

---

1. Other IRRs exist without being attached to a RIR. The most notable one is RADb.
2. ARIN is phasing out this method in favor of IRR-online. RIPE has an API available, but email updates are still supported and not planned to be deprecated. APNIC plans to expose an API.
3. For ARIN, we cannot query key-cert and mntner objects and therefore we cannot detect changes in them. It is also not possible to detect changes to the auth mechanisms of a mntner object.
4. APNIC do not assign top-level objects to the maintainer associated with the owner.
5. Changing the status of an inetnum object requires deleting and recreating the object.

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74 Laptop Mode Tools version 1.74 has been released. This release includes important bug fixes, some defaults settings updated to current driver support in Linux and support for devices with nouveau based nVIDIA cards. A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository

1.74 - Sat Jul 18 19:10:40 IST 2020

* With 4.15+ kernels, Linux Intel SATA has a better link power
  saving policy, med_power_with_dipm, which should be the recommended
  one to use
* Disable defaults for syslog logging
* Initialize LM_VERBOSE with default to disabled
* Merge pull request #157 from rickysarraf/nouveau
* Add power saving module for nouveau cards
* Disable ethernet module by default
* Add board-specific folder and documentation
* Add execute bit on module radeon-dpm
* Drop unlock because there is no lock acquired

Resources

• Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at project s release page
• Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.
• Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki
• Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

What is Laptop Mode Tools

Description: Tools for Power Savings based on battery/AC status
 Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save
 considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer
 periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are
 needed to enable laptop mode.
 .
 It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the
 computer is working on batteries. It also supports various other power
 management features, such as starting and stopping daemons depending on
 power mode, automatically hibernating if battery levels are too low, and
 adjusting terminal blanking and X11 screen blanking
 .
 laptop-mode-tools uses the Linux kernel's Laptop Mode feature and thus
 is also used on Desktops and Servers to conserve power

Setting up a Sony PS3 Blu-Ray Disc Remote Controller with Kodi TLDR; Since most of the articles on the internet were either obsolete or broken, I ve chosen to write these notes down in the form of a blog post so that it helps me now and in future, and hopefully others too.

Raspberry Pi All this time, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for my HTPC needs. The first RPi I acquired was in 2014 and I have been very very happy with the amount of support in the community and quality of the HTPC offering it has. I also appreciate the RPi s form factor and the power consumption limits. And then, to add more sugar to it, it uses a derivative of Debian, Raspbian, which was very familiar and feel good to me.

Raspberry Pi Issues So primarily, I use my RPi with Kodi. There are a bunch of other (daemon) services but the primary use case is HTPC only. RPi + Kodi has a very very annoying issue wherein it loses its audio pitch during video playback. The loss is so bad that the audio is barely audible. The workaround is to seek the video playback either way and then it comes back to its actual audio level, just to fade again in a while. My suspicion was that it may be a problem with Kodi. Or at least, Kodi would have a workaround in software. But unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time in dealing with my suspicion with no fruitful result. This started becoming a PITA over time. And it seems the issue is with the hardware itself because after I moved my setup to a regular laptop, the audio loss is gone.

Laptop with Kodi Since I had my old Lenovo Yoga 2 13 lying on all the time, it made sense to make some more use of it, using as the HTPC. This machine comes with a Micro-HDMI Out port, so it felt ideal for my High Definition video rendering needs. It comes stock with just Intel HD Video with good driver support in Linux, so it was quite quick and easy getting Kodi charged up and running on it. And as I mentioned above, the sound issues are not seen on this setup. Some added benefits are that I get to run stock Debian on this machine. And I must say a big THANK YOU to the Debian Multimedia Maintainers, who ve done a pretty good job maintaining Kodi under Debian.

HDMI CEC Only after I decommissioned my RPi, I came to notice how convenient the HDMI CEC functionality is. Turns out no standard laptops ship CEC functionality onto them. Even the case of my laptop, which has a Micro HDMI Out port, but still no CEC capabilities. As far as I know, the RPi came with the Pulse-Eight CEC module, so obvious first thought was to opt for a compatible external module of the same; but it comes with a nice price tag, me not willing to spend.

WiFi Remotes Kodi has very well implemented network interface for almost all its features. One could take the Yatse or Music Pump Kodi Remote Android applications that work very very well with Kodi. But wifi can be flaky some times. Especially, my experience with the Realtek network devices hasn t been very good. The driver support in Linux is okay but there are many firmware bugs to deal with. In my case, the machine will lose wifi signal/network every once in a while. And it turns out, for this machine, with this network device type, I m not the only one running into such problems. And to add to that, this is an UltraBook, which means it doesn t have an Ethernet port. So I ve had not much choice other than to live and suffer deal with it. The WiFi chip also provides the Bluetooth module, which so far I had not used much. From my /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-memstick.conf, all relevant BT modules were added to the blacklist, all this time.

rrs@lenovo:~$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-memstick.conf 
blacklist memstick
blacklist rtsx_usb_ms
# And bluetooth too
#blacklist btusb
#blacklist btrtl
#blacklist btbcm
#blacklist btintel
#blacklist bluetooth
21:21            

Also to keep in mind is that the driver for my card gives a very misleading kernel message, which is one of the many reasons for this blog post, so that I don t forget it a couple of months later. The missing firmware error message is okay to ignore, as per this upstream comment.

Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo systemd[1]: Mounted /boot/efi.
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: examining hci_ver=06 hci_rev=000b lmp_ver=06 lmp_subver=8723
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: rom_version status=0 version=1
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: loading rtl_bt/rtl8723b_fw.bin
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: bluetooth hci0: firmware: direct-loading firmware rtl_bt/rtl8723b_fw.bin
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: loading rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: bluetooth hci0: firmware: failed to load rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin (-2)
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: firmware_class: See https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware for information about missing firmware
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin failed with error -2
Jun 14 17:17:08 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: cfg_sz -2, total sz 22496

This device s network + bt are on the same chip.

01:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

And then, when the btusb module is initialed (along with the misleading driver message), you ll get the following in your USB device listing

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0bda:b728 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio

Sony PlayStation 3 BD Remote Almost 10 years ago, I bought the PS3 and many of its accessories. The remote has just been rotting in the shelf. It had rusted so bad that it is better described with these pics.

Rusted inside

Rusted inside and cover

Rusted spring

The rust was so much that the battery holding spring gave up. A little bit scrubbing and cleaning has gotten it working. I hope it lasts for some time before I find time to open it up and give it a full clean-up.

Pairing the BD Remote to laptop Honestly, with the condition of the hardware and software on both ends, I did not have much hopes of getting this to work. And in all the years on my computer usage, I hardly recollect much days when I ve made use of BT. Probably, because the full BT stack wasn t that well integrated in Linux, earlier. And I mostly used to disable them in hardware and software to save on battery. All yielded results from the internet talked about tools/scripts that were either not working, pointing to broken links etc. These days, bluez comes with a nice utility, bluetoothctl. It was a nice experience using it. First, start your bluetooth service and ensure that the device talks well with the kernel

rrs@lenovo:~$ systemctl status bluetooth                                                                                                          
  bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service                                                                                                           
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)                                                      
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-06-15 12:54:58 IST; 3s ago                                                                           
       Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)                                                                                                                    
   Main PID: 310197 (bluetoothd)                                                                                                                  
     Status: "Running"                                                                                                                            
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 9424)                                                                                                                      
     Memory: 1.3M                                                                                                                                 
     CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service                                                                                                      
              310197 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                  
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...                                                                                  
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo bluetoothd[310197]: Bluetooth daemon 5.50                                                                                  
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.                                                                                     
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo bluetoothd[310197]: Starting SDP server                                                                                    
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo bluetoothd[310197]: Bluetooth management interface 1.15 initialized                                                        
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo bluetoothd[310197]: Sap driver initialization failed.                                                                      
Jun 15 12:54:58 lenovo bluetoothd[310197]: sap-server: Operation not permitted (1)                                                                
12:55                                                                                                                                       

Next, then is to discover and connect to your device

rrs@lenovo:~$ bluetoothctl 
Agent registered
[bluetooth]# devices
Device E6:3A:32:A4:31:8F MI Band 2
Device D4:B8:FF:43:AB:47 MI RC
Device 00:1E:3D:10:29:0F BD Remote Control
[CHG] Device 00:1E:3D:10:29:0F Connected: yes
[BD Remote Control]# info 00:1E:3D:10:29:0F
Device 00:1E:3D:10:29:0F (public)
        Name: BD Remote Control
        Alias: BD Remote Control
        Class: 0x0000250c
        Paired: no
        Trusted: yes
        Blocked: no
        Connected: yes
        LegacyPairing: no
        UUID: Human Interface Device... (00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
        UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
        Modalias: usb:v054Cp0306d0100
[bluetooth]# 

In case of the Sony BD Remote, there s no need to pair. In fact, trying to pair fails. It prompts for the PIN code, but neither 0000 or 1234 are accepted. So, the working steps so far are to Trust the device and then Connect the device. For the sake of future use, I also populated /etc/bluetooth/input.conf based on suggestions on the internet. Note: The advertised keymappings in this config file do not work. Note: I m only using it for the power saving measures in instructing the BT connection to sleep after 3 minutes.

rrs@priyasi:/tmp$ cat input.conf 
# Configuration file for the input service
# This section contains options which are not specific to any
# particular interface
[General]
# Set idle timeout (in minutes) before the connection will
# be disconnect (defaults to 0 for no timeout)
IdleTimeout=3
# Enable HID protocol handling in userspace input profile
# Defaults to false (HIDP handled in HIDP kernel module)
#UserspaceHID=true
# Limit HID connections to bonded devices
# The HID Profile does not specify that devices must be bonded, however some
# platforms may want to make sure that input connections only come from bonded
# device connections. Several older mice have been known for not supporting
# pairing/encryption.
# Defaults to false to maximize device compatibility.
#ClassicBondedOnly=true
# LE upgrade security
# Enables upgrades of security automatically if required.
# Defaults to true to maximize device compatibility.
#LEAutoSecurity=true
#
#[00:1E:3D:10:29:0F]
[2c:33:7a:8e:d6:30]
[PS3 Remote Map]
# When the 'OverlayBuiltin' option is TRUE (the default), the keymap uses
# the built-in keymap as a starting point.  When FALSE, an empty keymap is
# the starting point.
#OverlayBuiltin = TRUE
#buttoncode = keypress    # Button label = action with default key mappings
#OverlayBuiltin = FALSE
0x16 = KEY_ESC            # EJECT = exit
0x64 = KEY_MINUS          # AUDIO = cycle audio tracks
0x65 = KEY_W              # ANGLE = cycle zoom mode
0x63 = KEY_T              # SUBTITLE = toggle subtitles
0x0f = KEY_DELETE         # CLEAR = delete key
0x28 = KEY_F8             # /TIME = toggle through sleep
0x00 = KEY_1              # NUM-1
0x01 = KEY_2              # NUM-2
0x02 = KEY_3              # NUM-3
0x03 = KEY_4              # NUM-4
0x04 = KEY_5              # NUM-5
0x05 = KEY_6              # NUM-6
0x06 = KEY_7              # NUM-7
0x07 = KEY_8              # NUM-8
0x08 = KEY_9              # NUM-9
0x09 = KEY_0              # NUM-0
0x81 = KEY_F2             # RED = red
0x82 = KEY_F3             # GREEN = green
0x80 = KEY_F4             # BLUE = blue
0x83 = KEY_F5             # YELLOW = yellow
0x70 = KEY_I              # DISPLAY = show information
0x1a = KEY_S              # TOP MENU = show guide
0x40 = KEY_M              # POP UP/MENU = menu
0x0e = KEY_ESC            # RETURN = back/escape/cancel
0x5c = KEY_R              # TRIANGLE/OPTIONS = cycle through recording options
0x5d = KEY_ESC            # CIRCLE/BACK = back/escape/cancel
0x5f = KEY_A              # SQUARE/VIEW = Adjust Playback timestretch
0x5e = KEY_ENTER          # CROSS = select
0x54 = KEY_UP             # UP = Up/Skip forward 10 minutes
0x56 = KEY_DOWN           # DOWN = Down/Skip back 10 minutes
0x57 = KEY_LEFT           # LEFT = Left/Skip back 5 seconds
0x55 = KEY_RIGHT          # RIGHT = Right/Skip forward 30 seconds
0x0b = KEY_ENTER          # ENTER = select
0x5a = KEY_F10            # L1 = volume down
0x58 = KEY_J              # L2 = decrease the play speed
0x51 = KEY_HOME           # L3 = commercial skip previous
0x5b = KEY_F11            # R1 = volume up
0x59 = KEY_U              # R2 = increase the play speed
0x52 = KEY_END            # R3 = commercial skip next
0x43 = KEY_F9             # PS button = mute
0x50 = KEY_M              # SELECT = menu (as per PS convention)
0x53 = KEY_ENTER          # START = select / Enter (matches terminology in mythwelcome)
0x30 = KEY_PAGEUP         # PREV = jump back (default 10 minutes)
0x76 = KEY_J              # INSTANT BACK (newer RCs only) = decrease the play speed
0x75 = KEY_U              # INSTANT FORWARD (newer RCs only) = increase the play speed
0x31 = KEY_PAGEDOWN       # NEXT = jump forward (default 10 minutes)
0x33 = KEY_COMMA          # SCAN BACK =  decrease scan forward speed / play
0x32 = KEY_P              # PLAY = play/pause
0x34 = KEY_DOT            # SCAN FORWARD decrease scan backard speed / increase playback speed; 3x, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, 180
0x60 = KEY_LEFT           # FRAMEBACK = Left/Skip back 5 seconds/rewind one frame
0x39 = KEY_P              # PAUSE = play/pause
0x38 = KEY_P              # STOP = play/pause
0x61 = KEY_RIGHT          # FRAMEFORWARD = Right/Skip forward 30 seconds/advance one frame
0xff = KEY_MAX
21:48                 

I have not spent much time finding out why not all the key presses work. Especially, given that most places on the internet mention these mappings. For me, some of the key scan codes aren t even reported. For keys like L1, L2, L3, R1, R2, R3, Next_Item, Prev_Item, they generate no codes in the kernel. If anyone has suggestions, ideas or fixes, I d appreciate if you can drop a comment or email me privately. But given my limited use to get a simple remote ready, to be usable with Kodi, I was apt with only some of the keys working.

Mapping the keys in Kodi With the limited number of keys detected, mapping those keys to what Kodi could use was the next step. Kodi has a very nice and easy to use module, Keymap Editor. It is very simple to use and map detected keys to functionalities you want. With it, I was able to get a functioning remote to use with my Kodi HTPC setup.

Update: Wed Jun 17 11:38:20 2020 One annoying problem that breaks the overall experience is the following bug on the driver side, that results in connections not being established instantly. Once the device goes into sleep mode, in random attempts, waking up and re-establishing a BT connection can be multi-poll affair. This can last from a couple of seconds to well over minute. Random suggestions on the internet mention disabling the autosuspend functionality for the device in the driver with btusb.enable_autosuspend=n, but that did not help in this case. Given that this device is enumberated over the USB Bus, it probably needs this feature applied to the whole USB tree of the device s chain. Something to investigate over the weekend.

Jun 16 20:41:23 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 7
Jun 16 20:41:43 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 8
Jun 16 20:41:59 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 9
Jun 16 20:42:18 lenovo kernel: input: BD Remote Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:10/0005:054C:030>
Jun 16 20:42:18 lenovo kernel: sony 0005:054C:0306.0006: input,hidraw1: BLUETOOTH HID v1.00 Gamepad [BD Remote Control] on 2c:33:7a:8e:d6:30
Jun 16 20:51:59 lenovo kernel: input: BD Remote Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:11/0005:054C:030>
Jun 16 20:51:59 lenovo kernel: sony 0005:054C:0306.0007: input,hidraw1: BLUETOOTH HID v1.00 Gamepad [BD Remote Control] on 2c:33:7a:8e:d6:30
Jun 16 21:05:55 lenovo rtkit-daemon[1723]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Jun 16 21:05:55 lenovo rtkit-daemon[1723]: Successfully made thread 32747 of process 1646 owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Jun 16 21:05:55 lenovo rtkit-daemon[1723]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Jun 16 21:05:56 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 12
Jun 16 21:06:12 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 1
Jun 16 21:06:34 lenovo kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 2
Jun 16 21:06:59 lenovo kernel: input: BD Remote Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:3/0005:054C:0306>
Jun 16 21:06:59 lenovo kernel: sony 0005:054C:0306.0008: input,hidraw1: BLUETOOTH HID v1.00 Gamepad [BD Remote Control] on 2c:33:7a:8e:d6:30

Others There s a package, kodi-eventclients-ps3, which can be used to talk to the BD Remote. Unfortunately, it isn t up-to-date. When trying to make use of it, I ran into a couple of problems. First, the easy one is:

rrs@lenovo:~/ps3pair$ kodi-ps3remote localhost 9777
usr/share/pixmaps/kodi//bluetooth.png
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/kodi-ps3remote", line 220, in <module>
  File "/usr/bin/kodi-ps3remote", line 208, in main
    xbmc.connect(host, port)
    packet = PacketHELO(self.name, self.icon_type, self.icon_file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/kodi/xbmcclient.py", line 285, in __init__
    with open(icon_file, 'rb') as f:
11:16         => 1  

This one was simple as it was just a broken path. The second issue with the tool is a leftover from python2 to python3 conversion.

rrs@lenovo:/etc/bluetooth$ kodi-ps3remote localhost
/usr/share/pixmaps/kodi//bluetooth.png
Searching for BD Remote Control
(Hold Start + Enter on remote to make it discoverable)
Redmi (E8:5A:8B:73:57:44) in range
Living Room TV (E4:DB:6D:24:23:E9) in range
Could not find BD Remote Control. Trying again...
Searching for BD Remote Control
(Hold Start + Enter on remote to make it discoverable)
Living Room TV (E4:DB:6D:24:23:E9) in range
Redmi (E8:5A:8B:73:57:44) in range
Could not find BD Remote Control. Trying again...
Searching for BD Remote Control
(Hold Start + Enter on remote to make it discoverable)
BD Remote Control (00:1E:3D:10:29:0F) in range
Found BD Remote Control with address 00:1E:3D:10:29:0F
Attempting to pair with remote
Remote Paired.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/kodi-ps3remote", line 221, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/kodi-ps3remote", line 212, in main
    if process_keys(remote, xbmc):
  File "/usr/bin/kodi-ps3remote", line 164, in process_keys
    keycode = data.encode("hex")[10:12]
AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode'
11:24         => 1  

Fixing that too did not give me the desired result on using the BD Remote in the way I want. So eventually, I gave up and used Kodi s Keymap Editor instead.

Next Next in line, when I can manage to get some free time, is to improve the Kodi Video Scraper to have a fallback mode. Currently, for files where it cannot determine the content, it reject the file resulting in those files not showing up in your collection at all. A better approach would have been to have a fallback mode, that when the scraper cannot determine the content, it should fallback to using the filename scraper

1. add this line to /etc/opendkim/signing.table:

   *@debian.org marcos-debian.anarcat.user
   

2. add this line to /etc/opendkim/key.table:

   marcos-debian.anarcat.user debian.org:marcos-debian.anarcat.user:/etc/opendkim/keys/marcos-debian.anarcat.user.private
   

   Yes, that's quite a mouthful! That magic selector is long in that way because it needs a special syntax (specifically the .anarcat.user suffix) for Debian to be happy. The -debian string is to tell me where the key is published. The marcos prefix is to remind me where the private is used.
3. generate the key with:

   opendkim-genkey --directory=/etc/opendkim/keys/ --selector=marcos-debian.anarcat.user --domain=debian.org --verbose
   

   This creates the DNS record in /etc/opendkim/keys/marcos-debian.anarcat.user.txt (alongside the private key in .key).
4. restart OpenDKIM:

   service opendkim restart
   

   The DNS record will look something like this:

   marcos-debian.anarcat.user._domainkey   IN  TXT ( "v=DKIM1; h=sha256; k=rsa; "
   "p=MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAtKzBK2f8vg5yV307WAOatOhypQt3ANQ95iDaewkVehmx42lZ6b4PzA1k5DkIarxjkk+7m6oSpx5H3egrUSLMirUiMGsIb5XVGBPFmKZhDVmC7F5G1SV7SRqqKZYrXTufRRSne1eEtA31xpMP0B32f6v6lkoIZwS07yQ7DDbwA9MHfyb6MkgAvDwNJ45H4cOcdlCt0AnTSVndcl"
   "pci5/2o/oKD05J9hxFTtlEblrhDXWRQR7pmthN8qg4WaNI4WszbB3Or4eBCxhUdvAt2NF9c9eYLQGf0jfRsbOcjSfeus0e2fpsKW7JMvFzX8+O5pWfSpRpdPatOt80yy0eqpm1uQIDAQAB" )  ; ----- DKIM key marcos-debian.anarcat.user for debian.org
   

5. The "p=MIIB..." string needs to be joined together, without the quotes and the p=, and sent in a signed email to changes@db.debian.org:

   -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
   dkimPubKey: marcos.anarcat.user MIIB[...]
   -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
   [...]
   

6. Wait a few minutes for DNS to propagate. You can check if they have with:

   host -t TXT marcos-debian.anarcat.user._domainkey.debian.org nsp.dnsnode.net
   

   (nsp.dnsnode.net being one of the NS records of the debian.org zone.)

Testing Test messages can be sent to dkimvalidator, mail-tester.com or check-auth@verifier.port25.com. Those tools will run Spamassassin on the received emails and report the results. What you are looking for is:

• -0.1 DKIM_VALID: Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature
• -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU: Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain
• -0.1 DKIM_VALID_EF: Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from envelope-from domain

If one of those is missing, then you are doing something wrong and your "spamminess" score will be worse. The latter is especially tricky as it validates the "Envelope From", which is the MAIL FROM: header as sent by the originating MTA, which you see as from=<> in the postfix lost. The following will happen anyways, as soon as you have a signature, that's normal:

• 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED: Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid

And this might happen if you have a ADSP record but do not correctly sign the message with a domain field that matches the record:

• 1.1 DKIM_ADSP_ALL No valid author signature, domain signs all mail

That's bad and will affect your spam core badly. I fixed that issue by using a wildcard key in the key table:

--- a/opendkim/key.table
+++ b/opendkim/key.table
@@ -1 +1 @@
-marcos anarc.at:marcos:/etc/opendkim/keys/marcos.private
+marcos %:marcos:/etc/opendkim/keys/marcos.private

References

• Ubuntu documentation
• Debian wiki
• linode tutorial, also recommends rotating keys every 6 months
• jak-linux: uses rspamd instead of opendkim, and PostSRSd
• Gio's tutorial

This is a copy of a subset of my more complete email configuration.

#!/usr/bin/r
if (getRversion() < "3.4.0") stop("Not available for R (< 3.4.0). Please upgrade.", call.=FALSE)
tools::package_native_routine_registration_skeleton(".")

cd some/R/package/source
pnrrs.r

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

• A new upstream release of apktool was uploaded to experimental.

• I packaged new upstream releases of megaglest and megaglest-data.
• I fixed a bug in pangzero (#857474) that crashed the game when someone pressed the pause key. The updated package will be part of Stretch.
• The severity was inflated and the issue debatable but since it took less time to fix bug #857801 in dopewars than writing this sentence, I did it anyway.
• I fixed bug #857236 and #857845 in holotz-castle. Background: There are various packages in Debian that ship a considerable amount of documentation which is usually a good thing. We always strive to optimize packages and reducing the package size is one option. In the past people thought that symlinking the doc directory of an arch:all (architecture-independent) package to an an arch:any (architecture-dependent) package saves disk space because it is not necessary to duplicate the same content on every architecture. Unfortunately this feature, dh-installdocs link-doc, is broken by design (#766711) and in its current state not usable for this use case. As a consequence I filed a bug report against tracker.debian.org #857851, asked for an improvement of piuparts status reports and also filed #857852 against dpkg which was later cloned into #858036 for debhelper. In a nutshell I would like to see better documentation how to use dh-maintscript-helper and *.maintscript files. I also believe it would be nice to simplify the latter by using only one file.

• I packaged version 5.4 of sweethome3d and added myself to Uploaders and closed two bugs (#854030),(#856769)
• I fixed an RC bug (#856626) in lucene-solr, more precisely in one of the configuration files of solr-tomcat, a search engine with Tomcat integration, that prevented the server from starting.
• I am still investigating an RC issue (#857343) in logback. This is a potential security vulnerability that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. My first patch was incomplete and more backported code from the latest upstream release is required. Unfortunately upstream was not very helpful in tracking down the necessary code changes. My question still remains unanswered.
• Netbeans (#837081): Netbeans has been crashing from time to time. It is not easy to trigger the issue but it is related to libatk-wrapper-java-jni and the Accessibility ToolKit (ATK). I have cloned bug number #837081 as #858700 for now because I don t think it can be fixed in Netbeans.

• From 06. March until 13. March I was in charge of our LTS frontdesk. I triaged security issues in qbittorrent, imagemagick, freetype, glibc, vim, suricada, texlive-base, web2py, lxc, r-base, mysql-5.5, partclone, irrsi, wordpress, mupdf and php5.
• DLA-846-1. Issued a security update for libzip-ruby fixing 1 CVE.
• DLA-853-1. Issued a security update for pidgin fixing 1 CVE.
• DLA-855-1. Issued a security update for roundcube fixing 1 CVE.
• DLA-860-1. Issued a security update for wordpress fixing 3 CVE.
• DLA-870-1. Issued a security update for libplist fixing 3 CVE.
• DLA-872-1. Issued a security update for xrdp fixing 1 CVE.
• DLA-875-1. Issued a security update for php5 fixing 3 CVE.

• March 2017 also saw a new version of MediathekView (now in experimental).

#!/usr/bin/r
library(tools)
.find_calls_in_package_code <- tools:::.find_calls_in_package_code
.read_description <- tools:::.read_description
## all what follows is from R-devel aka R 3.4.0 to be
package_ff_call_db <- function(dir)  
    ## A few packages such as CDM use base::.Call
    ff_call_names <- c(".C", ".Call", ".Fortran", ".External",
                       "base::.C", "base::.Call",
                       "base::.Fortran", "base::.External")
    predicate <- function(e)  
        (length(e) > 1L) &&
            !is.na(match(deparse(e[[1L]]), ff_call_names))
     
    calls <- .find_calls_in_package_code(dir,
                                         predicate = predicate,
                                         recursive = TRUE)
    calls <- unlist(Filter(length, calls))
    if(!length(calls)) return(NULL)
    attr(calls, "dir") <- dir
    calls
 
native_routine_registration_db_from_ff_call_db <- function(calls, dir = NULL, character_only = TRUE)  
    if(!length(calls)) return(NULL)
    ff_call_names <- c(".C", ".Call", ".Fortran", ".External")
    ff_call_args <- lapply(ff_call_names,
                           function(e) args(get(e, baseenv())))
    names(ff_call_args) <- ff_call_names
    ff_call_args_names <-
        lapply(lapply(ff_call_args,
                      function(e) names(formals(e))), setdiff,
               "...")
    if(is.null(dir))
        dir <- attr(calls, "dir")
    package <- # drop name
        as.vector(.read_description(file.path(dir, "DESCRIPTION"))["Package"])
    symbols <- character()
    nrdb <-
        lapply(calls,
               function(e)  
                   if (startsWith(deparse(e[[1L]]), "base::"))
                       e[[1L]] <- e[[1L]][3L]
                   ## First figure out whether ff calls had '...'.
                   pos <- which(unlist(Map(identical,
                                           lapply(e, as.character),
                                           "...")))
                   ## Then match the call with '...' dropped.
                   ## Note that only .NAME could be given by name or
                   ## positionally (the other ff interface named
                   ## arguments come after '...').
                   if(length(pos)) e <- e[-pos]
                   ## drop calls with only ...
                   if(length(e) < 2L) return(NULL)
                   cname <- as.character(e[[1L]])
                   ## The help says
                   ##
                   ## '.NAME' is always matched to the first argument
                   ## supplied (which should not be named).
                   ##
                   ## But some people do (Geneland ...).
                   nm <- names(e); nm[2L] <- ""; names(e) <- nm
                   e <- match.call(ff_call_args[[cname]], e)
                   ## Only keep ff calls where .NAME is character
                   ## or (optionally) a name.
                   s <- e[[".NAME"]]
                   if(is.name(s))  
                       s <- deparse(s)[1L]
                       if(character_only)  
                           symbols <<- c(symbols, s)
                           return(NULL)
                        
                     else if(is.character(s))  
                       s <- s[1L]
                     else   ## expressions
                       symbols <<- c(symbols, deparse(s))
                       return(NULL)
                    
                   ## Drop the ones where PACKAGE gives a different
                   ## package. Ignore those which are not char strings.
                   if(!is.null(p <- e[["PACKAGE"]]) &&
                      is.character(p) && !identical(p, package))
                       return(NULL)
                   n <- if(length(pos))  
                            ## Cannot determine the number of args: use
                            ## -1 which might be ok for .External().
                            -1L
                          else  
                            sum(is.na(match(names(e),
                                            ff_call_args_names[[cname]]))) - 1L
                         
                   ## Could perhaps also record whether 's' was a symbol
                   ## or a character string ...
                   cbind(cname, s, n)
                )
    nrdb <- do.call(rbind, nrdb)
    nrdb <- as.data.frame(unique(nrdb), stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
    if(NROW(nrdb) == 0L   length(nrdb) != 3L)
        stop("no native symbols were extracted")
    nrdb[, 3L] <- as.numeric(nrdb[, 3L])
    nrdb <- nrdb[order(nrdb[, 1L], nrdb[, 2L], nrdb[, 3L]), ]
    nms <- nrdb[, "s"]
    dups <- unique(nms[duplicated(nms)])
    ## Now get the namespace info for the package.
    info <- parseNamespaceFile(basename(dir), dirname(dir))
    ## Could have ff calls with symbols imported from other packages:
    ## try dropping these eventually.
    imports <- info$imports
    imports <- imports[lengths(imports) == 2L]
    imports <- unlist(lapply(imports,  [[ , 2L))
    info <- info$nativeRoutines[[package]]
    ## Adjust native routine names for explicit remapping or
    ## namespace .fixes.
    if(length(symnames <- info$symbolNames))  
        ind <- match(nrdb[, 2L], names(symnames), nomatch = 0L)
        nrdb[ind > 0L, 2L] <- symnames[ind]
      else if(!character_only &&
              any((fixes <- info$registrationFixes) != ""))  
        ## There are packages which have not used the fixes, e.g. utf8latex
        ## fixes[1L] is a prefix, fixes[2L] is an undocumented suffix
        nrdb[, 2L] <- sub(paste0("^", fixes[1L]), "", nrdb[, 2L])
        if(nzchar(fixes[2L]))
            nrdb[, 2L] <- sub(paste0(fixes[2L]), "$", "", nrdb[, 2L])
     
    ## See above.
    if(any(ind <- !is.na(match(nrdb[, 2L], imports))))
        nrdb <- nrdb[!ind, , drop = FALSE]
    ## Fortran entry points are mapped to l/case
    dotF <- nrdb$cname == ".Fortran"
    nrdb[dotF, "s"] <- tolower(nrdb[dotF, "s"])
    attr(nrdb, "package") <- package
    attr(nrdb, "duplicates") <- dups
    attr(nrdb, "symbols") <- unique(symbols)
    nrdb
 
format_native_routine_registration_db_for_skeleton <- function(nrdb, align = TRUE, include_declarations = FALSE)  
    if(!length(nrdb))
        return(character())
    fmt1 <- function(x, n)  
        c(if(align)  
              paste(format(sprintf("     \"%s\",", x[, 1L])),
                    format(sprintf(if(n == "Fortran")
                                       "(DL_FUNC) &F77_NAME(%s),"
                                   else
                                       "(DL_FUNC) &%s,",
                                   x[, 1L])),
                    format(sprintf("%d ,", x[, 2L]),
                           justify = "right"))
            else  
              sprintf(if(n == "Fortran")
                          "     \"%s\", (DL_FUNC) &F77_NAME(%s), %d ,"
                      else
                          "     \"%s\", (DL_FUNC) &%s, %d ,",
                      x[, 1L],
                      x[, 1L],
                      x[, 2L])
           ,
          "     NULL, NULL, 0 ")
     
    package <- attr(nrdb, "package")
    dups <- attr(nrdb, "duplicates")
    symbols <- attr(nrdb, "symbols")
    nrdb <- split(nrdb[, -1L, drop = FALSE],
                  factor(nrdb[, 1L],
                         levels =
                             c(".C", ".Call", ".Fortran", ".External")))
    has <- vapply(nrdb, NROW, 0L) > 0L
    nms <- names(nrdb)
    entries <- substring(nms, 2L)
    blocks <- Map(function(x, n)  
                      c(sprintf("static const R_%sMethodDef %sEntries[] =  ",
                                n, n),
                        fmt1(x, n),
                        " ;",
                        "")
                   ,
                  nrdb[has],
                  entries[has])
    decls <- c(
        "/* FIXME: ",
        "   Add declarations for the native routines registered below.",
        "*/")
    if(include_declarations)  
        decls <- c(
            "/* FIXME: ",
            "   Check these declarations against the C/Fortran source code.",
            "*/",
            if(NROW(y <- nrdb$.C))  
                 args <- sapply(y$n, function(n) if(n >= 0)
                                paste(rep("void *", n), collapse=", ")
                                else "/* FIXME */")
                c("", "/* .C calls */",
                  paste0("extern void ", y$s, "(", args, ");"))
            ,
            if(NROW(y <- nrdb$.Call))  
                args <- sapply(y$n, function(n) if(n >= 0)
                               paste(rep("SEXP", n), collapse=", ")
                               else "/* FIXME */")
               c("", "/* .Call calls */",
                  paste0("extern SEXP ", y$s, "(", args, ");"))
             ,
            if(NROW(y <- nrdb$.Fortran))  
                 args <- sapply(y$n, function(n) if(n >= 0)
                                paste(rep("void *", n), collapse=", ")
                                else "/* FIXME */")
                c("", "/* .Fortran calls */",
                  paste0("extern void F77_NAME(", y$s, ")(", args, ");"))
             ,
            if(NROW(y <- nrdb$.External))
                c("", "/* .External calls */",
                  paste0("extern SEXP ", y$s, "(SEXP);"))
            )
     
    headers <- if(NROW(nrdb$.Call)   NROW(nrdb$.External))
        c("#include <R.h>", "#include <Rinternals.h>")
    else if(NROW(nrdb$.Fortran)) "#include <R_ext/RS.h>"
    else character()
    c(headers,
      "#include <stdlib.h> // for NULL",
      "#include <R_ext/Rdynload.h>",
      "",
      if(length(symbols))  
          c("/*",
            "  The following symbols/expresssions for .NAME have been omitted",
            "", strwrap(symbols, indent = 4, exdent = 4), "",
            "  Most likely possible values need to be added below.",
            "*/", "")
       ,
      if(length(dups))  
          c("/*",
            "  The following name(s) appear with different usages",
            "  e.g., with different numbers of arguments:",
            "", strwrap(dups, indent = 4, exdent = 4), "",
            "  This needs to be resolved in the tables and any declarations.",
            "*/", "")
       ,
      decls,
      "",
      unlist(blocks, use.names = FALSE),
      ## We cannot use names with '.' in: WRE mentions replacing with "_"
      sprintf("void R_init_%s(DllInfo *dll)",
              gsub(".", "_", package, fixed = TRUE)),
      " ",
      sprintf("    R_registerRoutines(dll, %s);",
              paste0(ifelse(has,
                            paste0(entries, "Entries"),
                            "NULL"),
                     collapse = ", ")),
      "    R_useDynamicSymbols(dll, FALSE);",
      " ")
 
package_native_routine_registration_db <- function(dir, character_only = TRUE)  
    calls <- package_ff_call_db(dir)
    native_routine_registration_db_from_ff_call_db(calls, dir, character_only)
 
package_native_routine_registration_db <- function(dir, character_only = TRUE)  
    calls <- package_ff_call_db(dir)
    native_routine_registration_db_from_ff_call_db(calls, dir, character_only)
 
package_native_routine_registration_skeleton <- function(dir, con = stdout(), align = TRUE,
                                                         character_only = TRUE, include_declarations = TRUE)  
    nrdb <- package_native_routine_registration_db(dir, character_only)
    writeLines(format_native_routine_registration_db_for_skeleton(nrdb,
                align, include_declarations),
               con)
 
package_native_routine_registration_skeleton(".")  ## when R 3.4.0 is out you only need this line

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.