Placed in /Scripts/keepalive

 pi@raspberry01:~/Scripts/keepalive$ cat keepalive.sh 
 #bin/bash
 
## BAINWERX
## NVME Keepalive Read|Write Script
## version 1.2
## created Feb 2021

## Time in 12 hr format
 logging_time=$(date +'%r')
 
## backup dir format
 logging_dir=$(date +'%m_%d_%Y')
 
find /home/pi/Scripts/keepalive/*.log -mtime 1 -delete;
 echo "NVME Keepalive Read|Write at" "${logging_time}" >> /home/pi/Scripts/keepalive/"${logging_dir}".log 

Runing this script will create a .log file with a simple write to the nvme drive. Next step wil be to setup a cron task with

sudo crontab -e

add the following lines to enable the script

# nvme drive keepalive by posting to drive every minute
 */1 * * * * sudo sh /home/pi/Scripts/keepalive/keepalive.sh

Now Save and reboot the system.

NOTE

If you are adding this with pihole…you might want to add the following step which will run when the pi is rebooted. It tells the pi that when it reboots…wait 15 seconds and then restart the pihole dns resolution

# On reboot + 15 seconds restart the pihole dns resolver (loop prevention)
 
@reboot sleep 15 && sudo pihole restartdns

Dang…stumbled across this little gem!

https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/unbound/

Building a raspberry pi ad blocker is pretty slick, but to really take advantage of the opportunity provided I’ve also installed unbound which is a full-fledged DNS resolution tool.

That’s right, no more upstream providers needed!

RFKILL is a handy tool to hard disable wireless and bluetooth from Raspbian devices like a pi. Unlike other command line tools, this is persistant meaning that it will survive reboots until it is unblocked.

sudo rfkill block wifi
sudo rfkill block bluetooth

to undo…

sudo rfkill unblock wifi
sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth

We stepped up to a wireless mesh network at the house this weekend. We’ve been having a lot of weird wireless issues in the last week or so…so we updated our old Linksys routers to a new wireless mesh.

Switching wireless id’s wasn’t the end of the world…I thought it would be a bigger pain in the butt…but it’s really not that terrible. Most applications have a method to be able to switch the wireless network they connect to “fairly painlessly”. Even the Ring doorbell (which has 2 extra steps) wasn’t terrible.

I did want to try and figure out how to wirelessly scan and confirm which networks the pi’s were on as they serve a couple of purposes for us.

wgetid will show you the network the pi is connected to.

sudo iwlist wlan0 scan | egrep “Cell|ESSID|Signal|Rates” will provide a quick wireless scan and show you the strength and rates available.

They say it’s small but powerful…well it’s super small, but powerful (for what it is). It’s a $12 computer that’s the size of my keyfob.

It’s insanity…