Knowledge Base (Posts about web)

Small feature for cgit: better breadcrumbs

bgstack15 — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 12:52:00 GMT

I wrote a small patch that improves the breadcrumbs navigation in cgit. The admin of the mailing list (where discussions and patches go, supposedly) never replied to me and I never got any notifications about it. But I was going to share it here anyway.

Check out the patch in my cgit, or included below here.

files/2026/listings/ui-shared-add-section-breadcrumbs-links.patch (Source)

	`From 1f3d3876bdaab0bd27a564d292172aa72e14d906 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001`
	`From: "B. Stack" <bgstack15@gmail.com>`
	`Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 19:05:43 -0400`
	`Subject: ui-shared: add section breadcrumb links`

	`When section-from-path is enabled, include a link to the section, if any,`
	`in the header breadcrumbs.`

	`This patch was developed with assistance from an AI coding tool (duck.ai).`
	`I reviewed and tested the resulting code and take responsibility for the`
	`patch.`

	`Signed-off-by: B. Stack <bgstack15@gmail.com>`
	`---`
	`ui-shared.c \| 17 +++++++++++++++++`
	`ui-shared.h \| 1 +`
	`2 files changed, 18 insertions(+)`

	`diff --git a/ui-shared.c b/ui-shared.c`
	`index df52a9b..43b0e06 100644`
	`--- a/ui-shared.c`
	`+++ b/ui-shared.c`
	`@@ -330,6 +330,19 @@ static void reporevlink(const char page, const char name, const char *title,`
	`html("</a>");`
	`}`

	`+void cgit_section_link(const char name, const char section)`
	`+{`
	`+ const char *root = cgit_rooturl();`
	`+ html("<a href='");`
	`+ html_attr(root);`
	`+ if (root[0] && root[strlen(root) - 1] != '/')`
	`+ html("/");`
	`+ html_attr(section);`
	`+ html("/'>");`
	`+ html_txt(name);`
	`+ html("</a>");`
	`+}`
	`+`
	`void cgit_summary_link(const char name, const char title, const char *class,`
	`const char *head)`
	`{`
	`@@ -1040,6 +1053,10 @@ static void print_header(void)`
	`html("<td class='main'>");`
	`if (ctx.repo) {`
	`cgit_index_link("index", NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0, 1);`
	`+ if (ctx.repo->section && *ctx.repo->section) {`
	`+ html(" : ");`
	`+ cgit_section_link(ctx.repo->section, ctx.repo->section);`
	`+ }`
	`html(" : ");`
	`cgit_summary_link(ctx.repo->name, NULL, NULL, NULL);`
	`if (ctx.env.authenticated) {`
	`diff --git a/ui-shared.h b/ui-shared.h`
	`index 2a3a7f5..d521a97 100644`
	`--- a/ui-shared.h`
	`+++ b/ui-shared.h`
	`@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ extern void cgit_add_clone_urls(void (fn)(const char ));`

	`extern void cgit_index_link(const char name, const char title,`
	`const char class, const char pattern, const char *sort, int ofs, int always_root);`
	`+extern void cgit_section_link(const char name, const char section);`
	`extern void cgit_summary_link(const char name, const char title,`
	`const char class, const char head);`
	`extern void cgit_tag_link(const char name, const char title,`
	`--`
	`cgit`

I spend a lot of time in a grouping, and wanted a quick link back to it.

Fetch assets from vendor portal

bgstack15 — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:27:00 GMT

I think this vendor uses a generic Salesforce or similar SAAS for their customer support portal, so this might be applicable to more than just this one vendor.

Load your secrets, in this case from ~/.config/helpcenter, and then dot-source the library. Then authenticate, and if it prints a success message, you can then download large assets.

. download-vendor-asset.sh
auth_to_vendor4
fetch_vendor4 https://release.example.com/downLoadArtifact?id=8823

It supports any number of assets all on one line.

Upgrading contentdb narrative

bgstack15 — Sun, 10 May 2026 12:55:00 GMT

I run an Internal ContentDB for Luanti users. I know the upstream ContentDB receives updates to its code.

I was months and months behind the upstream codebase, so I decided to try to upgrade my code. The most visible feature that I could use to confirm I had a new version is the display of "AI disclosure" on a package.

The code uses python3, flask, and SqlAlchemy. I've used all these technologies before, but not as deeply as the ContentDB team! It does make me happy that I have approximately the same skillset as that team.

The actions

In a containerized application, you normally run docker pull <imagename>, but there aren't pre-built images for this project. But it's not hard to run docker build . to build it yourself. So I did that, and then tried restarting the container, and it failed.

I failed to keep the exact error messages, but it boiled down to a "circular dependency problem."

I then connected to the running container to manually run alembic commands to upgrade the database. You can see the changes to the database schema. I've never used alembic directly before; I've always used flask db upgrade, and I eventually figured how to do that in this containerized fashion. But I had learned a lot about what I needed to add to the alembic configs so it could find its components. They're scribbled somewhere, but I'm not going to look for them because the flask db upgrade is a better and simpler way.

So the database could get upgraded, but I still cannot run the flask app because of the circular dependency problem. utils kept trying to import app.utils or vice versa. This was the real problem of my upgrade, which was solved after I looked through the code history and found Commit fa3697a: Split up app/utils/__init__.py to reduce issues. The problem still happens though, because of how the container loads the app from a mounted volume, into the location where it will run.

That file, app/utils/__init__.py, was deleted, but when the container startup script copies all files in, it doesn't remove files. It's one of those classic computer science problems, where it won't clean up a deleted file. It doesn't know that file exists, and doesn't care. It's not rsync with a --delete-after parameter. Therefore, I had to go into the container and delete app/utils/__init__.py. Then I could run that flask db upgrade from the utility script, and then start up the application.

The reason that file was deleted, was because you cannot have a python module import another module of the same name. That means directory name, even if it's a different directory. So utils cannot import app.utils, and vice versa. So I'm glad the ContentDB team rewrote it so one of them no longer has a module (__init__.py) directly, to choke.

And now for some reason, every time I restart the container, I have to re-run the flask db upgrade step. That's weird, but I can live with it.

owntracks with reverse proxy

bgstack15 — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:07:00 GMT

I recently improved my owntracks deployment to put the frontends behind a reverse proxy! It took me some time to research, because I got distracted with websockets and CORS rabbit trails.

What ended up working was the following process.

Add these values to the config.js.

window.owntracks.config = {
    api: {
        baseUrl: "https://storage3.ipa.example.com/owntracks-map/",
    },
    router: {
        basePath: "/owntracks-map",
    },
};

Add to the Apache httpd reverse proxy virtual host(s) these configs. I bet some of this is redundant.

ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass        /owntracks-map  http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085 upgrade=websocket
ProxyPassReverse /owntracks-map  http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085/ upgrade=websocket
ProxyPass        /owntracks-internal  http://server4.ipa.example.com:8083 upgrade=websocket
ProxyPassReverse /owntracks-internal  http://server4.ipa.example.com:8083/ upgrade=websocket
<Location "/owntracks-internal/ws">
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks"
</Location>
<Location "/owntracks-internal">
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks"
</Location>
<Location "/owntracks-internal/view/">
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks"
</Location>
<Location "/owntracks-internal/static/">
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks"
</Location>
<Location "/owntracks-map/ws">
   ProxyPass        http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085/ retry=3 connectiontimeout=5 timeout=8 upgrade=websocket
   ProxyPassReverse http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085/
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks-map/ws"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks-map/ws"
</Location> 
<Location "/owntracks-map/">
   ProxyPass        http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085/ retry=3 connectiontimeout=5 timeout=8 upgrade=websocket
   ProxyPassReverse http://server4.ipa.example.com:8085/
   RequestHeader append X-Forwarded-Prefix "/owntracks-map"
   RequestHeader append X-Script-Name "/owntracks-map"
</Location>

Please note that this /owntracks-internal is not the path used by the owntracks android clients. It is for the web view of the app with different authentication, and not the per-device auth used by owntracks.

And then the directory listing for these frontend paths is as follows.

<li><a href="/owntracks-map/">/owntracks-map/</a> Location tracking (<a href="/owntracks-internal/">bare app</a>)</li>

References

Sticking the frontend behind a virtual path frontend/docs/config.md at main · owntracks/frontend
Second part of reverse proxy frontend/docs/config.md at main · owntracks/frontend

Redirect http to https in html (well, javascript)

bgstack15 — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:28:00 GMT

I wanted to redirect an http page to https, without changing virtual hostname. And I was able to find this on the Internet.

<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
</head>
<body>
</body>
<script>
<!-- from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4954768/automatic-redirection-to-https/4954784#4954784 -->
var loc = window.location.href+'';
if (loc.indexOf('http://')==0){
    window.location.href = loc.replace('http://','https://');
}
</script>
<footer>
</footer>
</html>

So as long as you reach this index.html, it will then redirect you to the webapp hosted only on the TLS-enabled virtual host.

New image helper

bgstack15 — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 15:58:45 GMT

Because I love reinventing the wheel, here is my way-too-simple photo gallery web page generator.

	`#!/bin/sh`
	`# Startdate: 2023-07-13-5 16:48`
	`# Purpose: make simple html gallery of images and directories`
	`# Reference: tapestry-helper.sh`
	`# Usage:`
	`# Ensure no spaces in the filenames.`
	`# Improve:`
	`# add ".." links to any child directories.`
	`INDIR=/mnt/public/www/gallery/2013-01-picasa-partial-dump`
	`HTML_HEAD="${INDIR}/.header.html"`
	`HTML_FOOT="${INDIR}/.footer.html"`
	`DIRECTORY_ICON="/gallery/2013-01-picasa-partial-dump/folder.svg"`

	`THUMBNAIL_SIZE=300`
	`USE_THUMBNAILS=1`
	`if test -n "${USE_THUMBNAILS}" && test "${USE_THUMBNAILS}" = 1 ;`
	`then`
	`mkdir -p "${INDIR}/.thumbnails"`
	`fi`
	`# use MAKE_THUMBNAILS=1 to actually run convert, which slows the process down. You disable MAKE_THUMBNAILS when just regenerating the html`
	`test -z "${MAKE_THUMBNAILS}" && MAKE_THUMBNAILS=0`

	`cd "${INDIR}"`
	`# now that there are no spaces we can just do this`
	`# begin dir loop`
	`for word in $( find "${INDIR}" -mindepth 0 -type d ! -name '.thumbnails' ) ;`
	`do`
	`(`
	`cd "${word}"`
	`shortword="$( basename "${word}" )"`
	`mkdir -p ./.thumbnails`
	`rm -f ./index.html`
	`exec 3>&1`
	`exec 1>> ./index.html`
	`eval "cat <<EOF`
	`$( cat "${HTML_HEAD}" )`
	`EOF`
	`"`
	`# make a .. link if not the parent directory`
	`if ! test "${word}" = "${INDIR}" ; then`
	`echo "<div class=\"item\"><a href=\"..\"><img src=\"${DIRECTORY_ICON}\" class=\"thumb\">..</a></div>"`
	`fi`
	`tds="$( find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d ! -name '.thumbnails' ! -name '.*' )"`
	`for td in ${tds} ; do`
	`td_basename="$( basename "${td}" )"`
	`#echo "<a href=\"${td}\"><img src=\"${DIRECTORY_ICON}\" class=\"thumb\">${td}</a>"`
	`echo "<div class=\"item\"><a href=\"${td}\"><img src=\"${DIRECTORY_ICON}\" class=\"thumb\">${td_basename}</a></div>"`
	`done`
	`tfs="$( find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 ! -type d ! -name '.ini' ! -name '..ini' ! -name '..swp' ! -name '.sh' ! -name '.html' ! -name '.db' ! -name 'folder.svg' ! -name '.' ! -name '.css' -printf '%T@ %P\n' \| sort -n \| awk '{print $NF}' )"`
	`for tf in ${tfs} ;`
	`do`
	`tf_in="${word}/${tf}"`
	`tf_thumb_web="${tf}"`
	`if test -n "${USE_THUMBNAILS}" && test "${USE_THUMBNAILS}" = 1 ;`
	`then`
	`tf_thumb="${word%%/}/.thumbnails/${tf%%.???}.jpg"`
	`tf_thumb_web=".thumbnails/${tf%%.???}.jpg"`
	`test "${MAKE_THUMBNAILS}" = "1" && convert -filter Lanczos -resize "${THUMBNAIL_SIZE}x${THUMBNAIL_SIZE}" "${word}/${tf}" "${tf_thumb}"`
	`fi`
	`echo "<a href=\"${tf}\"><img src=\"${tf_thumb_web}\" class=\"thumb\"></a>"`
	`done`
	`cat "${HTML_FOOT}"`
	`exec 1>&3`
	`)`
	`done # end dir loop`

My .header.html and .footer.html files are very basic.

<html>
<!-- started 2023-07-13 -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/gallery/2013-01-picasa-partial-dump/simple.css">
<head>
<title>${shortword}</title>
</head>
<body>

And footer just closes the html tags.

</body>
</html>

And the css.

.thumb {
   max-width: 300px;
   max-height: 300px;
}

div.item {
    vertical-align: top;
    display: inline-block;
    text-align: center;
    width: 120px;
}
/*
img {
    width: 100px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: grey;
}
*/
div.item img {
   max-width: 220px;
   max-height: 220px;
}
.caption {
    display: block;
}

I just grabbed a random folder.svg from one of the GNOME Icon themes.

Scraping Pharaoh walkthroughs

bgstack15 — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:52:53 GMT

Every so often I intend to play through the old Pharaoh computer game: no Cleopatra! I have the original disc and don't need some mangled version.

But I don't get very far before I lose interest in the game. Sometimes I don't even get all the way to Giza and the big, famous pyramids. So I need guidance to play the game, and for that I use the classic walkthroughs on Heavengames.

Just in case this site ever disappears, I cloned the pages locally for myself.

wget --limit-rate=50k -E -k -r -N -p -l 7 https://pharaoh.heavengames.com/walkthroughs/ --reject-regex '.*caesar3.*|.*archives.*|.*strategy.*|.*downloads.*|.*faqs.*|.*buildings.*|.*links.*|.*comps/|.*egypt/|.*interviews/|.*gallery/|.*sitemap/|.*lympis/|.*\<e3/|.*cgi-bin/.*newsfiles/'

I built that exclusion regex after a bunch of trial-and-error. I only wanted the sources necessary to display the ~21 level walkthroughs with images and css.

disabling webrtc temporarily

bgstack15 — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 12:43:42 GMT

To facilitate a proxy setting to prevent IP address leakage, disable WebRTC with about:config setting:

media.peerconnection.enabled = false

You can check with https://whoer.net

ssh_config: new option in Devuan, March 2023

bgstack15 — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 13:54:19 GMT

From the apt-listchanges message for this month:

openssh (1:9.2p1-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  OpenSSH 9.2 includes a number of changes that may affect existing
  configurations:

   * ssh(1): add a new EnableEscapeCommandline ssh_config(5) option that
     controls whether the client-side ~C escape sequence that provides a
     command-line is available. Among other things, the ~C command-line
     could be used to add additional port-forwards at runtime.

     This option defaults to "no", disabling the ~C command-line that was
     previously enabled by default. Turning off the command-line allows
     platforms that support sandboxing of the ssh(1) client (currently only
     OpenBSD) to use a stricter default sandbox policy.

 -- Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>  Wed, 08 Feb 2023 10:36:06 +0000

So I had to run this on all Devuan systems, to keep my ssh client command-line enabled.

sudo updateval -a -v /etc/ssh/ssh_config '^\s*EnableEscapeCommandline.*' 'EnableEscapeCommandline yes'

Where updateval is from my bgscripts-core package.

socks proxy command

bgstack15 — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 14:29:10 GMT

Run this command.

ssh -D 8880 ${USER}@proxyserver -n -f -N

Set socks proxy in browser settings.