digabi/naksu

Tools for painless life with stickless MEB examination servers

naksu

naksu is collection of helper scripts for MEB stickless Abitti/matriculation exam servers. In real life Naksu is Onerva's (the Abitti model teacher) cat.

Naksu is currently the suggested method for operating a stickless, virtualised Abitti exam server. The zipped executables can be downloaded from GitHub. Download either Windows or Linux version and execute the file in the OS-related zip.

History

In the first version of so-called stickless exam server the schools downloaded a VM definition file Vagrantfile which was read by HashiCorp Vagrant. It created a VirtualBox VM based on the shipped disk image. However, entering vagrant up to create the VM was too technical for the teachers arranging course exams. A need for some kind of helper scripts appeared to be evident as we followed support requests and feedback from school IT staff and teachers.

Later the features of Vagrant (downloading the image and creating a VirtualBox VM) were coded into Naksu. Currently, Vagrant is not used at all and can be uninstalled from the host machine.

Updates

Naksu checks for updates when executed. If updates are found it updates itself and the user has to restart it. This behaviour can be prevented with command line switch --self-update. This sets the flag in the ~/naksu.ini which permanently disables the self-update feature.

Compiling

Compilation is usually done in Docker container. This means that you can compile Naksu in almost any environment that supports Docker and make.

You can also build Naksu with GitHub Actions (see .github/workflows/build.yml).

Requirements

• Install make
• Install Docker daemon

Build both versions using Docker

make docker

Resulting binaries are saved to bin/ directory as naksu and naksu.exe

Build also produces release bundles as naksu_linux_amd64.zip and naksu_windows_amd64.zip.

Compiling test version on Mac OS X

Older libui version we use to compile production releases has issues on Mac OS X (specifically, starting the application gives error about undo).

Workaround for this is to unpin the production release of libui from Gopgk.toml locally and recompile the binary. The diff for the change required is following:

[[constraint]]
  name = “github.com/andlabs/ui”
-  revision = “6c3bda44d3039e3721c06516be3ab9ce9cbd48cc”
+  branch = “master”
+  #revision = “6c3bda44d3039e3721c06516be3ab9ce9cbd48cc"

Do not commit this to git, since the master version seems to cause run-time linking failure on Windows

After this, update dependencies with

make update_libs

and build a Mac OS X binary with

make darwin-docker

Mac OS X test version can be started with command ./bin/naksu-darwin

Compilation details (without Docker)

Preferred way to compile naksu is using Docker. However, you can build without it, too. You need at least Go 1.13 to build naksu.

Make sure go points to your compiler or set GO to point your go binary (in Makefile).

Building Linux version

• Install libgtk-3-dev which is required by libui.
• Install libusb-1.0-0-dev which is required by github.com/google/gousb/usbid.
• Run make update_libs to get all required golang dependencies.
• make linux

Cross-Compiling Windows version

Windows version can be cross-compiled using mingw-w64. You need at least 5.0 of mingw-w64 libs. Build it from source if your pre-packaged version is older:

1. Make sure your pre-packaged mingw-w64 is installed (Debian/Ubuntu: mingw-w64).
2. Get mingw-w64 from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/mingw-w64/mingw-w64-release/
3. Build:

mkdir ~/mingw-w64/current
./configure --prefix=$HOME/mingw-w64/current --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
make -j4
make install

Finally:

make windows

Windows Icon

Windows version is built with icon file. Building src\naksu.syso is done with rsrc.

Troubleshooting

In case of trouble execute naksu with -debug switch. If naksu can't find your VBoxManage VBOXMANAGEPATH environment variable:

VBOXMANAGEPATH=D:\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe naksu

However, please report these problems since we would like to make naksu as easy to use as possible.

Publishing

1. Invent new version number. Naksu uses semantic versioning
2. Update Changelog (below) and set version number in src/naksu/naksu.go (const version = "X.Y.Z")
3. Push changes, and wait for GitHub Action "Build and Publish" to finish
4. Go to releases. There should be a new draft release with zipped Linux and Windows binaries attached. Press the Edit button.
5. Enter the new version number to "Tag version" field (e.g. "v1.6.0" - note the "v")
6. Fill "Release title" Field
7. Copy release note markup from README.md to "Describe this release" textarea
8. Click "Publish release"

License

MIT

Changelog

2.0.8 (18-OCT-2023)

• Increased the size and number of rotated log files. Now each log file can be up to 10 megs and rotation stores 5 last files.
• Removed several unnecessary periodical log entries. In some cases there will be an log entry only in case the status changes.
• Log host computer power plan settings.
• Create an unexisting ~/ktp-jako when sending log files to Abitti support.
• Updated several modules to recent versions.

2.0.7 (06-SEP-2023)

• Fix a bug causing Naksu to stop when Exam Server install passphrase was given on a Linux with Nvidia proprietary display drivers

2.0.6 (27-DEC-2022)

• Network detection uses new version URL instead of deprecated AbittiUSB URL
• Build with golang 1.19
• Upgraded vulnerable xz package
• Removed deprecated io/ioutil package

2.0.5 (08-OCT-2021)

• Fix checksum calculation of zip entries
• Improve status and error messages
• Code clean-ups

2.0.4 (26-AUG-2021)

• UI improvements (progress bar, messages) - thanks to @developerfromjokela
• Added/fixed some missing translations and log messages
• Check downloaded images with sha256 checksum
• Create ~/ktp on start to avoid storing first Naksu log to system temporary directory

2.0.3 (16-APR-2021)

• Fixed broken detection of running VM
• Remove existing VM after correct install passphrase has been given
• Use https to download version numbers and images to avoid various attack types
• Fixed freezing UI on Linux
• Removed unnecessary terminal window on Windows

2.0.2 (22-FEB-2021)

• Show an user-friendly message instead of plain 404 when submitting wrong install passphrase
• Prevent closing VM by Save option
• Fixed VirtualBox settings path on Linux
• Do not fail when removing locked VirtualBox system files when removing server
• Calculate host machine cores instead of threads when creating a new VM

2.0.1 (22-JAN-2021)

• Remove image files before installing a new server
• Communicate Naksu updates via graphical UI instead of standard output only
• Check VirtualBox version and suggest upgrade (or downgrade) if required
• Make more UI-related checks in parallel to avoid lags in the UI
• Avoid losing important log entries by reducing log spam and adjusting rotation settings

2.0.0 (11-DEC-2020)

• Install VM directly to VirtualBox without Vagrant
• Retrieve images within a zip file prepared for Balena Etcher
• Get Abitti version string and image zip from a static URL
• Get Matriculation exam image zip from an URL dependent of an install passphrase
• gettext-style localisation
• Suppress some repeating log messages
• Turn automatic updates back on from UI if disabled
• Improve error message when detected Windows Hypervisor
• Improve log messages on VBoxManage errors

1.12.2 (21-AUG-2020)

• Fix failing WMI queries (Windows)
• Fix folder name (ktp-jako instead of ktp) in log delivery popups
• Hide copy-to-clipboard button in log deliver popup if no supporting tool is found (Linux)
• Use golang 1.13 instead of 1.10 (and golang 1.11 -style module management instead of dep)

1.12.1 (27-JUL-2020)

• Show hardware info of network devices on Linux host (#38)

1.12.0 (19-JUL-2020)

• Add button for sending logs to Abitti support to aid in problem solving.
• Small fixes (avoid WMI queries to fail on null values, don't exit on missing utilities) (#37)
• Fix crash when reopening dialogs after closing with native button
• Log host hardware data to naksu_lastlog (#33)
• Fix: "Remove server" failed to delete ~/ktp on Windows host (#35)
• Avoid deadlock if showvminfo fails (#34)
• Don't croak if VBoxManage returns error (#32)
• Rotate naksu lastlog (#30)

1.11.2 (22-APR-2020)

• Fix removable media listing when selecting a backup device on Ubuntu 18.04.

1.11.1 (05-MAR-2020)

• Fix "Failed to execute vagrant up" after remove exams button leaves trash VM directories in VirtualBox default virtual machine directory.

1.11.0 (18-FEB-2020)

• Naksu detects the presence of hardware virtualization (VT-X), Hyper-V, and Windows Hypervisor Platform. A warning is shown on startup if:
  1. VT-X is not enabled
  2. Hyper-V or Hypervisor is enabled in Windows
• Network status is displayed in the UI. A warning message in red is displayed in the following situations:
  1. the link speed is the selected interface too low (< 1 Gbit/s)
  2. if no interface has been selected and the link speed of the slowest interface is < 1 Gbit/s
  3. a wireless interface has been selected
• Naksu detects and attempts to fix an issue where older VirtualBox versions (6.x < 6.0.8 or 5.x < 5.2.30) end up with duplicate hard disks in the configuration file. In this situation, Naksu should no longer end up in a state where it can't start up.
• Backup fails instantly with a warning if trying to make a backup larger than 4GB on a FAT32 formatted disk.
• Virtualbox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter is hidden from network device selection (should show only physical devices).
• Fix: network device listing shows link speeds correctly as Mbit/s (not MB/s)
• Fix: crash when cancelling file selection

1.10.0 (07-JUN-2019)

• Allow user to select physical network interface from Naksu. This allows user to bypass interface selection in terminal.
• Fix lsblk output handling so Naksu works on Ubuntu 19.04

1.9.0 (16-MAY-2019)

• Get version of the installed VM from VirtualBox instead of Vagrantfile to avoid showing wrong version numbers after a failed install/update
• Store settings file naksu.ini to home directory instead of the directory where Naksu was executed
• VirtualBox network adapter type (e.g. virtio) can be changed from the Naksu UI

1.8.1 (19-MAR-2019)

• Available disk space is shown in backup media selection list
• Added user feedback to server destroy operation
• Show string "no name" for external disks that have empty volume name
• Bugfix: Calculate available disk space correctly
• Bugfix: Correctly handle nil WMI return value if external backup media does not have a volume name

1.8.0 (27-FEB-2019)

• Show available Abitti update in UI to prevent administrators running outdated server version
• Notify administrators if they are starting matriculation exam box with live internet connection
• Added debug logging on startup
• Bugfix: Linux did not open File Manager if xdg-open was not installed
• Bugfix: Windows was not able to enumerate connected removable devices
• Bugfix: Windows was not able to get free disk space
• Bugfix: Linux miscalculated free disk space

1.7.0 (19-DEC-2018)

User interface

• User interface remembers user language selection
• Automatic self-update can be disabled via ini-file or command-line parameter. This setting is meant for centralized installations and should not be enabled otherwise. User will still get notified if naksu is out of date via warning popup.

Other changes

• Naksu has minimal command-line interface. see naksu -h
• Naksu tries to persist some settings to naksu.ini. This ini file is stored to same path as naksu

1.6.1 (14-DEC-2018)

User interface

• Network connection check uses 4 second timeout to prevent network check getting stuck indefinitely
• Start server button is disabled if server has not yet been installed (with message to first install the server)

1.6.0 (3-DEC-2018)

User interface

• Added button for removing exams (vagrant destroy -f)
• Added button for removing servers (delete ~/.vagrant.d, ~/.VirtualBox, ~/ktp and ~/VirtualBox VMs)
• Detect installed VM version from ~/ktp/Vagrantfile instead of Vagrant data files
• Changed the low disk warning level from 5 Gb to 50 Gb
• Added . (period) to the list of accepted characters in the home directory path
• User can cancel confirmation dialogs by closing the window

Other changes

• Major rewrite of code
• Build and test on a Docker environment instead of local workstation
• Added support for compiling and executing Naksu on Darwin (needed by some of the developers)

1.5.0 (2-OCT-2018)

User interface

• Hide management buttons behind a checkbox
• Removed Exit button in favour of Open ktp-jako button
• Refuse to install/update without network connection by disabling the buttons

Other changes

• Warn user if home path contains 8-bit characters
• Refuse to import Vagrantfile from ~/ktp/Vagrantfile
• Added desktop as a valid backup target location
• Make sure the selected backup target location is writeable
• Hide 'Invalid state while booting' errors from UI
• Use term "virtual server" instead of "stickless server"
• Improvements which make it easier to build Naksi using a continuous integration server

1.4.1 (05-SEP-2018)

• Always create debug file to ~ktp/naksu_lastlog.txt or TEMP/naksu_lastlog.txt
• Give more informative error message when vagrant exits with --macaddress error message
• Bugfix: get Linux temporary path from TempDir() instead of TEMP env var

1.4.0 (31-AUG-2018)

• Show current server version
• Show status messages when working with vagrant/VBoxManage
• UI Language support (Finnish, Swedish)

1.3.0 (13-AUG-2018)

• Restart with x-terminal-emulator if started via file manager (Linux)
• Warn user if there is less than 5 Gb free disk before install, update or backup
• Bugfix: Don't panic if media does not have vendor/model (Linux)
• Get vendor/model strings for removable media directly from WMI without wmic (Windows)
• Application icon (Windows)
• Added logging (use -debug switch to show debug messages)

1.2.0 (09-AUG-2018)

• User can create a backup (clone) from VM hard drive
• Continues execution although binary update fails

1.1.0 (05-JUL-2018)

• User can switch between Abitti and Matriculation Exam servers