When I received my Yubikeys for the first time, I was pleased to find an existing guide to follow. This guide heavily focuses on setting up the keys for GnuPG. If I had to set up my keys today, I think the process would be much simpler. I’d prefer to have a guide dedicated to Passkeys, with more details on how to use them, what information to save, and so on. I’d also prefer if the instructions…
It has already been 5 years since UnifiedPush started! It also means I don't have any Play Services, the official or microG reimplementation, for 5 years now. It is a good moment to do a recap, and think about what can be UnifiedPush in 5 years. It turns out I don't remember in details how all started, I need to read some historical pull requests and chats. Why do I need push notifications? I…
Edit 2025-12-26 Correction of the risk analysis: compromission of the PIN infrastructure in combinaison of a weak PIN can lead to metadata leak, including the social graph. I had wrongly assumed that the IKs were restored with the masterkey, but they are restored only with the backups or with a device transfert. This resulted in a higher risk in case of compromission. Signal threat model is well…
TL;DR If you're using systemd-homed, it may be a good idea to store a file in the home partition that can be deleted when your disk is full, so that you can mount your home to free up space. dd bs=1M count=1024 if=/dev/random of=/home/EMERGENCY Yesterday, I spent my evening at my first install party, debugging different setups and finding solutions for obscure bugs. To take it easy, I start doing…
TL;DR I've tinkered with a solution based on systemd user-services: https://codeberg.org/s1m/termenv . It works as expected but I wish there was a stable solution for this. For long time, isolations on operating systems has been about isolations between users only. It was accepted that applications of a same user were able to access the same files, and interact with each other. They all have the…
Today, the most popular Linux service manager is systemd. Services are defined in units located in defined directories. Package units are in /usr/lib/systemd/system and administrators add their units to /etc/systemd/system . In addition to the system service manager , systemd provides a user service manager , for user services. User units are in other directories, including in the user's home…
I'm starting a new blog: I often do IT stuff I want to keep a trace of and I think it will fit in a blog. It may also help someone somewhere someday. I've recently moved my daily device to (Arch-) ParticleOS , an image-based distribution built around immutability, measured boot, and much more, with a deep integration of systemd, as described in Fitting Everything Together . I am configuring things…