PBEasy | PrivateBin Helper Dialog Script

I created a PrivatePasteBin Helper tool PBEasy (ppb, for short) based on pbcli for easy use of Pastes and Comments/Replies without the need to remember the Link (paste/key).

You can add Pastes to your favorite PrivateBin, or make comments to it for the first time using the 'ppb' tool, which automatically adds the new paste to the cache.

There is also a Profanity XMPP client (cli) plugin for easy integration with the /ppb command. Profanity MUST run inside a TMUX session to open the interactive mode window.

#PrivateBin #PasteBin #paste #CLI #tools
Blogpost

The PBEasy PrivateBin CLI helper

The PBEasy tool (or 'ppb' for short) is a PrivateBin helper tool, which caches used pastes for easy access, and shows a list of comments on a paste (if enabled) as a dialog with preview. You can reply to a comment or create a new comment with your favorite $EDITOR.

If you install the Profanity Plugin, you can directly reply to a paste from within Profanity. <TAB> is enabled to scroll through URLs. Usage: '/ppb [url]' or '/ppb' in the console window for interactive choose of a paste.

I won't show the installation instructions here, because you can have a look at the PBEasy Repository for instructions.

Features

Interactive use of the ppb command, when used without parameters and pipe
Create new PrivateBin pastes from files or stdin. These are automatically added to a local cache for easy access.
Upload attachments (images, files) with optional comments. Also automatically added to the cache.
Interactive comment/reply selection using dialog.
Reply to nested comments with preview and editing.
Clipboard integration: Automatically copies resulting URLs using xclip.
Uses your $EDITOR for editing comments and replies.
Customizable defaults via a config file.

Dependencies:

pbcli, jq, dialog, xclip,
'fold', 'mktemp', 'diff', 'cat', 'tee' (coreutils),
A text editor set in your $EDITOR environment variable (eg. nvim, vim, nano)

Short Usage:

ppb [-i] | [-u <FILE>|-c <URL>] [-d|-D] [-f <FORMAT>] [-s <HOST URL>] [-n <NAME>] | [-h]

[-i]: Create default configuration file
[-u <FILE>]: Upload file as an attachment. Images will be shown.
[-c <URL>]: Comment or reply to a comment of the Paste
[-d| -D]: Enable/Disable comments on a paste
[-s <HOST URL>]: Specify PrivateBin Host (default: https://pb.envs.net/)
[-n <NAME>]: Specify NAME for Paste URL to better find in list of pastes
[-h]: Show help

Use Issue Tracker

If you have any problems with ppb, use one of the Issue trackers:

• https://git.envs.net/dan/pbeasy/issues
• https://github.com/dan-envs/pbeasy/issues

License

This script is licensed under the GPL-3.0-only license. See LICENSE for details.

Final Words

I hope, that at least some people use these scripts, including the Profanity plugin and find it useful. Its a good help if you're often using PrivateBin paste bins from the command line. So please try it out.

Best wishes,
~dan

@creme@pleroma.envs.net has built a nice MUC BanBot for XMPP with a lot of neat features to keep the Multi-User-Chat rooms in order. This bot is certainly useful for other XMPP server admins too. So we have more control and generally more safety in the envs.net XMPP chat rooms.

#envs #xmpp #muc #bot #chat

Blogpost

Keeping your visitors safe!

The XMPP MUC BanBot allows centralized administration from a designated admin room and protects multiple chat rooms from unwanted users.

Admin commands from the admin room

These commands are issued by the room admins in the designated admin room for the bot.

Public commands for participants

These commands can be executed by the participants of protected rooms.

Description

As you see, with these commands you can permanently or temporarily ban people who can't behave, are bothering other room participants or generally don't follow the room rules in all protected rooms.

Temporary bans will automatically be lifted when the time set for the ban has passed.

All bans, temporary and permanent can be lifted by the channel admins of protected channels at any time. There are also the different !sync commands to keep the bot's database in sync with the rooms, bans and admins.

Conclusion

With the MUC BanBot we have an excellent tool to keep trolls out of our chatrooms. And also especially the !tempban function can be used to take some speed out of heated discussions. All in all, an excellent piece of software for XMPP server administrators.

Best wishes,
~dan

]]> https://dan.envs.net/blog/2026/2026-02-24-my-raspberry-pi-incus-cluster Tue, 24 Feb 2026 0:00:00+01:00

My Raspberry Pi Incus Cluster

Blog post from: Tue, 24 Feb 2026

4 RasPi's in a metal case

This is my 4x Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB) Incus cluster I wrote about in my "selfhosted" page. I built it for tinkering in a nice metal case.

The cluster consists of 4x Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM and has a 500GB SSD attached to each of them. Inside the case at the bottom is a 5-port 1GBit switch which connects the Pis to the network.

Incus Container/VM Manager

The cluster runs the Incus Container/VM Manager in a cluster setup running on Raspberry Pi OS (Trixie). Incus uses the arm64 apt repository for Debian "Trixie", so I always have the most recent version of Incus running.

I update the whole cluster with Ansible. I mainly use it to learn and tinker with an Incus cluster, but the updates can be a little unstable, so I use my Proxmox Cluster for services which need to be more reliable on two x86_64 (amd64) nodes.

Best wishes,
~dan

My website on the envs pubnix now fully supports sending and receiving webmentions automatically. I've made h-card and h-entry markup on all of my blog pages, but you can send webmentions to all my webpages except the the image gallery.

I'm still new to all this and I just set it up this night with all the microformats and scripting I did on my page in Javascript to show received mentions and my envs-blog management script to send them to the pages and this is my first test!

I had to put some JavaScript on my pages to view the received webmentions, but you can still read the post without Javascript. You just can't read the webmentions. I went the easy way at first with using webmention.io, but I'll maybe come up with my own solution later (if ever needed).

Sites I link to for testing

I've just looked up how to create rel="in-reply-to" links at Barry Frosts page about "how-to-comment". Let's see, if my blogging script will successfully send him a webmention. In addition I'll send a webmention to my contact page as a non-reply webmention, just to see, if receiving works right. I've also a page on indieweb.org, but I guess, it doesn't receive webmentions?

Last words before sending this post

My script may fail to do everything right and this is just a first test. So I maybe need to delete or update this post. I hope Barry isn't that angry on me, if my post isn't as permanent as it should be. But I pray that all works well.

Best wishes,
~dan