In a recent release of the german c’t magazine, under “Schlanker Roboter” they described the process of getting rid of the many bloatware that comes along with Android Smartphones today. I went with the method using adb.

Others have done that, too.

You’ll find most of the resources on how to do it online:

• Install adb on your desktop machine (via Android Platform Tools from Google)
• Become a developer on the phone
• Enable USB Debugging in the phone’s developer settings (Confirm on the phone when asked)
• Fire up a terminal and use adb to fiddle with the phone

Be careful you may brick your phone – I almost did. Do yourself a favor and quickly create a backup first:

adb backup '-apk -shared -all -f backup-file.adb'

#start the server process on the desktop machine
adb start-server
#check whether your device is connected
adb devices
#start remote shell to the device
adb shell
#list all the packages
pm list packages
#list the packages with "sony" in their namespace
pm list packages | grep sony

These were quite a few, more than 300 in total, with some of my apps installed.  Those with “sony” were 171. 

First, get rid of the 3rd party apps (How would they think I’ll use them….)

pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.amazon.mShop.android.shopping
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.facebook.services
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.google.android.printservice.recommendation
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.spotify.music
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.katana
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.system
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.qti.vzw.ims.internal.tests
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.scee.psxandroid
CNE Service I do not use: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2013/07/02/qualcomms-cne-bringing-smarts-3g4g-wi-fi-seamless-interworking
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.quicinc.cne.CNEService
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.realvnc.android.remote
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.s.antivirus
pm uninstall -k --user 0  com.facebook.appmanager

Then, otherwise unnecessary apps:

pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonyericsson.music
#by sonymobile
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.assist
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.assist.persistent
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.android.externalkeyboardjp
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.advancedwidget.topcontacts
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.android.contacts
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.android.contacts.res.overlay_305
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.anondata
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.demoappchecker
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.dualshockmanager
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.email
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.getmore.client
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.gettoknowit
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.googleanalyticsproxy
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.intelligent.backlight
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.intelligent.gesture
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.intelligent.iengine
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.intelligent.observer
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.lifelog
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.music.googlelyricsplugin
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.music.wikipediaplugin
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.music.youtubekaraokeplugin
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.music.youtubeplugin
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.retaildemo
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.blue
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.bubble
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.daily
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.paint
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.red
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.star
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.sunshine
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.styleportrait.addon.suntan
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.themes.sou.cid14.black
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.themes.sou.cid15.white
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.themes.sou.cid16.blue
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.themes.sou.cid17.pink
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.xperialounge.services
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.xperiaweather
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.xperiaservices
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonymobile.xperiatransfermobile
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sonyericsson.textinput.chinese
pm uninstall -k com.sonymobile.support

You may remove more of course, just be aware that some might be required by the system. By removing some other packages, I got my phone almost ‘bricked’, requiring a complete reset of the system using the Sony Xperia Companion software.

Limitations:

Unfortunately, some of the packages are installed for user 0 (zero), while others seem to require no user for uninstallation.  I did not find out why this is, on my phone there is only 1 user.

Also, uninstalling on some packages can not completely remove them from the phone, they are still showing in the app list on the device GUI.

How to simplify and secure a WordPress installation for kid’s use?

This guide focuses on privacy, security and ease of use. Thus secure access is enforced, a login is required and some UI sugar will be set up. Here are some steps to follow, with detailed instructions below:

• Enforce HTTPS
• Use WordPress privately, with required login
• Disable commenting
• Customize the login page for better recognition

Installation & Configuration

1. 1. Install it using your preferred way
   2. Create an admin user for you and a kid’s account (with the author role). If you like, also create viewer accounts for read-only access.
   3. Enforce HTTPS and use HSTS
      Create a .htaccess file in the root folder with the following content:

 
# Redirect to HTTPS 
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =off 
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [QSA,L,R=301] 

# enable HSTS 
Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload" 

Install Plugins

1. Use the Force Login plugin, to restrict usage only to registered users. This will also immediately load the edit mode once your kid has logged in.
2. Make sure, the Loginizer plugin is installed and activated. It has a harsh retry limit and is a very effective means of keeping bad guys out.
3. Use the Login customizer plugin, to create a pleasant login screen for your kid.

Commenting Config

In Settings/Discussion

• Uncheck “Allow people to post comments on new articles”

Just in case you once allow discussion on a specific post:

• Check “Users must be registered and logged in to comment
• Check “Comment author must fill out name and email”

Tweaking the UI

• Update the theme: TWENTY SEVENTEEN is a nice theme (currently the default). Use a nice header image in the theme, showing something the kid likes (but probably not a closeup image of themselves)

Tweak the login screen

• To make your kid feel at home, even at the login screen, use an image there too. Unfortunately you can not just add CSS in the default customization editor to tweak the login screen.
• However, by using the Login customizer plugin:
  Go to Appearance/Customize, then Login Customizer (new from the installed plugin), then Other/Custom CSS to fully tweak the style. However, you can also just use the CSS below (replace the image URL):

/* This CSS changes the default WordPress login page
 * It uses a custom image as faded background and tweaks the
 * other UI stuff accordingly */

/* use an image from the gallery */
body.login {
    background-image: url(https://yourdomain.tld/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/x.jpg);
    display: block;
    background-size: cover;
}

/* fade the image to black and keep behind the login form */
body.login::after {
    content: "";
    background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    /* Image behind the login form */
    z-index: -1;
}

/* make the links more readable, by using a white background, as the rest of the login form, in front of the blackish image */
/*body.login div#login,*/
body.login p#backtoblog,
body.login p#nav {
    background-color: white;
}

/* keep the links visually attached to the form */
body.login p#nav,
body.login p#backtoblog {
    margin-top: 0;
    padding-top: 6px;
    padding-bottom: 6px;
}

body.login p#backtoblog {
    padding-bottom: 24px;
}

/* keep the wordpress logo decolorized to not infer with image colors */
body.login #login > h1 > a {
    filter: grayscale(100%) brightness(250%); 
}

Happy blogging!

WordPress and all plugins mentioned are free (or freemium), so consider donating to the respective authors.

To free up my other Raspberry Pi from being a DNS server and to use an already existing NAS on my local LAN, I decided to try to install NxFilter (my favourite DNS filtering solution) to a Synology DS115j NAS device. Here’s how I did it.

The DS115j is one of the more affordable models, running Version 5 of the Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM). Unfortunately it is not able to run Docker containers. Thus I decided to go down the native way with the Java Manager module.

However, to make it safe (that is, not running it as root) was a little more involved as I thought…

You will need to…

• Install Java (with the Java Manager)
• (at least temporarily) enable SSH on your NAS.
• Add kernel modules for port redirection from Port 53 to a non-privileged port, to avoid running the DNS server as root.
• Modify the Synology firewall to accept traffic for DNS and the NxFilter admin GUI.
• Use UpStart jobs to start up NxFilter automatically after boot.
• Use an upstream DNS server, also for queries originating from within the NAS.

Prerequisites

1. Log into your Synology NAS admin GUI as administrator.
2. Install Java, version 1.7.0, using the Java Manager Package in the Package Center of you Synology NAS.
3. Enable SSH in Control Panel / Terminal & SNMP / Terminal. Tick Enable SSH Service.
4. Add firewall rules in Control Panel / Security / Firewall. You must open a port for DNS and one for the admin GUI.
   Since I will later use port redirection for DNS, I use port 8053 instead of the default 53. In the below example I allow all local traffic to the alternative DNS Port 8053 (UDP) as well as the administration GUI port 8443 (TCP).

   

Installing NxFilter

Get the latest NxFilter binaires as ZIP file from their website (nxfilter-v.v.v-p1.zip).

Deploying to a local user

1. I suggest to create and use a specific local user account for the NxFilter installation on your Synology NAS to keep things separated.

   

   Name the user “NxFilter” and keep it the “users” System default group. There is no need to add any further access (not even for the FileStation), as this account is only used as a convenient, local container for the NxFilter files.

2. Log into the created NxFilter account, upload and unzip the binaries in to the home folder.

   

   Config stuff

To avoid avoid the necessity to run as root, you should use an alternative port for the NxFilter admin GUI as well as the DNS service.

To do so, edit the home/conf/cfg.default file and save it as cfg.properties file. (Hint: to use the convenient online text editor, first rename the file to cfg.default.txt)

Edit the port configuration to this, for example (with an added line for the DNS port):

http_port = 8080
https_port = 8443
dns_port = 8053

Run, NxFilter run!

You will need to start Nxfilter via the SSH console, which requires you to log in as root (using the administrator password)

ssh root@192.168.x.z

To have the port forwarding working, add the following kernel modules and add the rule:

insmod /lib/modules/nf_nat.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/iptable_nat.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/ipt_REDIRECT.ko 
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8053

Then try to run it testwise using the provided startup script

/volume1/homes/NxFilter/bin/startup.sh

This should produce the following log on the console:

Check the presence of the admin GUI at https://your-ip:8443/admin.jsp

Now let’s shut it down again for the moment.

/volume1/homes/NxFilter/bin/shutdown.sh

iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING -p udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8053

rmmod /lib/modules/ipt_REDIRECT.ko 
rmmod /lib/modules/iptable_nat.ko 
rmmod /lib/modules/nf_nat.ko

Using Upstart to keep it running

To keep the NxFilter DNS server automatically running over NAS reboots, you can create an Upstart job configuration, that will cause a job to run at startup and shutdown of the NAS.

However, the job needs to be split in 3 parts:

1. Setup the port redirection, with root privileges
2. Start NxFilter with user privileges
3. Tear down the port redirection, with root privileges

Create an Upstart script

Create an nxfilter-setup.conf file in /etc/init/ with the following content:

description "Prepares the system to start the NxFilter DNS server on a non-privileged port at NAS startup"
author "marcel@codeministry.ch (hosted on qrys.ch)"
usage "Start NxFilter simply with 'start nxfilter'. The setup and teardown tasks will be invoked automatically."

# output is logged to a file in directory /var/log/upstart/
console log

# Only start this task when the nxfilter service job is starting
start on starting nxfilter

task

# Note: Running as root (the default) is a bad idea,
# but root is actually required to bind to Port 53 (for DNS)
# on the given Synology DS115j NAS.
# As solution this uses local port redirection
# to let the DNS server use one of the higher, non-privileged ports
# when serving DNS queries.

script
 # Since Synology DS115j NAS does not support nat tables out of the box we will add this first.
 insmod /lib/modules/nf_nat.ko 
 insmod /lib/modules/iptable_nat.ko 
 insmod /lib/modules/ipt_REDIRECT.ko 
 # Add port redirection to serve DNS queries on one of the non-privileged ports
 iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8053
end script

Create an nxfilter.conf file in /etc/init/ with the following content:

description "Starts the NxFilter DNS server on a non-privileged port at NAS startup"
author "marcel@codeministry.ch (hosted on qrys.ch)"
usage "Start NxFilter simply with 'start nxfilter'. The setup and teardown tasks will be invoked automatically."

setuid "NxFilter"

# output is logged to a file in directory /var/log/upstart/
console log

# Starting this service job will also start the nxfilter-setup task job
# Only start this service after the httpd user process has started. It is a safe bet that the DNS is able to run now.
start on started httpd-user

# Stop the service gracefully if the network goes down.
# Stoppping this service job will also start the nxfilter-teardown task job
stop on stopping network-interface IFACE=eth0

script
 # Start the DNS server
 # Since Upstart does only use a minimalistic environment, provide the necessities here directly to the process
 exec env PATH="/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/syno/sbin:/usr/syno/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/var/packages/JavaManager/target/Java/jre/bin" /volume1/homes/NxFilter/bin/startup.sh
end script

pre-stop script
 # Shut down the DNS server gracefully (otherwise it will get killed by the stop process)
 # Since Upstart does only use a minimalistic environment, provide the necessities here directly to the process
 exec env PATH="/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/syno/sbin:/usr/syno/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/var/packages/JavaManager/target/Java/jre/bin" /volume1/homes/NxFilter/bin/shutdown.sh
end script

Create an nxfilter-teardown.conf file in /etc/init/ with the following content:

description "Reverts the changes made to the system to start the NxFilter DNS server on a non-privileged port at NAS startup"
author "marcel@codeministry.ch (hosted on qrys.ch)"
usage "Start NxFilter simply with 'start nxfilter'. The setup and teardown tasks will be invoked automatically."

# output is logged to a file in directory /var/log/upstart/
console log

# Only start this task job the nxfilter service job is stopped (and NxFilter is shut down)
start on stopped nxfilter

task

script
 # Remove the port redirection
 iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING -p udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8053

# Remove the NAT kernel modules (in reverse order)
 rmmod /lib/modules/ipt_REDIRECT.ko 
 rmmod /lib/modules/iptable_nat.ko 
 rmmod /lib/modules/nf_nat.ko 
end script

If you created the job configs in the NxFilter user’s home directory for convenience, now copy it in the right place:

cp /volume1/homes/NxFilter/nxfilter-setup.conf /etc/init/nxfilter-setup.conf
cp /volume1/homes/NxFilter/nxfilter.conf /etc/init/nxfilter.conf
cp /volume1/homes/NxFilter/nxfilter-teardown.conf /etc/init/nxfilter-teardown.conf

Reload the job configuration and check the existence of the job

initctl reload-configuration
initctl list | grep nxfilter

Testing the UpStart job

Try to run the job now

start nxfilter

Output must be for a running state like:

nxfilter start/running, process 19499

See the log:

cat /var/log/upstart/nxfilter.log

If everything is OK, this job will start your NxFilter instance after reboot.

reboot

About not being root

By default, binding to a lower port, like 53 for DNS, needs root access, which is a good thing. But this also means that the whole NxFilter process (including the whole Java JVM in this case) needs to be run with root permissions, which is considered bad practice.

Better, you set explicit permission for binding, but run it without being root. However, the NAS in question seems not to support any of the conventional ways of doing this, like using authbind or setcap. But there’s another way.

Using iptables & kernel modules

iptables allows for all kind of redirecting and manipulating traffic. The solution here however requires only to change the destination port of an incoming DNS query packet. Thus I use the iptables directive as mentioned above.

However, on a Synology DS115j NAS the required nat table for port forwarding is not loaded by default, thus we also need insmod, as also was shown above.

Resources & Credits

• Download NxFilter
• Learning about UpStart
• About using UpStart by majikshoe
• Answer on unix.stackexchange.com about iptables and kernel modules
• Post by the author of NxFilter in a Google Group
• Question on Stackoverflow about binding to non-privileged ports