Noter

Share notes across devices on a local network.

[1]: https://tinram.github.io/images/noter.png ![noter][1]

Purpose

• Share notes easily across different devices and operating systems on a local network.
• Avoid awkward device connections, network shares, or Internet transfer.

Noter's focus is simplicity – browser display and search, with a log-in to add, edit, and delete notes.

The log-in offers basic protection from unauthorised tampering via password obfuscation and session timeout.

Noter was created for an isolated network where plain text transfer and viewing is acceptable, and without determined adversaries. Noter is NOT suitable for storing sensitive data.

A single SQLite database file facilitates easy backup, transfer, and source control of data.

A Raspberry Pi, with Apache and PHP installed, could make an ideal low-powered always-on host for Noter.

Requirements

• PHP server with version 7.2+ and sqlite3 module enabled

Setup

Clone the repository (or extract the ZIP archive) into the server's web directory e.g.

    cd /var/www/html

    sudo git clone https://github.com/Tinram/Noter.git

    sudo chown -R <username>:www-data Noter/

(Debian-based; use apache instead of www-data for Red Hat-based distros)

    sudo chown www-data Noter/log/badlog.txt

    sudo chmod 600 Noter/log/badlog.txt

SQLite file operation (requires actioning on the directory itself):

    sudo chown -R www-data Noter/db/

Check the configuration file constants: config/config.php Only the timezone, session timeouts, CONFIG_NUM_NOTES_DISPLAYED, and user credentials are of immediate interest.

Change the users and the user password hashes (CONFIG_USER1, CONFIG_USER1_PASS). The default users are martin and alison, and both passwords are P@55w0rd. (More users can be added here, and editing the relevant locations in classes/login.class.php.)

Passwords are stored as SHA-256 hashes. CONFIG_USER1_PASS etc should be replaced with a hash generated from either a website service or by running one of the following commands in a terminal and copying the output hash:

Bash

    echo -n 'PASSWORD' | sha256sum

PHP

    php -r "echo hash('sha256', 'PASSWORD');"

Python

    python -c "import hashlib;print(hashlib.sha256('PASSWORD'.encode()).hexdigest())"

    python3 -c "import hashlib;print(hashlib.sha256('PASSWORD'.encode()).hexdigest())"

Manually Create the SQLite Database

Noter includes an initial SQLite database: db/noter.sqlite3

However, where GitHub importing does not permit binary files (e.g. PHPClasses and the noter.sqlite3 file is consequently missing, the file will need to be created manually –

In a terminal:

    cd db/
    sudo sqlite3 noter.sqlite3
    .read noter_schema_data.sql
    .exit
    sudo chown www-data:www-data noter.sqlite3

Viewing and Searching

http://localhost/Noter

http://IP.add.re.ss/Noter

or better, configure an Apache vhost and access with:

Noter

Adding and Editing

http://localhost/Noter/edit

or if Apache rewrite is disabled:

http://localhost/Noter/edit.php

Upon logging-in through this page, notes can be added, updated, or deleted.

<pre>...</pre> and <code>...</code> tags can be used to highlight code snippets.

<pre>...</pre> preserves whitespace (both spaces and copy/pasted tabs).

<code>...</code> does not preserve whitespace.

Most types of link references will be automatically converted into HTML links upon note addition (but not on note updating).

Other Files

The SQLite database schema is available at db/noter\_schema.sql

The SQLite database schema and initial data is available at db/noter\_schema\_data.sql

Unsuccessful log-in attempts are recorded in log/badlog.txt

Credits

• Angel Marin and Paul Johnston: JavaScript SHA-256 hash function.
• Andrew Ellis: link regex.

Miscellaneous

Noter was originally created as a second language flashcard viewer (to which it can be easily reverted).

Noter was never created for coding elegance, merely to do a simple job in minimal code. It's like my car: looks ancient, runs quite well.

License

Noter is released under the GPL v.3.