June 2012 - now
Solar thermal technology solutions in the humanitarian and industrial sector.
– Technological development, project management, IT consulting, web and communication.
This site shares about my life and work. Most of what I do is devoted to practical solutions to avoid a global climate crisis. Acting from a point of compassion for all living things (or at least trying to!), I'm always ready to be challenged on how to maximize impact. Passionate about developing "whatever is missing" I'm building towards a sustainable future for all.
Since 2012 I've been working with Solar Fire toward initiating a global wave of solar enterpreneurship.
Building web-platforms and systems with purpose that connect actors, empower people and facilitate change.
Contact Urs Riggenbach:
info@ursrig.com, 079 918 0663
Bitte kontaktieren Sie mich:
Urs Riggenbach, info@ursrig.com, 079 918 0663
I get involved in things that make sense to me, have impact or bring learning and creation with it.
June 2012 - now
Solar thermal technology solutions in the humanitarian and industrial sector.
– Technological development, project management, IT consulting, web and communication.
June 2012 - now
Launch of innovative platform for the spread of solar thermal energy solutions.
February 2017 - May 2017
– Industrial CNC machine training (Waterjet, Lasercuting, 5 axis CNC)
– Rapid prototyping using state of the art CNC machinery
2014 - 2022
Development of custom web-platforms for the Zurich-based environmental communications agency.
2014 - now
Creation of web-development agency of impact and sustainability projects and beyond.
February 2013 - July 2013
– Development of exhibition on renewable energies.
August 2013 - February 2014
– Support in research and development.
– Instructors from the fields of architecture, construction and joinery/Carpentry
– Application of principles of sustainability and sustainable design in the architecture of a "tiny house" of 227 square feet.
– Project planning and management with different build milestones.
– Construction of entire tiny house, see it in New York Post "Tiny House 227".
– Study and implementation of HVAC systems.
September 2008 - June 2012
– Relevant Coursework: Agroecology, Economic Development, International Water Resource Management, Physics II, Collaborative Leadership, Fieldwork: Seminar in Community-based Research, Documentary Film Making, Webdesign, Fixing Food Systems, Sustainability, Local Production - Global Collaboration.
– Senior project in Nepal installing renewable energy framework at rural school
– Spanish proficiency during project-stay in Yucatán, Mexico
– Davis UWC Scholar: full scholarship awarded
September 2006 - May 2008
– International Baccelaurate (IB) with major biology and economics.
– Course language English.
– Extended essay: Sugarcane Cultivation in the Mulshi Valley, India.
– Full Scholarship from the Swiss Association for UWC
1990
I work in a network of curated developers, designers and content creators, so each project happens in a project-specific team. For the Canton of Bern I built the interactive App "Biz-Links" that helps people find the right career. As a progressive web app it is simultaneously avaiable on Android and iOS devices, as well as directly reachable in the browser by link. My full portfolio is further below.
Selection of projects in the fields of web-development, internet security, Android-app development, webstores, crowdfunding and campaign sites, online community platforms and financial modeling. Most projects are based on a security and scalability optimized tech-stack based on open-source SPIP, LXC and GNU/Linux.
Project idea and need a tech-team? Let's talk!
Posted Thursday 16 November 2017 by Urs Riggenbach.
apt-get install nano iputils-ping wget unattended-upgrades nano apache2 rsync php5 php-pear php5-gd imagemagick php5-imagick mysql-server php5-mysql tidy unzip pngnq optipng gifsicle php5-curl htop php5-curl ca-certificates libjpeg-progs subversion curl php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mcrypt -y
apt-get install nano iputils-ping wget unattended-upgrades nano apache2 rsync php php-pear php-gd imagemagick php-imagick mysql-server php-mysql tidy unzip pngnq optipng gifsicle php-curl htop ca-certificates libjpeg-progs subversion curl libapache2-mod-php php-mcrypt php7.0-mbstring jpegoptim php7.0-sqlite -y
apt-get install nano iputils-ping wget unattended-upgrades nano apache2 rsync php php-pear php-gd imagemagick php-imagick mariadb-server php-mysql tidy unzip pngnq optipng gifsicle php-curl htop ca-certificates libjpeg-progs subversion curl libapache2-mod-php jpegoptim php7.3-sqlite php-zip php-mbstring curl libcurl4 libcurl3-dev git -y
#Mod pagespeed (normally not needed)
wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/linux/direct/mod-pagespeed-stable_current_amd64.deb
dpkg -i mod-pagespeed-*.deb
apt-get -f install
a2enmod expires
a2enmod headers
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod ssl
a2ensite default-ssl
service apache2 restart
enable htaccess:
add this block to end of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/* (both http and https) INSIDE VHOSTS SECTION.
nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/*
<Directory /var/www/html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
# Uncomment this directive is you want to see apache2's
# default start page (in /apache2-default) when you go to /
#RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
</Directory>
service apache2 restart
#install mysql
#remember to change userbnane abd pw
mysql_secure_installation
mysql -u root
#create db and user
CREATE USER 'newuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';CREATE DATABASE databasename;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON * . * TO 'newuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
cd /var/www/html/
rm index.html
wget http://www.spip.net/spip-dev/INSTALL/spip_loader.php
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
chmod 777 /var/www/html/
@now open website at https://ip:port/spip_loader.php
Posted Thursday 25 May 2017 by Urs Riggenbach.
I use qemu to virtualize appliances on my servers, and I access them over SSH. Allthough SSH supports streaming X windows so it is possible to fire up a graphical install, it is not so convenient as the connection may drop and cancel the install.
A convenient workaround is to use qemu’s curses/nographic interface, where instead of a display, a terminal is attached to the virtual machine. That way you can install and use your virtual machines directly in the SSH terminal.
To install a new system from scratch, simply define the -hda, -cdrom and -boot flags, and add the -nographic option:
qemu-system-x86_64 -hda /dev/sdc1 -m 1500 --enable-kvm -nographic -cdrom images/debian-stable.iso -boot d
The Debian installer supports headless mode, but we have to add two settings at the boot prompt to make it work with curses/nographic.
1. Fire up qemu with the command above. Wait a few seconds, the screen will turn black after loading syslinux. Hit ESC, and enter:
install fb=none vga=normal
and follow the install. Voilà, you’re installing your VM in qemu directly over ssh.
Tip: To prevent losing the install if the network connection is lost, run the commands in a screen terminal.
Posted Tuesday 29 December 2015 by Urs Riggenbach.
Recently I was deploying a service that made use of Linux’s IPTABLES feature, but this time in an LXC container. LXC containers provide an extremely lightweight virtualization technology and a simple way to separate environments.
When loading IPTABLES rules in the container I encountered the following error:
ERROR: initcaps
[Errno 2] modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod.c:556 kmod_search_moddep() could not open moddep file '/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-amd64/modules.dep.bin'
ip6tables v1.4.21: can't initialize ip6tables table `filter': Table does not exist (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps ip6tables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.
This was due to the fact that on the host, the ip6table_filter module was not loaded. Usually, the iptables command will by itself load the module when needed, but LXC shares the kernel of the host system and a container is restricted from loading modules into the host’s kernel.
The solution is to simply load the kernel module on the host:
# on debian jessie, as root:
modprobe ip6table_filter
After that the container will be able to make use of the new kernel module.