September 2004 - main

Disposing of old kit
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

Hi Folks, Does anyone have suggestions for disposing usefully (i.e. not simply taking it to the tip^H^H^H recycling centre) of assorted old computer kit? (a few monitors, vidoe cards, multiport serial card, ... ) Most if not all works, in some cases with a little encouragement. So maybe someone somewhere could find a use for it. Ideally within reasonable reach of the Ely-Downham axis. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 29-Aug-04 Time: 21:41:47 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Norwich technology event
by MJ Ray 30 Sep '04

30 Sep '04

There is a possibility of any space that becomes available at a fully-booked technology business event in Norwich in 2 months. Because of other commitments, I don't think I will be able to make full use of it. Are any other ALUGgers' firms interested in sharing? Email me directly, then I'll let you know if I get the offer and we'll see what we can do together. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know Creative copyleft computing - http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ LinuxExpo.org.uk village 6+7 Oct http://www.affs.org.uk

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Over What Resources Is nice Nice?
by Dan Hatton 29 Sep '04

29 Sep '04

I have a large ftp transaction in progress, with an ADSL-connected machine as the client, and my life would be more comfortable if other things (specifically X11 connections, with the same ADSL-connected machine as the X server) got priority over the ftp transaction for using the ADSL modem. I tried renice 20 [PID of the ftp client], which reported that it had changed the priority of the ftp client from 0 to 19, but this doesn't seem to have speeded up my X applications any, so I'm guessing that nice priority settings only apply to CPU, not to network bandwidth: is this right? If so, how can I make the ftp client be "nice" about network usage? -- Thanks Dan Hatton <http://www.bib.hatton.btinternet.co.uk/dan/>

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RE: [ALUG] Eye Candy
by Dave Briggs 29 Sep '04

29 Sep '04

Hi all, I am new-ish. I still haven't found a GUI which I find intuitive. One of the problems with the current Windows system, and which is copied by KDE and Gnome, is the 'Start' menu system for loading programs. I hate it. It's better in KDE, where onmy set up all the applications are organised by type making it much easier to find stuff. But it is still a pain. There is also, for me, an illogicality between using a 'Start' type menu, and the desktop - i.e. one being for apps and one for files (roughly). I just don't think this makes sense. Windows compounds this further of course by having a third environment - the Explorer. I'm not sure what my ideal GUI would have. Probably Desktop-only, with a folder with applications on it, and one for files. Perhaps a floating toolbar with regularly used apps and the time and stuff on it, but even that might be making things too complicated! Anyone else care to describe (as much as they can) their ideal GUI? Dave -- Dave Briggs http://www.palimpsest.org.uk - The Home of Informed Debate on the Web

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PHP developer wanted with PM potential
by Steve Purkiss 28 Sep '04

28 Sep '04

Hi all, I need some help, so I'm looking to employ a PHP developer, preferably with exerience of OSCommerce and/or XOOPS but not essential. If you know of any local to Chelmsford please let me know off-list. Thank you, Steve

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 28 Sep '04

28 Sep '04

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Coax ethernet plumbing ...
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 27 Sep '04

27 Sep '04

Hi Folks, I had always laboured under the belief that when you implement a network using coaxial ethernet cable, you basically had to have a single linear cable with pick-off at T-pieces along its length, and that branching coax structures were not on. In particular, if you needed, say, to connect a laptop [C] to an ethernet between machines [A] and [B], and it wasn't feasible to extend the cable beyond [A] or [B] to reach [C] but the middle of the cable itself passed not too far from [C], then I thought that the only solution was to bring the cable in a long loop to [C] and connect to a T-piece in the middle of the cable. I.e. [A]--------- -------------[B] | | | | | | | | | | \ / T | [C] However, thinking about it a bit and then trying it out, I discover that you can in fact set up a branching coax network. The trick is to use spare T-pieces to implement the branching. Like this: [A]----------T-------------[B] =I [T-piece at 90 degrees] | | [C]-----=I [T-piece on branch cable] | | [more machines on branch if you like] | =I [terminated T-piece to close branch] The trick is the first T-piece at 90 degrees, whose lateral ("male") insert is plugged into the "female" socket of the T-piece doing its usual job on the main cable. The ("female") end of the "branch" cable is then put onto the other "male" insert of the first T-piece at 90 degrees. This piece of trickery ensures valid connection (and indeed functions just like the normal connection at the ethernet card). And you will of course need a terminated T-piece at the far end of the "branch" cable in the usual way. No doubt this could be extended to a whole tree of coax, though shortage of spare T-pieces (and spare machines to hook onto them to test it) prevents me from testing it. Apologies if it's not new to you, but since I hadn't heard of it being done before I thought I'd share the idea. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 26-Sep-04 Time: 16:25:41 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Apache front for Tomcat/Cocoon
by Richard Lewis 25 Sep '04

25 Sep '04

On Friday, Sep 24, 2004, at 16:59 Europe/London, Martijn Koster wrote: > I've not needed to setup a reverse proxy, but the mod_proxy > documentation page says you need a: > > ProxyRequests Off > <Proxy *> > Order deny,allow > Allow from all > </Proxy> > ProxyPass /foo http://foo.example.com/bar > ProxyPassReverse /foo http://foo.example.com/bar > > Do you have an Allow like that? > I do now! Thanks very much, its all working now. On Friday, Sep 24, 2004, at 17:02 Europe/London, Andrew Savory wrote: > > On 24 Sep 2004, at 16:42, Richard Lewis wrote: >> I've got two Cocoon (2.1) webapps running under Tomcat (4.1) on my >> server (Debian, j2sdk1.4-sun, Apache 2.0). My network service >> provided has given me two aliases for the machine which I want to >> point to the two webapps. > > For shame, Richard, for shame. This is not the cocoon-users mailing > list, you know ;-) I tried them but no one answered :-( Anyway ALUG people are much more often correct about things than anywhere else ;-) > > Dump Tomcat, run both sites through Jetty (you really -don't- want to > run two Cocoon instances, look at mount-table.xml for the quickest way > to mangle your Cocoon urlspace safely. Follow the wiki docs, they are > very good. (Actually, its just one Cocoon instance). Is Jetty really better, I thought the documentation said that Jetty was provided for a test environment rather than production? Thanks for your help, Richard

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Apache front for Tomcat/Cocoon
by Richard Lewis 24 Sep '04

24 Sep '04

Hello ALUG, Thanks for your help with getting Tomcat going as a non-privileged daemon. The reason I was trying to do that was because it was suggested as part of a solution for this problem: I've got two Cocoon (2.1) webapps running under Tomcat (4.1) on my server (Debian, j2sdk1.4-sun, Apache 2.0). My network service provided has given me two aliases for the machine which I want to point to the two webapps. As I understand it, I can use virtual hosting and mod_proxy with Apache to re-direct requests which use these two aliases to the webapps running on port 8080. My Apache and Tomcat set up is as follows: apache2/mods-enabled directory: php4.conf -> /etc/apache2/mods-available/php4.conf php4.load -> /etc/apache2/mods-available/php4.load proxy.conf -> ../mods-available/proxy.conf proxy_connect.load -> ../mods-available/proxy_connect.load proxy_http.load -> ../mods-available/proxy_http.load proxy.load -> ../mods-available/proxy.load userdir.conf -> /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.conf userdir.load -> /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.load ============================================================== apache2/sites-enabled directory: cursus.uea.ac.uk -> ../sites-available/cursus.uea.ac.uk studios.uea.ac.uk -> ../sites-available/studios.uea.ac.uk ============================================================== apache2/sites-available directory: cursus.uea.ac.uk -> /var/webapps/cursus/cursus.apache.conf studios.uea.ac.uk -> /var/webapps/studio/studio.apache.conf ============================================================== apache2/httpd.conf: <Files *.apache.conf> Order deny,allow Deny from all </Files> NameVirtualHost *****:80 ============================================================== /var/webapps/cursus/cursus.apache.conf: <VirtualHost ****:80> ServerName www.cursus.uea.ac.uk ServerAlias cursus.uea.ac.uk ServerAlias www.cursus ProxyRequests off ProxyPass / http://localhost:8081/cocoon/cursus/ ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8081/cocoon/cursus/ ProxyPass /styles http://localhost:8081/cocoon/cursus/styles ProxyPassReverse /styles http://localhost:8081/cocoon/cursus/styles </VirtualHost> ============================================================== /var/webapps/cursus/studios.apache.conf: <VirtualHost ****:80> ServerName www.studios.uea.ac.uk ServerAlias studios.uea.ac.uk ServerAlias www.studios ProxyRequests Off ProxyPass / http://localhost:8082/cocoon/studio/ ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8082/cocoon/studio/ </VirtualHost> ============================================================== /var/webapps/tomcat/conf/server.xml: [snippet] <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8081" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75" enableLookups="true" acceptCount="100" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" proxyName="www.cursus.uea.ac.uk" proxyPort="80" useURIValidationHack="false" disableUploadTimeout="true" /> <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8082" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75" enableLookups="true" acceptCount="100" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" proxyName="www.studios.uea.ac.uk" proxyPort="80" useURIValidationHack="false" disableUploadTimeout="true" /> The problem is that when the user requests the URL http://cursus.uea.ac.uk/ or http://www.studios.uea.ac.uk/ the server returns 403 'Forbidden'. $ tail log/apache2/error.log gives: [Fri Sep 24 16:22:17 2004] [error] [client ****] client denied by server configuration: proxy:http://localhost:8081/cocoon/cursus/ Accessed using the :808[012] suffix, the webapps both work fine (though the network firewall will stop access from outside). If anyone could help me I would be very grateful indeed as I've been puzzeling over this for days and really can't think of anything else that might sort the problem. Thanks in advance, Richard

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Re: [ALUG] Tomcat daemon
by Richard Lewis 24 Sep '04

24 Sep '04

On Friday, Sep 24, 2004, at 13:08 Europe/London, Martijn Koster wrote: > On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 12:59, Richard Lewis wrote: >> Hello ALUG, >> >> I'm trying to write an init script to get Tomcat (4.1) to start at >> boot. (On Debian). >> >> I've created a file: >> /var/webapps/tomcat/bin/tomcat.sh >> ===================================== >> >> export TOMCAT_BIN=/var/webapps/tomcat/bin > > Try adding: > >> #!/bin/sh > D'oh! OK, thanks for that - it now picks up tomcat.sh and the daemon starts fine. I've just found one more problem though: it won't stop!! # /etc/init.d/tomcat stop doesn't return any errors but I had a look and found that the directory /var/run/tomcat was empty; it seems its left no process id file. Is this why it can't stop? Also, # ps -Al inclues: 0 S 103 5156 1 4 85 0 - 77414 schedu pts/0 00:00:21 java which must be the tomcat process. Might it be confused because the process is called 'java' not 'tomcat'? Thanks for any help. Cheers, Richard

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