October 2007 - main

Re: [ALUG] Linux can't connect to the Internet
by CDW (Linux) 13 Feb '08

13 Feb '08

(Ted Harding) wrote: > On 19-Aug-07 18:17:50, CDW (Linux) wrote: >> (Ted Harding) wrote: >>> There's a lot of possibilities for this! >>> >>> One thing to look at is whether you have a default gateway set up >>> in Linux. If (as root) you enter the command >>> >>> route >>> >>> you should see somthing like >>> >>> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface >>> 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 >>> 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo >>> default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 >>> >>> where the "192.168.1.1" should be replaced by the IP address of >>> your actual router. If you don't get a "default" line in the output >>> from "route" then nothing for outside will get to the router. >> I get the following :- >> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface >> 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 10 0 0 eth0 >> 169.254.0.0 * 255.255.0.0 U 10 0 0 eth0 >> 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo >> default 192.168.1.51 0.0.0.0 UG 10 0 0 eth0 >> >> Ah. I've just noticed that there's a 169.254.0.0 address in my list. >> That would appear to come from a DHCP config but I purposely didn't >> set that so would that be stopping it working? If so, how do I remove >> it? > > I don't think it matters. I get the same too (on a Red Hat 9 system) > without any DHCP going on. It's supposed, I think, to represent some > alternative network numbering, and as far as I know is simply a dummy. Thanks for that info. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .-----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |_______________________________________________|

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Compiling backages for Debian-based distros
by Mark Rogers 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

I'm still trying to get my head around the correct way to configure a typical source tarball installation to fit into the Debian way of doing things. The best I've found so far is: ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \ --sharedstatedir=/var --localstatedir=/var \ --libexecdir=/usr/lib Does all that look correct? The general idea is that if I want to try and build a replacement .deb for an existing package, using a more up to date source tarball, then I want all the files to end up in the same places as would have been the case for the original package. (For all the documentation I've found, the best so far was an answer to a similar question on a dbus mailing list: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dbus/2006-September/005618.html) For the time being I'm only looking at i386 packages but I think the only thing that would change for 64-bit would be /usr/lib to /usr/lib64? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Apache fell over
by Matthew 01 Nov '07

01 Nov '07

I'm running Apache 2.2.3 on Debian Etch. It generally runs happily and I haven't seen any issues since I upgraded the hosting several months ago, but at the weekend it died and I can't work out why. I have two things I was hoping people might be able to help with. /var/log/apache2/error.log includes: [Sun Oct 21 06:26:54 2007] [warn] child process 11300 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM [Sun Oct 21 06:26:56 2007] [warn] child process 11300 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM [Sun Oct 21 06:26:58 2007] [warn] child process 11300 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM [Sun Oct 21 06:27:00 2007] [error] child process 11300 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Oct 21 06:27:01 2007] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down The last row before that was from a week before, and shouldn't be part of the same incident. 6am is definitely not a peak time for this box. I couldn't find anything in any other logs that seemed relevant. Anyone got any idea what that was, or where I can look for more detail? Secondly, I really ought to have some mechanism to check on Apache (and MySQL) periodically and make sure they're running, either restarting them or alerting me (although I can be difficult to get hold of). What do people recommend for this? Is it as simple as having cron run a script to start the daemon if it's not already on the stored PID, or are there issues I should be wary of? Thanks, Matthew

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Cambridge and East Anglian Python Users Group
by Richard Lewis 31 Oct '07

31 Oct '07

Hello ALUG, We held our first meeting of CamPUG last night and we have created a Google Group to help us collaborate. Please feel free to join: http://groups.google.com/group/campug Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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Email from cron scripts
by Mark Rogers 31 Oct '07

31 Oct '07

I have the following in my crontab: */5 * * * * /path/to/script.sh | mail -es "mail subject" me(a)example.com What "script.sh" does is check whether the mail server is running correctly. If it is, then it sends a message to stdout and exits. If it is not, then it sends a different message to stdout, then restarts the mail server, then exits. If the mail server is OK, the output to stdout is captured and emailed via cron correctly. If the mail server is not OK, it is successfully restarted but the mail does not get sent. In fact, the script never exits: $ps ax [..snip..] 28907 ? S 0:00 /USR/SBIN/CRON 28908 ? Ss 0:00 /bin/sh -c /path/to/script.sh | mail -es "mail subject" me(a)example.com 28912 ? S 0:00 mail -es mail subject me(a)example.com 28941 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/sendmail -i -FCronDaemon -oem root [..snip..] Clearly "mail" or "sendmail" (in my case the Postfix version) doesn't like the mail server being restarted under its feet like this. How can I get around this? I'd like to capture all the output from script.sh (including the output from the mail server restart) if I can. If it's relevant, in this case restarting the mail server means stopping (in this order) postfix, clamav and dspam, then starting them again in reverse order. The problem I'm having is dspam dies sometimes (once every couple of days) and the script is intended to work around this until I fix it. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Can one have different versions of the same plugin in Firefox?
by Chris G 30 Oct '07

30 Oct '07

Is it possible somehow to install more than one version of the same plugin in Firefox? I need a very specific old[ish] version of the Java plugin to run an Oracle applet, can I install this version *and* the latest version? N.B. the applet *doesn't* work with the latest version of the Java plugin, it looks for jpi-version=1.4.2_16 specifically before it will even try and start. OK, this is stupid but I can't do anything about it. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] MS Office Publisher equivalent
by Stephen Dickinson Finance Assistant 30 Oct '07

30 Oct '07

Hi Rich, Thanks for that it will be really useful. I'm going to download Scribus and play with it awhile before I show it to the people who will be expected to use it. I'll also talk them through the process of changing files into pdfs and see how that goes, hopefully they don't have too many things that need converting, I think they work on a more ad hoc basis. When (and unfortunately it will be a 'when') I run into the kind of problem that just makes no sense, I'll be asking for your expert advice again! Thanks Steve Stephen Dickinson This email (including any attachments) is intended only for the recipient(s) named above. It may contain confidential or privileged information and should not be read, copied or otherwise used by any other person unless express permission is given. If you are not a named recipient, please contact the sender and delete the email from your system. It is the recipient's responsibility to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to check for software viruses.

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SSH connections dying
by Mark Rogers 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

For a while I've been having a problem with some SSH connections to remote servers (OpenSSH client from Gnome terminal on Ubuntu desktop to OpenSSH server on remote server). Connection is fine, but at some point during data transfer the connection will die. It's always (as far as I can tell) during transfer of date from server to client, eg I'll do "ls" and get half a directory listing, then nothing. The connection doesn't close (it becomes unresponsive and I have to kill the terminal). Until now this has been annoying but not a show stopper; it happens fairly rarely. However, this weekend I'm at a LAN event talking to the server over a shared 3G connection (my PC -> IPCop -> Windows laptop with 3G modem and Windows Connection Sharing*) and the same symptoms are occurring, just far more frequently. All of which I think might give a clue as to what's wrong, but I can't work it out. Any clues? [*] 3G Modem comes with Windows software, this is the only way we could think to do this! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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How to tell what extensions are installed without running Firefox?
by Chris G 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

This may seem to be a silly question, but...... I want to remember the name of an addon/extension I have installed on my home Firefox. I have ssh access to my home system. So, how can I tell what extensions are installed, I can't see any obvious clues in the $HOME/.mozilla/default hierarchy. It's not a sensible answer to run Firefox remotely, it'll take all morning to even start up across the internet connection from here to home. -- Chris Green

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Books for library...
by Ruth Bygrave 25 Oct '07

25 Oct '07

Micromania (good jokey book about the early beginnings of home computing; brings back the full horrors of membrane keyboards, the original Adventure game, and the earliest user-hostile computers before Linux was even a gleam in Linus Torvald's eye) XSLT for dummies (spent hours hitting head on XSLT, failed. Yet another thing Adrian says is a good & useful language I couldn't learn) Osborne Complete Reference to Unix (1000s of pages, most of which no use to me) Discover Linux (Steve Oualline, almost certainly out of date) Danny Goodman's book on Javascript (vast; failed to learn it even with Dashcode to make it approachable) Unix Hints & Hacks (can't remember who wrote this) Beginning XSLT (Jeni Tennison, recent) Am keeping the Fish Book (bash) and my Applescript books as those are what I've written most in. If anyone wants those books for the library, yelp. I may even come back to them if I feel brave... Am not looking forward to lugging them to the meeting as some of them are 1000s of pages. Regards, Ruth

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