January 2012 - main

Web photo management - are there any simple systems?
by Chris Green 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

I have a couple of family members who have photo albums on the web which I host. For the past two or three years I have been using gallery2 to do this but I'm getting increasingly fed up with the hassle involved whenever anything changes. A recent OS upgrade has made the gallery2 installations fall in a heap yet again and I'm wondering if I might find something easier than gallery2. Apart from not being easy to upgrade it requires quite a few non-standard changes to php.ini which I'd prefer to avoid if I can, and it uses a mysql database which I'd also like to avoid if I can. My two users don't need most of gallery2's abilities, all they want to do is to be able to upload photographs and organise them into albums with (presumably) thumbnails to select them. There's no need for multiple users, no need for tags, no need for extra information, just the EXIF and IPTC from the image files. So is there anything out there that can do this with as little hassle as possible? -- Chris Green

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This apache2 default (maybe ubuntu's doing) seems a bit unhelpful
by Chris Green 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

In the default apache2 installation on Ubuntu you get the following setting in the default virtual host:- ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ This means that CGI scripts are in the /usr hierarchy which doesn't seem very helpful. Is the the norm for apache2 or is it just Ubuntu's doing? I'm thinking I either want to point it to some suitable /home/<user> directory or possibly somewhere below /var/www, is there anything wrong with doing either of these (assuming suitable security protection of course). -- Chris Green

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Is there a known security weakness in gallery2?
by Chris Green 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

Well after having decided I don't want to run gallery2 any more I have another question related to it. I'm getting hundreds of hits (well, attempted hits, it's no longer there) on the old gallery2 site, logged by logwatch as follows:- /mandy/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=shutterfl ... en=26321822fb67: 1 Time(s) I seem to get thirty or forty every day and today's logwatch has logged well over a hundred. It's not a issue really as it's not eating much bandwidth or loading my web site significantly but I was just wondering if anyone knows whether it's a well know security weakness in gallery2 or what? Or is someone just very desperate to look at the pictures on Mandy's blog? :-) Maybe I should put a note at /mandy/gallery2 saying that the pictures have moved. Though come to think about it the link from the blog now points at where the pictures really are so whatever is hitting that gallery2 URL must be pretty mindless. -- Chris Green

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Is there anything better than 'locate'?
by Chris Green 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

I find (pun not intended) the locate command very painful, it rarely produces anything useful when I use it and its command line options don't seem to help very much. First problem is that by default it returns every single file that has the search expression in its path, so if I search for 'home' for example I get thousands and thousands of lines returned because it lists every sub-directory and file under /home. Surely it would be more useful if it just returned /home plus any files (or other directories) actually called 'home'. As it is the default is nearly always not what one wants. Secondly I want a search for 'home' to return files and directories called 'home', not ones called 'homeAndAway' or anything else with 'home' in them. If I'm searching for something which has 'home' in it then I'll search for '*home*'. I know there are ways of getting over the above two problems but IMHO the syntax to do so is a bit clumsy and inconvenient. The man page gives the syntax (in the only example it gives, maybe suggesting others have the same complaints as I do) :- locate -b '\home' Finally I want some way to exclude large chunks of my system from the search (or to *include* specific areas), my short-term backups are on my desktop system under /bak. As a result locate finds dozens of hits for any file which happens to be in the incremental backups. If only locate worked the same way as find does, find does almost exactly what I want most of the time (but is very slow of course because it's not got a cron built database). I guess I'm going to write a custom script round locate that makes it produce results much like find, but quickly. I'm just wondering if someone happens to have done it for me already. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th January
by Viperfang 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 12th January at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Fwd: [Gllug] OSHUG #15 — Wireless (Hacking Commodity Wireless, Practical Wireless, Contiki OS, CWIG) — Thursday 26th January
by Richard Lewis 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

Hi ALUG, It's not local, but the next meeting of the Open Source Hardware User Group may be of interest to some here. It's near King's Cross Station, and a quick trip round the Circle Line from Liverpool Street. Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > OSHUG #15 — Wireless (Hacking Commodity Wireless, Practical Wireless, > Contiki OS, CWIG) > > On the 26th January 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative > Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG, (51.529049, > -0.116436) > > ** Registration: http://oshug.org/event/15 ** > > At the fifteenth OSHUG meeting we'll be taking a look at wireless > technologies. We will hear how you can repurpose low cost commodity > equipment, we will be given an introduction to RF basics, we will > learn about the Contiki operating system, and we will be introduced to > Ciseco's new Wireless Internet Gateway. > > - Hacking Commodity Wireless > > Many people build their hacks from the ground up, but those short of > time sometimes prefer to repurpose cheap off-the-shelf components that > can be made to fit the bill. A good example being a wireless > thermometer for external use, where an off-the-shelf device provides > an inexpensive option complete with the requisite weatherproof > packaging. However, such devices typically use proprietary protocols > and good documentation is rarely available. This talk will look at how > to interface such devices where a degree of reverse-engineering is > frequently required. > > Paul Tanner is a consultant, developer and maker in wood, metal, > plastic, electronics and software. His day job is IT-based business > improvement for SMEs. By night he turns energy nut, creating tools to > optimise energy use. Paul graduated in electronics and was responsible > for hardware and software product development and customer services in > several product and service start-ups, switching to consulting in > 2000. > > - Practical Wireless > > Adding wireless connectivity to your latest open hardware project is > not difficult, provided that you take the time to understand some of > the principles of RF communication. In this talk we will learn about > the basics of wireless propagation, and take a look at some of the low > cost modules which now make adding wireless even easier. > > Ken Boak joined BBC Research Department after graduating and worked on > digital picture processing of HDTV images, and coding algorithms for > video distribution around studios. Since then, Ken has worked in > laboratory instrumentation, telecommunications, low power wireless and > consumer electronics produced in the Far East. With an interest in > renewables, Ken now develops laboratory instruments to teach > undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic and wind power. Outside > of work, Ken is interested in smart wireless sensors, open source > hardware and low cost solutions for the Internet of Things. > > - An Introduction to the Contiki O/S > > This talk is aimed to introduce the Contiki OS and some of the > development hardware. We will learn about the process of bootstrapping > the development environment and there will be a hands-on tutorial. > > Ilya Dmitrichenko was born in Soviet Latvia in 1985, grew up and > attended a secondary school there, and moved to UK as soon as Latvia > joined the EU. He attended the biggest university in London and was > rather disappointed with the education, but nevertheless carried on > and had fun working on a final year engineering project which served > as an introduction to the topic of this talk. Ilya is interested in > various aspects of hardware and software, spanning from WSN to DSP and > several other random fields. > > - CWIG — The Ciseco Wireless Internet Gateway > > The CWIG is a new open hardware device that is designed to be the "one > and only" platform you'd need for a wireless gateway. It employs the > same ATmega328 microcontroller that is familiar to Arduino users and > supports Ciseco's TI CC1110-based XRF module, XBee, Bluetooth, RFM12B, > X10/HomeEasy, FRAM, SD, Ethernet and over-the-air programming with > AVRDude. It's sized to be housed in a low cost, compact enclosure and > to be cheap to build using through-hole components. In this talk we > will be given an introduction to the CWIG and also to the XRF wireless > UART and programmable RF module. > > Miles Hodkinson's twenty-odd year relationship with IT ended around > six years ago when he decided that it was time to do something > completely different. He had looked around without success for > something to log and control his wind turbine, solar panels and Lister > single cylinder engine, and found that nothing was flexible enough for > the money he wanted to pay (tens of pounds per device), so he decided > he would try and build it himself. After a number of years working on > a human-focused method of networking originally built using XBee > modules and now termed LLAP, his company developed the TI CC1110-based > XRF module. > > Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the talks will start > at 18:30 prompt. > > ** Registration: http://oshug.org/event/15 **

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Keyboard problem
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

Greetings All! I have a somewhat mysterious hardward problem. On a tower box with external keyboard connected via a PS/2 connector, with external monitor, A: During the BIOS phase of boot, if I enter the BIOS setup, I can use the keyboard to navigate round the BIOS menus, so the basic hardware handles keyboard input (and monitor output) fine. B: However, if I boot into Linux, the usual slew of boot messages scrolls up the monitor screen, culminating in the "Login:" prompt (X is not started by default on this machine, and needs to be initiated by a logged-in user from the command-line prompt); but at this point the computer does not respond to keyboard input. Nothing shows up on screen following key-presses. Even if I suppose that it might be an "output to monitor" problem, and try to log-in by typing the userid and password, nothing happens. However, if I connect to the machine from another one over the network, I can log in fine. If I then give the command echo "Hello" > /dev/tty0 I see "Hello" output on the monitor. So it doesn't look like a monitor problem, and therefore is most probably a failure to see the keyboard from Linux. The Linux system is a SuSE 7.2 (from 2001). This problem is recent -- a few days ago it wasn't happening. Now it is. Any suggestions? (It has nothing to do with X, of course). With thanks, Ted. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 07-Jan-2012 Time: 16:13:58 This message was sent by XFMail ----------

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Postfix relaying when sasl authenticated
by Mark Rogers 06 Jan '12

06 Jan '12

I have an Ubuntu server running Virtualmin (with Postfix). It is steadfastly refusing to allow me to relay when I authenticate. However I can't make any sense of what is going on. Postfix's main.cf says: smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated permit_mynetworks reject_unauth_destination .. which I understand to mean that provided I authenticate I can send anywhere. The error I'm getting is: connect from [...] NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from [...]: 550 5.1.1 <user(a)example.com>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table; from=<user@mysite> to=<user(a)example.com> proto=ESMTP helo=<[...]> disconnect from [...] .. where [...] is my IP/hostname, user(a)example.com is the address I'm trying to relay to, <user@mysite> is the user I'm trying to authenticate as. If I disable authentication in my mail client, I get "relaying denied" which I would expect. If I change my password I get a password error, so I am definitely authenticating correctly. If I try sending an email (no authentication, plain SMTP) to invaliduser@mysite I get the same error as above, which is when I would expect to get it (trying to send to a user on my server that doesn't exist). However I'm trying to relay to a different server altogether so I can make sense of the error message in that context at all? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Backing up databases - how?
by Chris Green 04 Jan '12

04 Jan '12

I nearly had a problem just now, having done a clean install (rather than an upgrade) of xubuntu 11.10 I needed to restore sundry mysql databases. Since they're not in /home nor in /etc I thought for a nasty moment I hadn't got backups because /var/lib isn't in my automatic cron backups. However I had done a one-off copy of the whole of /var before cleaning out the old installation and installing xubuntu 11.10 - phew! :-) It does make me want to find a sensible way of backing up those mysql databases though. My automatic (cron) incremental backups save /home and /etc. I have made /var/www a symbolic link to a 'home' directory for www-data (the apache UID) at /home/www-data/www so all my web stuff gets backed up too. The databases are not heavily used so there's a pretty good chance that I can get away with making straight copies of all the files in /var/lib/mysql without causing any disasters but what's the best way to do that? I *could* make /var/lib/mysql a link to somewhere that gets backed up but that really feels like a bit of a bodge. I'd prefer not to add /var/lib/mysql to my backup list though I suppose that's really the sanest way to do it. I use sqlite for as many databases as possible so that this isn't an issue but some applications insist on mysql (or postgres) and, even though my use is very lightweight and doesn't need a proper *database* backup strategy I need to do something. Any comments/ideas anyone? -- Chris Green

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Adding an exception to iptables on ssh authentication
by Alex Scotton 04 Jan '12

04 Jan '12

Hi All, I rarely post to this list; mainly due to a lack of knowledge... but find the email chains fascinating and very informative. I was hoping you could help me out with a few security adjustments on my home development server running Ubuntu 10.10; I would like to achieve the following setup with iptables and maybe a script in sshd_config? * Accept any connection from within the LAN (192.168.0.*) * Deny All from outside LAN (Except to ports 22, 80, 443, and the range 8000 to 8999) (the above is admittedly easily done with a google search) but my skills cant quite stretch to finding out how to add an exception to iptables for the IP of any authenticated ssh session and on timeout or disconnect remove that exception. I could then allow external developers to develop on a private port range (7000-7999 - as I do internally) by just connecting to ssh with their public key. Is this possible? Festive Tidings Alex

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