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Cannot log in with (or su to) new user
by Ewan Slater 30 Nov '14

30 Nov '14

Hi All, I have a situation is driving me round the twist. I can't log in with (or su to) any new user I create. Background: I have had to take over a box built by someone else (who is no longer available to speak with). The easy answer would be to rebuild said box, but we currently have a customer on it, and so that is not an option at the moment. Problem: I need to create a couple of new users. I ssh'd into the box with an existing account, su'd to root and created the new users with useradd, and set passwords for them. If I attempt to log in as one of these users, or from the existing account (not root) I attempt to su - <username> then I get incorrect password (and I have checked what I am typing very carefully). I have checked /etc/passwd and the users have a valid shell (/bin/bash) and a valid home directory. >From root I have used passwd -u to make sure that they are not locked. I had a look at bashrc, bash_profile, /etc/profile and can’t see anything that would cause the user to be locked out. Any ideas gratefully received. Cheers, Ewan

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VoIP/SIP servers
by Mark Rogers 26 Nov '14

26 Nov '14

Has anyone here got any experience of setting up a VoIP server? I have a couple of sip trunks from various places (Sipgate, Enta) which I hardly ever use but would like to start making use of. I have an account at pbxes.org which allows me to aggregate them but I'd rather run something of my own that I can learn something from. I'm therefore thinking about setting up a server running Asterisk (or similar) and some kind of web interface. Preference for Ubuntu server, Debian or CentOS in that order; most of the instructions I've found have been for CentOS (which I haven't yet tried), but the ones I have found for Debian/Ubuntu haven't worked one way or another. I'll try one of the CentOS how-to's next unless anyone here has some pointers? 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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Re: [ALUG] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

Hi, all. I know of at least one attendee to tonight's Ipswich meet that will be there early, from 19:30. I can't get there before 20:00 at the earliest, so if anyone is free to wander down before the traditional start time to rescue them from their own company, then go right ahead ... :) Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 17th November, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum ----- 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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Amazon Music
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

Hello, Has anybody here tried to use Amazon Music? My wife wanted to buy the latest Children in Need single but when she bought it, the store insisted she install their software on her machine, a Windows 8.1 laptop. I baulked at that as I hate companies that foist their software on you for no gain. I emailed them and told them that we weren't going to be installing their software and that they should email the file to us. But I did it from my wife's email account! Within a couple of minutes the phone rang. It was Amazon wanting to talk to my wife. I explained that I'd written the email and a couple of security questions - which I answered. So much for security - the guy tried to talk me through the process of downloading the file without installing their software. I said 'What if I run linux?'. 'Not a problem' he replied. 'I run Ubuntu and I can do it'. So I thought I'd have a go on my machine which runs Mageia 4 64 bit. With the support guy still on the phone, I tried. It didn't download the file even though I'd clicked the option. It did work though if I selected the option to play it using VLC. I could then retrieve the file from /tmp so I could at least reassure my wife that she hadn't wasted her money, albeit only 99p. I then rebooted the box into Windows 7 mode and that did offer the boxes to decline the software. After another reboot back into Mageia, I fired up VirtualBox where I have a copy of Xubuntu. That just worked and allowed the download straightaway. So does anybody have any ideas why the download on my base machine doesn't work whereas on Xubuntu it does? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Why won't it boot?
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

My machine has recently upgraded itself to a new kernel and now it won't boot. It fails after several seconds telling me that various UUIDs don't exist. But they're the same devices that another kernel does run from. The new kernel which doesn't work is 3.14.18-3 and the one that does work - I'm using it now - is 3.12.25-3. I would have said that if the various partitions do exist, then it *should* work so where do I start trying to fault-find this? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th November
by Viperfang 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

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, 13th November 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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Weird character swapping during typing
by Mark Rogers 09 Nov '14

09 Nov '14

Either I have lost the ability to type or something else is going on. I'm finding characters swapped around in tetx that I ytpe (that's been happening all the way through this email but I left those in to demonstrate). Seems to be mostly in Chrome (I'm using Gmail to send this). Seems a particular issue on my Ubuntu laptop, but also happens on my Kubuntu desktop. Don't see it elsewhere. Thoughts? It seems very bad today. Chrome is also running like a dog despite CPU and memory looking OK in htop. I tend to assume that characters go into a keyboard buffer and out in the same order no matter busy the PC is? Seems particularly bad around spaces, eg lik ethis. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Getting started with NoSQL
by Mark Rogers 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Everything I am doing here is on Linux but as it has the potential to be cross platform feel free to tell me its off topic and I'll go elsewhere with my tail between my legs. Until last week I had zero understanding of NoSQL. I spent some time going through tutorials (using OrientDB - I have no idea how much of this is generic and how much is DB specific) and now have a broad understanding of a graph database, and the concepts of vertices and edges. I'm hoping for some advice on a sensible schema to get started on a specific application. All I want to do is log data coming from sensors. I haven't decided exactly what yet but assume environmental stuff like temperatures, and other stuff like counters (eg energy usage), speeds, etc. They'll be polled periodically from various devices and stored in the database. In most cases there will be a logical grouping to a set of values (eg they all relate to a single room) but others might be more generic. Once I have the data, there are two things I want to do with it. First: display current data on a web page which is constantly updating and always being displayed. Second, I want to be able to run reports over the historical data. With MySQL I would probably have a script which polled all the sensors and stored everything into one record indexed by time, because it's trivial to dump even large amounts of data into a table that way. Whether or not that was the right way in MySQL I'm sure it would be wrong in Orientdb. My first thought was to create a generic Sample class (type, timestamp, value), and extend that to create new classes for specific types of data (Temperature, etc). Create a new vertex for each sample and (having already created a vertex for each room) link them with edges. However I have no idea how efficient that would be when it comes to extracting all the latest data, or historic data ordered by time. So any guidance would be very gratefully received, Also, I have no idea how well it would perform. A handful of samples every minute would be fine I am sure, but what it if were more like 50-100? And what it they were stored every second? That might not be relevant here but this is a learning exercise and I want to understand this stuff. (50-100 samples per second into a MySQL DB would be no problem even on a Pi, after all, assuming they were stored in a single record as described above.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th November.
by Viperfang 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Sharing small amounts of data between PCs
by Mark Rogers 03 Nov '14

03 Nov '14

Suppose I have several PCs (call them Raspberry Pis, because they probably will be) each collecting data from local sources (eg temperature data via a local sensor), logging it to a local database, and making it visible via a local display on HDMI and/or via a web browser. If I want to take advantage of the fact that they're all networked and allow each of them to pull the stored data from all their neighbours, what would be the simplest way to achieve this? Database replication etc feels like overkill. I don't really want there to be a "master", I'd like to think of them all as equivalent peers. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Will two NAT routers 'in series' cause any problems/slowness?
by Chris Green 31 Oct '14

31 Oct '14

I've just got a Mikrotik RB2011 router which I am going to use as the main 'hub' router on my home LAN. Since it doesn't do ADSL itself and I don't have any simple 'modem only' (yes, I know they're not really modems) ADSL boxes I'm going to use my two existing ADSL routers to connect the Mikrotik to the internet. This means that there will be two NAT routers between me (well, eveything on the LAN) and the internet. I can't see that this will cause a problem, can anyone else see anything wrong with this? The Mikrotik will do load balancing and it has the advantage that it can handle more than two WAN connections so I can add my 3G and/or WiFi backup connection while leaving the two ADSL in place. -- Chris Green

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Post-processing files recovered using photorec
by Mark Rogers 31 Oct '14

31 Oct '14

I've just recovered several GB of data using photorec from a family friend's dead NAS backup box. So far so good. But as is common with the methods used by photorec it can generate some very large files which are largely rubbish. Eg tiny gif files being recovered as >1GB because photorec hasn't detected the end of the file. I'm looking for tools that can postprocess these files, but looking around I'm seeing people discussing the problem as if it's just one of those things. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing? My typical strategy is to use "find" to locate recovered files by file extension and move them to a directory per file type, then hand the results over to whoever's disk it was. But I know I can do better! For example: The 1GB+ GIF file can be "fixed" using convert or mogrify (from ImageMagick): convert recovered.gif fixed.gif As far as I know that effectively loads the file and re-saves it without making any changes (but all the rubbish gets stripped in the process) - can anyone confirm this? If so: cd recovered/gif && mogrify * .. is a safe way to fix the recovered files. Similarly, .zip files (and related files, such as LibreOffice docs) can have this problem; extracting the zip and recreating it fixes it. Any other tricks I should be aware of? Anyone aware of any tools to automate this? Ideally this should happen in tandem with the recovery; all those wasted GB are reducing the capacity of the destination drive, sometimes to the point that the recovery fails to complete. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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File/directory synchronization (or synchronisation)
by Chris Green 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

All the recent discussions on backups and the peer to peer question has suddenly become a bit more relevant to me as I'm playing with Calibre for keeping my E-Books. I installed Calibre on my desktop machine, it's improved quite a bit since I last played with it and it now fits my requirements rather better than before. So I've imported quite a few E-Books into it and have started sorting them out a bit. However I then realised that E-Books in particular need to be able to be carried around with me, so I want them on my laptop as well as on my desktop machine - synchronisation! Initially it feels as if there's a lot of choice but in reality there isn't if you filter with the following basic requirements:- Must work across the 'net in some way or other, just file synchronisation doesn't really do what one wants. It needs to work when not connected as well though so a remote FS is no good. Should update automatically, preferably in 'real time'. Would like it to synchronise existing directories, not require things to be synchronised to be put in a special place. Looking at the Wikipedia list there's only two or three satisfy the first two requirements and adding the third seems to mean nothing does what I want. I guess Conduit might do it but it seems to be dead which is a pity. Owncloud is possibly the least worst and has the advantage (for me) that I have a Owncloud server running already. It expects you to put files in a special place though. -- Chris Green

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How did I break this?
by William Hill 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

I've got a linux board that can't connect to anything. It just gives me "192.168.1.1 - no route to host". Won't even ping. Bill PS, I'm logged in using ssh through wifi via router 192.168.1.1

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Dead hard drive?
by Srdjan Todorovic 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

Hi fellow ALUGgers, Started getting fsck errors on a drive, ran smartctl -t long and smartctl -a. Full output: http://pastebin.com/tQX0TX4m Snipped output: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green Device Model: WDC WD10EACS-11FBRB0 SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity was completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever been run. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 198 198 051 Pre-fail Always - 101 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 123 114 021 Pre-fail Always - 6850 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1022 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 1 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 089 089 000 Old_age Always - 8569 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1000 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 53 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 180 180 000 Old_age Always - 60861 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 130 102 000 Old_age Always - 17 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 199 199 000 Old_age Always - 1 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 355 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 170 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 260 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 8563 323143936 # 2 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 8560 323143936 # 3 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 8303 - # 4 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 732 - Is the drive cooked? Why does the self test execution status report all is ok? Why does offline data collection status report without error? Why is the overall status PASSED? Thanks, Srdjan

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Re: [ALUG] Incremental/snapshot backups using rsync - is it really this simple?
by Chris Green 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 09:38:58PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote: > On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 04:41:14PM +0100, Chris Green wrote: > > > Not to mention one more fundamental problem with obnam, it doesn't > > offer any obvious/easy way to automate daily/monthly/yearly backups. > > If only there was a way on unix systems to run a command on a regular > schedule without user intervention. > Strangely enough I do know about cron. HOWEVER a decent backup facility integrates with cron as part of its design, obnam's documentation doesn't show how one can do daily/weekly/monthly/yearly backups. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] device only (or caldav) calendar on android
by MJ Ray 22 Oct '14

22 Oct '14

mick wrote: > I am /not/ a huge fan of Google, but since I hate apple even more, > the android device offers me the best functionality for the least > inavsion of privacy (within limits). [...] I had to put a CyanogenMod fork on mine to stop it demanding a Google login before it would work properly. > [...] Previous devices (from HTC, Sony and Samsung) have allowed me > to set up a local, "device only" calendar. This new one won't and > insists that I link in a google account before I can add /any/ > data at all. So I'm looking for an alternative app. [...] I don't have that problem and I even have "Offline Calendar" (org.sufficientlysecure.localcalendar on fdroid) to give me a calendar which isn't synchronised anywhere. If you really want a whole new app, then I think aCal is one of the few. That will use caldav and its user email list was fairly helpful when I was using it. With Android 4, I moved to CaldavSyncAdapter (org.gege.caldavsyncadapter) and don't use it much any more. Android phones are basically a strange type of GNU/Linux device. Have fun! Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

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Re: [ALUG] Dropbox alternatives
by Chris Green 21 Oct '14

21 Oct '14

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 02:27:24PM +0100, mick wrote: > On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:05:57 +0100 > Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> allegedly wrote: > > > > > > Surely, as they're not providing any computing power or resources, it > > can be 'free' in the same way as most Open Source software is. > > > > "TANSTAAFL" > > If you do not pay for a service, you are not the customer, you are > the product. Google, Facebook and others base their entire (hugely > profitable) businesses on that fact. > > I cannot understand how anyone would willingly synchronise any > personal data of any kind with a "free" cloud service. > Who is confused here?? As far as I can tell syncthing is *purely* software, you are not synchronising data with 'their' servers. All syncthing does it make it easy to synchronise data between two systems that are both your own. ... or have I totally lost the plot? -- Chris Green

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Dropbox alternatives
by Mark Rogers 21 Oct '14

21 Oct '14

I've had the luxury of 50GB free Dropbox space courtesy of an offer that came with my Android tablet, but that is now about to expire. I've been wanting to shift to something else anyway so now's the time. But what do I pick? There are several options... Objective: To be able to sync as much stuff as I like. I have no desire for a central repository (although I could set one up if needed); I prefer a peer to peer model. I'd really prefer a good sync mechanism (in particularly handling file deltas rather than having to upload a whole file if something changes). ARM compatibility is important. Android integration would be a big plus (eg I like that my phone automatically uploads photos to Dropbox, I'd like to move them to the new solution). BTSync: Free only as in beer but otherwise looks pretty good. Syncthing (now called Pulse): Properly free. I think it meets all my criteria. Any others I should consider? Any experiences to report? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Incremental/snapshot backups using rsync - is it really this simple?
by Chris Green 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

I've been using rsnapshot to do backups for a year or two now but my backup NAS is just about full so I need to move to something with a bigger disk. Rsnapshot uses rsync's --link-dest to create the hard-linked snapshots along with a lot of arcane perl (as far as I'm concerned Perl is always arcane!) and a big, complex configuration file. So I'm considering a roll-your-own approach, it seems just too simple to be true. Does following pseudo-code look right:- Run every day in the small hours IF (day_of_month = 1) IF (month = 1) # i.e. January 1st rename month12 to this_year ELSE remove month12 FI rename month11 to month 12 .... month1 to month2 rename day31 to month1 ELSE remove day31 FI move day30 to day31 .... day1 to day2 rsync with the --link-dest=DIR pointing to day2 I can create all the directories empty to start with so they're all there to be moved even though with nothing in them. This will (hopefully!) create daily backups for 31 days, monthly backups for 12 months and yearly backups for ever (!?). -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Dropbox alternatives
by Mark Rogers 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

On 20 October 2014 14:27, mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > If you do not pay for a service, you are not the customer, you are > the product. Google, Facebook and others base their entire (hugely > profitable) businesses on that fact. > > I cannot understand how anyone would willingly synchronise any > personal data of any kind with a "free" cloud service. SyncThing/Pulse is a P2P sync service that runs entirely on your own hardware. They are "providing" software not a service, although I daresay they will provide a hosted option in future for those who want it. It's entirely open source. BTsync is similar without the benefits of being open source. It's plus, however, is that it's easier to set up (albeit with some loss of security). SyncThing would get my vote of the two, other than that at the moment I've not got it to work properly... (see other response to Steve) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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How to prevent a system from changing its ssh key every time it boots?
by Chris Green 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

My dlink NAS backup is working nicely now except for one fly in the ointment, it regenerates its ssh key every time it's rebooted. We had a (planned) power cut last week and thus the key was changed and my backups failed until I fixed things up again. So what's the best way around this problem? At the moment I can't see where ssh-keygen gets run though I'm still searching. Is there any specific way around this issue of a remote system's ssh key changing frequently (other than relaxing checks so it's just a warning rather than a failure)? -- Chris Green

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PGP signing
by Steve Engledow 17 Oct '14

17 Oct '14

Hi folks, Some time ago, you may remember I wrote a meeting report about a successful keysigning event we had at an ALUG pub meet. Shortly after that, I went and forgot the passphrase for my private key. Because I'm a genius. I posted to this list that I had a new key and would people please sign it but I couldn't prove it via PGP. Now I can because some muscle memory suddenly remembered the passphrase for me! Here's a revocation certificate for the old key: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v2 Comment: A revocation certificate should follow iGAEIBEIACAFAlRBi/YZHQFUaGUgbmV3IGtleSBpcyBGM0MxODZEMQAKCRAIRtlz 1F7jmuj2AJ9KOrw/fGdcP0pc1KwVRV0YhuD+DgCgxL9N3PivCbq4b/hBV0JUlR9e Uwk= =GR6J -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- And I've signed that revocation certificate with my current key: -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v2 owGbwMvMwMG4/7sM1+eDbRcZTx+IS2IIcezx0AUBJ1d3Tz+FAPcAhYBQJx9PZwVv 10gFJx9/Z2+wNFdYalFxZn6elYJ7XmmAu0KZEZdzfm5ual6JlYKjQlFqWX5yYglQ XiE5tagkMy0TyEtVKM7IL81JUUjLz8nJL+fiynR3dPV0cvV0dHZ0c8wJcsrUj4zy CHQLTXQPTU/KDTP2dC/JSQ12KkiudHL3NfCt8HeJcvUNdPR2DnL0DCrJqeIydDPP yi3NMnL0svT2LyrXT3NPSQ4wKEg29C4PCwoziMwoddF2SXdOr/Cx9DMOyCxzTio0 SdLPcAoz8ArNCbJM5Qotz7blsnUPMvPiAvvK1c8Fj5c7mWRYGBg5GNhYmUDBxMDF KQALvJ36/P/MG5MVM3i2uzlUvtHmaeZ/+epTxvMP951Zqs3nfpVSDTeUOiAubcus olt9bmLw9+zCf/N0Z57YI3hb+7rbmutO3x69PJNVK/ui+lf6CQujFVMO3p/MHyXF cezXDutrJe+XzLrnvG5BJ++EgvSiNRZNxd84Mo7q+C/ZIxX8/sM70VrlM9rzLxcZ 5u4WkvGeZ/87ylj6TYj5nfZ1a5Uk92j/DNuyf/Pa0i977W6/T9956t37qUr8LrfP pho7CCxaL1svWTz354+5eucupYVX2boka16TWhT+vWGbqpPuB5+mCs+jU8LnWaVf aL825fcu4UVmZn5sjXGRe+12LDHZ9aIzSpbPXmqWvdHl0M7yzQKM5+v/+YrPsIhW 2CLBcSxrxuRDc/SX2Krv+KaR2vX87GneiW/NPmsdKXnsyLd1pdnTvq9sP80rX6UK yec8O6edVsDw1IBTpmU71zmdls7AAxw7l4bz1sSv+r5jU0vrI/+XqXJ72zUeFP9+ 9ev4s0kTzXMEti4sKt6jH2IyY+o2Ld2X1T/t+eWXyMztvG4pY5shxbr2PXd8yPSu 48UvZ95UkYm6dTblS0XS0ndBKortbatKWXT2a+o4L533853Ox8xNexIn2YcvMWjj nL3W9MTmvn8OBpql7V1Jb0XdbG/cT/7eNbk6zLpm1YbQWVMmx2nYHpQXlzvaNF/L ptlcTb7zwobW3JB/Ty2OifFtSQQA =wAkV -----END PGP MESSAGE----- That ought to do it. Anyone who has signed my old key, please feel free to sign the current one now you have proof it's me :) Cheers, Steve

1 0

Best way to backup a server prior to decommissioning
by Mark Rogers 17 Oct '14

17 Oct '14

What's the best way to backup a (virtual) server prior to shutting it down and disposing of it? Assume only a single filesystem, which in turn means that the backup will have to go onto that filesystem (obviously on completion the file would be copied off before the server was killed!); also assume no access to it except via SSH so no image backups etc. Objectives: To have access to everything in case it was needed, and ideally to be able to rebuild the server as it was should it be needed again in future. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 3

Thunderbird and LDAP
by Jenny Hopkins 15 Oct '14

15 Oct '14

Hullo, I've set up an LDAP server for a client to share his address book between thunderbird (running on Ubuntu 14.04) and webmail. A new entry can be added manually from thunderbird, but there is no option to auto-add new addresses to any other address book than the thunderbird one. I've had a google goggle, and it seems I can't do anything about this - can anyone tell me I'm wrong and it is possible? If not, are there any clients that will allow this option? This is a serious drawback. Thanks, Jenny

2 2

My incremental/snapshot backup system - now working
by Chris Green 09 Oct '14

09 Oct '14

Well I have implemented my simple incremental/snapshot backup strategy and it works pretty well. The whole thing comprises an rsync backup run daily by anacron in /etc/cron.daily, an rsync server/daemon on the backup NAS and a script on the NAS that rotates the backups. The whole lot is probably 100 lines of code in total - and that's *with* lots of comments! :-) I have appended the three main component files for those who want to see. The 'clever' bit is that all of the backups on the NAS except the two latest ones are completely inaccessible from the outside, you can only get at them if you have a login on the NAS. That's the bit that is rare in most backup systems I've looked at. You could maybe get a similar result with a 'pull' system run from the backup server but then that would be very slow on the underpowered NAS processor, on my system most of the work is done at the sending end (my desktop). ... oh and the *BIG* advantage is that all the backups are complete mirrors of the backed up files, no compression, no tar archives, you can navigate around the backups exactly as you can navigate around your current home directory. It means it's *very* eay to check that backups are OK and no special tools at all are needed to restore files, just copy the file you want. So, here is the rsync bit that is run by anacron on my desktop every day. The password is *only* for the rsync server on the backup machine, so access to the script only allows someone to run backups, nothing more. #!/bin/sh export RSYNC_PASSWORD='XXXXXX' # # # Daily backups, copy everything important to the backup machine # EXCLUDE1='--exclude tmp/ --exclude 'Mail/??/' --exclude .VirtualBox/ --exclude .gvfs/' EXCLUDE2='--exclude .cache/ --exclude lost+found' # # # Home directories # rsync -a --port=874 $EXCLUDE1 $EXCLUDE2 --link-dest=/old/home /home/ chris@dlink::chris2day/new/home # # # /etc # rsync -a --port=874 --link-dest=/old/etc /etc/ chris@dlink::chris2day/new/etc This is probably the most difficult bit, the rsyncd configuration file on the backup NAS. I could relax the security somewhat and it would be shorter and simpler. The 'post-xfer exec' runs the rotate.sh script after rsync has transferred the data. hosts allow = 192.168.1.4 hosts deny = * use chroot = no uid = chris gid = allaccount secrets file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/secrets pid file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/pid timeout = 300 strict modes = false # log file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/log [ chris2day ] path = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/today read only = false list = yes post-xfer exec = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/bin/rotate.sh auth users = chris ... and finally the rotate script which is the bit I was asking about previously. I had the algorithm pretty much right. It's a bit clumsy in the shell (ash, it's a busybox based NAS) but it's not quite messy enough to want to move to something better like Python. #!/bin/sh # # # Script to 'rotate' snapshots, runs after rsync creates a new # backup in the today/new directory # cd /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/bak # # # Get day, month and year # day=`date +%d` month=`date +%m` year=`date +%Y` # # # Check for first of the month # if [ $day = "1" ] then if [ $month = "1" ] then mv month12 $year else rm month12 fi # # # Move all the months up one # m=11 while [ $m != "0" ] do mv month$m month`expr $m + 1` m=`expr $m - 1` done else rmdir day31 fi # # # Move all the days up one # d=30 while [ $d != "0" ] do mv day$d day`expr $d + 1` d=`expr $d - 1` done # # # and copy the new day1 from today # # # Move the older backup from 'today' to 'bak' and change the # name of the newer one # mv ../today/old day1 mv ../today/new ../today/old mkdir ../today/new chown chris:allaccount ../today/new Like I said I really don't quite understand why rsnapshot et al manage to make it so complicated. OK, the above has 31 days and 12 months hard-coded but given that they're hard-linked snaphots that many backups doesn't take much space at all. -- Chris Green

1 1

Unwanted hardware
by Chris Walker 08 Oct '14

08 Oct '14

I realise that it's unlikely but does anybody here have a use for an Asus desktop machine and a load of floppy discs? The desktop machine was originally running Windows XP but now has a copy of Robolinux on it - it's had various distros on it as I was trying them out for ease of install among other things. It only has 512MB of RAM but does come with an NEC LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. Also kicking about are several boxes of 3.5" floppies totalling around 150. A few are 720k but most are 1.44MB and some are unused although I did buy them in 1994! If nobody wants them, they'll be going on Freecycle/Freegle. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 0

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th October
by Viperfang 06 Oct '14

06 Oct '14

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, 9th October 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

1 0

Default anacron run time of 07:30, what's the logic (if any) for this?
by Chris Green 03 Oct '14

03 Oct '14

I was just wondering why my system is sometimes somewhat busy in the morning and it occurred to me to that anacron might be something to do with it. This is my desktop system which is left turned on all the time. So, after digging around a bit I found that anacron gets run (via /etc/cron.d) at 07:30. So anything that takes a while, like a weekly incremental backup, can often be running when I'm using the computer. What's the reason for choosing 07:30? If the computer is never turned on at 07:30 then does anacron ever get run? Presumably it must get run as part of system start-up otherwise anacron tasks would never be run. So, why not set the default time to 02:30 or something similar so that, if the computer is turned on tasks get run in the small hours? It's easy enough to change of course and I will do so, but the default seems a little odd. -- Chris Green

2 1

.deb vs .rpm (or apt-get vs yum)
by Mark Rogers 03 Oct '14

03 Oct '14

It's been many years since I last used a .rpm based distribution in anger, but the experience lead me to dislike them compared with .deb based distros. In particular I had a number of occasions where an installation issue lead me to a system that I could not fix, where that has never happened to me yet in all my years with .deb-based systems (Debian and Ubuntu). Sure I've had conflicts and problems, but I've always been able to get pas them. Am I right to trust .deb more than .rpm? Should I give (eg) Fedora another chance? Incidentally I also found package management faster with .deb (eg apt-get update vs yum update, apt-get install vs yum install). Stable beats speed but .deb seemed to give me both. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 15

Command line database editor (for sqlite3)
by Chris Green 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

Is there such a thing? Of course I know and use the sqlite3 command line utility but that's just a way of running SQL from the command line. What I want is some sort of wrapper/utility that reads the data from the database, presents it to me in some sort of reasonably editable format and then, when I've changed something writes it back. I'd be happy enough with a simple browse facility plus some sort of way of changing individual fields. So "dbedit xyz.db table1" just presents me with the data in some sort of reasonable, scrollable column layout. Then some sort of command says "change column 10, row 4 to 'ABCDE'". -- Chris Green

3 8

OT Domain name hosts
by Bev Nicolson 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

A bit off topic perhaps but I thought I'd ask you lot. Domain name hosting. Ted might be puzzled by this since I recommended 1&1 a while ago now. They haven't been a bother but it looks like I should think about transferring things for various reasons. Who out there is cheap and reliable? How do you find out exactly how much any one package will cost per year? I'm just talking about a domain name and related email address. Bev.

12 18

Linux (Debian) boot problem
by Barry Samuels 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

I want to move my wife's operating system to another computer so that should involve a simple 'move the hard drive' operation shouldn't it? Wrong! I've not come across anything like this before. The drive boots happily in my wife's computer but if I move it to either of two other computers it starts to boot and then stops with various errors. mount: mounting /dev/root on /root failed: No such file of directory the same with sys and proc. Then there is a Busybox line and I end up in a shell prompt: '(initramfs) but the line before that says: /bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off and nothing appears when I type on the keyboard so I'm stuck. This is using Squeeze with a standard Debian linux-image package, 2.6.32-5-686, which includes an initrd image. My wife's current computer uses an Athlon XP CPU and the one I'm trying to move to uses a Core 2 Duo both of which are covered by the linux-image. Any ideas would be very welcome. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

7 12

Sort of design/philosphy/way to do it sort of question about remotely gathering data and putting in a database
by Chris Green 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

I have a Beaglebone Black which gathers various bits of data on our boat in France. At present these comprise some temperatures and battery voltages and currents but there might be other things added. I want to store these in a sqlite database on my desktop machine here at home. The mechanics of doing this are easy enough, I store the data in a file named for the date and time on the Beaglebone Black and at intervals my desktop machine mounts the directory where these files are saved (using sshfs), reads the data, inserts it into the database and then deletes the file. This means that if the connection fails for a while then nothing is lost, it's probably not by any means perfect but it's good enough, my life doesn't depend on the data! :-) At the moment the receiving end just assumes there are ten values sent and that they are in a specific order. E.g. there's a file there at the moment whose name is "2014-09-29_15:05.od" and whose contents are:- '2014-09-29 15:05', 22.125, 22.75, 13.6285714286, 13.8876923077, 34.36875, 0.253125, 14.85, 8.803125, 8 I'm not really happy with this because it means that any changes I do have to be 'synchronised' at the two ends to keep their knowledge of which value is which in step. Is there a standard way of labelling values in this sort of situation? Should I send a file something like:- DateTime, '2014-09-29 15:05' InsideTemperature, 22.125 OutsideTemperature, 22.75 LeisureVolts, 13.6285714286 StarterVolts, 13.8876923077 LeisureAmps1, 34.36875 etc. Then the first column of this data is the database field name and the second column is the data. If a field name doesn't exist then the receiving program/script will create a new column. This rather depends on there always being a DateTime field so maybe the receiving script could reject files with no DateTime value. Does this seem a reasonable way to do it or are there better ways, or should I just stay with the existing set-up where the order is significant? -- Chris Green

3 8

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 3rd October.
by Viperfang 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

1 0

Bash flaw - uh oh
by Bev Nicolson 29 Sep '14

29 Sep '14

What should we do? Here it's just me and my computer to worry about for example and I have a firewall and a virus checker installed. Is that enough? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29361794 Bev

8 15

Phone backups
by Chris Walker 27 Sep '14

27 Sep '14

Hello, I have a Jolla phone which runs linux. Unfortunately the speaker has stopped working which rather renders it useless as a phone so it has to go back to Finland for repair. Jolla have suggested I take a backup as they will reset it and wipe it. But their backup doesn't backup everything so can I copy everything off it perhaps from this machine? I easily ssh into the phone as a user and then switch to 'devel-su' mode but I don't appear to be able to ssh into it as root. I've tried to run scp from within the phone (using ssh) to a NAS drive but I can't make it connect. At this stage I'd rather not install loads of extra software on the phone just to do the backup so any ideas about copying everything off the phone before it goes back would be appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

3 5

device only (or caldav) calendar on android
by mick 24 Sep '14

24 Sep '14

Hi Guys I have just bought a new mobile (dual sim Moto G) to replace both my main 'phone and a backup. I am /not/ a huge fan of Google, but since I hate apple even more, the android device offers me the best functionality for the least inavsion of privacy (within limits). Before even transferring my personal data I locked the damned thing down to try to prevent as much google synchronisation as I could (but still, stupidly, managed to let the bloody thing send my contacts because I mssed one of the buried sync settings). That aside, I now really want to move my calendar data to the new device. Previous devices (from HTC, Sony and Samsung) have allowed me to set up a local, "device only" calendar. This new one won't and insists that I link in a google account before I can add /any/ data at all. So I'm looking for an alternative app. What I'd really like is a CalDav style application which allows local only storage on the 'phone, but will later allow me to sync to my own server (when I finally get around to setting up owncloud). Any and all advice (short of "throw the 'phone away") gratefully accepted. Most of the calaenadrs on the google play site appear to be little more than alternative skins to the underlying android calendar. Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Linux Job - Devops/Sytems Engineer - Cambourne/Cambridge. £35k-£45k
by Adam Bower 23 Sep '14

23 Sep '14

Hi all, I currently work for http://www.swiftserve.com and we're recruiting for at least one and possibly 2 Linux systems/devops engineer positions. I've attached the job description below, sorry about the formatting. Currently we're based in Cambourne but we're moving to Milton in January. This is a permanent position and we're wanting people to start as soon as possible. Salary is in a range from £35k-£45k, possibly a bit more for exceptional candidates. If you want to send an application or have questions then please send a CV/email to my work email address: abower(a)swiftserve.com Description: We are looking for a Dev Ops engineer with strong Linux skills to work on automation, deployment, monitoring, integration and investigating complex issues. Responsibilities: The successful candidate will have overall help work closely with our Engineering and Operations teams to help improve our automation, packaging, continuous integration and monitoring across our PaaS offerings. Will help work with our field engineers and support teams to investigate complex issues and design and architect customer solutions to meet customers needs. Investigate complicated issues, debugging distributed systems involving multiple components to isolate problems. As part of investigation it is expected that this person will be able to reference the source code to understand what is going on, and perform investigations involving packet dumps, log files and monitoring data from multiple systems. Work with engineering and product leads to provide feedback on to the product into areas where it can be improved and enhanced. This role will involve some out-of-hours work on deployments and/or on-call rotas. Experience/Skillset Required: Excellent Linux skills - solid background in systems administration, knowledge/experience of investigating issues and bottlenecks. Strong understanding of Internet networking covering IP networks, Internet protocols and technologies, packet dumps. Good basic programming experience, able to write and understand programs in a variety of languages with experience of Python (or at least Python-like languages such as Ruby or Perl) and Javascript. Experience of using Unix tools to help analyse log files (e.g. use of tools like ‘awk’, ‘grep’, ‘uniq’) Experience of using automation tools for deployment (e.g. Puppet or Chef) and monitoring tools. Experience of using/building network monitoring and alerting systems. Experience of Linux software packaging (e.g. building RPMs or DEBs) Pragmatic and flexible attitude, and a desire to solve the customer requirement. Fluent English speaker with good written and verbal communication skills. Able to work in the UK (EU citizen or existing work permit), and able to work predominantly in our Cambourne office. Useful Knowledge of video-related technologies covering encoding (transcoding), protection (DRM) and delivery protocols (HLS, HDS, Smooth, RTMP) Basic understanding of C, C++ and Java. The Company We are a self-funded and established start-up employing about 35 people around the world. We are tackling the challenges around the delivery of large volumes of data (e.g. video) over the Internet. As such we provide content delivery services to some of the largest networks in the world and are responsible for service provision with extremely high uptime requirements. Thanks Adam

1 0

How to change ssh destination depending on connected LAN?
by Chris Green 23 Sep '14

23 Sep '14

As I move around from home to various other places different systems that I connect to from my laptop become 'local'. Being a lazy person I really don't want to type in long complicated ssh commands when I'm connecting remotely. Thus I have in the ~/.ssh/config file the following:- Host cheddar HostName cheddar.halon.org.uk Host halon HostName cheddar.halon.org.uk Host chris ProxyCommand ssh cheddar nc -q0 zbmc.eu 22 Host odin ProxyCommand ssh cheddar nc -q0 localhost 51234 This means I can simply type 'ssh chris' or 'ssh odin' and ssh with the above config file does all the hard work for me. However it means that when I'm at home for example (where 'chris' is my desktop on the LAN) if I type 'ssh chris' I get connected to my desktop machine via the internet which is rather ridiculous. Can anyone come up with an easy way to change how 'ssh chris' acts according to whether I'm on the LAN where 'chris' is or not. Similarly I want the same to happen when I'm on the LAN where 'odin' is (which is not the same LAN). -- Chris Green

7 16

Re: [ALUG] How to change ssh destination depending on connected LAN?
by Chris Green 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 01:58:00PM +0100, Laurie Brown wrote: > On 22/09/14 13:49, Chris Green wrote: > > [SNIP] > > > As I have pointed out in a previous reply this doesn't work because of > > the ProxyAddress stuff I have in my ~/.ssh/config file. I need some > > way to switch the ProxyCommand off when I'm on the LAN. > > Why not have two such files, each specific to a particular location, and > write a bash script with a parameter to copy over your ~/.ssh/config > file whichever version you need? I really don't understand the problem here. > Fine, it's just the sort of thing I was thinking of doing. My question was really how to automate the switch over by (somehow) detecting whether I'm connected to the LAN or not. -- Chris Green

2 1

Re: [ALUG] How to change ssh destination depending on connected LAN?
by Chris Green 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 10:38:42AM +0100, mick wrote: > On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:52:26 +0100 > Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> allegedly wrote: > > > On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:25:23PM +0100, steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk wrote: > > > On 20/09/14 13:19, Chris Green wrote: > > > >As I move around from home to various other places different > > > >systems that I connect to from my laptop become 'local'. Being a > > > >lazy person I really don't want to type in long complicated ssh > > > >commands when I'm connecting remotely. Thus I have in the > > > >~/.ssh/config file the following:- > > Sigh. > > Chris > > Why do you keep asking variants of the same question? Lots of different > people have taken the time and effort to answer those questions for > you at various times in the past, yet you ignore the answers and come > back with yet another variant of the "how do I do this when connecting > to/from my boat"? > Please read the question! :-) It's very much *not* the same question as I've asked before. The specific issue is because of my use of ProxyCommand in my ~/.ssh/config file. It's *not* "how do I get local names to work". -- Chris Green

1 0

mp3splt and regex
by Chris Walker 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

Hello, I'm struggling to split an mp3 file and simultaneously enter some tags in to the output. The input filename which is a get_iplayer download looks like this 'David_Rodigan_-_02_09_2014.mp3' and my problem is adding tags to the output. How do I make 'David_Rodigan' appear as 'title' in the output tags? I guessed that David would appear as first_part and Rodigan as second_part but I can't see a way to concatenate those two items to form title. My attempt looks like this :- mp3splt -G (?<title>):first_part+" "+second_part David_Rodigan_-_02_09_2014.mp3 3.00 60.00 -o /split/David_Rodigan_-_02_09_2014 But that fails with bash: syntax error near unexpected token `(' I'm looking at this page for inspiration but it isn't helping! http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/documentation/man.html Perhaps somebody here can explain where I'm going wrong please? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

2 2

Any idear how this router running Linux configures itself?
by Chris Green 21 Sep '14

21 Sep '14

I have a little Solwise 3G router on my boat. I have just discovered it runs Linux and I can telnet into it. Even better it runs dnsmasq so, if I can configure it appropriately then I can get it to provide local DNS. However I can't work out where it configures itself from at boot time. If I edit /etc/hosts for example then, if I reboot, my changes are lost. There's an /etc_ro directory but nothing really much in there gives a clue. There's even an /etc_ro/rcS file which is obviously executed fairly early on in the boot sequence but it's not early enough to indicate where the basic configuration lives. The motd file says:- ------------------------------------------------------ Welcome to HAME Technology Co.,Ltd =System Architecture Department= ------------------------------------------------------ ... oh, it as busybox for most of the commands. Does anyone have any idea how it starts up and configures itself? -- Chris Green

2 2

Is there such a thing as a 'WiFi switch' to add WiFi to a LAN - if so what's it called?
by Chris Green 18 Sep '14

18 Sep '14

I'm not even sure such a thing exists but it feels as if it ought to. I want a 'WiFi switch' that I can plug into an existing LAN such that it allows WiFi access on the *same* subnet. Thus it won't do anything clever like DHCP or DNS or anything as that will be done by existing devices on the LAN. All the 'range extenders' I can find are WiFi both in and out and also tend to create their own subnet. Anyway I need something that hangs on a hard-wired ethernet connection. Is there such a thing? -- Chris Green

3 4

Ubuntu startup scripts
by Mark Rogers 17 Sep '14

17 Sep '14

Where are the various places that processes can be started on desktop login on Ubuntu? Specifically: My laptop has an encrypted Truecrypt partition, and a Dropbox share on it. On login Dropbox tries to start and can't access its directory because at that point I haven't mounted the TC volume. Dropbox is listed in the Startup Applications GUI, which as far as I can tell just lists whatever is in ~/.config/autostart. However, if I remove it from there (either from the GUI or by deleting dropbox.desktop, and with Dropbox stopped when I do it), if I log out and back in again it puts itself back and starts again. Where is that coming from? Furthermore: if I replace dropbox.desktop with an empty read only file, it doesn't get replaced but Dropbox still starts. How? Further furthemore: I have my own bash script which prompts me for the TC volume password, mounts it, then starts dropbox. I have added that to ~/.config/autostart (via the GUI), but my script doesn't seem to start. What might I be doing wrong? Over the years I have spent ages removing viruses on Windows and got used to the idea that there are dozens of places that you can configure applications to start automatically but I thought Linux would be a bit cleaner than that! This has prompted me to learn more about the startup process. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Simple way to find local subnet?
by Chris Green 16 Sep '14

16 Sep '14

Is there a simple way to get the value of the local subnet to which one is connected? I know I can derive it from what ifconfig outputs but using grep to get '192.168.13.0' from output like:- eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr f0:de:f1:2b:f9:13 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1533 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:2135 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:820119 (820.1 KB) TX bytes:231948 (231.9 KB) Interrupt:20 Memory:f2500000-f2520000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:1181 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1181 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:126765 (126.7 KB) TX bytes:126765 (126.7 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:d7:6e:3d:08 inet addr:192.168.13.104 Bcast:192.168.13.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::224:d7ff:fe6e:3d08/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:8144 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:8180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:3358385 (3.3 MB) TX bytes:1152063 (1.1 MB) .... seems a little more difficult than it should be. Presumably arp-scan does it somehow when you use 'arp-scan -l'. -- Chris Green

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Thunderbird oddness
by Bev Nicolson 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

Thunderbird seems to be selective about which emails it marks as replied to with the blue arrow now so I'm uncertain whether they've been sent or not. I haven't changed any settings so does anyone know why this might be? (24.2.0) Bev.

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Raspberry Pi hwclock
by Mark Rogers 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

Anyone here added a real time clock to the Pi? It's pretty trivial in principle but "The Internet" seems to be littered with various ways to configure the Pi to use it, most of which include adding it to /etc/rc.local rather than (for example) /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh. My objective is to have a solution that (a) requires minimal changes to a stock Raspbian (ie the fewer files to add/modify the better), (b) will detect whether an RTC has been added and roll back to using the fake hwclock concept otherwise, (c) use NTP to maintain the clock (including writing to hwclock) when an Internet connection is available and (d) do all this as early into the boot process as possible so minimal services start up with an inaccurate clock. All of that sounds like a fairly desirable standard but most solutions I've found seem to fall short of at least part, and frequently most, of that. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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How to find IPs on a wireless network?
by Chris Green 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

If I have a wired connection to my LAN I can use 'arp-scan -l' to find the IP addresses of other systems on the LAN. However arp-scan only works if *I* have a hard-wired connection. How can one find IP addresses on a LAN when connected by WiFi? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How to find IPs on a wireless network?
by Chris Green 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 07:12:29PM +0100, Laurie Brown wrote: > On 13 September 2014 19:09:17 BST, Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > > If I have a wired connection to my LAN I can use 'arp-scan -l' to find > the IP addresses of other systems on the LAN. However arp-scan only > works if *I* have a hard-wired connection. > > How can one find IP addresses on a LAN when connected by WiFi? > > Try an Android device running fring... > Not a lot of help when I'm sitting here on a boat in France with two Beaglebone Black systems, an IBM Lenovo laptop, a Siemens Gigaset VOIP phone, an internet radio, but nothing running Android. -- Chris Green

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Broadband puzzle
by Bev Nicolson 11 Sep '14

11 Sep '14

Me again. I hope this is on topic. I like to download a few podcasts from time to time from the BBC and audioboo but recently it's been taking roughly twice as long for them to be saved. It also looks as though it's trying to do two at a time though only one remains on my desktop at the end. Any ideas? (Firefox 26.0) (It's fine for using iPlayer, though.) Bev

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nologin warning - any ideas what causes it?
by Chris Green 09 Sep '14

09 Sep '14

I keep getting the following in my logwatch output:- --------------------- Connections (secure-log) Begin ------------------------ **Unmatched Entries** nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN: 1 Time(s) Does anyone have any idea what might be causing it? It's separate from the sshd report so isn't an ssh attempt from 'outside'. ... and here's the /var/log record of it:- auth.log:Sep 8 08:20:04 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log:Sep 9 08:27:00 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 2 08:05:26 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 3 08:31:55 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 4 08:26:50 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 5 08:21:08 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 6 08:24:48 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 7 08:23:18 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN So it's happening some time after eight every morning. ... and further, here's the context from auth.log :- Sep 8 08:20:01 chris CRON[16693]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user chris by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:02 chris CRON[16693]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user chris Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: Successful su for news by root Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: + ??? root:news Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user news by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:03 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c6. Sep 8 08:20:03 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c7 of user news. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16743]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user news Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c7. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c8 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c8. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c9 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c9. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c10 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:25:01 chris CRON[16935]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user chris by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:30:34 chris CRON[16935]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user chris Sep 8 08:31:39 chris su[16834]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody -- Chris Green

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Disabling BEL on tab auto-complete
by Mark Rogers 08 Sep '14

08 Sep '14

I like to have my PC respond to BEL characters in the terminal, eg to report servers that I'm SSH'd into shutting down when I'm not looking at them. But doing this and retaining the tab auto-complete BEL sound means my PC is constantly making bell sounds. Putting set bell-style none in /etc/inputrc fixes this, except I need to put it into each server I ever SSH into, which is neither practical or desirable (as it affects other users of those servers). Any suggestions? I suspect that I'm going to be stuck as I need my local PC to recognise that the BEL it received came from another server's auto-complete, as opposed to something on another server that I care about. But maybe someone here has an intelligent suggestion that I'm too dumb to have thought of? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th September
by Viperfang 08 Sep '14

08 Sep '14

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, 11th September 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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Apache mod_rewrite
by Barry Samuels 05 Sep '14

05 Sep '14

I have an .htaccess rule so: RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !beenthere-donethat\.org\.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(folder/colchester1\.html)$ /folder/tempredir.php?page=$1 [R=302,L] The second line has been wrapped by the mailer but it is actually all on one line. That doesn't work. If I ask for http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk/folder/colchester1.html then that is what I get. No redirection. What am I doing wrong? I do have other rules in .htaccess which all work normally. What I'm trying to achieve is this - I want, eventually, to redirect all pages to the tempredir page with a link on that page which will then take the vistor to the page they requested originally. I don't want any visitor to be redirected yet until I've finished testing so I've put a page (colchester1.html) in a sub-directory that visitors do not normally visit so that I can test it first. I would test it locally on my home version of the site but, for some reason, redirection on my home computer won't work at all even though the Apache module is enabled. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Is it safe to abort a duplicate dd reimage?
by Mark Rogers 05 Sep '14

05 Sep '14

So I have dd running in one terminal, copying an image to an SD card, and occasionally run "kill -USR1 <pid>" (where <pid> is the dd process id) in another to prod dd into giving me some status info. Every so often I go back to the second terminal, hit "up"+"enter" to re-run the command, and flick back to the first to check progress. Except on one occasion I hit "up"/"enter" on the first terminal, where it had no effect as dd was already running, so I forgot about it. Of-course when dd finished the terminal then grabbed the up/enter from the keyboard buffer and started to re-image the SD card. Given that I'm writing a duplicate image over the top of the SD card is it "safe" to kill the second dd or is there a risk that the SD card will end up corrupt? It's only a 4GB card so I'm not expecting an answer before it's too late to matter, this is more idle curiosity. Unless it turns out I hit up+enter more times than I thought.... Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th September.
by Viperfang 02 Sep '14

02 Sep '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Power on hours wrong?
by Chris Walker 01 Sep '14

01 Sep '14

Hopefully somebody can answer this query for me. I had a couple of 1TB Seagate discs take their time writing data so I replaced them with a couple of WD drives. One of them is used as a common drive between Windows 7 and linux. The other is the linux system disc. But as they were both installed at the same time, why does one show a power-on hours figure of 76 and the other show a figure of 87 hours? Is it simply because the common disc is used for both operating systems? If that's true, then this isn't a true reading for power-on hours as although the linux disc isn't being used, it's still powered on. Oh, and I'm getting the reading for power-on hours from smartctl. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Printer XXX may not be connected message, but it works
by Chris Green 28 Aug '14

28 Aug '14

I have an HP Laserjet 1320 printer connected to my network via the USB port on my router. When I print to it I get a pop-up message saying:- Not connected? Printer 'LJ1320' may not be connected However the printer does work, if a little slowly. Does anyone have any idea what's causing the error message? -- Chris Green

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Various hardware - free to good home!
by Steven Rose 26 Aug '14

26 Aug '14

Got lots of boxes full of bits and pieces, some tested, some not. Need to create more space in the flat so its got to go! Free to good home(s), email me off list for more details to save me typing a long list here! -- Regards, Steven Rose @steveyeu // stevey.eu

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New computer - audio and other problems
by Barry Samuels 21 Aug '14

21 Aug '14

As I said in my previous query I have recently aquired a new computer, a Nofan A470 from QuietPC.com with on-board audio Realtek ALC650 6 channel, and I have installed Debian Testing/Jessie from scratch. I have done a lot of internet searching regarding these problems but have not found anything which works. (1) I'm using Fluxbox as my desktop although I have some KDE applications installed. The audio seems to work without problems with any KDE applications but not with anything else. For example - I use mail-notification which shows as an icon in the bottom toolbar and I can set it to play a sound when new mail arrives. That can be set in the configuration, an it is, and which also allows a test play but there is no sound. I believe that mail-notification is Gnome based. I have also installed Timidity plus the standard patch files but can't get any sound although it appears to be playing. There are some Phonon and Alsa packages installed. (2) Also with mail-notification I should be able to click the icon and get it to open Balse, my mail reader, but clicking does nothing. When mail- notification was installed it started Evolution when the icon was clicked but I didn't want Evolution and uninstalled it. I can't find any way to set mail-notification to open Balsa. (3) The last thing is that I use Krusader as a file manager and I want text files, by default, to be opened using Mousepad. At present the default is Libre Office and I haven't been able to change that. In the Krusader configuration there is an option to set which editor to use and I have set it to /usr/bin/mousepad but that appears to be ignored. Any pointers would be gratefully received. -- Barry Samuels

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How to run a command at (about) 1 second intervals securely (i.e. it won't die)?
by Chris Green 20 Aug '14

20 Aug '14

I want to run a command at something like 1 second intervals (the timing isn't at all critical), it's a background task with no screen output. So I want something like 'watch' but which will run without a terminal, and I also want to be sure that the command will always get run. Thus something like a loop in bash with a 'sleep 1' in it isn't suitable because if the command dies it won't restart. I.e. it's a cron job with a 1 second repeat rate and non-critical timing, any ideas anyone? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] SSH Connection to device behind NAT/firewall
by MJ Ray 19 Aug '14

19 Aug '14

On 08/19/14 15:48, mick wrote: > I wrote a post about this here: > https://baldric.net/2013/03/26/using-an-ssh-reverse-tunnel-to-bypass-nat-fi… Looks OK to me. I mostly use openvpn now, using tricks like port 443 to get through on most 3G networks. Some 3G networks block ssh port 22... > (Your emails are oddly dated. This one appeared from 6 August....) It was double-posted in html so I guess it got held until someone could review it. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

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SSH Connection to device behind NAT/firewall
by Mark Rogers 19 Aug '14

19 Aug '14

I know others here have experience of this, and I have a potential use for it. Situation: Linux box (Debian/ARM) behind a Draytek router which will variously connect to the Internet via ADSL, WiFi, 3G, etc. I want to have SSH access to the box whenever it is online without relying on having a routable or static IP at the router, ie the box will need to make and maintain an outbound connection to me so that I can access it when needed. I think this is what Chris does on his boat, but any pointers to the right way to go about this appreciated. Not looking for a full VPN (not least because some 3G providers block VPN access). The Draytek is already setup to manage office-to-office VPN but it's the failure of that which has prompted this. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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mini-ITX motherboard
by Jenny Hopkins 18 Aug '14

18 Aug '14

Hello, Can anybody use a Zotac ION ITX board with 2x1GB DIMM? Has instruction manual, cables, originally purchased 2009. Mail off list if interested. Thanks, Jenny

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Aug '14

17 Aug '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back tomorrow, 17th August, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. ----- 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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Alternative question to how to run a command once a second - run a command as root
by Chris Green 16 Aug '14

16 Aug '14

The alternative to running a script once a second (as in my other question) is to use a script that's setuid root - nasty and most systems don't let you do it. I'll explain the problem, I'm reading some analog inputs on a Beaglebone Black and want to display them on a numeric LCD. It's basically a voltmeter and ammeter. Thus I want the display to update fairly frequently. The underlying problem is that because of the (stupid?) way the Beaglebone is configured you have to be root to read the ADC inputs. Thus my original solution was to have a root task running in the background reading the ADC values once a second and writing them to a world readable file. The user task can then read them from file as necessary and display the values or send them to me or whatever. The alternative would be to provide some sort of callable routine that runs with root privilege which can be called as needed from user tasks. This would be a much more elegant solution really as much of the time I don't need 'once a second' frequency, only once an hour for sending values across the internet. It's only when I'm in the same place as the Beaglebone that I want 'once a second' values that I can look at. Is there a neat way of running a bit of Python code with root privilege? Security really isn't terribly important, it's only a little SBC monitoring some values. I suppose I could simply run everything as root but that feels all wrong somehow! :-) -- Chris Green

3 3

Where has my disk space gone?
by Chris Green 14 Aug '14

14 Aug '14

I have an old eeePc which has a 2Gb SSD. I have a minimal Ubuntu installation on it and it works OK. However there seems to be some 'missing' disk space. fdisk seems to return what one would expect:- root@eeepc:~# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 2000 MB, 2000388096 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243 cylinders, total 3907008 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000312c5 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 499711 248832 83 Linux /dev/sda2 501758 3905535 1701889 5 Extended /dev/sda5 501760 3905535 1701888 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-root: 1170 MB, 1170210816 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 142 cylinders, total 2285568 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-root doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-swap_1: 524 MB, 524288000 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 63 cylinders, total 1024000 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table BUT why does that /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-root partition show as only 1.1Gb, there's 1.7Gb or so for it to use in /dev/sda5. In fact what is all that /dev/mapper/eeepc--vg-root stuff about? I don't have anything like it on my other machines. -- Chris Green

2 3

Camera media disk corrupted
by Jenny Hopkins 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

Hi All, My camera battery died during a file transfer, with the photographs only partially transferred. After recharging the battery, I'm left with a corrupt file system, with listings such as: -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 268435456 Jan 1 1980 ??.Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Jan 3 1980 Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Jan 3 1980 Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Dec 31 1979 Ã?.? drwx------ 5183 jenny jenny 655360 Mar 29 2012 DCIM drwx------ 3 jenny jenny 32768 Mar 29 2012 MCSOFQ -r--r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 268435456 Dec 31 1979 ]?MSTICK.â??nd -r--r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 33554432 Dec 31 1979 mstk_?ro.IND d????????? ? ? ? ? ? TRASH-~1 Is there any hope at all of getting any further photos from the disk, or is it a lost cause? DCIM takes an age to open, then refuses to copy any of the listed files to my computer hard drive, mostly complaining of input/output error. ls: cannot access DCIM/!â”‚Ã©(a)xn--~-6baq9uc29df93o.xn----mca0s): Input/output error total 9697785440 d????????? ? ? ? ? ? 01ÎŽ\5iâ?¥â??.ÂµÂ¬/ Thanks, Jenny :-(

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 14th August
by Viperfang 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

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, 14th August 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

1 0

Bit OT: Libreoffice Writer macros
by Mark Rogers 07 Aug '14

07 Aug '14

I've never played with LO macros before, and I have no idea if this is possible, but: At a certain point in the document I need to insert the document's filename (easy to do using fields), and then later on to insert the same filename after a simple search+replace operation (which is where I'm stuck). I assume macros are the way to go but if there's a better/different way I'm all ears. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Can anyone help with a Postfix problem please?
by Barry Samuels 05 Aug '14

05 Aug '14

I bought myself a new computer at the end of last week to replace my aging 32 bit machine. I decided to install Debian Testing/Jessie 64 bit from scratch and set it up to match, roughly, what was on my old machine. I included Postfix which was on my 32 bit machine on the assumption that I could copy the Postfix configuration across and it would work. I have to admit that I find email configuration to be one of the black arts which uses magic incantations. Needless to say it didn't work. After a bit of research I discovered that putting 'inet_protocols = ipv4' in main.cf enabled me to send emails. Some of the sent emails appear to get to their intended destinations and some don't with messages as under: <mywife(a)gmail.com>: host mx1.spamfiltering.com[212.113.130.124] said: 550 relay not permitted! (in reply to RCPT TO command) <me(a)myaddress.co.uk>: host mx1.spamfiltering.com [72.249.150.158] said: 550 81.151.115.33 is listed on sem-black.rbl.spamrl.com. Please organise removal and retry. (in reply to end of DATA command) I have obscured some of the details but it should still give an idea. the ip address 81.151.115.33 is btinternet.com our ISP. Similar emails sent from my old machine don't produce those error messages. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels

3 8

Problem with sound on new install
by Jenny Hopkins 01 Aug '14

01 Aug '14

Hi folks, I posted the following to the ubuntu alsa forums with the hope of some pointers, but nothing has come back. Can anyone from alug offer anything further on this? <snip> I've newly installed ubuntu 14.04 on to a Gigabyte GA-J1800N-D2H board, and am trying to get sound working with a Samsung S24D590L monitor through the HDMI cable. Pulse audio control detects Port: HDMI / DisplayPort (plugged in), and the volume meter is showing it is responding to the levels, but no actual sound can be heard. Alsamixer shows the card as HDA Intel PCH and the chip as Intel Valleyview2 HDMI, and I've checked nothing is muted. Monitor volume is not muted. There is no output from "beep". </snip> I was asked for the output of wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && chmod +x ./alsa-info.sh && ./alsa-info.sh --upload, which is now here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1a91c118837f2f6038ddb73c397dae4bf340e0b5 I did wonder if I need to install some dedicated drivers from RealTek, such as LinuxPkg_5.18rc8.tar.bz2? And yes, this is the same board I posted about last week - finally managed to create a dos boot stick it would respond to (had to make it from a virtualbox running windows), upgraded the bios from F2 to F4, and off we went. Thanks, Jenny

4 5

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st August.
by Viperfang 29 Jul '14

29 Jul '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

1 0

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 21 Jul '14

21 Jul '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Gah! Sorry for the late email - I totally forgot! The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 21stth July, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. ----- 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

1 0

Date Scheduling
by Michael Goddard 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

I'm on a volunteer project and want to use program/app that will give me fixed dates over a given period. For instance, a given start date and dates for each 21 day period thereafter, or what are the dates of the second tuesday each month over a given period. I'm quite prepared to do my own DIY learning etc, but would appreciate a heads up in the right direction rather than stumbling down too many blind alleys in an effort to find, I hope, a simple program/app that would do this task. Tia Michael -- Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

4 4

Motherboard can't detect debian bootloader
by Jenny Hopkins 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

Hullo there, I've been having a bit of a battle with trying to persuade a new motherboard to see a debian bootloader. The machine is a mini-ITX with 1 SATA drive, the new motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2H, I have a pxe netboot debian set up which the BIOS doesn't detect, a USB stick set up with the image from here: http://grml.org/, and the already-installed SATA drive running debian wheezy/grub. All I get is either a black screen after the motherboard logo, or the logo keeps reappearing as if it were constantly rebooting. The support at mini-ITX say they have booted ubuntu successfully from a USB stick running Ubuntu (video to support this shown here: http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/84742025/file.html). I found various comments on amazon about this board and linux, saying the BIOS has to be upgraded, but the mini-ITX support reckon the board already is running version 4. Now, they could be wrong and I need to upgrade BIOS to see my humble boot offerings, but I wondered if maybe there was something else about debian that is too out-dated for this board? If so, the board is of no use and I need to return it rather than wasting time piddling about with trying to upgrade the BIOS. I suppose my question is: if anyone can say yes, debian won't work whatever you do at the moment, then I'll know not to waste further time. Unfortunately I have to replace the old board into my client's machine each time I try and fail miserably to make it work, so it isn't currently plugged in and running to inspect the BIOS version... I did try every combination of boot order, CSM settings though. Hardware, *sigh*. Thanks, Jenny

2 3

Looking for a reasonable Linux laptop/netbook
by Chris Green 11 Jul '14

11 Jul '14

My wife recently lost (or maybe had stolen, we're not quite sure) her new[ish] Acer Travelmate laptop. So we're looking for a replacement. The Travelmate was OK but she found the touchpad very difficult to use, it's one where the 'buttons' are not actually separate from the mouse movement touchpad and she found that very difficult. We want something small like the Acer with its 11.6" screen, similar processor power etc. Also obviously needs to be reasonably easy to install Linux (xubuntu). Any recommendations? -- Chris Green

5 7

How is one supposed to work out what's what on a LAN nowadays?
by Chris Green 10 Jul '14

10 Jul '14

I know, I've been here before, but it's bitten me again. With most modern routers/switches not providing local DNS how is one supposed to find out who's who on a small LAN? At home I run dnsmasq but that's overkill for where I am now with just three or four devices on the LAN:- root@acer-aspire:~# arp-scan -l Interface: eth0, datalink type: EN10MB (Ethernet) Starting arp-scan 1.8.1 with 256 hosts (http://www.nta-monitor.com/tools/arp-scan/) 192.168.13.102 d0:ff:50:07:b7:96 (Unknown) 192.168.13.103 00:0c:43:4a:55:66 Ralink Technology, Corp. 192.168.13.100 00:21:04:f5:7c:a0 Gigaset Communications GmbH 192.168.13.254 10:fe:ed:50:8f:fa (Unknown) So, I know that 192.168.13.100 is the Gigaset DECT phone but for the other three I'm stuffed. Surely there's supposed to be a way to know how to talk to these things! (One's a Beaglebone Black, two are TP-Link routers) It can take a while guessing which is which and trying to ssh to them. It's especially frustrating because I only see this for a few days every few months so I *don't* remember what's what and much of it is powered down so gets different IP addresses next time around. It's just not stable (as in the same all the time) enough to get the router to always assign the same IPs and it wouldn't help all that much anyway as I don';t remember after two months absence. -- Chris Green

5 19

How to test for existence of a file matching a pattern?
by Chris Green 09 Jul '14

09 Jul '14

This really sounds simple but I can't think of a neat way of doing it, I want to test (in bash) if there's any file with a specific suffix in a particular directory. This means I can't use "[ -f <filename> ]" because I don't know the filename and I don't see how I can use "[ *.sfx ]" because if there are no *.sfx files the string is still not empty. I suppose I could say something like "[ *.sfx = '*.sfx' ]" but it's a quoting nightmare. Any better ideas? -- Chris Green

4 3

Electromagnetic Field 2014: Call for Participation
by Jonty Wareing 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Hello! Electromagnetic Field (EMF) is a volunteer-run non-profit maker/hacker camping festival in the UK. We held our first event in 2012, and this year we're back and bigger than ever: a camping festival with over 1200 people of all ages, just outside Milton Keynes for a long weekend between the 29th and 31st of August. We run this event to promote people making and learning things across as many disciplines as possible. We'll take over a large field, roll out power and internet to every tent, and put on talks and workshops for three days. If you'd like a better idea of what that looks like, our website might help: https://www.emfcamp.org/about Our Call For Participation is open: we're looking for people to talk or give workshops. At previous events, we've had a huge variety of talks on everything from genetic modification to electronics, blacksmithing to high-energy physics, reverse engineering to lock picking, computer security to crocheting, and quadcopters to brewing. If you'd like to talk, we'll try and fit you in. We're especially keen to receive proposals from people outside the normal tech conference circuit (we welcome imposters!). If you need some inspiration, take a look at the list of talks from 2012: https://www.emfcamp.org/talks/2012 If you'd like to submit a talk, simply fill in this short form: https://www.emfcamp.org/cfp We're also looking for groups to run villages: camps within EMF where like-minded people can camp together and host activities for other members. Previous villages have been anything from retro-gaming to lockpicking, chillout areas, and a full workshop complete with laser cutter! Some groups just camp together so interested people can find them, some organise a village around a topic of interest and allow anyone to join them. If you'd like to register a village there's more information here: https://wiki.emfcamp.org/wiki/Villages We're also looking for people to build installations and art around the site. We have a limited budget available to help fund these projects, and you can find the application form on the call for participation page. Previous years have seen anything from ride-on tanks to floating LED screens and gigantic metal letters spelling out the event name! We'll consider anything interesting, so don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to contribute. Last but not least: EMF is an entirely volunteer-run event and takes a vast amount of time to organise. We need volunteers to help out in a variety of roles before, during, and after the event. If you'd like to get involved, email volunteer(a)emfcamp.org. If you would like promotional posters, flyers and stickers to display in your hackspace or give out at a meeting, email your address to contact(a)emfcamp.org and we'll post them out as soon as possible! You can find out more about EMF 2014 on our website: https://www.emfcamp.org You may also be interested in the BBC coverage of the event in 2012: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19441861 Tickets are available from http://www.emfcamp.org/tickets, hope to see you in the field! Thanks, Jonty

1 0

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th July
by Viperfang 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

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, 10th July 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

1 0

SSHFS
by Chris Walker 05 Jul '14

05 Jul '14

Hello, I have a 1TB disc attached to a Raspberry Pi which is attached to my tv. I'd like to able to copy/move stuff to and from that drive so I've been trying to mount it from my main machine. I did this :- sudo sshfs pi@192.168.1.27:/media/New_Volume /media/win_c3 I also entered sudo usermod -a -G fuse chris sudo chown chris:chris /media/win_c3 Having done all I wanted for the day, I then issued a fusermount -u /media/win_c3 But I felt the win_c3 (a leftover from previous experiments) was not right, so I renamed it to RaspberryPi. That's when it all stopped working. I can still issue the sudo sshfs pi@192..... command but the RaspberryPi folder disappears from the Dolphin window at that point and doesn't re-appear until it's dismounted. I see that /media/RaspbeeryPi now shows this sort of thing :- drwx------ 1 1000 1000 36864 Jul 5 10:09 Humax_TS_Files So how can I fix the 1000 problem? I've tried doing another chown as sudo but it tells me Permission denied. Any help appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 0

Fonts and Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jul '14

04 Jul '14

Not a huge technical challenge for you but something I find a tiny bit tedious. In Firefox, I can see some special characters or graphics but others are just squares with numbers or diamonds with a question mark inside. I've tried using a font with a bigger file (so more characters to pick from) but that hasn't solved it. Is it a unicode problem? Or something else entirely? (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Firefox 26.0) Is there something in Synaptic I need to install? etc etc. Bev.

3 9

Good energy usage/performance CPU/mobo combo
by Mark Rogers 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

Sparked by Laurie's thread, but different so I don't want to hijack it. My desktop PC (Intel G630 w/ 8GB RAM) is a bit slow these days. It is used for those wonderfully high memory applications we call web browsers, and for running VMs, and runs 24/7. Ubuntu 14.04 as the O/S. I'd like to upgrade the motherboard and processor (and the RAM if necessary) whilst retaining the rest of the box. What would be a good motherboard and CPU combo for the above on a budget of say £150-£200? (I'd want the motherboard to support at least 16GB RAM, 4x SATA and have USB3 but other than that I'm not too fussy. I currently have onboard graphics and continuing that way makes sense for my usage, but happy to look at alternatives.) Energy usage is something I would like to keep an eye on when the system is idle, but I don't want it to be held back when I actually want it to do something. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 11

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th July.
by Viperfang 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

1 0

LXLE Menu problem
by Chris Walker 26 Jun '14

26 Jun '14

Here's hoping somebody can help me with this. I was having problems making VirtualBox work on a 64bit LXLE machine so I uninstalled the old version, grabbed the latest from Oracle and installed it. But although the old version did, the latest version is not showing up in the menu system. I've tried running the Menu Editor and although I can add it, and save it, it never appears in the menu. So can somebody give me a clue as to where I'm going wrong with this please? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

2 2

Why do mail programs make moving to a new installation so difficult?!
by Chris Green 23 Jun '14

23 Jun '14

My wife is using Thunderbird on a new[ish] xubuntu 14.04 system. She has now got it fairly well configured and working the way she wants so the next step is to move her old 'local' E-Mail across. No way is this remotely easy, I can sort of see how it might be done but there are so many gotchas that I fear it's going to be a mess. Why can't modern E-Mail program simply use mbox (or maildir, I'm not too fussed) as they were designed rather than having to add all sorts of specially named directories and indexes? In mutt it would be trivial! -- Chris Green

4 5

Low energy use systems
by Laurie Brown 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

I'd like to tap into the collective brain here, if I may. For many years we've had a philosophy of using small machines to perform specific roles, say web-server, email-filter, SMB box, that sort of thing. We even have some of the Single-core Athlon boxes with 512Mb memory we bought 10 years ago still running, and working fine. However, of late, energy consumption has become a real issue. These things just consume too much electricity to justify keeping them running despite them have paid their way years ago, and still preforming faultlessly. I've had a look at the local guys at http://www.linitx.com (Needham Market) but the choice is mind-boggling, and I haven't really kept up to speed with this stuff. We already have a miniITX machine here as a firewall, but I might recycle it as a web server and use a Jetway JBC373 Fanless Quad Gigabit LAN Barebones System to replace it. However, what I need very soon is a couple of low-power consumption systems with at least 2Gb of memory, preferably a multi-core CPU (but not essential), at least one LAN port, standard VGA and PS/2 ports, and capable of taking a standard SATA 2.5" or 3.5" drive. We use Gentoo and Ubuntu on our servers. I'm thinking maybe the Jetway JNC9I-525 JC110 Barebone System but, recommendations anyone? Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

3 4

Storing dropbox folder on a truecrypt volume
by Mark Rogers 16 Jun '14

16 Jun '14

First off: I know all about the potential issues (or otherwise) of using Truecrypt that have surfaced recently. For now I'm taking the view that data on a truecrypt volume is more secure than data that isn't... Anyway, I want to store my Dropbox folder on my truecrypt volume. This is about making sure that files in my dropbox folder are inaccessible to someone who steals my laptop, not about making them inaccessible to Dropbox employees (and US governments). There are loads of discussions out there about creating an encrypted container and storing that in Dropbox, but that is not what I am trying to do here. I want my ~/Dropbox folder to be located inside a truecrypt container. Does anyone have any ideas how to achieve this? At the moment Dropbox starts when my laptop does and complains that the dropbox folder isn't present. I need to delay its start until the Truecrypt container has been mounted. My guess is that I need a wrapper script that runs on startup and checks that the container is mounted before starting dropbox, but I'm unclear about the best way to do that - in particular taking into account that I might not even start Truecrypt, and if so Dropbox should never start. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Re: [ALUG] my questions recently about securely transferring files from remote system
by Chris Green 15 Jun '14

15 Jun '14

This is just an update about my recent questions regarding how to transfer files reasonably securely (as in system security rather than confidentiality of file content) from a remote unattended system. I have what seems to me to be a satisfactory solution that also makes some other things a bit easier. While hunting around for ideas and solutions for this and other issues I came across an explanation and examples of the use of ProxyCommand in the ssh config file. This has provided me with my solution. Just to recap, the remote system is a Beaglebone Black running Ubuntu which is on our boat in France monitoring temperatures, battery voltages, etc. It's connected to the internet via a WiFi hotspot so is behind a NAT router (presumably) and a firewall which are out of my control. So, to make the BBB accessible it runs an ssh tunnel to an intermediate system (my web hosting provider) where I have an ssh login account. To maintain this connection through power failures and/or other glitches I run ssh on the BBB using autossh:- autossh -N -R ?????:localhost:22 -l isbdnet3 <host on the internet> (port number masked to ??????, there's a real number there of course) To connect from home to the BBB I used to ssh from home to <host on the internet> and then from there, via the tunnel, to the BBB. The reason for the intermediate system is that my home firewall only allows connections from <host on the internet> and a couple of other specific IP addresses. (This is to protect my home system from long term attacks using ssh) Adding a ProxyCommand to my ssh config at home allows me to connect 'directly' from my home system to the BBB, the line is:- Host bbb ProxyCommand ssh <host on the internet> nc -q0 localhost ????? Now I can just 'ssh bbb' and it goes straight to the BBB. Even better and more importantly it means that I can use sshfs to mount a directory from the BBB onto my home system, thus I can:- sshfs bbb:tmp odin ... and the files being stored in ~/tmp on the BBB appear on my home desktop in ~/odin. This means I can manipulate them as required (which means add the values to a database) *and* when this has been done I can delete them safely, ideal! :-) -- Chris Green

2 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th June
by Viperfang 09 Jun '14

09 Jun '14

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 June 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

1 0

Security when transferring files - passwordless ssh or rsync daemon?
by Chris Green 04 Jun '14

04 Jun '14

I want to copy files from a BeagleBone Black (running Ubuntu) to my home dmz system. This has got to work unattended as the BBB is sat on our boat moored on the Somme. It's also got to be a 'push' from the BBB as it's connected via WiFi and while I can connect to it through an ssh tunnel copying files via that connection would be decidedly tricky. So, as I see it, I have two obvious options:- 1 - Set up a public key login for the BBB on my dmz that requires no passphrase, so it's effectively passwordless. Then the BBB can run rsync to copy the files. The security hole in this approach is that if someone accessed the BBB then they could login to the dmz without further difficulty. 2 - Run an rsync daemon on the dmz and copy the files by connecting to this from the BBB. The advantage is that someone at the BBB end can't do anything but copy files (and I can limit what can be copied with the rsyncd configuration), the disadvantage is that the connection isn't encrypted at all. There's nothing valuable in the files, they're just temperature and electrical measurements from the boat so I don't care at all about the files being visible to the world. My security concern is to minimise the risk of someone getting into my dmz system. OK, it's a dmz and it's just a Raspberry Pi so is hardly full of valuable data but it would be a nuisance and *might* be a jumping off place for further nefarious deeds. I guess I'm being a bit paranoid really, the BBB on the boat is headless and anyone breaking into the boat is hardly likely to be an accomplished Linux hacker. Option 1 above is certainly the easiest as rsync daemon takes a bit of setting up. Are there any really obvious flaws - is it only really vulnerable to someone who accesses the BBB? There is an option 3 but it's more difficult to set up, I could implement a passphraseless rsync connection from the BBB to the dmz that only allows rsync file copying to a specific directory. I've done this on one other system and it works pretty well (you do it by adding a command= at the front of the authorized_keys file) but like the rsync daemon it takes a bit of setting up and I'm wondering if it's worth the effort. Any comments anyone? Are there more obvious and/or easier ways of copying files without making systems vulnerable to other attacks? -- Chris Green

6 13

27U rack looking for a new home
by Adam Bower 04 Jun '14

04 Jun '14

At work we have a 27U rack cluttering up our office, it has front and rear doors, some fans in the top and is on wheels to make it easy to move around. For this wonderful item I hear you say "but how much does he want for such a lovely thing?" well, the answer to that is, it's free if you come and collect it from Cambourne business park (8 miles west of Cambridge). Please mail me off list if you are interested, I have offered it around a few other places so it will be first who is able to collect gets it. Adam

1 0

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 6th June.
by Viperfang 03 Jun '14

03 Jun '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

1 0

Probably OT: Using a wifi connection as a WAN
by Mark Rogers 28 May '14

28 May '14

I'm not sure if this is simple or not; if not then the solution is almost certainly going to use a Linux box so this might be on topic, but if not I can't think who else to ask. In my office I have a Draytek router, connected to ADSL (was O2, now Sky), with it's WAN port connected to another ADSL router, itself connected to PlusNet, and load balancing between the two. I have it set up this way due to the pretty useless speeds we get here (I just ran a speed test and got 3Mbps up, 0.5Mpbs down). No prospect of it changing much either in the short term. On the other hand, the same speed test on my phone shows 20Mbps down, 8Mpbs up (4G on Three). And I have free unlimited data including tethering. So I want to find a way to tether my office network onto my phone when I'm in the office. Is this just as simple as replacing the second ADSL router with an access point, or do I need to be more clever than that? (Also: the Draytek has a USB port for (eg) a USB 4G dongle, but could I use a USB wifi dongle to tether to my phone instead?) The "right" solution is to get a 4G dongle for the Draytek, but data plans on data SIMs don't seem all that great - and even phone contracts aren't as good as they were (I get unlimited tethering, but new contracts limit to 5GB while tethering). So I'd like to find a way to use my existing phone connection if I can, albeit that it's going to kill my battery when I use it. Although if anyone can point at decent 4G data plans instead I'd be happy to switch (I am already paying for two ADSL lines so I can ditch one of those if I get this working). (Apologies to anyone who would kill for the 3Mbps I currently get!) Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 6

Does NFS across subnets need to be able to 'see both ways'?
by Chris Green 28 May '14

28 May '14

As part of my improving security exercise I have implemented a DMZ system on a subnet separate from my main home subnet. Thus I have (similar to Mark Rogers) the following:- Draytek Vigor 2820n on subnet 192.168.1.0 WAN1 ADSL connection WAN2 Ethernet 192.168.13.0 to second ADSL router I have a Raspberry Pi plugged into to the second ADSL router's LAN so it's on the 192.168.13.0 subnet, this is the DMZ machine which will have a number of ports open to the internet. The 192.168.1.0 firewall doesn't allow any connections from the 192.168.13.0 subnet, but the Draytek Vigor 2820n does route anything addressed to 192.168.13.0 to WAN2. Thus for example I can ssh from my desktop machine on 192.168.1.0 to the Raspberry Pi. Now (finally!) to the question, can the Raspberry Pi export its files to my desktop (or anything on the 192.168.1.0 subnet) without opening up any holes in the firewall? I tried the obvious:- / *(rw,async,no_subtree_check) on the Raspberry Pi but although I could mount the filesystem successfully on my desktop any attempt to access it just hangs. -- Chris Green

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Decent player wanted for internet radio streams (specifically BBC)
by Chris Green 28 May '14

28 May '14

I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey). I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK. I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio. I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found. -- Chris Green

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