- main - earth.li

Parsing XML from commandline
by Mark Rogers 07 Nov '13

07 Nov '13

Given the following: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Project> <Network> <Unit> <UnitType>Type1</UnitType> <SerialNumber>123456</SerialNumber> </Unit> <Unit> <UnitType>Type2</UnitType> <SerialNumber>abcdef</SerialNumber> </Unit> [... snip...] </Network> </Project> .. I need to extract all the serial numbers where UnitType is "Type2". I have never managed to get my head around XPath etc, and all the examples I find seem either too general or too complex for me to make much progress. I always end up writing some code that parses it as text which is a massive cop out. How best can I do this correctly using XML tools, and which tools should I use? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 2

Re: [ALUG] Uninstall problem
by Bev Nicolson 05 Nov '13

05 Nov '13

>> >> Win. Or 'whoot', depending on your preference. Your next challenge, >> should you choose to accept it, is to get the locked file off the >> desktop. Have tried swapping to desktop and purging but no dice. Nor >> will it dragged and dropped into Trash or any other folder. >> >> Bev. >> > > On 05/11/13 14:32, Ben Whyall wrote: > How about > > open a terminal > > cd ~/Desktop > sudo rm -rf <name of file> > > Ben Off list (prob by accident) Ben suggested this and it worked. Hoorah. Cheers, Ben. To answer Brett, Gnome. Not that it matters much now. Bev

1 0

Uninstall problem
by Bev Nicolson 05 Nov '13

05 Nov '13

Somehow (and clearly it wasn't sensible) I've got Calibre on this machine but it doesn't show as installed in Synaptic so I can't remove it. What can I do? I get permission denied if I try to delete it. Thoughts? Polite ones, if poss. Own silly fault etc. Bev.

4 8

xsane is sulking!
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 04 Nov '13

04 Nov '13

Greetings All! I would welcome anything in the way of useful advice/tips about the following. I have a (rather old) Epson Perection 2400 scanner (USB). This has been working very well for years on an old desktop, using xsane. When xsane is started up on that machine there is an initial fairly lar egwindow which allows (if needed) configurations. I now want to use this scanner with a more recent laptop which is running a 2011 version of Debian. It seems that xsane is correctly installed. Now: With the scanner powered on, I plug its USB lead into the laptop. After a second or two, the scanner makes the usual "initialisation" noises (scanner arm shifting up & down). So something is OK, at least at the scanner end. I then invoke xsane at the command line. Up comes a little window (not the big window like on the other machine) with a message "scanning for devices". Then the window says: "failed to open device 'v4l:/dev/video0" and the only option remaining is to close the window, at which point the instance of xsane closes. I have no idea why it should be looking for a *video* device! I can find no work-round for this. It might be that the laptop had not detected the scanner (how can I tell?). There is no icon for it on the GNOME desktop (but that didn't happen either when I connected my USB printer; and that works perfectly well). Any suggestions gratefully received! Best wishes to all, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 02-Nov-2013 Time: 21:25:23 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

2 2

Best distro for XP users
by Mark Rogers 04 Nov '13

04 Nov '13

I'm being asked quite frequently now for Linux options to replace XP. What would people here pick? Hardware will generally be pretty old so good support for older hardware is important. I note that current Ubuntu versions only get updates for 9 months from release (ie 3 months after they cease to be current) which is fine as long as the next version updates smoothly, but that would depend on continued support for the older hardware, and I know from experience that updates aren't always smooth (typically graphics issues as an older card loses support). I can go with the LTS version of-course, would that be better? Mint follows the same release cycle but doesn't (AFAIK?) provide upgrades. There's no point replacing XP because it's reached EOL with a Linux distro that will go EOL a few months later unless updates are pretty much guaranteed to work without my assistance. (I use Kubuntu in general on my own boxes and would prefer to stick with .deb -based systems, which rules out Fedora/OpenSUSE/etc.) And then there's the choice of desktop - probably something less memory hungry than KDE - or do I look at MATE, Cinnamon, etc with which I have no experience? I'm not great at Linux advocacy because I don't have the confidence in my ability to pick the right option for friends and family who "want" XP... -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

14 62

Re: [ALUG] 2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st November.
by Steve Engledow 29 Oct '13

29 Oct '13

On 29/10/13 02:00, Viperfang wrote: > Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, > more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk So the 2600 reminder is coming through alright then :)

1 0

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st November.
by Viperfang 29 Oct '13

29 Oct '13

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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Best distro for XP users
by Phil Wade 28 Oct '13

28 Oct '13

I've recently discovered LXLE (on a Linux Format DVD...) and found it's just the job for replacing XP, especially on older or more limited hardware. I replaced Widows 7 Starter with LXLE on my daughter's Netbook, and she was delighted with the speed and ease of use. I can't see any rough edges, although it's based on Lubuntu that some here say is rough, and it looks and performs really well. 15 minutes of showing her round the OS and she was sorted. The upstream base is Ubuntu LTS - currently 12.04, with 14.04 LTS rather well timed for XP EOL? It's a very young distro, but looks to be well worth trying for all those XP machines out there. The download ISO (which even comes in 64 bit if needed) is a Live DVD. Apparently LXLE stands for Lubuntu eXtra Life Extension - well named. Although I use Mint on my main machines, I'll definitely be leaning to LXLE for those customers who'll need help moving from XP before April 2014 and beyond. Anyone else tried it?

3 2

Diagnosing disk issue
by Mark Rogers 21 Oct '13

21 Oct '13

I have 4x2TB disks configured for RAID5. Initially they were in a USB3 external caddy but this never worked correctly - the raid kept dropping offline before it completed building the array. I then switched to eSATA (same caddy) and that improved things but I still failed to build the array completely. So they're now in a new HP microserver. Until now I assumed the issues were connectivity but since I still have the same problem there must be a disk issue of some kind. However SMART is reporting healthy even after longer self tests. Do I just right this off as a duff disk or can I investigate this further? syslog reports thus: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671201] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Unhandled error code Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671217] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671222] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_TIMEOUT Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671229] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] CDB: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671233] Read(10): 28 00 d9 2e b1 f0 00 04 00 00 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671253] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 3643716080 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671264] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714032 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671274] md/raid:md0: Disk failure on sdd1, disabling device. Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671274] md/raid:md0: Operation continuing on 2 devices. Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671310] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714040 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671316] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714048 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671321] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714056 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671326] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714064 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671331] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714072 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671336] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714080 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671341] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714088 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671346] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714096 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49309.671351] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 3643714104 on sdd1). Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.107789] md: md0: recovery done. Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170142] RAID conf printout: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170156] --- level:5 rd:4 wd:2 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170163] disk 0, o:1, dev:sdb1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170167] disk 1, o:1, dev:sdc1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170171] disk 2, o:0, dev:sdd1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170175] disk 3, o:1, dev:sde1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170279] RAID conf printout: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170292] --- level:5 rd:4 wd:2 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170299] disk 0, o:1, dev:sdb1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170304] disk 1, o:1, dev:sdc1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170309] disk 2, o:0, dev:sdd1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170322] RAID conf printout: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170325] --- level:5 rd:4 wd:2 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170329] disk 0, o:1, dev:sdb1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170332] disk 1, o:1, dev:sdc1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.170336] disk 2, o:0, dev:sdd1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup sSMTP[10706]: Unable to locate mail Oct 4 01:30:09 backup sSMTP[10706]: Cannot open mail:25 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup mdadm[3415]: Fail event detected on md device /dev/md0, component device /dev/sdd1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.172571] RAID conf printout: Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.172578] --- level:5 rd:4 wd:2 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.172585] disk 0, o:1, dev:sdb1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup kernel: [49310.172589] disk 1, o:1, dev:sdc1 Oct 4 01:30:09 backup mdadm[3415]: RebuildFinished event detected on md device /dev/md0 Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

6 25

Getting started with Linux and electronics
by Mark Rogers 21 Oct '13

21 Oct '13

Although not strictly OT here, there's almost certainly better places, so can anyone recommend any friendly mailing lists for getting started with using Linux to talk to GPIO etc? The sort of thing you might use a Pi or BeagleBone for (but not specific to a single platform). I've got several Pi's, a BB Black (and an Arduino for good measure) sitting around not really being used for much, and I really should learn to do some interesting things with them. There are loads of forums and Google Groups but I just prefer mailing lists like this one. Specific examples of the sort of thing I want to do: For personal use I want to do something interesting with Christmas lights, probably running from a solar charged 12V battery - that feels like it should give me plenty of scope to "play". Also, a colleague has asked about a simple application to record encoder and analogue input values to CSV on a periodic basis. In each case I can't even decide whether I should be looking at Arduino or Pi/BBB hence looking for a more general mailing list than one targeted at a specific solution. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 10

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 21 Oct '13

21 Oct '13

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, 21st October, 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

Recording event data efficiently
by Mark Rogers 18 Oct '13

18 Oct '13

I need to record changes in values of several variables (in this case around 9000) so that I can display their changes against time on a graph. I'd like a resolution of around 1min, however, I don't need to sample these values every minute because any change in value is available to me so the values only change on event. Storing a sample every minute for 9000 variables is about 1.3MB/day (each sample is a single byte). But that should compress heavily because for most of the time any given value will be static. So, what would be the best way to store these values for graphing? Recording the events in a database would be efficient storage but is not great for generating graphs from. (Graphs would be along the lines of what MRTG generates, at a rough guess, although that's not a tool I've used in anger. I looked at the MRTG log file format but unless I'm reading the spec wrong I don't think it's quite what I want.) If it matters, I plan on doing this on an ARM-based SBC such as a Pi or Beaglebone. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

SQL injection
by Mark Rogers 17 Oct '13

17 Oct '13

A payment gateway that a client is using is reporting that data we're submitting to it is triggering an SQL injection warning, and as a result the connections are being rejected (the end user is in the payment stage on a shopping cart and it being told that their IP is being blocked, which isn't very nice). The string they're apparently picking up on is: (Size:Medium (Size 12) )|27.4917 and specifically the ') )|27' part of it. The error being generated is: Possible SQL injection attack (detectSQLi)"] [data "s))o1,ARGS:xxxx" Other strings have triggered this where the number is different, it seems to be ))|<number> that causes a problem. (xxxx is the field we're submitting the value in, edited so as not to identify the payment gateway in use) Any suggestions as to what SQL attack this is trying to catch? I can't think of anything where ))|27 would represent an SQL injection attack. At the moment the payment gateway is just telling us to remove that string (they haven't given us an option to escape/encode it) which makes no sense. I'd like to know if this is part of a set of standard rules they're using that makes sense to someone or a homegrown set that might not. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Resizing a mdadm RAID5 array
by Mark Rogers 15 Oct '13

15 Oct '13

OK, so as per other thread I have a RAID5 array comprising 4x2TB disks in which I want to replace the disks. Makes sense that I replace with 3TB disks, so that will mean resizing the array. My options (as I see them) are: 1. Backup all the data on the disks. Replace them all and create a new array. Restore all the data. 2. Replace disks one at a time and let the array recover, leaving blank space at the end of each partition for now. Then resize the array to take advantage of the remaining space. 3. Remove the disks and image them onto the new disks, leaving blank space. Bring the array up on the new disks then resize. Option 1 is by far the simplest, does anyone see any reason why I should try to be cleverer than this? (Actually, option 1a comes to mind which is better still: buy the new disks and get them set up in another box, build the empty array, then copy the data across and transfer the disks; much reduced downtime. If the array is ready before the weekend, and I leave the data copying across over the weekend, I should be good to go on Monday..) I think I've answered my own question but would still appreciate comments. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 4

Can't uninstall Linux Spotify Client - help please
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 14 Oct '13

14 Oct '13

Hi Folks, Ages ago, I installed Spotify Linux client. I was tidying up today when I spotted that the Medibuntu project had closed so I removed that repository. I then spotted that I had the spotify client installed but I don't use it, so I tried to unistall it. It didn't work: sudo apt-get remove spotify-client [] The following packages will be REMOVED spotify-client [] Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y dpkg: error processing spotify-client (--remove): Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal. Errors were encountered while processing: spotify-client E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) So I then tried to install it, various ways, for example https://www.spotify.com/uk/download/previews/ sudo apt-get install spotify-client Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: gir1.2-unique-3.0 libunique-3.0-0 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following packages will be upgraded: spotify-client 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 41.7 MB of archives. After this operation, 17.7 MB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://repository.spotify.com/ stable/non-free spotify-client i386 1:0.9.4.183.g644e24e.428-1 [41.7 MB] Fetched 41.7 MB in 1min 5s (634 kB/s) Selecting previously unselected package spotify-client. (Reading database ... 274060 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace spotify-client 1:0.9.1.55.gbdd3b79.203-1 (using .../spotify-client_1%3a0.9.4.183.g644e24e.428-1_i386.deb) ... /var/lib/dpkg/info/spotify-client.prerm: 9: /var/lib/dpkg/info/spotify-client.prerm: ./unregister.sh: not found dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 dpkg: trying script from the new package instead ... /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/prerm: 9: /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/prerm: ./unregister.sh: not found dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/spotify-client_1%3a0.9.4.183.g644e24e.428-1_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 No apport report written because MaxReports has already been reached /var/lib/dpkg/info/spotify-client.postinst: 5: /var/lib/dpkg/info/spotify-client.postinst: ./register.sh: not found dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127 Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/spotify-client_1%3a0.9.4.183.g644e24e.428-1_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) So now I'm stuck. I can't install it. I can't uninstall it. How can I get rid of this error and remove spotify? Cheers Steve

2 7

What do these messages in syslog mean (stops my trackball working)?
by Chris Green 13 Oct '13

13 Oct '13

I have a Logitech wireless trackball that I use with my Acer Aspire netbook running Xubuntu 12.10. It works for quite a while (random amounts of time) and then stops, the following messages appear in syslog when it stops:- Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377726] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: >host controller process error, something bad happened! Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377751] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: >host controller halted, very bad! Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377781] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: >HC died; cleaning up Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.378030] usb 3-1: >USB disconnect, device number 2 An identical Logical trackball works perfectly with Xubuntu 12.10 on my desktop machine. -- Chris Green

4 8

music server hardware
by Peter Alcibiades 10 Oct '13

10 Oct '13

I've now bought a small HP thin client, a t574. Used on ebay it was 60 with no psu, but I picked up what looks like a very decent psu for a tenner. You can get earlier HP models for 35 or so, but this one has an atom processor so I thought it was worth the extra. Also more memory and flash drive. Got a 64G micro usb stick for storage, and will now install Slitaz and mpd as people have suggested. Or another one which seems quite interesting is sockso. However, meanwhile, and as always, one comes on the real solution after having bought an alternative, this seems the perfect solution: https://store.tinygreenpc.com/tiny-green-pcs/utilite-1.html This looks really neat. Wish I'd known about it before buying the thin client, which is probably very functional but by comparison very clunky. The thing that is a bit dismaying is that having started the process of ripping the CDs to FLAC, the free space on the 64G usb stick seems to be shrinking at an alarming rate.... Al

3 3

Encrypt password in script
by Ewan Slater 08 Oct '13

08 Oct '13

Hi, A number of applications I have known will allow you to specify a password in plaintext in a startup file. After the first start, the password is encrypted, and will be used on subsequent starts, so you don't need an admin there to supply a password. I need to be able to do the same trick. A couple of hours of googling would suggest that it's done by PBE (password based encryption) but I can't seem to find a code example Java for preference). If anyone has any idea, or could point me to an example, that would be great. Cheers, Ewan

1 0

No path
by Chris Walker 05 Oct '13

05 Oct '13

I'm using an IDE called Qt Creator but looking at the C++ stuff in it, it says that it can't find much of the inbuilt libraries. If I run 'echo$PATH', it's empty. But I've modified the ~/.bash_profile to look like this :- =============== [chris@localhost ~]$ cat ~/.bash_profile # .bash_profile # Get the aliases and functions if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc PATH=$PATH:/home/chris/qt/bin fi # User specific environment and startup programs PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin export PATH unset USERNAME =============== The question is, well 2 questions, 1, have I modified the correct file, and 2 if I have done the correct file, have I modified it in the correct way?

3 4

Building a .deb from files in github
by Mark Rogers 03 Oct '13

03 Oct '13

I've never built a .deb in my life, although I have a vague idea of what's required. Specifically I want to try to turn this: https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/openmediavault-virtualb… into a .deb To my untrained eye it looks like most of the bits are probably in place but throwing it directly at dpkg-deb -b suggests otherwise. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 2

Re: [ALUG] music server hardware
by Martin 01 Oct '13

01 Oct '13

At the risk of teaching grandmother how to suck eggs, FLAC is a pretty cool format but is a lossless way to rip CDs so there's no loss of quality. Audiophiles tend to use this format and usually have expensive audio hardware and lots of storage space as it creates large files. If you don't have the expensive audio hardware I doubt you would be able to hear any difference in quality between FLAC and one of the lossy formats like ogg/mp3. The lossy formats create much smaller files. I would rip one track in various formats at various levels of quality then listen and compare before deciding which one is right for you. If you really want FLAC then you'll need more storage like an external USB drive. Those tiny green pcs just ooze cool and when my desktop pc gives up the ghost I will probably replace it with one of those, especially since a lot of distros now include arm versions. Cheers, Martin Sent from my Sony Xperia™ smartphone

2 1

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th October.
by Viperfang 01 Oct '13

01 Oct '13

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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Intercepting data from HID (keyboard wedge barcode scanner)
by Phil Ashby 28 Sep '13

28 Sep '13

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 12:00:01 +0100 Mark wrote: > Well I'm making progress of sorts but can't find relevant > documentation anywhere, so far at least. USB implementers forum has complete documentation for keyboards and point of sale devices (scanners) here: http://www.usb.org/developers/hidpage/ In particular look at the 'HID Usage Tables 1.12' and 'HID Point of Sale Usage Tables 1.02'. You will also want to look at the Linux input event structure in /usr/include/linux/input.h, as these are what you see being emitted from the event device node. You might need to read the raw HID events from the scanner in order to determine the correct device state (from all the additional HID reports documented in POS 1.02). more details on raw HID devices in the kernel source tree: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/tree/D… HTH, Phil.

2 1

Intercepting data from HID (keyboard wedge barcode scanner)
by Peter Alcibiades 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

Is this any use? http://www.troz.net/rev/index.irev?category=Utility I used the barcode tester with a wedge some time back to check what exactly the barcode reader was picking up. I also used the Key coder app. I seem to remember having to frame the barcodes with * in Linux, and a different character in Windows, to have them register properly. You might need a copy of livecode to run this, which is free in the open source Community Edition now, from http://livecode.com/download/ Al

2 1

Intercepting data from HID (keyboard wedge barcode scanner)
by Mark Rogers 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

I have a cheap barcode scanner that works well as a keyboard wedge - that is it appears as a keyboard and barcodes appear as though typed into the keyboard. I need to capture that data (and stop it appearing as keyboard data). In an ideal world it would appear as a TTY (serial) device instead. Is there any way I can do this or do I need a different scanner? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 4

West Norfolk meetings: second call
by MJ Ray 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

Chris Penston wrote [after my question]: > I would be happy to attend any meeting in West Norfolk. I am fairly flexible on days and times. I often feel a bit isolated up here in King's Lynn as meetups seem a long way to go and not have a beer! I've moved this to a new thread to see if anyone else is interested. Is there anyone else in West Norfolk interested in meeting up and do you have any preferences on days and/or times? I'm thinking one of the King's Lynn town centre bars on maybe the second Monday each month, but I might have overlooked some problem with that and I'm very open to venue suggestions because most places we've met before seem to have moved on. Regards, -- 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/

2 1

Re: [ALUG] Thank you for the intro (+ GPG question)
by Ewan Slater 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

I'm in North Suffolk (Halesworth), so King's Lynn is a bit far for me. Ipswich, Norwich or even London (if work drags me that way) are pretty easy. Cheers, Ewan On 16 September 2013 17:57, David Crisp <dave(a)goldeneyes.org.uk> wrote: > On 15 Sep 2013, at 20:42, Chris Penston <chris.penston(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> On 15 September 2013 20:30, MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> wrote: >> >>> >>> I'm willing to sign keys after meeting people a few times and/or other >>> corroboration, but I seem to spend most of my time in West Norfolk, >>> Cambridgeshire or London these days. Are people interested in a >>> meeting over this side and what day of the month? >> >> I would be happy to attend any meeting in West Norfolk. I am fairly >> flexible on days and times. I often feel a bit isolated up here in King's >> Lynn as meetups seem a long way to go and not have a beer! >> > > I'm in south Suffolk, so I'm afraid King's Lynn is a bit far for me to travel on a school night unless I take the day off work -- which I don't mind doing if necessary, but if that's where it's going to be I'd rather it was during the day on a Saturday if at all possible. > > Dave. > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >

2 1

Thank you for the intro
by Bob 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

Hello Mick Thanks for the contact. I was hoping to eventually meet up with 'real people' as email is brilliant for info transfer but, to me, human contact is much more preferable. I do find that my friends have confidence in what I tell them and when I say Linux is the way forward they seem to accept it. I start them off with a dual boot system making them select Windows if they really want it otherwise it's auto boot taking them straight into Mint. I have converted 4 so far and I'm expecting a few more in the near future. I take your point on the Skype problem and will just have to stay with MS for that......unless anyone knows different. Is there another video platform that I don't know about? Unable to decode/read your attachment (signature.asc) pls advise program/software for that. One other problem I have a red cross in the update manager list in the system tray advising 'could not refresh list of packages'. So presumably I'm not totally up to date. Any advice would be appreciated. If I have contravened any protocol in my response please let me know. Thanks bfn Bob -- Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

5 10

Re: [ALUG] Intercepting data from HID (keyboard wedge barcode scanner)
by Phil Ashby 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:00:01 +0100 Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> wrote: > I have a cheap barcode scanner that works well as a keyboard wedge - > that is it appears as a keyboard and barcodes appear as though typed > into the keyboard. > > I need to capture that data (and stop it appearing as keyboard data). > In an ideal world it would appear as a TTY (serial) device instead. > > Is there any way I can do this or do I need a different scanner? You can stop the default Xorg HID input driver (evdev) from using it as a keyboard: http://askubuntu.com/questions/17603/how-to-get-xorg-to-ignore-certain-inpu… Then you need to read the key press events from the /dev/input/eventX device node and possibly translate into a virtual terminal device (pty) for the application to read. There are useful symbolic links in the /dev/input hierarchy that make it easier to find your device, and reading events is this trivial (I was debugging a weird keyboard when I wrote this code): // From kernel docs: // https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/input/input.txt #include <stdio.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <linux/input.h> int main(int argc, char **argv) { struct input_event evt; int fd; char *dev = "/dev/input/event5"; if (argc>1) dev = argv[1]; if((fd = open(dev, O_RDONLY))<0) { perror("opening device"); return 1; } while(read(fd, &evt, sizeof(evt))==sizeof(evt)) { printf("type=%d code=%d value=%d (0x%08x)\n", evt.type, evt.code, evt.value, evt.value); } close(fd); return 0; } Sending to the chosen application may be trickier: depends if it can be persuaded to read from a network connection or named pipe (easy), or if it needs a real terminal node, in which case openpty() and friends will be needed to fool the app into thinking it's talking to a serial port. Phil.

2 1

Touch screen support
by Mark Rogers 18 Sep '13

18 Sep '13

I have a web-based application running on a relatively low spec Ubuntu box (it was originally set up as a server install, but Gnome (I think [*]) was added with Firefox). They want to do away with keyboard and mouse so that means a touch screen. Any experience/suggestions/recommendations? Most of the interface is click only (a few elements are hover but they're not critical). There is the need to login so that'll need a pop-up keyboard of some kind, although we'd also like to look at barcode scanning support (all staff have a swipe card with barcode on it and that could bypass the keyboard-based login). I wouldn't rule out a standalone all-in-one desktop PC with touch screen acting as a client to the existing box (which goes back to being headless). Cost may be prohibitive though. [*] How do I check via SSH what desktop manager was installed? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 3

How to make a 'do nothing' web page?
by Chris Green 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

Is it possible to provide a 'do nothing' web page so that one can set references to google.analytics.com for example to go to a page on localhost that does nothing? I've no particular hang-up about google analytics except tha it's so slow. When accessing the Screwfix site for example it spends much more time on Google analytics than it does telling me what I want to know. If I just put an entry like 127.0.0.1 google.analytics.com In my /etc/hosts file it will presumably get lots of 'page not found' errors, probably OK but I was wondering if there was a neater way. -- Chris Green

7 14

New member
by Bob 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

Gentlemen & Ladies I decided to join your 'club' as over the past 10 years or so the MS attitude that they have the right etc etc. Much prefer the better and free path that is Linux. I started Linux life with PClinuxOS which was very similar to Windows and it was exciting to use. The problems came in keeping it up to date and the general maintenance aspect. (with Windows an '*.exe' almost cured all) After I found Distrowatch, this opened up a whole new world. Ubuntu was the first OS that I used in earnest, but, Unity arrived. Good bye Ubuntu! That's when I found Linux Mint 11 and I am now on Olivia. My favourite desktop is Mate. I do most of the PC maintenance for my friends and as I am now retired, I'm slowly converting them all to use Mint. I do not however, have the skills to dig into the OS and my latest project has been to try to get the scanners on the all-in-one printers to function. And of course, the dreaded Skype problem. So, if I can give anything to the group I will, but I can't help feeling it will be the other way round. My name is Bob Innes and I live Sproughton, Ipswich. Thank you for listening..er reading Best wishes -- Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

8 10

Thank you for the intro (+ GPG question)
by David Crisp 16 Sep '13

16 Sep '13

On 15 Sep 2013, at 00:22, Bob <bob(a)beriwold.plus.com> wrote: > Hello Mick > ... > Unable to decode/read your attachment (signature.asc) pls > advise program/software for that. > Mick's attachment is a GPG signature used to authenticate that it really is him sending it. If you look in your distro's package manager you should find the necessary programs to decode and verify it - I dunno if there's a plugin for opera mail, but I know there is for thunderbird. BTW, question for the group in general - do we do key-signing at any point? The latest revelations re: the NSA have made me pull my finger out and generate one, but no-one else I know uses it … DC

5 5

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 16 Sep '13

16 Sep '13

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, 16th September, 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

vortexbox
by Peter Alcibiades 15 Sep '13

15 Sep '13

Well, I was enthusiastic about this as a solution to the CD problem. Alas, enthusiasm does not survive acquaintance. I installed it on an old emachines tiny little AMD machine and it went in perfectly. The first few CDs ripped perfectly also. Then the problems start. It uses autoripper, which hangs or fails to find the metadata. The first result is that you get 'unknown' albums and tracks and artists. Fine, you can fix this. But its manual and tedious, has to be done from the command line or else from Nautilus over ssh, and in either case you seem to have to fix every track manually.. However, having done one of these or failed to, it hangs. And then it will not autorip again until you do a hardware restart. Its headless of course, so all this has to be command line, which is fine, except that lots of the interesting tools are GUI, which means putting in X11 and X11 forwarding. Then we have playing. Well, it has squeezebox server as the default. This appears to sell in hardware boxes for huge amounts, but I cannot for the life of me see why. Its open source, but why would anyone want it? Or maybe its for a completely different purpose? All I want to do is get my CDs onto a computer and listen to the music, probably over the local net but also its fine to listen to them on the device itself controlled from a tablet. So, what to do? Well, the solution seems to be what a wiser head suggested at the start of this process. Just rip your CDs manually, in fact do the whole thing manually. The other problem is the player. I am not sure if this is the emachines headphone output. But the volume is very low. It seems that the coding process automatically attenuates the sound by soe 6-8db. So its necessary to get a headphone amp (the Topping ones seem to be the choice). Or else in some unknown way fix this? A very interesting article a while ago, a guy had done his own ripping and then installed squeezebox on an old HP thin client. He used the internal usb ports to put in one flash drive for Debian and another for his music. One can see all kinds of advantages to that...... Though why he picked squeezebox is a mystery. Its not nice to be overly critical about something which enthusiasts are doing and releasing out of the goodness of their hearts, but all I can say is, this is not really working for me. Time to look for something else! Al

7 11

using a thin client as music server?
by Peter Alcibiades 15 Sep '13

15 Sep '13

In the ongoing struggle with this, what does anyone think about using a thin client as a music server? I have seen one account from a few years back of using an HP. They have two secure usb slots apparently in the inside of the box. What the writer did was run the OS off one and use the other for storage. You can get the t5740, which is an Atom based device, for under £100, used of course. And you can also get the t5545 for around £35. That has a via Eden 1G processor and less memory and flash storage. I am thinking about the cheaper one, which should surely be fast enough for this, and why not install slitaz, which is a tiny very fast gui distro, put in X11 forwarding (dunno if its possible to do this to android but we can try), one smallish usb stick for the OS, or even use the existing flash (its a DOM). Slitaz is so tiny it will fit in 1G easily, and then buy another huge stick for the music? Which would have the great advantage of making the music iteself super portable. I think both are fanless - the 5545 definitely is. Then install one of the server packages people here have posted about. What do you all think? Its cheap and it would be an interesting project, its low power, and.... its fanless... and no hard drives to worry about. I guess its a bit like the plug computers some people use but a bit bigger physically. I guess the risk is that one might show up in the pub one of these Thursdays carrying a small black box and wearing a distressed puzzled expression having failed to make it work, and entreating someone who knows what they are doing to help! Al

3 3

ssh over HTTP using apache, can anyone explain more fully how this works?
by Chris Green 10 Sep '13

10 Sep '13

I have been languishing behind a hotel firewall (or ISP firewall) which blocks outgoing traffic on port 22. As you can tell I have now fixed my problem by other means (I'm using port 110 for ssh) but I'd love to know, maybe for future use, how the ssh over HTTP thing is supposed to work. I found a number of sites describing the method:- http://quartz-net.co.uk/quartzwiki/index.php/SSH_proxy_via_Apache http://dag.wieers.com/howto/ssh-http-tunneling/ http://blog.m8t.in/2006/12/ssh-through-apache-proxy.html http://mark.koli.ch/2011/12/configuring-apache-to-support-ssh-through-an-ht… ... and loads more. The bit I had/have trouble getting my mind round is the proxytunnel bit that you add to ~/.ssh/config, for example from the last site above:- Host kolich.com Hostname kolich.com ProtocolKeepAlives 30 ProxyCommand /usr/bin/proxytunnel \ -p web-proxy.corp.example.com:3128 \ -r kolich.com:8443 -d %h:%p \ -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Win32)" Firstly I don't *quite* understand why proxytunnel is necessary. Is it 'wrapping' the SSH stuff in an HTTP envelope to pass through apache etc.? Secondly none of the sites say where/how you find what to actually use for web-proxy.corp.example.com (in the above example). Presumably it has to be a 'local' proxy server which one *can* send to using any port but will it always exist? .... or have I got the wrong end of the stick? I do realise that I need to replace kolich.com in the above with the name of my server where I have apache running with mod_proxy. It's more of academic interest now as I said but I'd like to know for future reference. I finally sorted my problem by enabling remote HTTPS access to my router from the command line (using a web based ajaxterm service) and then remote configuring the router to open port 110 and portmap it to port 22. -- Chris Green

2 1

F5 IP kit
by Laurie Brown 05 Sep '13

05 Sep '13

Not really a Linux thing, but there may be an ALUG member lurking here with the right experience. I have a client with some F5 kit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F5_Networks) of which 2 boxes have gone AWOL. One looks like it may be hardware, and the other looks like a config problem. They would like anyone who can to diagnose both and fix if possible. Obviously, this is a short-term job on a B2B basis, based on-site in Ipswich. I can broker that if required, but that's by no means a pre-requisite. Initial contact to me in the first instance, please. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- www.convergent-ict.com You manage your business. We manage your IT. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Only a matter of time ...
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 05 Sep '13

05 Sep '13

Greetings all! I wasn't aware of the matters reported in the URL below (and indeed still harbour some reservations about how true it might all be). But, if it is true, then I suppose it was only a matter of time (and apparently that time is now long past): http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/8/21/ leaked-german-government-warns-key-entities-not-to-use-windo.html [all one line; also = http://tinyurl.com/ko59qmu ] And, by the way, there are a few positive paragprahs about Linux towards the end! Best wishes to all, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 22-Aug-2013 Time: 20:59:26 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

2 1

Diagnosing slow access to website
by Mark Rogers 22 Aug '13

22 Aug '13

I host a fairly basic database driven (MySQL+PHP) website for a client. It's only really used by them, and generally only from their office (single static IP). They have over the past months complained that it gets painfully slow (>10s between clicking a link and the page updating). Whenever I have tested the site is lightning fast, and that includes testing the exact steps they're taking, at the same time as they do it (while on the phone to them). They've tried multiple browsers (IE and Chrome) and so have I. The problem only seems to exist from their site, and as they're the only people using it that's a big problem. When they try to use the Internet for anything else, it's fast (or so I'm told, anyway). Any suggestions as to what might cause a localised problem like this, and how to diagnose it? They have almost zero IT skills which doesn't help at all, but I have tried running a traceroute from my server to their external IP and it hasn't shown any obvious problems. I tried a ping test to look for dropped packets but their external IP isn't responding to ping and there's no way they could change that. The server runs multiple sites, isn't heavily loaded, no other sites are reporting issues. I'm as sure as I can be that the problem is network not server related. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 8

Web hosting companies
by Mark Rogers 21 Aug '13

21 Aug '13

A web designer friend of mine has several (~40) websites hosted at Fasthosts who have been constantly letting him down. He is not technical, and has decided he wants out of web hosting so he can focus on the website design. Any suggestions who I should recommend? At this stage I think he's looking for someone who would deal with end users (ie the customer buys a site from him and hosting from someone else), although I would personally suggest he just looks for a reliable host who will support him when something breaks. He's currently using Plesk so someone who could migrate what he has now would be ideal in my view. My company used to do web hosting (and used to host his sites) which is why he's asking me, but it's not something I want to get back into. I would prefer to recommend someone I "know" (eg a local company with a member of staff on this list). Ie I'd rather have answers that start "we do this" than "we use xyz who does this", but I'm open to all. 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

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 19 Aug '13

19 Aug '13

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, 19th 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

1 0

Monitoring/supervision tools
by Laurie Brown 17 Aug '13

17 Aug '13

Hi folks, We've been using monit (latest version) for a while to provide simple process monitoring, with email alerts, and auto re-start capabilities. However, it appears to be more and more unreliable, and has reached the point where it actually isn't fit for purpose. Specifically, on some email filter servers, I have regular clamd failures, and it is neither detecting them, nor re-starting them, whereas it used to. I've used nagios, but for this simple task, unless it's changed a lot since I last played with it, and become a lot easier to configure, it's a total over-kill. We run gentoo servers, and don't want to mess with the core system, startup mechanisms and task management stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions for a simple tool similar to monit? Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

6 6

Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website
by Ewan Slater 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

Hi Mark, A some years ago I came across an issue with a customer who was having a problem accessing an internally hosted web application from only one of multiple office locations. The problem turned out to be that the packet size being used from / to that location was too big, so that might be something else to look at. HTH, Ewan On 8 August 2013 12:00, <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk> wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Diagnosing slow access to website (Mark Rogers) > 2. Re: Diagnosing slow access to website (Adam Bower) > 3. Re: Diagnosing slow access to website (billynkid(a)gmail.com) > 4. Re: Diagnosing slow access to website (Mark Rogers) > 5. Re: Diagnosing slow access to website (Mark Rogers) > 6. Re: Diagnosing slow access to website (Mark Rogers) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 13:12:33 +0100 > From: Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > To: alug-main <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: > <CADK3ZeG8cy8KjETmgfNHOHvp=ZigK3Ssc-KJ+oV3zgCF5CVBDA(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > I host a fairly basic database driven (MySQL+PHP) website for a > client. It's only really used by them, and generally only from their > office (single static IP). > > They have over the past months complained that it gets painfully slow > (>10s between clicking a link and the page updating). Whenever I have > tested the site is lightning fast, and that includes testing the exact > steps they're taking, at the same time as they do it (while on the > phone to them). They've tried multiple browsers (IE and Chrome) and so > have I. The problem only seems to exist from their site, and as > they're the only people using it that's a big problem. > > When they try to use the Internet for anything else, it's fast (or so > I'm told, anyway). > > Any suggestions as to what might cause a localised problem like this, > and how to diagnose it? They have almost zero IT skills which doesn't > help at all, but I have tried running a traceroute from my server to > their external IP and it hasn't shown any obvious problems. I tried a > ping test to look for dropped packets but their external IP isn't > responding to ping and there's no way they could change that. > > The server runs multiple sites, isn't heavily loaded, no other sites > are reporting issues. I'm as sure as I can be that the problem is > network not server related. > > Mark > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 > Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 14:11:41 +0100 > From: Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: <20130807131141.GE9198@electron> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Wed, Aug 07, 2013 at 01:12:33PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote: >> >> Any suggestions as to what might cause a localised problem like this, >> and how to diagnose it? They have almost zero IT skills which doesn't >> help at all, but I have tried running a traceroute from my server to >> their external IP and it hasn't shown any obvious problems. I tried a >> ping test to look for dropped packets but their external IP isn't >> responding to ping and there's no way they could change that. > > Ask them for a remote login to some desktop sharing app on their > computer and ask them to demo the problem to you? Once you have that > you can look at what's going on with the server and the client and > see if a problem exists. Depending on what you turn up from there you > can use that information as the basis for what diagnosis you do going > forwards? > > Adam > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 16:24:18 +0100 > From: "billynkid(a)gmail.com" <billynkid(a)gmail.com> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: > <CADz3n9S4Uu-VevpGaDbm7do32-7byNdUjvXadgdJFaEc6puAng(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Try Speedtest.net to multiple servers. > > On 7 August 2013 14:11, Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 07, 2013 at 01:12:33PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote: >>> >>> Any suggestions as to what might cause a localised problem like this, >>> and how to diagnose it? They have almost zero IT skills which doesn't >>> help at all, but I have tried running a traceroute from my server to >>> their external IP and it hasn't shown any obvious problems. I tried a >>> ping test to look for dropped packets but their external IP isn't >>> responding to ping and there's no way they could change that. >> >> Ask them for a remote login to some desktop sharing app on their >> computer and ask them to demo the problem to you? Once you have that >> you can look at what's going on with the server and the client and >> see if a problem exists. Depending on what you turn up from there you >> can use that information as the basis for what diagnosis you do going >> forwards? >> >> Adam >> >> _______________________________________________ >> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! > > > > -- > Simon Vass > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 17:12:01 +0100 > From: Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > To: alug-main <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: > <CADK3ZeHTbas-FQmYOvpJsLk26EmTG75uk-m3Qb1qbQd6wYkusw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 7 August 2013 13:28, Nick Heppleston <nick(a)modhul.com> wrote: >> 1. Is it only one PC/Laptop/Device within the client's network that is >> experiencing this issue? Does it work 'ok' from other devices within the >> same network? > > No, it's all PCs on their network. Typically there'll be anywhere > between 1 and 6 users, and they all struggle at the same time (and > they struggle more often than they don't) [*]. > >> 2. Are there DNS issues resolving the server IP address (which isn't a >> problem with other sites) > > I don't think so: having accessed the site most browsers don't > constantly look up DNS anyway do they? Ie it might impact first access > but now have any effect after that? > >> 3. Does connecting a 'slow' device to a physical ethernet cable (if this is >> possible) resolve the issue (or at least point to the Wireless Access Point >> being the issue)? > > As far as I know they're all desktops with cabled connections, but I'll check. > >> 4. Is it possible to test one of the slow devices outside of the network >> (e.g. over a WiFi dongle) to see whether it is the network or device? > > I don't think so, at least not if they're desktops. Might be easier to > see if someone has a laptop that works fine at home and get them to > bring it in though. > > Thanks for the suggestions. > > Mark > > [*] Based on user reports, that is. > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 > Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 17:14:56 +0100 > From: Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > To: alug-main <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: > <CADK3ZeGkYEfQwCu2sTK93M8AvEJEMV5zcbKBJJkH=C3phh7iSQ(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 7 August 2013 14:11, Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> wrote: >> Ask them for a remote login to some desktop sharing app on their >> computer and ask them to demo the problem to you? Once you have that >> you can look at what's going on with the server and the client and >> see if a problem exists. Depending on what you turn up from there you >> can use that information as the basis for what diagnosis you do going >> forwards? > > Good idea, I'll check this out. Of-course if the network is a problem > it might be hard to determine whether slowness is down to the remote > access but it should still yield come clues. Assuming they have XP or > higher I believe there's some kind of remote support tool built in > isn't there? (Wasn't really wanting to get into Windows support, > thought I'd escaped that years ago!) > > At least I should be able to do some ping tests to check for packet > loss if I have access to one of their PCs. > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 > Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 17:15:45 +0100 > From: Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > To: alug-main <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Diagnosing slow access to website > Message-ID: > <CADK3ZeHsv0fQvHnruuqE+nCk-qx8Tbx+9-jacPVSVf-QDy492g(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 7 August 2013 16:24, billynkid(a)gmail.com <billynkid(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Try Speedtest.net to multiple servers. > > Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try this too if I get remote access > (or get them to do it otherwise). > > Mark > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 > Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > > > ------------------------------ > > End of main Digest, Vol 98, Issue 4 > ***********************************

2 1

vortexbox
by Peter Alcibiades 10 Aug '13

10 Aug '13

Got this and installed it, and really recommend it. You just put in your CDs and it rips them. It runs headless, and you log in to a gui using a web browser or using ssh from a terminal. There is also supposed to be a way of managing your files remotely in Nautlilus but I don't use gnome. Then playing them is really simple too. Its not all that elegant in terms of user interface graphics, but it works just fine. If you have an old machine lying around this would be a great use for it. Or put together a simple fanless itx with one of those atom boards and maybe an SSD. Brilliant. Beats carrying around a ton of CDs if you live in more than one place. This and the little nook ereader from Argos for 30.00 the last time I looked, and you can carry library and music in your backpack and hardly even notice they are there. The little nook is brilliant too, you can hack it to a proper android box if you want, but I have not bothered because it works so well as is. I also have XBMC burned to CD but this is so all right for the purpose that I probably won't bother. Al

1 0

Fwd: A new member
by Bob Moss 05 Aug '13

05 Aug '13

It helps if I actually send this to the list! lol (My apologies also if you go by Anthony & not 'Tony' as your email address suggested) Bob Begin forwarded message: > From: Bob Moss <bobbyjmoss(a)me.com> > Date: 5 August 2013 12:17:09 BST > To: Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] A new member > > Hi Tony, > > On 5 Aug 2013, at 06:25, Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> wrote: > >> On 01/08/13 11:53, Bob Moss wrote: >>> Hi everyone, >>> >>> Seeing as the welcome email for this mailing list suggest I send something to >>> this effect, I thought I'd introduce myself as a new member! >> >> Welcome to the list. ITYF it friendly and informative. > > Thanks, I'm looking forward to meeting people. Will be moving to Ipswich around 24/08, so will be looking out for next meetings after that :) > >> >>> ==This LUG== >>> The reason I'm interested in this LUG is because I'm moving to Ipswich in the >>> last week of August 2013. This is to start a new job with BT on their graduate >>> scheme as a software engineer (I've no idea what I'm working on yet!). I don't >>> know anyone in the area, but I think it'd be cool to meet people with similar >>> interests. :) >> >> Ah, oh... >> >> I've a bone to pick with BT - but you're far enough away from Bunwell to just snigger... > > *Ducks for cover* I'm not going to be working in an OpenReach van as a network engineer or in customer care, so if you have line problems/slow broadband I'm probably not the guy to ask! lol. > > Although maybe you're thinking about Cameron's porn-blocking plans? That's probably worth it's own mailing list thread... lol > >> >>> ==Linux Stuff== >>> My interest in Linux originally started back in 2005 with live copies of >>> Mandriva and Ubuntu (which I ran on my parents' computer to scare the crap out >>> of them!). In 2007 however my parents bought me my first new laptop (512MB RAM) >>> for college, but it came with Vista Home Basic pre-installed ...this didn't run >> >> Didn't it? How strange... > > It did actually run when I had the machine back in 2007, but as soon as you tried to run anything else (eg Office 2007) you'd spend most of your time staring at a non-spinning hourglass! lol > On the other hand, Linux seemed to make much better use of the hardware, and so my time with Linux began :) > > My current machine is a Sony VAIO I bought in late 2009 that dual-boots Windows 7 & Fedora 19 (2.4GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD). It's served me well (having been used to try different distros/OSs, taken all around Europe & has done everything my CompSci degree had thrown at it pretty well). > In recent years though it's had problems (eg needs a cooling stand to avoid overheating, trackpad's mostly dead, HDD has had to be replaced twice & support for the ATI graphics card seems to have been dropped from Catalyst 12.10 onwards for some bizarre reason). Will probably be looking to replace it in the next 6 months or so. > >> >> I bought this little pre-loved MSi U-100 cheaper because I didn't want Windows on it. Has Debian and Mint installed ATM >> >>> well. >>> The first distribution I ever committed to HDD was Ubuntu 7.07 "Feisty Fawn", >>> which I dual-booted with Windows XP. >> >> Mine was Lasermoon's Linux FT, dual-booted with Win 3.11 - FT was bought-out and SuSE developed from it. > > That's impressive! I'm roughly the same age as Linux itself (being born 4 months before Linus Torvalds made his infamous announcement) so the only *old* distro I'm vaguely familiar is Slackware, mostly because it's still being maintained. > >> >> Then an hiatus, and Debian by itself in a HDD in one tray, Win 2000 in another and Win 98 2nd Ed in a third >> >>> Since then I've learned more about the >>> philosophy behind open source and free software and try to use FOSS wherever I >>> can. I also wandered around FOSDEM in 2012 (albeit with quite a hangover from >>> the night before!). >> >> Ah. You ought to be nearer Norwich - the pub we meet in is also the Chalk Hill Brewery, so that's a challenge for you. >> >> (Crool nurse has just had to have three attempts at get any blood out of me today - don't they realise I'm running on empty?) >> >> Oh, BTW, your post arrived 4th - 5th Aug datestamped 1st Aug: your pooter seems to be a few days in arrears or the item has been held for authentication/moderation, perhaps. > > Indeed, I got an email to that effect. Perhaps this was down to me committing the cardinal sin of sending an email from iCloud? lol > >> >>> Some of you may recognise my name. This is because aged 17 this happened: >>> http://www.tuxradar.com/files/LXF113.roundtab.pdf. A few months later in March >>> 2009 I wrote my first articles for Linux Format magazine. Apparently they liked >>> me, so I was invited back to work at LXF towers the same summer, and then wrote >>> articles as a freelancer from September 2009-November 2011 while doing my >>> Computer Science degree. >>> >>> I've tried a range of different distros (and even played around with Linux From >>> Scratch) but I'm very much a Fedora user when I need to actually get things >>> done! I'm currently teaching myself Python (I know it's a little overdue!) and >>> am presently pondering whether to get a Raspberry Pi, Ouya or both! >> >> Mmmmm! Pi! >> >> One day I shall get round to acquiring one - assuming today's procedure is a success... > > Indeed. It seems like one of those things hobbyists *ought* to get but I've never gotten around to actually buying one. > >> >> -- >> Tony >> http://www.girolle.co.uk/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

2 1

A new member
by Bob Moss 05 Aug '13

05 Aug '13

Hi everyone, Seeing as the welcome email for this mailing list suggest I send something to this effect, I thought I'd introduce myself as a new member! ==This LUG== The reason I'm interested in this LUG is because I'm moving to Ipswich in the last week of August 2013. This is to start a new job with BT on their graduate scheme as a software engineer (I've no idea what I'm working on yet!). I don't know anyone in the area, but I think it'd be cool to meet people with similar interests. :) ==Linux Stuff== My interest in Linux originally started back in 2005 with live copies of Mandriva and Ubuntu (which I ran on my parents' computer to scare the crap out of them!). In 2007 however my parents bought me my first new laptop (512MB RAM) for college, but it came with Vista Home Basic pre-installed ...this didn't run well. The first distribution I ever committed to HDD was Ubuntu 7.07 "Feisty Fawn", which I dual-booted with Windows XP. Since then I've learned more about the philosophy behind open source and free software and try to use FOSS wherever I can. I also wandered around FOSDEM in 2012 (albeit with quite a hangover from the night before!). Some of you may recognise my name. This is because aged 17 this happened: http://www.tuxradar.com/files/LXF113.roundtab.pdf. A few months later in March 2009 I wrote my first articles for Linux Format magazine. Apparently they liked me, so I was invited back to work at LXF towers the same summer, and then wrote articles as a freelancer from September 2009-November 2011 while doing my Computer Science degree. I've tried a range of different distros (and even played around with Linux From Scratch) but I'm very much a Fedora user when I need to actually get things done! I'm currently teaching myself Python (I know it's a little overdue!) and am presently pondering whether to get a Raspberry Pi, Ouya or both! ==Contact Me== For people who want to find out more about me, you'll find me on twitter under the bob_moss handle, or you can check out my blog at http://jininga.com (I'll soon be replacing this with a Wordpress site I'm working on, which you can see @ http://beta.jininga.com). Bob

2 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th August
by Viperfang 05 Aug '13

05 Aug '13

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, 8th 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

Re: [ALUG] Mint
by Ewan Slater 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

FWIW, I have been running Xubuntu on a not very beefy Dell Zino box for about a year now. When I had it running Ubuntu or Debian with the full gnome desktop it struggled to cope with netbeans plus the usual stuff all running at once. Under Xubuntu it is quite happy running netbeans plus Coherence as well as the usual desktop stuff. Cheers, Ewan

1 0

Forgotten...
by Anthony Anson 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

MSi U-100 running Mint with Gnome. Months and months ago I turned the webcam off. Now I can't remember how I did it or how to restore it when needed. And I can't find anything useful in Cheese. And I have looked through the menu, but there doesn't seem to be anything appetising. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

1 0

Mint
by Bev Nicolson 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend. Thoughts on Mint, please. He's after an operating system that works on a usb stick and wants a 'bulletproof workstation not a server'. Does Mint have better firewall/security than Debian/Ubuntu? He is Puppy aware, by the way. If you have additional contributions on CrunchBang, lob them in too. Bev.

4 6

linux equivalent for Cocktail Audio X10 HDD HiFi
by Peter Alcibiades 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

I was reading the Guardian as one does occasionally and getting increasingly discouraged by the chorus of gloom about the impending catastrophic overheating of the planet, exploitation of the working class by evil corporations in pursuit of short term profit etc. So I turned to the reader offer pages for relief and came on the X10 device. Question:: is there a linux distro that does what the X10 does? What it seems to do is, you give it a CD and it then automagically rips it and sticks it into a database. Then it acts as a searchable player/server. Its basically a music server with an integrated ripping function. In short order and only by feeding it your CDs you seem to end up with a proper collection in easily usable format. Here is a review: http://www.whathifi.com/review/cocktail-audio-x10-500gb Is there a distro with all this stuff integrated for the purpose? Or a package? Do people do this with their old CD collections and if so what do they use. Al [Feeling somewhat more cheerful having diverted my attention to a safe technical topic... Must remember not to go there again!]

2 2

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd August.
by Viperfang 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

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

1 0

Using a Pi as a print server
by Chris Walker 26 Jul '13

26 Jul '13

Is there a dedicated Pi mailing list where I should ask this question or will this be ok here? In view of my failing to set up my printer as a device off my router, I'm now thinking that I can use the same USB socket on the router to power a Pi which can then act as a print server for my printer. If I were to use a pre-configured distro like Raspbian, it would have all the desktop stuff installed and I don't want that. So is there an easy way to do a minimal install on a Pi? I would experiment on my own Pi but I've lent it to somebody to use in their own OS experiments so apologies for having to ask this question.

4 6

beep beep
by nev young 25 Jul '13

25 Jul '13

I find it hard to believe that such a simple thing is eluding me. I just have to be looking in the wrong place. I want to make the speakers on my PC go beep or beeeep. Currently writing a project in C but I'm pretty flexible on source language. Running ubuntu 12.04. Any pointers, even those that make me go "Doh"! greatly appreciated. Nev

6 13

Software Freedom Day event?
by MJ Ray 25 Jul '13

25 Jul '13

Do ALUGgers want to run a Software Freedom Day event? Nick of Rugby LUG wrote to lugmasters: Registration for free event swag is open until the end of July, with the event now only two months away. The SFD wiki [2] currently lists only 3 UK events being planned - in Manchester, Hereford and Rugby - with an additional IoMLUG event shown on the SFD map [3]. Will there be any more this year? [1] http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2013/UK [3] http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/map/index.php?year=2013 Thanks, -- 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/

3 3

Wiki users list despamming
by Jonathan McDowell 24 Jul '13

24 Jul '13

I have taken a chainsaw to the wiki users list; while we had antispam protection preventing new users from creating pages it wasn't stopping them creating pages and we were up to over 80,000 accounts. I started trying to sensibly weed these out, but it's hard to distinguish. So I resorted back to cruder methods, making sure all the accounts listed on: http://www.alug.org.uk/MembersGroup existed and trying to find a handful of users I knew should be there but weren't. We're now down to 14 users. If I have inadvertently culled your account let me know and I can bring it back from the dead (and ensure it gets added to the MembersGroup page). J. -- /-\ | Ok ramblers, let's get rambling. |@/ Debian GNU/Linux Developer | \- |

3 2

Button mapping on a mouse
by Chris Walker 23 Jul '13

23 Jul '13

For health reasons I use an Evoluent Mouse type 3 on my machine. For years I've not been able to use it fully as I have lacked the skills necessary to remap the buttons. But bouyed up by the success of making the latest install work, I thought I'd give it another go. I found this site - http://quandtum.weebly.com/2/post/2012/03/how-to-change-mouse-button-functi… and this one - http://denishaine.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/evoluent-mouse-with-ubuntu-11-04… but neither tell me how to configure a double-click. I've looked how I map the buttons in Windows but that uses an XML file which seems to bear little resemblance to the mapping used in linux. I have already tried to map the buttons to other functions but that hasn't worked so I need to do some more work on that and although I might be able to resolve those issues, there's one I can't. That one thing is a double click. In Windows I have button 2 (3 in linux!) configured to act as a double click but I can't seem to do that here. This page refers to some software - btnx - that isn't available on this distro - http://www.ghacks.net/2011/06/28/how-to-customize-extra-mouse-buttons-in-li… so I'm a bit stuck. Does anyone here know of a way to simulate a double click using the inbuilt software of the system? If it helps, I already have a file 90-evoluent.conf in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and the contents of that look like this Section "InputClass" Identifier "Evoluent" MatchUSBID "1a7c:0068" Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 2 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12 13" EndSection But as I said, even that doesn't work. I'm not getting a right click for button 8. Any help appreciated as always.

3 6

Short term Linux sysadmin cover needed based in Little Bealings, nr Ipswich - not an agency :)
by Ruth Cheesley 22 Jul '13

22 Jul '13

Hi folks, I've posted this on Facebook and in the IRC chat room, sorry this is my first introduction to you all, I had hoped to get to a meet before posting! My Linux sysadmin has dropped a bit of a bombshell in that he has a new job starting on 5th August - and I am away from Friday through to the 9th August which can't be cancelled. I need somebody who is able to come in and do a handover this week, to cover for at first two weeks. Clearly you must be an experienced sysadmin and capable of picking things up quickly. I will also need references and whatnot due to the nature of the job. Just to be clear I run this business, I'm not an agency, and it is a real job! We are a web design & open source business run along ethical lines (I'm Buddhist and run the business along those lines) - www.viryatechnologies.comwith offices at Mallard House Business Centre in Little Bealings. Our main line of work server-wise is web servers, mostly running CentOS. We have several servers ourselves both dedi's and VPS's, and we look after servers for clients. We also run Kubuntu throughout the office on all our machines. We also have an emergency support service which is by the nature unpredictable, often involving compromised servers which we have to analyse, investigate and fix. We also do ad-hoc work such as applying updates etc for clients who don't have an ongoing support contract with us but need the work doing on an ad-hoc basis. The work would mainly be general day to day maintenance, backup checking (we push to AWS & Glacier), etc and dealing with any support tickets that might come up. Also may involve installing software, configuration etc. If you can code we can also provide some coding work if you are interested, mostly PHP based (we specialise in Joomla! and have several extensions we sell which need work, and a few in the sidelines which need migrating to 3.x). Salary is negotiable and there is very definitely the opportunity for ongoing work for the right person, but right now I am looking for someone to step in and help us in a difficult spot - if you are interested please email me asap, ideally I would like to be meeting you in the next couple of days. Thanks in advance, and sorry again that my first post is a 'please can you help me out' post! Ruth Cheesley -- Be like me, be Carbon free - don't print this and save a tree IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential. They are intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or make copies thereof.

1 0

Planet...
by Brett Parker 22 Jul '13

22 Jul '13

Just to make everyone aware, due to planet planet no longer being maintained, I've actually moved the alug planet to using venus (for now), though I'm happy to take suggestions for other feed aggregators to use, I am considering using feedjack, if only because I'm more comfortable with using django than the current static generation system. Also, we should probably look at actually making a theme for moinmoin (which runs the main website: http://www.alug.org.uk/ and also something for the planet...) Just incase anyone else is looking for the rss/atom feeds of the planet, they are (as they have been for a while): rss 1.0: http://planet.alug.org.uk/rss10.xml rss 2.0: http://planet.alug.org.uk/rss20.xml atom : http://planet.alug.org.uk/atom.xml Cheers, -- Brett Parker

2 1

Job Opportunity
by Alan Greer 18 Jul '13

18 Jul '13

My name is Alan Greer, I'm a director of a company Observatory Sciences Ltd (http://www.observatorysciences.co.uk). We have a job opportunity that I would like to share: Job Opportunity: Graduate Software Engineer Graduate Software Engineer. Salary £22-25K. Observatory Sciences is a UK-based company specialising in developing software for telescopes and instruments used in astronomy, high-energy physics and other "big science" projects. Our client base is global, and includes some of the world's largest telescopes and synchrotron facilities. Due to continuing expansion we seek a software engineer to work with our existing team of specialists to design and implement software for control and data acquisition applications used by astronomical observatories and accelerator facilities. The job mayinvolve international travel to clients' facilities, including Europe, USA and Hawaii. Observatory Sciences currently has offices in Cambridge and Brighton. This post may requiremoving to Oxford at a laterdate. Applicants should have a scientific or engineering degree. You must be self-motivated, analytical and inventive: you should also be excited to be working at the cutting edge of scientific discovery. Excellent communication skills in English, both written and verbal, are essential. You should have experienceor training in developing scientific or technical applications in a UNIX/Linux environment with C, Java or C++ programming. A background in physics/astronomy, experience of control or real-time software, motion/servo control or LabVIEW would be advantageous. Salary will be in the range £22-25K p.a, commensurate with experience and qualifications; specific on the job training will be provided as necessary. This is a rare opportunity to use your scientific and software skills with a talented team of scientists and software engineers in a unique and expanding company. Closing date for applications: 7thAugust 2013 To apply, please send your CV including contact details for two referees, viaemail to jobs(a)observatorysciences.co.uk or post to Dr C.J. Mayer, Observatory Sciences Ltd., William James House, Cowley Road, Cambridge. CB4 0WX.

1 0

"Attempt to access beyond end of device" after dd
by Mark Rogers 16 Jul '13

16 Jul '13

I have a failed SanDisk Extreme III (30 MB/s 4GB) card. I successfully recovered everything that mattered a couple of weeks ago using ddrescue: $sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdd ./from-site-`date +%F`.dd logfile The resulting image is 4110188544 bytes in size. Today used dd to put the recovered image onto a new Sandisk Extreme 40MB/s 4GB card: $ sudo dd bs=1M if=from-site-2013-06-25.dd of=/dev/sdd dd: writing ‘/dev/sdd’: No space left on device 3816+0 records in 3815+0 records out 4000317440 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 1313.42 s, 3.0 MB/s When I boot from the new card, I get "Attempt to access beyond the end of device" in /var/log/messages, although these attempts only come from access to /dev/sda5 which is the swap partition. So, what do I do? As far as I can tell all I need to do is fix the partition table and reduce the size of the swap partition. I did try firing up fdisk and deleting and recreating the partition but it just created it the same size, presumably because fdisk believes the disk is the wrong size. How do I fix that? Possible solutions while booted into the box preferred but if I need to take the card out and transfer to another PC via USB card reader I can do that. Mark Rogers -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 3

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 15 Jul '13

15 Jul '13

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, 15th 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

Meeting at Coach and Horses?
by Anthony Anson 11 Jul '13

11 Jul '13

Will there be one on Thursday? -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

2 3

Network fun: wifi, powerlines and wires
by MJ Ray 10 Jul '13

10 Jul '13

So there's rather a lot of these BT Home Hubs around me. They are hopping all over the 2.4GHz band as they fail to avoid interfering with each other and every other router in the area. In short, it's messing up my wifi and any time I (or any other non-BT neighbour) move to a quieter channel, it starts the madness again as the BT hubs shuffle around - the Android phones cope most of the time, but the Linux laptops (one rtl8723ae, one I forget what) don't like it very much. Is there anything I can do (module options or tool configs) to discourage the laptops from disassociating when there's a burst of noise? The good folk on IRC suggest getting a 5GHz band (802.11n) access point but I fear any relief will be temporary as the BT hubs get upgraded to similarly-misbehaving 5GHz kit. Or is it more resilient? Is powerline networking worth a try? Has anyone got tips or things available locally that they'd recommend? I hope it's just ethernet as far as Linux is concerned. Is there another option short of lead-lining my walls which I'm missing? Failing that, I'll wire up yet another house with ethernet cables... Thanks, -- 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/

7 10

Help with Setuid?
by Chris Walker 10 Jul '13

10 Jul '13

Having changed my desktop OS to Magiea, I find that I can no longer gain access to my NAS box. Previously I had 4 lines in /etc/fstab describing the mounts and they worked fine. With the change of OS though has come this message whenever I try to access the NAS - 'This program is not installed setuid root - "user" CIFS mounts not supported'. I've read up online as much as I can but I'm no further forward in resolving the problem. Can somebody point me in the right direction please as I need access to the box? If it helps, the 4 lines in question look like this :- //storage_server/Epox_Share /media/Epox_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Epox,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Laptop_Share /media/Laptop_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Laptop,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Linux_Share /media/Linux_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Mandriva,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Media_Share /media/Media_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.xbox,exec 0 0 In case it helps /etc/hosts looks like this :- # generated by drakconnect 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.1.25 storage_server

5 15

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th July
by Viperfang 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

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 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

Linux Beer Hike 2013 in Castleton
by MJ Ray 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

mikeh at csits.net sent a message using the contact form at http://lug.org.uk/contact which I thought might interest some ALUGgers, given the propensity for pub-based meetings here. It's Saturday 17th August until Sunday 25th August and the message said: I'd like to make a general announcement about the 2013 annual Linux Bier Wandering. This year, the event returns to the UK and will be held in the village of Castleton, in the Peak District. Linux Beer Hike 2013 in Castleton ********************************* Hacking, learning, talking, walking and dining - The Linux Bier Wanderung (Linux Beer Hike) is all this and much more. Each summer around 50 Linux enthusiasts meet up for a weeks holiday. This year the 15th annual event takes the penguin-friends to England, specifically to the picturesque village of Castleton in the Peak District. LBWers put their hiking boots on for the first time in 1999 in Pottenstein in Germany. After a great week, it was clear: We'll meet again next year! In the following years the wanderers traveled to countries including Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, Lithuania, Greece, Switzerland, and Austria. 2013 is the third time the event takes place in England. There is much to discover: The Peak District offers many great hikes in and around the village itself and the delights of Speedwell Cavern, and the many other caves in the area. Castleton also has a lot to offer in terms of food and drink: many delicious beers and hearty cuisine will fortify the participants and keep them all happy. Talks about Linux and Free and Open Source Software complete the programme. It is now possible to register to join in with the event [2]. Over the next few weeks the organisers and participants will arrange various hikes and excursions, and participants can also register for workshops and talks. Questions on anything to do with the LBW will be happily answered by the Linux beer hikers on their mailing list [3] or on IRC (channel #lbw at irc.oftc.net). Links: [1] LBW 2013: http://lbw2013.norgie.net/ [2] Registration for LBW 2013: http://lbwreg.draiocht.net/ [3] LBW mailing list: https://mail.x31.com/mailman/listinfo/lbw -- 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/

1 0

KDE 4.1 problems
by Chris Walker 08 Jul '13

08 Jul '13

As part of my new install I am now using KDE 4.10 as the desktop. But it appears to have a problem retaining settings. If I switch off, when it comes back on, the konsole window for example is now full screen when it should be just a small window and similarly for something like a Solitaire game. But using the same DVD I used to install, I created another install inside VirtualBox and that doesn't exhibit the problem. I've been looking online at the KDE 4 pages but I can't get to the bottom of the issue. Can I copy any of the files over from the virtual machine or is there a preferred way to fix it? I've tried logging in as root and moving my copy of the .kde4 folder in the hope that it would create a new one without these problems but either I didn't do it correctly, or it didn't work, the end result being that there was no change. As the virtual machine works and this one doesn't I assumed it might be graphics related but if I do anything to that, I lose everything and can no longer see the graphic I have for wallpaper and all the icons disappear. That then takes me ages to get it all back again so having done that three times now, I'm getting tired of it and now tend to avoid that. So any ideas on what I can do to remedy the problem please?

3 8

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th July.
by Viperfang 02 Jul '13

02 Jul '13

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

1 0

Upgrading a legacy Ubuntu Server 10.10 install
by Mark Rogers 28 Jun '13

28 Jun '13

I've just found a production Ubuntu Server 10.10 install that I need to try to upgrade. It's pretty much just Apache, PHP and MySQL so hopefully not too complicated. 10.10 has not been supported for ages - indeed to get to a version which is not EOL I need to skip 11.04 and 11.10 and go straight for 12.04LTS. I've taken an image and restored to an indentical VM. So far I've done: sed -i.bak -e 's/maverick/precise/g' /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update apt-get install apt apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade && apt-get autoremove This initially failed until I added: APT { Immediate-Configure No; }; .. to /etc/apt/apt.conf Rather surprisingly, I now have an apparently working system, So my question is: what should I look out for to check this has really gone OK? So far it feels like it's been too easy... Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 6

Shorewall logs
by Chris Walker 24 Jun '13

24 Jun '13

I've this week changed from Mandriva 2011 to Mageia. I did it because Mandriva no longer seemed to be being developed and also because my installation had a few issues. I also swapped out the 500gig drive that Mandriva was on and installed Mageia to a 1TB drive but I kept the 500 gig jobbie. To save myself time I just moved things like the config for Sylpheed and Claws from the 5400gig to the 1TB and those are working fine. In trying to find out why a USB 3 disc wasn't being seen, I noticed that dmesg was filling up with messages from Shorewall. I'm not sure if Shorewall ran on Mandriva but certainly I didn't see those messages. They all appear to be the same though with the exception of the ID which varies. Here's the last two for example [ 6125.561129] Shorewall:net2fw:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=40:61:86:05:f9:31:00:24:a5:bd:b4:dc:08:00 SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=2897 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=3896 DPT=3389 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 6128.560425] Shorewall:net2fw:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=40:61:86:05:f9:31:00:24:a5:bd:b4:dc:08:00 SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=2898 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=3896 DPT=3389 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 On my machine 192.168.1.1 is the router. Should I be concerned about these messages? If so, what should I do as they're just an irritation at the moment.

3 4

Partition mount problem
by Barry Samuels 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

First a confession. This is about Android but it is using a Linux kernel so I hope this is not entirely off topic. I have an application on my phone which allows me to clear the 'cache' partition although I had never used that until recently. After using it to clear the cache partition that particular partition will no longer mount. It doesn't appear in the 'mount' list although there are no sign signs of an error. The only noticeable difference is that I can't download or update any applications because the download process uses the 'cache' partition and it's not mounted. Other than that the phone works normally. I can get round that by deleting the '/cache' mount point and creating a soft link to another point in the filing system which is then linked to '/ cache' but it's all reset again every time the phone starts. I've tried manually mounting the 'cache' partition using 'mount -o rw - t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /cache' but that gives me 'Invalid argument'. It can't be a command line argument because there seems to nothing wrong there. I've tried numerous variations of that command with the same error message. e2fsck on the partition says it's clean. I made a nandroid backup many months ago long before this happened and have tried restoring the 'cache' partition only from that but the problem remains. I've deduced from that that it cannot be a problem with the partition itself. So, can anyone suggest reasons why a partition would refuse to mount? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

2 2

Scanner Xerox 2400 - GL646 chip drivers
by James Freer 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

In my enthusiasm to ditch windows i thought i'd attempt to get my scanner working as it seems drivers are now available for the GL646 chip. Ubuntu wiki have a 'how-to' https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompileSaneFromSource https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CheckIfScannerIsClone The first link appears to download more than necessary it seems. I would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable on drivers could read those pages through as something isn't right somewhere. I was just going to buy another scanner but the latest Canoscan (and others) also use the GL646 chip. thanks james

3 5

Re: [ALUG] program for simple graph representation recommendation?
by mark fernandes (IFR) 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

Gnuplot is really good for doing quality plots (Good enough for scientific papers). The output terminals include screen, LaTEX, png, SVG, EPS and PDF. The dreaded Wackypedia has a reasonable amount of info (I would especially recommend the IBM tutorial - it really got me started with GNUplot) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnuplot If you need a non-Windows GUI there is a Java GUI for GNUplot (I haven't tried it so YMMV) see http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgp/ Hope that this helps, Mark

4 6

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

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 June, 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

program for simple graph representation recommendation?
by Anthony Anson 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

I want to make a simple linear graph of blood-pressure readings over a month with a minimum interval of half an hour. (Greater intervals will have to be 'understood' by interpolation.) Ideally the background would be squares (to make it easier for me...) and it doesn't matter whether the plotted lines are vertical or horizontal - just so long as they are scrollable. Exportability to pdf would be an advantage All suggestions appreciated. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

2 2

Confused about mdstat output
by Mark Rogers 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

cat /proc/mdstat gives me: md1 : active raid5 sdi1[4](S) sdh1[2](F) sdg1[1] sdf1[0] 5860145664 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/2] [UU__] The history of this array is that it was a functioning RAID5 array, that wasn't really being used. I pulled one of the disks out for other uses temporarily, then wiped it and returned it, the idea being that it was returned to the array as a "new" disk to replace the "failed" (removed) one, albeit that it was actually the same disk. This is the RAID array that's been causing problems via a USB caddy (I now have a cheap SATA card that seems to work reliably). I was able to mount the array (albeit degraded because it was missing a disk) with the disk removed. Now I can't (makes sense, 2-out-of-4 disks in a RAID5 array isn't going to work very well!). My reading of mdstat is that sdi1 is currently "spare" (I think that's the one that came out and went back in), and that sdh1 has failed. Seems like quite a coincidence. As I said, the data on the array wasn't important, I'm using this as an opportunity to learn more about what's going on because next time the data may well matter. Mark -- 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] Exit Script if sudo password not entered
by Ewan Slater 12 Jun '13

12 Jun '13

Hi Steve, What's wrong with kicking the script off with sudo? For example: ewan@bluebox:~$ cat dist-upgrade.sh #!/bin/bash sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Bad typing: ewan@bluebox:~$ sudo ./dist-upgrade.sh [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts ewan@bluebox:~$ Good typing: ewan@bluebox:~$ sudo ./dist-upgrade.sh [sudo] password for ewan: Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com quantal Release.gpg Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net quantal Release.gpg Hit http://security.ubuntu.com quantal-security Release.gpg Hit http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com quantal Release.gpg Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com quantal Release Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net quantal Release.gpg Hit http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com quantal-updates Release.gpg ...<yada-yada/> Cheers, Ewan On 12 June 2013 12:00, <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk> wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Exit Script if sudo password not entered (steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:16:34 +0100 > From: steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: [ALUG] Exit Script if sudo password not entered > Message-ID: <51B785A2.20502(a)hst.me.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi geniuses! > > I have a few scripts with several commands prefixed by sudo. > I often mistype my password, as it's complex, and, if I mistype it 3 > times, I want the script to exit, rather than continue on to the next > line and ask for the password again. > > Is there a recommended way of doing this? I've googled & thought. > One example I've seen asks for the password via zenity, then passes it > through to a sudo line which does something like sudo cat /dev/nul > >dev/nul and then checks if it failed - if it fails it displays a > message and quits. See: > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2052976&page=2 > > Another alternative I dreamt up whilst reading another webpage was: > sudo echo || { echo 'Login Failed'; exit; } > > Is there a recommended/preferred/suggested/best way of doing this? > > Cheers > Steve > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > > > End of main Digest, Vol 96, Issue 15 > ************************************

3 3

Diagnosing USB3 HDD disconnections
by Mark Rogers 12 Jun '13

12 Jun '13

I'm having problems with a USB3 HDD caddy of four disks randomly disappearing from my Ubuntu box. As the fours disks are set up as RAID5 this is a particular nuisance, not least because I recently replaced one of the disks and it is unable to complete resyncing. I think this is a clue; it was stable until it reached ~93% complete but now every time I reassemble the array it gets to a little over 94% before it drops out again, returning to 93.7% on each reassemble. The array isn't being used (in most cases it isn't even mounted). Looking at the logs: http://paste.ubuntu.com/5757858/ .. it starts with: --snip-- Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912073] usb 6-2: USB disconnect, device number 2 Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912079] sd 6:0:0:2: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912099] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] Unhandled error code Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912104] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912111] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] CDB: Read(10): 28 40 de c4 0a 98 00 00 f0 00 --snip-- A couple of seconds later the caddy reconnects on its own, although does not reassemble the array (see link to full logs above). Googling the error has found a number of suggestions that this is a software issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hdparm/+bug/515023 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/580983 One suggestion is that this is down to /lib/udev/rules.d/85-hdparm.rule and I've made the tweak suggested to prevent it running on USB-connected drives, but I don't understand what the rule does and as such have no idea whether this is happening, or whether I have correctly disabled it for USB drives). Suggestions? Aside: The caddy also supports eSATA but because it needs to talk to 4 drives over one connection would need multiplier support on the eSATA card, so any suggestions for a suitable card welcomed. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Exit Script if sudo password not entered
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 11 Jun '13

11 Jun '13

Hi geniuses! I have a few scripts with several commands prefixed by sudo. I often mistype my password, as it's complex, and, if I mistype it 3 times, I want the script to exit, rather than continue on to the next line and ask for the password again. Is there a recommended way of doing this? I've googled & thought. One example I've seen asks for the password via zenity, then passes it through to a sudo line which does something like sudo cat /dev/nul >dev/nul and then checks if it failed - if it fails it displays a message and quits. See: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2052976&page=2 Another alternative I dreamt up whilst reading another webpage was: sudo echo || { echo 'Login Failed'; exit; } Is there a recommended/preferred/suggested/best way of doing this? Cheers Steve

1 0

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th June
by Viperfang 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

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 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

Why are some of my ports appearing in a port scan?
by steve-alug＠hst.me.uk 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

Hi folks. I'm confused. Every now and again, I use Shields UP! at grc.com to check that there's unexpectedly open ports on my system. I checked last night and I found 2 open ports, 5 closed ports and all the rest were "stealth" ports. The 2 open ports I was expecting. Stealth ports mean simply that they don't reply in any shape or form to the outside world. I expect, and usually get, all my ports except for the two open ones to appear as "stealthy". I don't understand why I'm now getting 5 closed ports showing up. I have a cable modem that's configured to do NAT for me. It has 3 port forwarding rules, each for single tcp ports. (One of these rules is outside the range usually scanned for by SheildsUp, that's why it's not included in the count of open ports) I don't forward any port ranges. I don't have a DMZ. UPnP is disabled. The ports that are appearing as closed are: 135, 137, 138, 139, 445 I turned off my server's smbd service and rescanned, and I got 135, 137, 138, 445 i.e. port 139 disappeared. So it does seem that services running on the server directly affect ports that are being shown as closed on the router, despite there being no port forwarding rule for them to get past the router onto the server. 135 DCOM Service Control Manager 137 NetBIOS Name Service 138 NETBIOS Datagram Service 139 NETBIOS Session Service 445 Microsoft Directory Services I've just used NetScan on my mobile, (whilst not connected to wifi), and scanning my public IP address I got two expected ports open, and also 80 HTTP 110 POP 143 Internet Message Access I tried with a different mobile app (Port Scan) and I got 1 of the expected ports listed as open, and 80 HTTP 110 POP 143 Internet Message Access 8080 Alternate HTTP I tried with an on-line port scanner, http://nmap.online-domain-tools.com/, and I got only the two expected ports open. I've just tried rerunning GRC's Shields up and now it reports the two expected open ports and also just 137 and 138 as closed. I'm rather confused as to what's going on. Anyone got any ideas? Regards Steve

4 5

Can someone check this site?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 09 Jun '13

09 Jun '13

Greetings all! I am having trouble connecting to http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com which just hangs indefinitely for me. A traceroute traceroute oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com proceeds reasonably rapidly down to step 11, which is where it hangs: 10 * 178.236.0.58 (178.236.0.58) 59.452 ms 178.236.3.129 (178.236.3.129) 64.219 ms 11 ec2-79-125-0-77.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.77) 57.412 ms ec2-79-125-0-73.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.73) 68.999 ms ec2-79-125-0-5.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.5) 57.819 ms 12 * * * This may be a problem to do with routing via my ISP's DNS lookups. The ISP in question is zen.co.uk. The server 178.236.0.58 at the preceding step (10) is (from whois): inetnum: 178.236.0.0 - 178.236.7.255 netname: IE-AMAZON descr: Amazon Data Services Ireland Any comments? With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 09-Jun-2013 Time: 13:26:17 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

5 6

Scripted FTP downloads
by Mark Rogers 08 Jun '13

08 Jun '13

This is basically a follow-on from my last question, now that the VPN is working... I need to download a set of backup files from a (Windows) server, deleting all but the newest from the server once successfully downloaded. In other words: - Download all files (re-starting any previously failed downloads and skipping files I already have in full) - Delete all files from the server that are older than X days The script will run daily. Files vary in size from a few K to a couple of GB (hence the need to remove old files from the server and to avoid re-downloading files I already have). I looked at lftp which has a "mirror" command that can be scripted and that is able to delete files, but it isn't working quite as expected. (We set it to download all files older than 2 days, deleting on success, then to download all files (no age limit) without deletion. That works fine, but the following day it skips the files it already has and doesn't delete the ones that are now older than 2 days from the server.) Suggestions? As it's a Windows server I don't have control of it unfortunately has to be FTP, although if there's a really clever solution that would work with some tweaks[*] on the Windows box I'll put them forward. [*]Wiping Windows and installing Linux doesn't count as a "tweak" :-( -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 8

Re: [ALUG] Android headache
by Bev Nicolson 08 Jun '13

08 Jun '13

D'oh. Sorry Steve. Bev. On 7 June 2013 18:13, Bev Nicolson <lumos60(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Do I have this right: When you switch the phone on, you're getting a >> message saying that there is a voicemail message for you. You have since >> disabled the voicemail service, but you're still getting the message? > > Yes, that's it. > >> If so, to remove the message, you will have to do something like this: >> Go to Settings menu. >> Select Call. >> Click on "Clear Voice Notification." > >> >> Options like this (but possibly with slightly different names) have been >> around for a while, > > And guess what? I don't have that option. :¬/ I had a long > conversation with Orange and there are two options. I either go for a > factory reset (would rather not) or (from Googling earlier) reactivate > voicemail and send myself a message, which I then delete. Thanks > though. > >> >>> Like I say, if this is totally off topic, be kind about saying so. Ta. > >> Well.... Android is Linux (for some value of is) >> > Indeed. Shame it isn't more so. An Ubuntu phone perhaps...

3 4

Android headache
by Bev Nicolson 07 Jun '13

07 Jun '13

I'm not sure if this will be horribly off topic. If so, be gentle about pointing that out but you lot are more techie than me so you may have an answer to this. Phone is Android Gingerbread. Theoretically it has no voicemail service now but, along with others (I have googled and followed what advice I could) the notification still comes up when I switch it on. I rang my provider yesterday and they deleted the voicemail message for me but it's still there today. Points to note: I cannot listen to it because I have no idea what my pin number is so I couldn't delete it for myself. I have no phone app anywhere to remove. Any ideas? Like I say, if this is totally off topic, be kind about saying so. Ta. Bev.

3 2

Maintaining a PPTP connection on Ubuntu Server
by Mark Rogers 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

I have an Ubuntu Server (headless) box, which needs to establish a PPTP connection (as client) to a PPTP server elsewhere. The box's sole purpose is to connect to the VPN, and download files for backup purposes. So keeping the VPN connection up is important. After an afternoon Googling all I've come up with are several dozen ways to skin the same cat, and the cat is feeling a bit unloved. So any recommendations? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 5

More ftp
by Anthony Anson 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

Support@ asks: > Do you know what your public IP address is? Do you have a fixed IP > address? I'm in the Tea House in Naardge, so haven't access to my hard copy crib(s) - I don't *think* my IP address is fixed, BICBW. I can't discover anything on this box (MSi Wind Notebook running Mint) which will tell me - I'm sure there is, but I've never had to look. Can I ask the terminal, and if I can, what would the magic formula be? (Pretty please...) -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

4 24

UPnP vunerability
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

Hi all, I came across this and thought I'd better spread it, in case it may affect you. This show http://twit.tv/show/security-now/389 pointed out that someone has discovered that there is a UPnP vulnerability in a large number of routers out there. Basically, UPnP allows devices to configure your router for you, and discover what services are available on the network. UPnP has its flaws, but is reasonably safe if confined within your local area network. Unfortunately, a bunch of routers expose UPnP to the public internet. There is a possibility that if you have one of these routers, a hacker could use UPnP to discover what's on your network, and connect to it, and compromise it. There's an easy way to check. Go to https://www.grc.com/default.htm Click on the link for Shields up (3/4 of the way down the page) Click on the proceed button. Then click on the GRC's Instant UPnP Exposure Test button. This will scan your system. If you see the message "THE EQUIPMENT AT THE TARGET IP ADDRESS DID NOT RESPOND TO OUR UPnP PROBES! (That's good news!)" Then you're ok. If it doesn't say that, then try disabling UPnP on your router, and try again. I personally always disable UPnP - however, I don't have anything that needs it, e.g. XBox games. HTH Steve

3 3

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th June.
by Viperfang 04 Jun '13

04 Jun '13

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

1 0

O/T Uninstalling Linux and making Windows boot again
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 02 Jun '13

02 Jun '13

Hi geniuses :-) I have a laptop that I purchased with Windows XP installed on it. I installed Ubuntu on it, and then migrated that to Lubuntu, but there's still Windows on a partition of it's own, and it still boots. I'm thinking about giving this machine to my kid who doesn't need linux, just windows. Is it possible to uninstall Linux and get the copy of Windows to boot correctly again. The problem is I don't have the windows install disk, so I'm reliant on any windows programs that may be installed on the disk, or any genuine tools that may help - I don't want to download a dodgy copy of Windows to do it! Afaik, if I just format the linux partitions, it will remove most of the initial boot loader, and then it won't boot windows any more. I'm using Grub btw - the old version (V1.??) Has anyone done this before or have any ideas? Cheers Steve

8 20

RAID discs
by Chris Walker 31 May '13

31 May '13

Having seen that others are suffering RAID problems, perhaps now is an opportune time to ask about mine. I have an Edimax enclosure with 2 x 1TB discs in it. I got a notification from it yesterday to say that sdb had either failed or would fail within the next 24 hours. The drives were bought at the same time as the enclosure so given that one is failing or has failed, is it wise for me to replace both? The discs in there at the moment are Seagate drives and I don't think I specified anything special for them i.e. I just bought 2 discs. This time I'm going to go for something like a WD Red drive which are specified for NAS use. So 2 questions. Does anybody have any recommendations for discs or are the Western Digital discs ok? And second, should I replace both or is one ok for the time being?

5 13

ftp problems
by Anthony Anson 31 May '13

31 May '13

Using up-to-date Mint, and happily using Fire FTP. Suddenly, half the page vanishes, leaving me with just the local side and a 'send' arrow. I can navigate through the local directories. Can't restore Fire FTP it to its proper configuration (AFAICS), so have been using Filezilla, mainly successfully - but - from time to time it connects, but the remote site spits my shaking-hand out. Status: Waiting to retry... Status: Connecting to ###.###.###.#:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Response: 438 Access denied. Please contact your support. Error: Could not connect to server (The :21... is kindly supplied by remote server, and should show there. It's a Linux server BTW.) Contacted Support and in the morning received two e-mails, just after I'd successfully ftpeed the file I tried to put up the evening before. No change in user, password or remote address data. Support has no idea why it wouldn't work the previous evening. *Could* the server be too busy, and <rhetoric> if so, couldn't it say so </rhetoric>? Any idea what 438 is? (I don't want to use a search injun using this dongle on GPRS unless I really have to...) -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

2 2

Compaq Proliant servers going free
by mick 29 May '13

29 May '13

I'm not sure how many freeglers there are on this list, but I thought I'd pass this on anyway. "THREE complete Compaq PROLIANT 8500R servers offered in Eaton: http://norfolkfreegle.org/Post/ViewPost/13591" Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Software RAID error
by Mark Rogers 29 May '13

29 May '13

I'm having problems understanding what is happening on my RAID array. $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1](F) 976629568 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [U_] To me, that suggests that sdb has failed, however, syslog contains lots of errors on sda but no mention of sdb. Amongst the things I've learned this morning, is the fact that I'm not getting any notifications; this only came to light because a VM that is hosted on this RAID array has lost the ability to write to one of its virtual disks (but not all of them). Should I conclude that both disks have failed? What is the best route to recovery here? Ie which disk do I swap out first with a new disk? Logically swapping out sda is the only thing that makes sense to me but advice welcomed. smartctl reports that neither disk had SMART enabled, which is odd because I thought they had, so there's no information there. I have enabled it this morning but don't want to try doing self-tests at this stage unless someone more knowledgeable than me says I should. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 13

Re: [ALUG] how to block new connections whilst allowing existing established
by mick 27 May '13

27 May '13

On Sun, 26 May 2013 20:34:24 +0100 Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 08:09:07PM +0100, mick wrote: > > > > Before I start playing in earnest, does anyone know of a more > > elegant solution? > > Have you looked at profiling the connection length and how the client > works? I work for a CDN and to be honest since we acquired a > particular customer the scenario changed from us having a traffic > pattern that when taking a node out of our delivery group after 2 > hours it would see no connections, since this new customer even after > removing a node from delivery it will still see significant amounts > of traffic after 24 hours. > > The way we deal with it is to let some customers get "unlucky" but > then given the client immediately does a new dns lookup and goes to a > new server it means the interruption to them would be very brief. > > Anyhow, you might want to look at some kind of load balancer like > varnish for this scenario as if not a stuck connection might mean your > reboot never happens. > > Also, see if the clients can support range headers, if so they can > resume the download from the missing bit. This means it's not the end > of the world when a download fails. > Adam Thanks for this. But I should have said that my mirrors are on VMs in datacentres I don't control. So I have no chance of sticking a load balancing proxy in front of the servers. Furthermore, the "customers" are not paying me anything (I give the mirrors to the community) so I have no form of communication with them. I /could/ just be brutal, but I don't want to be - and as you will see from my answer to Nev, it turns out I don't have to be either. Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

how to block new connections whilst allowing existing established
by mick 27 May '13

27 May '13

Hi guys I run a couple of mirrors serving "tails" over http. Occasionally I need to shut those servers down and reboot (for example I have just upgraded both of them to wheezy). Both servers are reasonably busy (they ship out about 2-3 TiB each per month) and normally have active connections at the time I want to power cycle them. Connections can (of course) come from anywhere and some people may be on slow lines and may be over half way through a download of one of the 700 meg iso files. If I simply power cycle the server they will likely lose the connection and the download. I'd like to be more friendly than that. So what I have in mind is some mechanism that I can invoke to prevent new connections being established but permit the existing ones to complete before I switch off. I've thought about cobbling together an iptables script which will change the lines: BLAH –dport 80 -m state –state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT to BLAH –dport 80 -m state –state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT temporarily and then switch it back afterwards. But I have yet to try it. Before I start playing in earnest, does anyone know of a more elegant solution? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

2 2

Network printing again
by Chris Walker 25 May '13

25 May '13

I'm having another try at making network printing work. I bought a Buffalo ADSL router recently with the facility to print using the inbuilt USB port. I connected up the printer and tried to make my system see the it. But it never does. If I set the host address as 192.168.1.1, the system picks the port number as 9100. I've looked on the router and all I can see is a WebAccess External Port set to 9000 so I'm guessing that 9100 isn't likely to be about right. The router can also be used as a media server with a USB disc plugged in instead of the printer. If I do that, the disc is seen as smb://ap0024a5bdb4dc/disk1_pt1/ and I can see and read the files (the buffalo is seen on a wifi network as Buffalo-BDB4DC so that ties in too). But I'm still stuck as to why I can't print. Can anybody suggest a way forward please?

2 4

Fire FTP trying to confuse me...
by Anthony Anson 23 May '13

23 May '13

and succeeding. Up to this morning Fire FTP has been intuitive and easy to use, however, from having a local and a remote side in separate panes on the same page, it has taken the liberty of listing everything on one side, and only having an upload arrow - no download one. I may have accidentally clicked something which has brought this about, but I can't find anything to restore the default position. Any ideas? -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

1 0

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

main