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Re: [ALUG] lappy aboard
by Noel Galer 08 May '17

08 May '17

>-----Original Message----- >From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Phil Thane >Sent: Monday, May 08, 2017 7:41 PM >To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >Cc: relay(a)wrexham-lug.org >Subject: [ALUG] lappy aboard > >This is Linux related, sort of, so I hope ALUG don't mind the apparently >random question. (cc'd to my old LUG in Wrexham, they're used to mad >questions >from me). > >I have just bought a canal/river boat and want to use my Linux laptop on >it. >The PSU for it is labelled 19v, 4.7 amps. The boat runs on 12v. The >simplest >but quite pricy option is to get an inverter to create 220v AC then use the >standard PSU but apart from cost it lacks elegance. > >The boat has 2 completely separate circuits (at present, I'll probably re->wire >it next winter). There is a 12v battery charged by the engine that is used >for >the engine starter and a few ancillaries such as the horn and nav lights. >The >there is another 12v battery charged by a solar panel on the roof used for >cabin lights. > >If I connect the two in series I should get 24v then I should be able to >acquire (or even assemble) a DC-DC voltage regulator to bring it down to >19v. > >Anyone see any problems with that? > >-- >Phil Thane > >www.pthane.co.uk >phil(a)pthane.co.uk >01767 449759 >07582 750607 >Twitter @pthane May I make an alternative suggestion ? There are lots of really inexpensive 'Boost' or 'Step-Up' regulators now available on eBay. These are switch mode and therefore very efficient too. It is a common application to use one of these to provide 24V from a 12V system and 19V would not be a problem as they are mostly adjustable. Here is a link to such an item that might be suitable ( I have no financial or other interest in this item or supplier, it was picked at random ):- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-DC-Converter-150W-10-32V-to-12-35V-Boost-S tep-up-Power-Supply-Module-/252691490519?hash=item3ad59626d7:g:LxQAAOSw2 41YWsVX This is just an example, there are plenty more, larger and smaller, but this might do the job with a bit more heat sinking as is recommended. There are a few caveats too. Some laptop power supplies, Dell being an example, use an extra wire ( with Dell it's a small signal only pin in the centre ) to provide a power pack identification. If not present, things don't work too well despite supplying the correct voltage and sufficient current. This is supposedly to ensure the correct power rated pack is used, but you and I might just think it is to prevent after market PSUs from being used. If your source battery goes flat ( under 10.5V = zero charge ) a boost regulator will just keep sucking charge out of a lead acid battery and damage it, but then so might any other drain on that battery, e.g. lights. If you connect the two 12V systems in series as you suggest, you will be ok as long as both do not share a common ground line. I have no idea if this might be the case. Also, when one system is depleted, lets face it they are unlikely to have the same capacity, i.e. one goes flat as above ( < 10.5V ) damage could still occur to one system. But if you do, a quick look on eBay for a 'Buck' regulator similar to the link I gave, would do that job. If you decide to use a boost regulator and end up with one that has a Constant Current control, don't be tempted to set this to the current on the laptop power supply. I would set it somewhat higher, in your case 6A or more, or to maximum to handle transients when switching on etc. The laptop will only pull the current it needs. I use these things all over the place including my 'Demonic' WolfLite handlamp that instead of a 3W bulb, now has a 40V 1A LED unit running from 18V of LiPo batteries. Best regards, Noel ( Xorsyst ) _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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USB Backup Disk problems
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 08 May '17

08 May '17

Hi Geniuses! I have a 2TB Seagate USB disk that is being used with backuppc to store daily backups. However, almost every day the backup is failing, and attempting to ls the drive gives "input/output error". Looking through DMESG shows multiple problems reading sectors on the disk, but I've yet to find a particular cause. If I reboot the machine, the drive immediately starts working again. If I fsck it, it reports no errors. The disk has two partitions on it, and the 2nd partition is used by SimpleBackup, and this seems to work fine. I'm currently backing up the backup before I do some more in-depth testing on it, and possibly reformat it. I forgot to mention that both partitions are encrypted. Do people think the disk is broken (bad sectors or hardware problems), or if not, any idea what's going on? On to the next problem. I bought a different 2TB Seagate USB 3 disk which I was intending to use to replace the problematic disk. I managed to set up encrypted partitions on the new disk, and configure the computer so that they would automatically mount on boot.... so I tried to boot the machine and.... the BIOS screen appeared, then it said detecting devices... The old faulty drive is detected, but then the USB 3 Driver is not detected and the machine hangs. It's simple, with the drive connected at boot, the machine won't boot or detect the drive. Without the USB3 drive connected, the machine boots fine. I'm guessing that the machine, which is quite old, can't cope with something about the new drive, perhaps it's slightly too big (although they're both ~2TB), or because it's USB3, and I think the old one is USB2. The old one has a power supply, but the new one doesn't, but I tried connecting it via a powered hub, and no difference. Is there any way round the machine not booting? I don't think there's a updated bios for this old machine. Any ideas, straws to clutch at? Steve

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th May
by Viperfang 08 May '17

08 May '17

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 11th May 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 https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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HMRC payroll software and zlib
by Jenny Hopkins 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hi all, I'm attempting to set up payroll on debian jessie using the HMRC's payroll software for linux. When I try and run it, however, I get the following error: zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available Fatal Python error: unable to locate initialization module I've installed these packages, but no change. libjzlib-java zlib1g:amd64 zlib1g-dev:amd64 zlibc Following a similar thread for this error, I ran python and got the following info: >>> zlib.__version__ '1.0' Any ideas on what else I need to install, or what the problem could be? Thanks, Jenny

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th May.
by Viperfang 02 May '17

02 May '17

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

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DNS lookups with systemd-resolve (Ubuntu 17.04)
by Mark Rogers 24 Apr '17

24 Apr '17

I have a local DNS server, and in it are several hosts, specified both with and without a domain name. Eg: $ dig @192.168.1.5 myhost ... ;; ANSWER SECTION myhost. 0 IN A 192.168.1.123 ... $ dig @192.168.1.5 myhost.mydomain ... ;; ANSWER SECTION myhost.mydomain 0 IN A 192.168.1.123 However, if I don't specify the DNS, the first query (myhost) times out, where the second (myhost.mydomain) still works fine. My PC gets its DNS settings via DHCP. /etc/resolv.conf contains only 127.0.0.53 which as I understand it is systemd-resolve. /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf contains only 192.168.1.5 (my DNS). So, in the case of a query for "myhost.mydomain", systemd-resolve is correctly passing the query on to my DNS. But in the case of "myhost" it is not (I don't know what it is doing instead). If I try "ping myhost" I get "Name or service not known". Similarly, if I try ssh mark@myhost. Suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Mesh wireless
by Mark Rogers 24 Apr '17

24 Apr '17

I started looking at a few commercial mesh wireless products, which typically retail at around £300-400 for a typical house. I then Googled and discovered a few Linux mesh wireless projects, such as might suit running on a Pi. Anyone here have any experience of such things? (The biggest obstacle with the Pi is likely to be the slow Ethernet port but there are faster single board computers around that might work better. Regardless, the Pi might be a good place to start playing.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Pub meet + GPG
by Bill Hill 13 Apr '17

13 Apr '17

It has been a while - GPG key signing? -- Red to red, black to black, switch it on, but stand well back.

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Shutdown!
by Michael Goddard 12 Apr '17

12 Apr '17

Using Mint 18.1 on my laptop, when using 'shutdown' it does just that, but then reboots a few seconds afterwards, every time recently! Tia, Michael -- Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th April
by Viperfang 10 Apr '17

10 Apr '17

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 13th April 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 https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Writing to Google Sheets from bash
by Mark Rogers 07 Apr '17

07 Apr '17

I don't suppose anyone here has any experience of writing to Google Sheets from bash? (Specifically, I'm trying to use curl to write values into a pre-existing spreadsheet.) I started with a fairly simple aim: To have a few Linux boxes (servers, Pi's, etc) periodically update a central spreadsheet with stuff like disk utilisation, updates pending, O/S version, etc. However I haven't had to deal with OAuth2 before and I'm going round in circles trying to find out exactly what authentication I need to configure. My attempts at Googling have lead me into most of those circles without getting me out again! It seems like a useful concept to pursue but I have to admit I'm just way out of my depth! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Strange PC lock-up
by Mark Rogers 05 Apr '17

05 Apr '17

Several times over the past few weeks I've had my PC (Ubuntu 16.10*) apparently lock up: desktop stops changing (clock stops updating) but the mouse (usually) continues to move. Sometimes I can SSH in, although more often I can get as far as entering username/password but never reach a terminal prompt. It can happen while I'm actively using it (mid-sentence), or if I go away and come back it could have locked in my absence, often relatively shortly after it was left (the stopped clock is quite handy...) I found messages in syslog relating to nouveau so I replaced the graphics card (as a fairly cheap swap out). That made no difference (actually if anything it got worse, although I'd hesitate to say so for sure). Rather than mess around I bought a new PC and transferred my system disk to it, still figuring it felt like a hardware issue. Except that the problem has followed across onto the new PC. The only things moved across are the new graphics card and three hard disks. It no longer feels like a hardware issue.... How do I diagnose? Or am I just looking at a re-install? * Note that this PC has been upgraded through several versions, it wasn't a clear 16.10 install. The only "major" change recently has been a shift from Chrome to Opera as the primary browser (and since I tend to have dozens of tabs open and most of my work involves a browser in some way that does count as a major change). Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th April.
by Viperfang 04 Apr '17

04 Apr '17

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

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SSH tunnelling
by Mark Rogers 28 Mar '17

28 Mar '17

I need to access the web server on a VM in my office, from my laptop. I have SSH access to an intermediate PC and from there to the VM. Ie: Laptop -> PC -> VM How do I set up a tunnel from laptop through PC to VM to give me access to port 80 on the VM? If relevant: Each of the two SSh connections will require (different) user/password. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: [ALUG] Machine slows down
by Christopher Dawkins 23 Mar '17

23 Mar '17

> Several times over the past few weeks I've had my PC (Ubuntu 16.10*) > apparently lock up: desktop stops changing (clock stops updating) but > the mouse (usually) continues to move. Sometimes I can SSH in, > although more often I can get as far as entering username/password but > never reach a terminal prompt. Run 'top' in a console window on the screen beforehand. I find Firefox can do this with some web sites that are too javascript-heavy, load averages up to 50 or more. -- Christopher Dawkins Archivist, Felsted School http://archives.felsted.org Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Digital East Anglia meetup
by Ewan Slater 23 Mar '17

23 Mar '17

If anyone's interested: https://www.meetup.com/digital-east/events/238348094/?a=socialmedia

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Delay in sending mail
by Jenny Hopkins 22 Mar '17

22 Mar '17

Hello, Can anyone suggest why sending IMAP mail from either icedove, thunderbird, claws on a client is taking about a minute (about ten seconds "connecting to server" then over 30 seconds with "delivering mail"), whereas using mutt it goes in an instant? I must have something misconfigured somewhere, but don't know where to start looking - exim4 and dovecot logs on the server aren't showing anything up of interest. Thanks for any suggestions, Jenny

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th March
by Viperfang 06 Mar '17

06 Mar '17

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 9th March 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 https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 3rd March.
by Viperfang 28 Feb '17

28 Feb '17

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

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Re: [ALUG] Automated IMAP client
by Christopher Dawkins 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

> I'm thinking a simple ticketing system would be good, although I've > not yet found a "simple" ticketing system that doesn't try to do so > much as to be too big a job to implement it in the first place. Nothing is simple, except for gurus, but try (Request Tracker). -- Christopher Dawkins Archivist, Felsted School http://archives.felsted.org Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Automated IMAP client
by Mark Rogers 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

Are there any tools to set up an automated IMAP client? By which I mean I want to set up some software on a headless Linux box which connects to an account on an IMAP server elsewhere. It could then be configured to perform actions on received email, such as filter it, move it to folders, forward it to people based on various criteria, etc. It seems like the sort of thing that must exist but I'm clearly picking the wrong things to Google for... Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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What's a fast way to check for something on LAN?
by Chris Green 22 Feb '17

22 Feb '17

I want a fast (as in less than a second, not 'computer fast') way of checking if a particular private IP is present on the LAN. I need this for use in a match construct in an SSH config file, e.g.:- # # # odin may be remote or local from t430 # Match host odin exec "sh -c 'hostNotLocal 192.168.0.104'" ProxyCommand ssh cheddar nc -q0 localhost 51234 Currently 'hostNotLocal' is:- #!/bin/bash # # # Test if specified host is ping'able # ! ping -c 1 $1 >>/dev/null 2>&1 The problem with this is that on any LAN except one using 192.168.0.xxx it takes several seconds to decide that 192.168.0.104 isn't there. For any nit-pickers, yes I know if I just happen to be connected to a LAN which isn't where 'my' 192.168.0.104 is I'll get a false positive but I can live with that. I just want a fast way of knowing that 192.168.0.104 *isn't* there. -- Chris Green

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Correct MX record configuration
by Chris Green 20 Feb '17

20 Feb '17

This may relate to my recent long question about loss of E-Mail. Can anyone tell me *exactly* how an MX record for my home server zbmc.eu should be confiugured? Currently it's configured to point to the 'root' A record for zbmc.eu, so the MX record is for zbmc.eu also:- chris@cheddar$ host zbmc.eu zbmc.eu has address 84.92.49.234 zbmc.eu mail is handled by 10 zbmc.eu. chris@cheddar$ However I *think* this may be wrong and I should create a second A record for the same IP address and point the MX record to that instead. I don't really understand why this should make any diffrerence though. Any experts (or at least people who know more than me) here? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] I need an E-Mail expert to help me solve this
by Phil Ashby 19 Feb '17

19 Feb '17

On 19/02/17 12:00, Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > > I have an E-Mail requirement/problem that I've wasted several hours on over the past few days to > little effect. Maybe someone here can help. > > My home (linux) machine runs all the time and hosts the domain zbmc.eu which is registered at > gandi.net. The zone file there is configured to point at my home machine and the MX record is > set up too:- > chris@cheddar$ host zbmc.eu > zbmc.eu has address 84.92.49.234 > zbmc.eu mail is handled by 10 zbmc.eu. > chris@cheddar$ 84.92.49.234 is my PlusNet ADSL connection. > > ..[lots of testing that indicates 'something' is blocking SMTP on some routes, but not all...] Hi Chris, I have almost the same setup as you, an external/public server (mail.ashbysoft.com) that forwards mail to an internal/private server at home (phil.ashbysoft.com, on PlusNet), my external server is in a co-lo facility and managed by me, rather than a 3rd part but hey, it's still working so it doesn't look like PlusNet per se.. I tried a few tests for your host: - from my home network (via NAT, PlusNet): phlash@zaphod:~$ host zbmc.eu zbmc.eu has address 84.92.49.234 zbmc.eu mail is handled by 10 zbmc.eu. phlash@zaphod:~$ telnet zbmc.eu 25 # not looking good for inbound connectivity on 25 Trying 84.92.49.234... ^C phlash@zaphod:~$ telnet zbmc.eu 587 # nor the alternative SMTP submission port 587 Trying 84.92.49.234... ^C - from my external server (via NAT, Virgin Media): phil:~$ telnet zbmc.eu 25 # still no joy Trying 84.92.49.234... ^C phil:~$ telnet zbmc.eu 587 # kind of expected by now :/ Trying 84.92.49.234... ^C phil:~$ ping zbmc.eu # just checking the endpoint is up :) PING zbmc.eu (84.92.49.234) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from chrisisbd01.plus.com (84.92.49.234): icmp_seq=1 ttl=243 time=25.2 ms 64 bytes from chrisisbd01.plus.com (84.92.49.234): icmp_seq=2 ttl=243 time=25.5 ms 64 bytes from chrisisbd01.plus.com (84.92.49.234): icmp_seq=3 ttl=243 time=21.6 ms ^C - last check for my own connectivity, to prove it's not local to me: phil:~$ telnet phil.ashbysoft.com 25 # looks OK Trying 84.92.108.193... Connected to phil.ashbysoft.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 phil.ashbysoft.com ESMTP Exim 4.88 Sun, 19 Feb 2017 15:05:43 +0000 quit My conclusion so far would be that you have local firewalling / filtering issues that are permitting traffic from the TsoHost servers but nowhere else? Are you running fail2ban and it has been a bit enthusiastic (this has got me in the past, blocking the kids mobiles when they bork their password a couple of times)? What about port forwarding arrangements, just for specified external IPs? NB: I have switched to port 587 for all my immediate users (family & friends, you know the score!) to submit mail from their clients through my relay service, as they were finding that port 25 was blocked outbound by whatever ISP they were using at the time (typically mobile / public services like The Cloud). Hope this helps, Phil.

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Managing cron and similar E-Mails from headless systems
by Chris Green 19 Feb '17

19 Feb '17

I have several headless systems doing useful work around the place:- A Raspberry Pi providing local DNS and DHCP A Beaglebone Black on our boat monitoring temperatures and batteries An old desktop doing backups in the garage etc. Most of these have one or more cron jobs running periodic rsync backups, copying data, etc. If the cron job has an error then it sends E-Mail to the owner of the job ('chris' in most cases, might be root in a couple). It's (moderately) easy to set up an MTA and /etc/aliases so that the messages are sent to my normal E-Mail. However I can't come up with a straightforward way of indicating where the messsage is *from*. You can't just invent a domain name for the headless system because that gets the E-Mail rejected by intermediate systems that try and look up the sender host name. Cron doesn't seem to have any mechanism for setting the sender's name, cron errors just come from 'root@'. Can anyone suggest a neat way of handling this so that I know where the errors are coming from? -- Chris Green

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I need an E-Mail expert to help me solve this
by Chris Green 19 Feb '17

19 Feb '17

I have an E-Mail requirement/problem that I've wasted several hours on over the past few days to little effect. Maybe someone here can help. My home (linux) machine runs all the time and hosts the domain zbmc.eu which is registered at gandi.net. The zone file there is configured to point at my home machine and the MX record is set up too:- chris@cheddar$ host zbmc.eu zbmc.eu has address 84.92.49.234 zbmc.eu mail is handled by 10 zbmc.eu. chris@cheddar$ 84.92.49.234 is my PlusNet ADSL connection. I have several domains hosted at TsoHost with associated E-Mail addresses (e.g. chris(a)isbd.co.uk, chris(a)isbd.net, cl(a)isbd.net). These all eventually forward their E-Mail from the TsoHost servers to chris(a)zbmc.eu. I run a postfix server on my home machine which receives these E-Mails and puts them in my mail spool. This has been working fine for several years. However I now want to send E-Mail from the 'outside world' to chris(a)zbmc.eu. The specific requirement is to send errors from cron on various SBCs to me and I originally thought it was a misconfiguration at the sending end was the problem but it's more general. No mail sent from outside to chris(a)zbmc.eu arrives on my home machine, it just disappears, no errors, no bounces, nothing. Bit it works from the TsoHost cloud servers, why can they send E-Mail successfully to chris(a)zbmc.eu whereas no one else can? I have done lots of tests and experiments so far:- I've tried sending from three different sites (PlusNet, Gandi and a Linux box) to chris(a)zbmc.eu, mail just disappears. Identical E-Mail sent to chris(a)isbd.net arrives OK. I have a postfix server set up on my Beaglebone black in France (to send the cron messages). If I monitor the mail.log file when connecting to the SMTP server at TsoHost (mail3.gridhost.co.uk) the logging is exactly the same for mails sent to chris(a)zbmc.eu as for mails sent to chris(a)isbd.net. Wierdly (and this is what confused me somewhat at the start) I have an identical postfix setup on a Raspberry Pi on my home LAN, also for sending cron errors. It connects directly to the same SMTP server at TsoHost as the Beaglebone does. However E-Mail to chris(a)zbmc.eu from the Pi works! So it would seem that there's something 'out there' that's routing mail for zbmc.eu to the wrong place (or nowhere), but it doesn't get at the mail sent from within TsoHost for some reason. I.e. TsoHost seems to do what I hoped/expected with E-Mail for chris(a)zbmc.eu but no one else does. Help! :-) -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Managing cron and similar E-Mails from headless systems
by mark fernandes 17 Feb '17

17 Feb '17

Looks live reverse alias are what you need... https://linux.die.net/man/8/ssmtp

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th February
by Viperfang 06 Feb '17

06 Feb '17

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 9th February 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 https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 3rd February.
by Viperfang 31 Jan '17

31 Jan '17

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

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How to get rid of these corrupted files?
by Chris Green 28 Jan '17

28 Jan '17

I have some files/directories which have obviously become corrupted. The disk checks out OK with fsck though and I don't want to reformat it. One of the directories in question is as follows:- total 40 d-wxr-S-wT 2 3775186858 3662599049 4096 Sep 11 1991 18039.dat ---xr-srwT 30 3023870906 1270584165 45056 Mar 1 1938 18591.dat -r-x-wxr-T 30 2743781339 1057221377 28672 Jun 6 1929 18684.dat Even as root I can't seem to do anything with this, both rm and chmod fail with 'permission denied'. So, how do I do anything with these? -- Chris Green

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Wanted - plain, simple, GUI address book
by Chris Green 28 Jan '17

28 Jan '17

I use mutt for E-Mail but I'm looking for a GUI address book because my address book requirements extend well beyond (but include) E-Mail addresses for mutt. I have been using the Contacts app in Owncloud with pycardsyncer keeping a local address list in sync with the Owncloud Contacts for mutt to use. However I'd like to make things simpler and better, the existing set-up has some disadvantages (for me) :- The Owncloud Contacts app is not very good, in particular you can't sort by Last Name which really bugs me. I'd really prefer to keep addresses wholly locally rather than on the cloud (even though it's my own cloud). Apart from anything else I'm quite often not able to access the internet and I still want my addresses and to be able to update them. The pycardsyncer (plus pc_query) application is 'deprecated', it's being superseded by vcardsyncer and some other bits and pieces. They're not in the Ubuntu repositories though and I prefer not to go 'ex repository'. The current set up is a fairly complicated way to fulfil a simple requirement. So I'm after a nice, simple, GUI address book program for my Linux desktop and laptop. I'm happy to use a mail program whose address book is easily accessible without navigating past the mail bit (e.g. like Thunderbird, but Thunderbird is overkill). I either want a mutt accessibility option or for the data to be kept in something sensible like a sqlite database that I can quickly write a simple script for to feed mutt. It must support postal addresses, phone numbers, etc. and preferably have some notes/comments ability too. I'd prefer something in the Ubuntu repositories though something in Python that I can maintain myself is also OK. Any suggestions anyone? -- Chris Green

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How to unmount an ext4 file system, journalling makes it permanently busy
by Chris Green 13 Jan '17

13 Jan '17

Is there any way to unmount an ext4 filesystem without shutting down? I can do it easily by going to single-user mode or removing the filesystem from /etc/fstab and rebooting but both of these require the system to be shut down. However it seems to be impossible otherwise because the journalling process makes the filesystem busy. Is this right? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How to get rid of these corrupted files?
by Srdjan Todorovic 11 Jan '17

11 Jan '17

On 11 Jan 2017 09:58, "Chris Green" <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 10:10:42AM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > > Otherwise, I'm out of ideas. > > > So am I, I'm copy all the files of the drive and I'm going to re-make > the file systems. > ... and now, 16 hours later I'm seeing some errors. I've run 'mkfs.ext4 -c -c /dev/sdb1 and on the *second* pass I'm seeing some errors. The first 0xAA pass got no errors but the pass that's running now, writing 0x55, is getting some errors. So, presumably, that's what the problem is. However it's strange that nothing else was showing any errors, SMART reported nothing at all and Did smart long test complete at all? Im under the impression it only works when disk is idle, so if you were fscking then it wouldnt have been idle. Thats certainly been my experience recently. Regards Srdj

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th January
by Viperfang 09 Jan '17

09 Jan '17

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

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 6th January.
by Viperfang 03 Jan '17

03 Jan '17

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

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How to set system date/time automatically at power up, no CMOS clock
by Chris Green 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

I have a BeagleBone Black system which monitors things on a boat. When it powers up the time is basically random, there's no CMOS clock to give it a start. Thus I need a way to get it to about the right time and date for ntpd to take over and keep it correct. What's the normal way of doing this? It needs to be automatically run at startup. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 138, Issue 3
by Christopher Dawkins 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

>> 1. Re: Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a >> newbie to Linux (mick) > What is your threat model? A question I wonder too, but welcome to the Unix world. If you have been previously on Windows I suppose you would be worried about security, but I'd suggest you stop worrying now. Unless you are in a public position and disliked by many, such as being Donald Trump, since almost any networked system can be breached by a skilled and determined opponent. If the threat to you is such that you need an airgapped machine then I wonder how you plan to protect the machine itself, as apart from some special products (iPhones?) it's usually possible to get inside a machine if you can get it to your laboratory bench. So the important questions are not software ones, they are: Do you live in a bunker or in a house? How many security men do you have guarding this bunker or house? How many steel or six-foot-concrete walls are there between you and the outside? If you have glass windows, is the glass toughened and more than several inches thick? Do you ever leave the house with the machine inside and not guarded by a small army? Would you ever carry the machine outside without a military guard? Do you search and scan all your visitors? Will your machine have internal explosives wired to all the case screws? If you don't apply the measures suggested by the questions above, the airgap could prove to be of no use, so much so that it's not worth bothering about. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a newbie to Linux
by Ian Henderson 14 Dec '16

14 Dec '16

Hi, all, I am new to Linux. I'm porting over to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with the Unity desktop from Windows 10. I want to keep things as simple (and hopefully therefore as reliable) as possible, for home/office critical use. I also want to stick to the main and universe repositories. Because prices were much lower for Linux-compatible laptops than with Win 10 installed, I can afford two. I plan to divide them into one for critical offline-only use, and the other for universal online use. I will air-gap the two. But it also means that I need to complete the final build of the offline air-gapped laptop ahead of porting data, after which it will not go online again (unless for a wipe and rebuild). For the offline-only laptop, I am looking at the following range of apps. Could I ask that you check my ideas, and offer suggestions and advice, please.:- 1) An office-like suite, for which I will be using LibreOffice, which is installed by default. 2) I need a whole-directory and free space overwriting utility, as well as the means to securely delete individual files. My understanding is that shred and wipe are available by default. I am looking at bleachbit for the whole-directory and free space wiping. But the software centre says "sudo" for this app: does that mean it has elevated privileges and is this a bad idea? 3) GtkHash for SHA256 etc. cryptographic hashes, primarily to verify backups. 4) Can anyone suggest an archiving utility which also verifies the files within the archive (I can then hash the archive file backup)? Archiving does not necessarily have to include compression. Are any installed by default? 5) GnuPG. I understand that this is installed by default? Am I correct that I can encrypt with password files if transferring on FAT32 USB or CD/DVD with this? Is it GUI? 6) CD/DVD burning, including both copying using a single optical drive, ordinary file burning and creating bootable CD/DVD from ISO images. I'm looking at Brasero for this. Can anyone suggest any other apps I should include ahead of locking off the build? I'm also assuming that the default 16.04 LTS supports formatting USB sticks to ext4, including encryption? Also, anyone any thoughts on using live-CD version of Ubuntu for online banking (in case the online unit got owned)? Please remember that I am a complete newbie to Linux. So please remember if you start talking about OpenWTF 0.666.1066 I will have no idea what you're talking about! Not for some months yet, anyway. :) Thanks for your help, Ian (C) Copyright 2016 by Ian Henderson. All rights reserved. Do not pass on my email address without my prior written consent (if emailing multiple recipients at the same time, use the BCC field in place of the To field).

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mail failures
by Nev Young 07 Dec '16

07 Dec '16

Hi, Can any one offer advice about a problem I've been having with email for a few months now? I suspect it has something to do with increased security at host mx4.hotmail.com but I can not confirm this. The problem (in brief) I host a number of websites. Each of these has a "contacts" page where any one may send an email. The page contains the following fields: 1 a drop down box to select the recipient (e.g. secretary, chair, treasurer, events co-ordinator, etc.) 2 a text field for the sender's own email address 3 a free text field. This prevents the sender knowing the email address of the recipient and sends an email with: To: = the recipients real email address From: = the sender's own email address Subject: = "website contact" and the body containing the free text stripped of any HTML. All of the above works fine for all sender addresses and recipient addresses *except* when the sender is <sender>@yahoo.co.uk and the recipient is <recipient>@live.co.uk which results in a failed to deliver message which contains: A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: <recipient>@live.co.uk SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host mx4.hotmail.com [65.55.37.120]: 550 5.7.0 (COL004-MC4F7) Unfortunately, messages from (212.23.1.5) on behalf of (yahoo.co.uk) could not be delivered due to domain owner policy restrictions. ------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------ Meanwhile a copy of the email sent at the same time to me as site administrator works fine and is delivered. 65.55.37.120 is microsoft 212.23.1.5 is Zen internet (my isp). obviously <sender> and <recipient> have replaced real email names. Any ideas what I need to change to make hotmail accept these emails again. Or do I just have to wait it out? Nev

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th December
by Viperfang 05 Dec '16

05 Dec '16

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 8th December 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 https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd December.
by Viperfang 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

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

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Wanted - Audio player which works sensibly
by Chris Green 25 Nov '16

25 Nov '16

I have a large number of audio tracks on my computer[s] which I woiuld like to play occasionally. When at home I stream them from my desktop machine and that works *moderately* well with an Onkyo media centre and also using VLC for Android in streaming mode. However I can't find anything that simply allows me to select and play tracks (a directory at a time) directly on a laptop. I need to do this when using my laptop away from home and disconnected from the world. So, can anyone recommend a media (just audio is all I need) player which can do the following:- Navigate a hierarchy of directories containing a mix of MPG and FLAC files. Play individual files. Play the contents of a directory *once* only by default in a sensible order (classical music sounds a bit silly if you play the movements in the wrong order!). VLC is strangely almost totally useless playinmg from disk on Linux, quite unlike streaming on Android. Parole doesn't seem to be able to play a directory of sound files, at least I couldn't see how to do it. -- Chris Green

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Server permissions issue
by Chris Walker 24 Nov '16

24 Nov '16

Hello, Having built myself a Ubuntu server on an HP Proliant box, I've had it downloading iPlayer files without a problem using a cron job. I now want to add an image to the mp3 files and I do that using a script from this machine. Here's the full error :- Writing ID3 version v2.3 [Errno 13] Permission denied: u'/media/ProLiant/Media_Share/iPlayer_downloads/radio/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_A_Clue_Series_66_-_2._Episode_2.mp3' My interpretation of that is that it's caused by ID3. So (a) is it?, (b) why? With the final one (c) what can I do about it? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Re: [ALUG] Digital Ocean
by Jonathan McDowell 21 Nov '16

21 Nov '16

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 09:57:01PM +0000, Mick wrote: > Now Tor operators tend to be a suspicious, sometimes paranoid, bunch, > but given that DO now has a substantial proportion of the Tor network > on its ASs that suspicion may, just may, be justified. I still use DO > because I get huge bandwidth for bugger all money (15 dollars a month, > compared to the 12 quid I (happily) pay Bytemark for my > mail/webserver). But I would not, and do not, use DO for anything I > care about in personal terms (such as mail, or XMPP messaging). I've got a single VM with DO that handles my parents' email (so running exim/dovecot/roundcube and little else). Not had any issues with them (and in terms of the traffic stuff you mentioned and I snipped I suspect that people like me hardly using their allowance are averaging out with people like you using a lot. Bandwidth in well connected datacentres has got scarily cheap). Like you my personal stuff (such as the machine which hosts this list) is with Bytemark. > Most importantly from my (admittedly somewhat paranoid viewpoint) the > VM allows me to choose my own kernel to go with the OS of my choice. > DO don't do that. You get to "choose" one of their kernels underneath > your installed OS. This has changed; when I started I was limited to the DO provided kernels, but my Debian VM with them is now using Debian provided kernels I installed - they've got a "grub" option in the web interface now which then boots a kernel from the VM image. J. -- Revd Jonathan McDowell, ULC | You want me, but it scares you.

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Re: [ALUG] VPN
by Mick 19 Nov '16

19 Nov '16

Sorry all. Typo in earlier email. Should be itldc see https://itldc.com/en/ --------------------------------------- (This is a copy of the earlier mail sent from my phone. That phone's email client seems to upset the list mail server.) Mick

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Re: [ALUG] VPN
by Mick 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

I too use DO. I even use them for my Tor node and my tails mirror. I used to use them for my whonix mirror as well, but whonix now fund all their own mirror structure so they don't need volunteers any more. But, and this is a big but, despite the fact that they have data centres all over the place, they are a US company. Furthermore, there is a certain lack of clarity about their funding. It is not at all obvious how they can have grown as rapidly as they have or how they can afford to finance the network bandwidth they use on the income they get from VM rental. As an early adopter I was "grandfathered" in to their new commercial contract. That contract is supposed to limit network usage (check the DO site for details). Bandwidth costs money. As a grandfathered user I get unlimited bandwidth. My Tor mode regularly chews through 6 to 7 TB of data a month - and I actually limit that node. What is less well known, but gets discussed on the Tor mailing lists, is that /none/ of the supposedly capped contracts are actually bandwidth capped at the moment. So you can get a VM for $5 which has unlimited network access. That is not a commercially viable arrangement and it strongly suggests that funding is coming from somewhere unknown. Now Tor operators tend to be a suspicious, sometimes paranoid, bunch, but given that DO now has a substantial proportion of the Tor network on its ASs that suspicion may, just may, be justified. I still use DO because I get huge bandwidth for bugger all money (15 dollars a month, compared to the 12 quid I (happily) pay Bytemark for my mail/webserver). But I would not, and do not, use DO for anything I care about in personal terms (such as mail, or XMPP messaging). So, if you want to use a server for a VPN, I'd personally recommend against DO. I am currently playing with a server in Sofia owned by ITDLC. They are a European supplier with servers in Bulgaria, the Ukraine, the Czech republic and the Netherlands. All looks good so far. The server I have is pretty fast, appears to be stable and most importantly is outside both the UK and US control. It cost me just over 3 quid for the month. Most importantly from my (admittedly somewhat paranoid viewpoint) the VM allows me to choose my own kernel to go with the OS of my choice. DO don't do that. You get to "choose" one of their kernels underneath your installed OS. Apart from my dislike of that model This can, and does, lead to the absurd position where you cannot actually install Openvpn because the tun kernel module won't load because of inconsistencies between the kernel you think you have and the one DO has actually loaded. Of course, all of this is probably moot because all VMs are subject to total surveillance by the owner/operator if they so choose. But, and this depends on your threat model, I feel a little happier with a VM that at least looks and feels "secure" to me. DO doesn't give me that warm feeling. (Bytemark do. In fact I feel very warm about them. But they don't give enough bandwidth at the price point I can pay to let me do all I want to do.) Mick (Please excuse top posting. On my phone, not at my desk. And yes, I know that K9 avoids that.......)On 17 Nov 2016 10:06, Laurie Brown wrote: > > On 16/11/16 20:17, Mick wrote: > > Bev > > > > Rent yourself a VM somewhere outside the UK (but not in the US). Set > > up openvpn on that box. Ubuntu handles that perfectly well. The VPN > > will hide all activity from your ISP so they can't log it. Better > > yet, for anonymity, use Tor. In fact you could combine the two so > > that your ISP can't even see that you are using Tor. > > > > Happy to help if necessary. > > Agreed. > > I can highly recommend Digital Ocean, who have data centres all over the > place. The Dutch one typically give me speeds of over 400meg. > > Their base server is $5 a month and is perfectly adequate for the task. > It takes about 1 minute to set up an Ubuntu VM (with SSD disks) and not > too long to install OpenVPN. > > If you do decide to go for DO, then use my referral link and you'll get > $10 in credit immediately (2 free months!). To be open, if you do use my > link, after you've spend $25, they credit my account with $25 as well. > You can cancel at any time. With 2 free months you have nothing to lose > by giving it a go. > > https://m.do.co/c/7cd7395ed31b > > Just to be clear, I have been using DO for a very long time, and I would > recommend them even without any incentive. > > Cheers, Laurie. > > PS. Their API is very Ansible-friendly. > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Laurie Brown > laurie(a)brownowl.com > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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Re: [ALUG] VPN
by Laurie Brown 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

On 16/11/16 20:17, Mick wrote: > Bev > > Rent yourself a VM somewhere outside the UK (but not in the US). Set > up openvpn on that box. Ubuntu handles that perfectly well. The VPN > will hide all activity from your ISP so they can't log it. Better > yet, for anonymity, use Tor. In fact you could combine the two so > that your ISP can't even see that you are using Tor. > > Happy to help if necessary. Agreed. I can highly recommend Digital Ocean, who have data centres all over the place. The Dutch one typically give me speeds of over 400meg. Their base server is $5 a month and is perfectly adequate for the task. It takes about 1 minute to set up an Ubuntu VM (with SSD disks) and not too long to install OpenVPN. If you do decide to go for DO, then use my referral link and you'll get $10 in credit immediately (2 free months!). To be open, if you do use my link, after you've spend $25, they credit my account with $25 as well. You can cancel at any time. With 2 free months you have nothing to lose by giving it a go. https://m.do.co/c/7cd7395ed31b Just to be clear, I have been using DO for a very long time, and I would recommend them even without any incentive. Cheers, Laurie. PS. Their API is very Ansible-friendly. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] VPN
by Mick 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

Bev Rent yourself a VM somewhere outside the UK (but not in the US). Set up openvpn on that box. Ubuntu handles that perfectly well. The VPN will hide all activity from your ISP so they can't log it. Better yet, for anonymity, use Tor. In fact you could combine the two so that your ISP can't even see that you are using Tor. Happy to help if necessary. MickOn 16 Nov 2016 5:32 p.m., Bev Nicolson <lumos(a)gmx.co.uk> wrote: > > So the IP Bill has gone through Parliament so soon all the websites we > visit will be logged. Yay. Anyway, various commentators say 'get a > VPN'. so I wanted ask whether the one that comes with Ubuntu for network > management is OK? I have to say, I know next to nothing about this hence > my question. > > > Bev. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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VPN
by Bev Nicolson 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

So the IP Bill has gone through Parliament so soon all the websites we visit will be logged. Yay. Anyway, various commentators say 'get a VPN'. so I wanted ask whether the one that comes with Ubuntu for network management is OK? I have to say, I know next to nothing about this hence my question. Bev.

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WiFi autochannel oddness???
by Bill Hill 14 Nov '16

14 Nov '16

Hi, I've got a WiFI router ADSL thingy on one side of the house (by the phone socket). At certain times of the day I have trouble getting connected from the far side of the house. I can usually see 6-10 other SSIDs, so was guessing this was someone nearby having their device on and colliding, but only sometimes. So I left this running on a RasPi: while true; do ( date "+%Y%m%d%H%M" ; iwlist wlan0 scan | egrep "Channel:" ) > $(date "+%Y%m%d%H%M").log ; sleep 300 ; done Well, now I've got some data: for ((i=1;i<14;i++)); do printf "Channel:%02d = " $i ; ( grep "Channel:$i" *.log | wc -l ) ; done And the results: Channel:01 = 1504 Channel:02 = 26 Channel:03 = 0 Channel:04 = 0 Channel:05 = 0 Channel:06 = 741 Channel:07 = 0 Channel:08 = 0 Channel:09 = 0 Channel:10 = 0 Channel:11 = 223 Channel:12 = 0 Channel:13 = 0 I know channels 1,6&11 are the non-overlapping ones, but isn't this a bit...skewed???!? (Now off auto-selected Channel 1, thanks Netgear, and manually set to Channel 9). -- Red to red, black to black, switch it on, but stand well back.

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nut upsmon comms issues
by Mark Rogers 14 Nov '16

14 Nov '16

Anyone here got more experience of UPS monitoring than I have? I have a UPS configured and working, however it periodically loses communications. I'm not too concerned about that - the server is due for replacement in the next couple of months anyway - but the comms errors are generating emails that I'd like to tweak so they're not filling my inbox. My inbox is filled with COMMBAD emails, followed within seconds (under a minute, usually) by COMMOK. So I'd like to put a delay on the triggering of a warning. The parameter that looks right is NOCOMMWARNTIME in /etc/upsmon.conf, but it defaults to 300s (5 min) anyway; I upped it to 600s (10min) with no change. I think on re-reading the man pages that this affects how often the warning is sent once triggered, not how long after detection the first warning gets sent. The emails get sent to a dedicated "systems" mailbox that should only get stuff that needs action, so getting a COMMBAD/COMMOK pair every few hours is quite frustrating. But turning off monitoring altogether seems like a bad "fix". Any suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th November
by Viperfang 07 Nov '16

07 Nov '16

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 10th November at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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New member introduction
by Pete Dowdell 06 Nov '16

06 Nov '16

Hello! I joined the list last week. Here is an introduction, as asked: My name is Pete, I am a web developer. GNU/Linux servers are crucial to my work. I also use Ubuntu as my main O/S on my personal machines. I really like Linux! I have mainly joined this list as I am planning to come to Norwich this coming Thursday and meet some ALUG people in the pub. Looking forward to meeting you all then - I hope I have my dates correct! (I do, right? ;) Cheers, pd

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New member introduction
by Pete Dowdell 06 Nov '16

06 Nov '16

Hello! I joined the list last week. Here is an introduction, as asked: My name is Pete, I am a web developer. GNU/Linux servers are crucial to my work. I also use Ubuntu as my main O/S on my personal machines. I really like Linux! I have mainly joined this list as I am planning to come to Norwich this coming Thursday and meet some ALUG people in the pub. Looking forward to meeting you all then - I hope I have my dates correct! (I do, right? ;) Cheers, pd

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Re: [ALUG] Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a newbie toLinux
by Noel Galer 03 Nov '16

03 Nov '16

Ian, >From another noobie, may I wish you every success with this interesting project and I look forward to hearing of your progress. Best regards, Noel ( Xorsyst ) ________________________________ From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Ian Henderson Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2016 9:09 AM To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a newbie toLinux Hi, all, I am new to Linux. I'm porting over to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with the Unity desktop from Windows 10. I want to keep things as simple (and hopefully therefore as reliable) as possible, for home/office critical use. I also want to stick to the main and universe repositories. Because prices were much lower for Linux-compatible laptops than with Win 10 installed, I can afford two. I plan to divide them into one for critical offline-only use, and the other for universal online use. I will air-gap the two. But it also means that I need to complete the final build of the offline air-gapped laptop ahead of porting data, after which it will not go online again (unless for a wipe and rebuild). For the offline-only laptop, I am looking at the following range of apps. Could I ask that you check my ideas, and offer suggestions and advice, please.:- 1) An office-like suite, for which I will be using LibreOffice, which is installed by default. 2) I need a whole-directory and free space overwriting utility, as well as the means to securely delete individual files. My understanding is that shred and wipe are available by default. I am looking at bleachbit for the whole-directory and free space wiping. But the software centre says "sudo" for this app: does that mean it has elevated privileges and is this a bad idea? 3) GtkHash for SHA256 etc. cryptographic hashes, primarily to verify backups. 4) Can anyone suggest an archiving utility which also verifies the files within the archive (I can then hash the archive file backup)? Archiving does not necessarily have to include compression. Are any installed by default? 5) GnuPG. I understand that this is installed by default? Am I correct that I can encrypt with password files if transferring on FAT32 USB or CD/DVD with this? Is it GUI? 6) CD/DVD burning, including both copying using a single optical drive, ordinary file burning and creating bootable CD/DVD from ISO images. I'm looking at Brasero for this. Can anyone suggest any other apps I should include ahead of locking off the build? I'm also assuming that the default 16.04 LTS supports formatting USB sticks to ext4, including encryption? Also, anyone any thoughts on using live-CD version of Ubuntu for online banking (in case the online unit got owned)? Please remember that I am a complete newbie to Linux. So please remember if you start talking about OpenWTF 0.666.1066 I will have no idea what you're talking about! Not for some months yet, anyway. :) Thanks for your help, Ian (C) Copyright 2016 by Ian Henderson. All rights reserved. Do not pass on my email address without my prior written consent (if emailing multiple recipients at the same time, use the BCC field in place of the To field).

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Re: [ALUG] 2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th November.
by Nev Young 01 Nov '16

01 Nov '16

On 01/11/16 02:00, Viperfang wrote: > Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, > more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk > Oh no it isn't! Because of the fireworks in town on Friday we're meeting at my house. Limited room so invitation only. email me directly for location and directions. Nev

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th November.
by Viperfang 01 Nov '16

01 Nov '16

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

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Is there such a thing as an ethernet switch with WiFi?
by Chris Green 31 Oct '16

31 Oct '16

This isn't really specifically a Linux question but I'm sure the ALUG team should be able to come up with an answer. I want a box which is an ethernet switch/hub (ideally an 8-port though five might be just enough) and also provides WiFi. I.e. a switch with both wired and wifi connections. It doesn't have to have any other intelligence, it doesn't need to be a router or anything. This is to hang onto the ethernet port of an outdoor WiFi access point which is running in WISP Client mode (a TP-Link TL-WA7210). The TL-WA7210 provides DHCP and DNS (via the WiFi hotspot it's connected to) so all I want is a box to provide multiple wired and wifi connections to the LAN side of the TL-WA7210. Is there such a beast? Is there a specific name for it? -- Chris Green

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iplayer issues
by Chris Walker 31 Oct '16

31 Oct '16

I recently built myself an HP ProLiant server. It's running Ubuntu server and I have most things working except the get_iplayer PVR option. I can run get_iplayer as the user as I have a script on the box which runs and can set the output correctly and transcode it into the required formats (radio and tv). So everything *appears* to run ok. But when I add the pvr option, I don't get the required downloads. Just in case it was something I'd done on the server, I tried creating a pvr list on this machine with just one radio programme, but again, when I run the pvr command, I don't get any downloads, only the statement that it's 'Running PVR Searches:'. Has anybody any idea where I'm going wrong please as I've spent many hours on this now and I'm getting nowhere despite looking through several pages of FAQ on the get_iplayer forums. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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SETI etc
by Mark Rogers 27 Oct '16

27 Oct '16

I have a virtual server at a hosting provider that I've cancelled, but it's got a few weeks left of what's currently been paid so rather than just leave it switched off I wondered about using it for something like SETI or similar. I really don't have time to configure and play with something; it really wants to be as close to "apt-get install seti" and walk away as I can get. It's also worth bearing in mind that this isn't a high power VM and I don't want to do anything that will upset the hosting provider by overstressing it. Suggestions? Or should I just leave it to fester? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Server permissions
by Chris Walker 25 Oct '16

25 Oct '16

Having bought an HP ProLiant server, I have finally managed to install Ubuntu Server on it and configure all the shares on it to replicate my old Edimax NAS. The problem comes when I try to run get_iplayer. What I used to do was run get_iplayer on this machine but save the files to the Edimax in a Media_Share folder. That same folder exists on the Ubuntu box, but although I can write to it from here, get_iplayer on ubuntu can't write to it. My intention is to have get_iplayer run every few hours but I'm guessing that it will still run as the main user on the box and therefore will still have problems writing to the share. Plainly I'd like a solution to this. My initial thought was to add the user to the same group as the one that owns the share but is this the best way to do it or is there another way? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Making sense of ps
by Mark Rogers 24 Oct '16

24 Oct '16

I'm trying to monitor the memory usage of kweb running on a Pi. I have always found ps confusing with its multiple UNIX/BSD/GNU personalities. This is what I started with: $ps -F -C kweb UID PID PPID C SZ RSS PSR STIME TTY TIME CMD pi 936 756 1 67783 111088 1 09:53 ? 00:02:47 kweb -KFJHEP I find that the SZ/RSS values increase over time then drop, presumably due to some garbage collection (I'm really just guessing!). However the %age of memory used by kweb according to "top" keeps increasing, and is closer to the values I get from: $ps uax |grep -E '(kweb|USER)' USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND pi 936 1.1 11.7 271380 111304 ? Sl 09:53 2:47 kweb -KFJHEP What figures should I care about if I'm trying to track down a possible memory leak, and how do i coax them out of ps (or another tool)? Bonus question: What's the best way to get the values I'm interested in as a comma separated string (I'm trying to build a CSV file I can investigate in LibreOffice). A simple search & replace for spaces to commas doesn't work because spaces occur within some fields (and especially if I try to include other fields like start or running times). Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Ubuntu has trashed the RAID
by Chris Walker 18 Oct '16

18 Oct '16

I've installed Ubuntu server on to a recently purchased HP ProLiant server. I did it first without my 2 1TB drives in it as I wanted to make sure that everything worked. It did and I could ssh into it from here. I then installed the 2 1TB drives which came from my old NAS machine and tried again. When the HP booted, it failed to see the SSD on to which I'd installed Ubuntu and as my skills aren't sufficiently good to rescue the system, and as I'd not done anything special to Ubuntu, I re-installed it. But Ubuntu has written the swap partition, not to the SSD but to one of the RAID drives which I'm not impressed by. I still have all the data on another disc so I'm not worried too much about that, I'm more concerned with how I move the swap partition to the SSD. Any suggestions on how I might go about that? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[green.blackhousekeeping@gmail.com: Re: [alug social] Hello from new subscriber]
by Steve Engledow 17 Oct '16

17 Oct '16

Did anyone else get this bizarre bit of spam? Love it :) (Sent from my Arch linux machine - I don't run Ubuntu ;) ----- Forwarded message from Hung Sing Choy Li Fut Lady虎爪 <green.blackhousekeeping(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 19:58:26 +0100 From: Hung Sing Choy Li Fut Lady虎爪 <green.blackhousekeeping(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Engledow <steve(a)offend.me.uk> Subject: Re: [alug social] Hello from new subscriber You are misnamed. You call yourself a Linux user group, but you should call it an Ubuntu User Group, since Ubuntu users are clearly all you are prepared to accept. They're certainly the only people you're prepared to offer help to, even if you could help them convert to Ubuntu from my experience. Once a Fedora user, condemned forever, apparently. Oh and the problem turned out to be with my hardware, not my OS. If you had been able to get over laughing at me for being so utterly stupid as to use Fedora, you might have been able to help me work that out. Can't say the attitude I've experienced has made me want to convert to Ubuntu. If that is what Ubuntu users are like, you can keep your supposedly superior Linux system. On 13 Oct 2016 12:05, "Steve Engledow" <steve(a)offend.me.uk> wrote: > Hi Ian, > > Don't worry, we'll be conspicuous enough ;) > > Steve > > On 10/10, Ian Henderson wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm Ian. > > > > I've just braved the new world (for me) of Linux (Ubuntu), having been > > a long-time user both personally and professionally of Windows. Kind > > of scary and exciting to find myself a complete newbie with an OS > > again. But Microsoft's push updates and the critical role that my > > laptop has for me means I need to make the change or risk periods with > > no computer. > > > > I understand that you meet every 2nd Thursday in the Coach & Horses > > pub - and am assuming that means this Thursday (13th) at 8pm? If so, > > I'd like to go along so would ask you to "make yourselves > > conspicuous"(!) if you would, please. :) > > > > I'm happy to exchange home tel no with someone if you think that wise. > > > > Take care, all, > > Ian > > (C) Copyright 2016 by Ian Henderson. All rights reserved. > > Do not pass on my email address without my prior written consent (if > > emailing multiple recipients at the same time, use the BCC field in > > place of the To field). > > > _______________________________________________ > > The Alug Social mailing list > > To post: Social(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To change your subscription options, visit:- > > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/social > > > _______________________________________________ > The Alug Social mailing list > To post: Social(a)lists.alug.org.uk > To change your subscription options, visit:- > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/social > ----- End forwarded message -----

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Re: [ALUG] Recovering a NAS
by Chris Walker 14 Oct '16

14 Oct '16

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:58:07 +0100 mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > On Tue, 27 Sep 2016 14:52:28 +0100 > Chris Walker <alug_cdw(a)the-walker-household.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > > [ some snips ] > > > > 2009 is a long time ago. Time to upgrade. :-) > > > > I didn't realise it was so long ago until I started looking for the > > receipt. It's stored as a scanned image on the NAS ;-) > > But of course you have a backup copy... :-) Isn't that what RAID is for? So, as you might well assume from the previous line, no I don't have another copy as I've always trusted RAID to deliver everything for me. I'm beginning to see the error of my ways though. > I'd agree with Steve. If you wish to continue to use a separate NAS, > then build a PC to hold the disks and copy the data to new disks. I've > had success with both debian and ubuntu in both raid 1 and 5. My > current NAS uses 4 * 2 TB disks in a raid 5 array (backed up to a 6 TB > USB disk) built using ubuntu server 16.04. (Incidentally, if you > haven't already seen it, the "Wintel Guy" has a useful site at > http://wintelguy.com/raidcalc.pl giving all sorts of useful info about > raid configurations.) Thanks. I'll take a look at that site. I'm tending to move to the 'build a PC for NAS' idea. I've looked at small(ish) cases and now need to start looking for suitable motherboards and power supplies. > > Noel Galer suggested that I look on ebay for a replacement Edimax > > NAS box. Been there, done that, but all the t-shirts were sold out. > > You don't want an old T shirt anyway. I've already got plenty :-) > > I think the drives hold something like 850GB of files of all sorts. > Given that, I'd go for 2 * 2 TB disks in raid 1. Ok. Assuming that's the route I take, and adopt your maxim of backing that up to a large USB disc, can I automate that? I don't mind copying stuff to a NAS but then don't want to have to go to the trouble of copying stuff to a USB disc as well. The reason I want it to be automatic is that I know things will be overlooked if they're not. P.S. I remembered to copy this to the list as well this time! -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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diff of binary files with helper program
by Mark Rogers 07 Oct '16

07 Oct '16

I need to perform diff against DBF (dBase database) files. dvview does a decent job of turning them into text files, but I don't want to have to convert all the files to text just to perform a diff. So I want a way to do something like: diff --helper=dbview file1.dbf file2.dbf .. or diff $(dbview file1.dbf) $(dbview file2.dbf) .. so that the files get converted to text on the fly. (Neither of those are remotely valid but hopely they get the idea across.) Is there a good way to do this? One objective is to do this using streams if possible, so that if file1.dbf and file2.dbf are very large there isn't any need to intermediate storage of files, but that isn't a huge problem if that's the only solution. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th October.
by Viperfang 04 Oct '16

04 Oct '16

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

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Re: [ALUG] Recording Streaming Audio
by Peter Berrie 02 Oct '16

02 Oct '16

Phil, Thanks a lot. Seems to be that if you stream at say 320k mp3, what will happen is that it will be decoded, imported into audacity, then when you save, it will be recoded into FLAC or WAV or whatever you choose. Probably the thing to do is take the FLAC version in the first place, then save to FLAC from Audacity, and there should be no losses. My service has an offline listening service as it happens, so you can use their app and download and then sign in, in some way, not sure whether that is on or off line, and play without re-streaming. If you leave the service all those saved tracks go. And having done this on one album, I cannot for the life of me find where they have stored the tracks. Today I was on the service, which is generally really nice, and got an album up. It turns out that all tracks cannot be either listened to online or downloaded, but have to be bought. This is basically a totally irritating business. I like to use my little Sandisk player sometimes when out, which is cheap and cheerful but has quite extraordinary sound quality for the price -- and more importantly, for the minimal weight and bulk. But the restrictions imposed by the streaming service with the aim of preserving copyright seem utterly ridiculous by comparison to the freedom you have with a bought CD, which you can rip and move around and listen to on whatever you want. I am now looking at mplayer, which lets you send the user agent string of your choice, as well as do user name and password. Probably there will be some ingenious and cunning way they have thought of to prevent that! Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Recording Streaming Audio
by Phil Ashby 30 Sep '16

30 Sep '16

On 30/09/16 12:00, PB <peter.northerly(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > Does anyone understand how Linux audio works, well enough to give me > some pointers on this? Hi Peter, I'll give it go, having spent far too long with my virtual arm up the insides of Linux audio stuff while getting radio stations working :) > ... > Sometimes I want to listen to the material on my tiny little portable > player when out and about. So I record the stream to file and copy > it across. I've discovered two fairly straightforward ways of doing > this. They are a bit manual, but I do not do it often so its OK. > > [recording the outgoing stream using gramofile or Audacity which > both produce WAV files - why?] This is simply because these tools pick up the raw, uncompressed digital audio stream going out of your SPDIF port, /after/ any app or media player has decoded the incoming (compressed) audio stream. They do this as it's guaranteed to work (no messing with decoders, or strange interfaces) and is always available either from the low level drivers (ALSA) or a preceding audio mixer such as PulseAudio. > There is also a package called streamripper, which seems like it > would do this, but I have not yet bothered. It lets you send a user > string corresponding to Firefox and to input user name and password. > And maybe mplayer will do it, and there is probably a way to input > user name and password on VLC from a command line startup. But the > above two methods work so I have not hacked around with alternatives > any further. You may have some success, it depends on how the streaming service protect their content using various Digital Rights Management (DRM) techniques (aka encryption/obfuscation). See below. > I would like to be able to save the stream in the mode in which its > received. If it is, for instance 320k mp3, then I would like to save > it as that, with no recoding which presumably will lower quality. > But something else must be going on with gramofile, because its WAV > that is written to disk. Similarly with Audacity. At what point are > they getting the stream and what are they doing with it? > ... > And if so, how do you get to write the digital stream being received, > with no conversions, just as it comes in, to file? @see above regarding where gramofile and Audacity get their audio from and why it's always WAV (raw) at this point. These raw audio recordings will be a bit-perfect copy of what you are hearing, no loss of quality. If you are really streaming MP3 files (not some weird AAC, WMA or other encrypted/protected format), then you /may/ be able to recover the file URL from your browser and use wget or curl to simply fetch the file. Most streaming services however go to great lengths to stop this as they don't want you taking a copy for yourself. Typical 'protection' mechanisms are: generating the majority of the browser content dynamically using obfuscated Javascript, embedding the media player in Adobe crud ware (Flashplayer), using custom codecs or whole applications that contain decryption keys, using proprietary protocols built on Websockets.. the list is endless and this is why tools like 'streamripper' may not work. I would continue using your existing technique(s), perhaps compressing the raw WAVs with flac or lame if you want to save disk space. Cheers, Phil. PS: It used to be possible to use a similar recording technique on Windows XP (from the 'Stereo Mix' device). Microsoft were encouraged by the recording industry to make that much more difficult in later versions, and some sound card manufacturers removed the capability entirely from their device drivers... think yourself lucky that won't happen on Linux :)

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Recording Streaming Audio
by PB 30 Sep '16

30 Sep '16

Hi, Does anyone understand how Linux audio works, well enough to give me some pointers on this? I subscribe to an audio streaming service. I listen to this by accessing the material on Firefox, and this sends it over SPDIF out to an outboard combined DAC and headphone amp. So far everything is fine and it sounds great. However, this is at my desk....where we are not always sitting when wanting to listen to tunes. Sometimes I want to listen to the material on my tiny little portable player when out and about. So I record the stream to file and copy it across. I've discovered two fairly straightforward ways of doing this. They are a bit manual, but I do not do it often so its OK. One is a neat little command line tool called gramofile. You start it up in record mode, then tune in the stream, and it writes it to a WAV file of your choice. Why WAV, when its coming in as MP3? Dunno. The second is, you start pavucontrol, then Audacity, and after getting the source right, you just do record, and start up the stream. This records it, and you then save it as whatever you want. There is also a package called streamripper, which seems like it would do this, but I have not yet bothered. It lets you send a user string corresponding to Firefox and to input user name and password. And maybe mplayer will do it, and there is probably a way to input user name and password on VLC from a command line startup. But the above two methods work so I have not hacked around with alternatives any further. My puzzle is not about HOW to do it, its about WHAT this is doing. I would like to be able to save the stream in the mode in which its received. If it is, for instance 320k mp3, then I would like to save it as that, with no recoding which presumably will lower quality. But something else must be going on with gramofile, because its WAV that is written to disk. Similarly with Audacity. At what point are they getting the stream and what are they doing with it? When doing the above recording, what exactly is being recorded? Is it a digital stream that is being written to file? Is there any format conversion going on in gramofile or audacity? Are they maybe taking the analogue signal, and if so from where, and encoding it? And if so, how do you get to write the digital stream being received, with no conversions, just as it comes in, to file? PB

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Disk to disk imaging
by Mark Rogers 28 Sep '16

28 Sep '16

I have a 2TB drive I want to copy to another 2TB drive. They're attached as USB devices to my Ubuntu desktop. I don't want to shut down and use a boot CD (eg Clonezilla) because I want to keep using my PC in the meantime. Assuming I want to copy from /dev/sdX to /dev/sdY, I know I can use dd if=/dev/sdX of=dev/sdY .. but it'll be slow because it'll copy loads of empty space. I know I can use partclone, which "understands" various filesystems and can skip empty space, but that won't clone the partitioning itself, nor I assume will it copy any boot sector stuff? What's the bit I'm missing, and/or is there a better way? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Recovering a NAS
by Chris Walker 27 Sep '16

27 Sep '16

In 2009 I bought an Edimax NAS from Scan.co.uk and it's worked fine since, albeit with a change of hard drives. However over the weekend it wouldn't power up cleanly. Neither of the hard drive lights would come on and it wouldn't come ready. I also couldn't communicate with it in any way. I got in touch with Edimax and they suggested doing a reset on it. That at least allowed me to communicate with it and it came ready, but it said that the discs weren't installed correctly although it did show the partitions. I removed both drives (WD 1TB Red drives in RAID1) and using mdadm, I can see the contents of disc 1 and it all looks ok. If I buy another NAS box, is there any way I can simply put these drives in it and expect it to work, or should I expect the new box to have a different arrangement somehow of formatting? What I'm seeking to avoid is loads of copying and moving of files. Are there any recommendations from people here as to a small (I don't want huge amounts of storage and I power off the box when not used) NAS? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Re: [ALUG] Recovering a NAS
by Noel Galer 27 Sep '16

27 Sep '16

>-----Original Message----- >From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Chris >Walker >Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 10:10 AM >To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >Subject: [ALUG] Recovering a NAS > >In 2009 I bought an Edimax NAS from Scan.co.uk and it's worked fine >since, albeit with a change of hard drives. > >However over the weekend it wouldn't power up cleanly. Neither of the >hard drive lights would come on and it wouldn't come ready. I also >couldn't communicate with it in any way. > >I got in touch with Edimax and they suggested doing a reset on it. That >at least allowed me to communicate with it and it came ready, but it >said that the discs weren't installed correctly although it did show >the partitions. > >I removed both drives (WD 1TB Red drives in RAID1) and using mdadm, I >can see the contents of disc 1 and it all looks ok. > >If I buy another NAS box, is there any way I can simply put these >drives in it and expect it to work, or should I expect the new box to >have a different arrangement somehow of formatting? > >What I'm seeking to avoid is loads of copying and moving of files. > >Are there any recommendations from people here as to a small (I don't >want huge amounts of storage and I power off the box when not used) NAS? > >-- > __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. >/ _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | >\__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________| > > I think as you suggest, any other NAS enclosure would likely have a different setup and the disks would not just transfer across. It is my understanding that much of a RAID drives configuration is actually on the drive itself with only some of it in the controller. Personally I would look on eBay and try to locate an identical unit which I would expect to 'just work'. However, if the worst comes to the worst and you are forced to copy huge tranches of files and are looking for a way to feel sure that the source and destination might actually match, plus you can put up with using Windows for a while ( assuming your disk formats are compatible ), I would thoroughly recommend trying a fabulous tool that must have been designed with us in mind. It is called 'Beyond Compare' by Scooter Software and I have been using it every day for over a decade. You can easily see what is on the source and destination disks side by side and copy all or part of you disk, at once or in recoverable stages and even compare multiple files and folders byte by byte to ensure all is well. See here :- http://www.scootersoftware.com/ Good luck, Noel ( Xorsyst ) _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

2 1

Transferring servers
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

Hi, My in-home server is at the end of it's tether, and I need to move to new hardware (motherboard, psu, case, fans etc) before the old one finally fails. This is a very stupid question. Under windows, in days of old (win 95, 98, xp for instance), I've had some success in the past, with just transferring hard disks into the new machine, and then installing relevant drivers. Would this work under linux? (I'm running xubuntu) If not, what's the best way to go? Installing the same version of xubuntu on the new machine with the same packages as the old one, then copying the data and config files, or copying everything from the old machine and then booting from a live cd and installing from there over the top of the transferred data, then tweaking or restoring the customised config files, or something else? I'm currently raided (Raid 1, 2 disks mirrored). Presumably I should do this again? I have a / and a home partition. Again, should I stick with this? Should I be using LVM (Logical Volume Management)? If so, how can I do it with RAID? Any/all advice gratefully received! Steve

5 7

Linux magazines
by Mark Rogers 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

I have various Linux magazines going back over several years that are taking up space. I'm tempted to keep them as an interesting archive of how things have progressed, but I'm also thinking of letting some/all go to recover some room on the bookshelf. Is there any interest here if I decide to let them go? If there's interest I can get some kind of list together, but over the years I've tended to subscribe to most Linux magazines (although not necessarily kept them all). It's unlikely I've still got many cover CD/DVDs. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

4 4

Intltool install fails
by Chris Walker 11 Sep '16

11 Sep '16

I'm trying to install intltool in order that i can run Asunder - a CD ripping tool - but it's failing. There are lots of errors all along the same lines (all python related). Here's the first :- file /usr/share/glib-2.0/codegen/__init__.pyo from install of lib64glib2.0-devel-2.48.2-1.mga6.x86_64 conflicts with file from package libglib2.0-devel-2.48.2-1.mga6.i586 If both the i586 and x86_64 versions are the same, where is there a conflict and is there any way for me to resolve it? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

2 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th September
by Viperfang 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] System battery low
by Bev Nicolson 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

Are these instructions ok? http://www.wikihow.com/Replace-the-Battery-in-Your-PC That's the kind of info I'd need. Step by step with pics if possible! Bev. On 01/09/16 11:03, Noel Galer wrote: > This seems to be simply a matter of the CMOS battery on the motherboard that maintains the NVRAM / BIOS settings running low. The matter of surge suppressors seems to be a red herring as the date of that thread is 2003. However, something seemed to be causing corruption of the CMOS, since a simple removal and replacement would not otherwise have cleared it permanently if the battery was actually low. Although probably not caused by a surge suppressor in your case, the CMOS could still be corrupted and removal / replacement / noting settings and reloading them might still work. However, the battery is probably near the end of it's life anyway and they are about £1 to buy. As an engineer I would have no issue changing the battery but can understand that others may be reluctant to do so. There therefore seems to be two choices for you, take it to a shop and pay for the battery to be replaced specifying clearly that they record the settings, clear the CMOS and restore settings again afterwards. Or do it yourself. If you decide to do this, I recommend using a loop of 'Sellotape' firmly stuck to the flat top of the battery before removal, this is for you to hold whilst releasing the clip that secures the battery. This will help prevent the battery slipping out of your hand and landing across exposed conductors / components, which if there is any life in the battery, could otherwise damage the motherboard. > > Best regards, > > Noel > > Noel Galer > > -----Original Message----- > From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Bev Nicolson > Sent: 01 September 2016 09:00 > To: ALUG > Subject: Re: [ALUG] System battery low > > On 01/09/16 08:38, Bev Nicolson wrote: >> That's the alert I just got on my Dell. I have googled but to be >> honest, I'm not confident about fixing this. The advice 'dhg' got here >> from Dell seems the one to go for but how do I do that? >> >> >> http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/1915445 >> >> >> Bev. >> > Not a laptop, btw. Dell Optiplex 745 should that make any difference. > Ubuntu 14.04LTS with all updates installed. > > Bev. > > > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >

3 8

System battery low
by Bev Nicolson 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

That's the alert I just got on my Dell. I have googled but to be honest, I'm not confident about fixing this. The advice 'dhg' got here from Dell seems the one to go for but how do I do that? http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/1915445 Bev.

1 1

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd September.
by Viperfang 30 Aug '16

30 Aug '16

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

1 0

Tablet that runs Linux - are there any?
by Chris Green 27 Aug '16

27 Aug '16

I'm getting totally fed up with trying to use Android tablets to do anything remotely useful, they're full of junk software you can't get rid of and you can't access the parts you want. So, can one get a tablet (7" or maybe up to 9") that runs some vaguely normal version of Linux? -- Chris Green

5 11

Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 134, Issue 8 - linux tablets
by PB 25 Aug '16

25 Aug '16

I have tried to install Linux on a Linx 8. One of the problems is that you have 32bit EFI and a 64bit processor. The processor is an Atom. So you can't get it to boot a normal 64bit distro. This means either using bootia32.efi, which defeated me, or finding an EFI based 32 bit distribution. The only one I've heard of is Sparky Linux. That did at least start booting, but the display just went blank when it tried to load X. Maybe the bigger Linx will work better. I have given up on the 8 inch one. I also tried to install Debian on the Nook, and the package seemed to go in fine, but I have not managed to get Debian to boot and work normally.... P

2 1

Is there any easy way to view mounted 'real' disk drives?
by Chris Green 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Once upon a time you could use the command 'mount' to see what filesystems were mounted but it has now got so cluttered with 'virtual' filesystems that it's pretty useless. What's an easy way of seeing what actual, data containing, useful filesystems are mounted? I.e. the physical disks and the NFS ones. -- Chris Green

6 8

Slow 8TB drive
by Mark Rogers 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

I have a new 8TB Seagate drive, extracted from a USB3 "Backup Plus" drive and installed on a SATA3 connector. It has a single partition on it. The actual disk is a "ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z" which is an archive drive so I'm not expecting stellar performance, but even so it feels very slow. For example, running up a Windows VirtualBox VM from that disk feels like it's being dragged through treacle (the host PC is an i7-6700k with 32GB RAM so it should run comfortably). I'd speculate I may have poor disk alignment but I don't know how to check; the results of Googling got me to sudo parted /dev/sda "align-check optimal 1" which reports "1 aligned". Am I just pushing the drive in a direction it doesn't want to go? Would it actually perform better if returned to the USB3 case? It seems unlikely but then maybe Seagate hobble the drives for direct SATA to discourage them being taken out? I book from SSD and the purpose of the drive is actually archiving anyway (the VM on it was only there temporarily) so if it's just how it's supposed to be then I'll live with it. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

3 4

OT MP3 files problem
by Bev Nicolson 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

This might be a bit off topic but I can’t think who else to ask. (If you can, let me know.) The problem is that my MP3 player (a Philips GoGear with 4GB memory if that makes any odds) has two mp3's files on it with the wrong name. Fine, rename them, you cry. But there's the rub. They show with the right name if I mount it. What can I do? It isn't full, by the way. Bev

5 5

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th August.
by Viperfang 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Debian audio problem
by Phil Ashby 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

https://wiki.debian.org/SoundConfiguration On 27/07/16 11:48 Barry Samuels <bjsamuels@...org.uk> wrote > > I'm running Debian Testing, up to date as of today, and for a few months > now have had no audio. I used to have sound both on the desktop and in the > browser then I lost sound in the browser and finally in the desktop. > > I suspect that an upgrade somewhere along the way has caused this but I > don't know what and I haven't been able to cure it. > > [ALSA works on known hardware if used directly] > > So that means I have exhausted my knowledge of Linux and audio and I still > don't have any sound. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. > Hi Barry, Are you running PulseAudio as part of your desktop installation? I had a similar failure (HDMI ports not showing up in audio output options) that turned out to be the wrong audio device detection module in use. Specifically, in /etc/pulse/default.pa the following was commented out: ### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available #.ifexists module-udev-detect.so #load-module module-udev-detect #.else ### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support) load-module module-detect #.endif so pulse was using module-detect which is obsolete and broken. Uncommenting the udev module sorted me out: ### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available .ifexists module-udev-detect.so load-module module-udev-detect .else ### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support) load-module module-detect .endif Cheers, Phil.

1 0

Debian audio problem
by Barry Samuels 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

I'm running Debian Testing, up to date as of today, and for a few months now have had no audio. I used to have sound both on the desktop and in the browser then I lost sound in the browser and finally in the desktop. I suspect that an upgrade somewhere along the way has caused this but I don't know what and I haven't been able to cure it. aplay -l gives me: **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC1150 Analog [ALC1150 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC1150 Digital [ALC1150 Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 My monitor has built-in speakers and uses an HDMI connection so card 3 should be the one to use. This actually produces the intended sound: aplay -D plughw:3,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav Putting those results into /etc/asound.conf as under: pcm.!default { type plug slave { pcm "hw:3,3" } } ctl.!default { type hw card 3 } produces no sound. If I boot from a live Kubuntu distro I get sound on the desktop but not in a browser. So that means I have exhausted my knowledge of Linux and audio and I still don't have any sound. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

2 4

IMAP (Gmail) archiving
by Mark Rogers 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

A quick Google suggests there are lots of ways to archive IMAP accounts so I thought I'd see if anyone here has any recommendations. Specifically: I have a handful of Gmail accounts which I'd like to archive (by which I mean keep permanent accessible backups offline). I'd like the archive to be viewable with a GUI mail client like Thunderbird. I'd like support for OAuth2 authentication if possible. I'd also like anecdotes from anyone who's tried this. I can see conflicts between me deleting spam or other rubbish at the "live" end that I would also want deleted from the archive, for example, but also accidental deletions (or deletions of old emails to save space) at the live end that I would not want removed from the archive. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

4 7

Re: [ALUG] Anyone know how to use gpg-zip?
by Ewan Slater 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

> I want an encrypted archive that uses the passphrase I give when encrypting and requires the > passphrase again to decrypt it. What about 7zip easy, AES-256 symmetric encryption (see below): Cheers, Ewan ***create file*** ewans@chatterbox:~/Downloads$ 7z a -p commentary.7z commentary.txt 7-Zip [64] 9.20 Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov 2010-11-18 p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_GB.utf8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU) Scanning Creating archive commentary.7z Enter password (will not be echoed) : Verify password (will not be echoed) : Compressing commentary.txt Everything is Ok ***bad password*** ewans@chatterbox:~/Downloads$ 7z e commentary.7z 7-Zip [64] 9.20 Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov 2010-11-18 p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_GB.utf8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU) Processing archive: commentary.7z Enter password (will not be echoed) : Extracting commentary.txt Data Error in encrypted file. Wrong password? Sub items Errors: 1 ***good password*** ewans@chatterbox:~/Downloads$ 7z e commentary.7z 7-Zip [64] 9.20 Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov 2010-11-18 p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_GB.utf8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU) Processing archive: commentary.7z Enter password (will not be echoed) : Extracting commentary.txt Everything is Ok Size: 40193 Compressed: 9539

1 0

Anyone know how to use gpg-zip?
by Chris Green 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

I'm trying to create an encrypted archive of some files in a ditrectory. It seems like gpg-zip should do what I want but I can't get it to do simple symmetric encryption. The trouble is that even though I'm specifying --symmetric gpg-zip still insists on being given a user:- chris@esprimo$ gpg-zip --encrypt --symmetric --output fred glomtest Enter passphrase: Repeat passphrase: You did not specify a user ID. (you may use "-r") Current recipients: Enter the user ID. End with an empty line: chris Current recipients: 2048g/8FC95300 2015-10-05 "chris <chris@esprimo>" Enter the user ID. End with an empty line: File `fred' exists. Overwrite? (y/N) y I can then just decrypt the archive with:- gpg-zip --decrypt fred no need for the passphrase! That's useless for what I want. I want an encrypted archive that uses the passphrase I give when encrypting and requires the passphrase again to decrypt it. Otherwise anyone walking up to my computer when it's turned on (and I'm logged in) can decrypt the archive. Can gpg-zip do what I want and, if so, how? Otherwise what are the alternatives? -- Chris Green

1 0

Lubuntu install
by Chris Walker 12 Jul '16

12 Jul '16

I have a Pentium machine here and I'm trying to install Lubuntu on it but without success. I've looked at this page - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/AdvancedMethods and have added the -- forecepae command to the end of the command string but all I get is a cursor in the top left of the screen and nothing else happens. I've had other distros working on the machine - I installed MX last week - but thought I'd have a play with something else but I'm not having any success. What's the remedy here? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 14th July
by Viperfang 11 Jul '16

11 Jul '16

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 14th 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

Search all text files for a text string
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '16

09 Jul '16

Is there a quick way to search all text files for a string? By "text file" I mean ASCII files, like log files, config files etc, but excluding binaries like executables, database files, etc? What I want is something like: find / -type a -exec grep 192.168.100.1 \{\} \; .. or similar, except that I made up "-type a" for ascii. (I'm trying to find all places that an IP address is mentioned so that I can change ones that need to be changed.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

10 22

DD LUKS USB Drive
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

Hi Clever People! I have a USB drive that's encryped and mounted using LUKS. It's used to hold backups (using backuppc and another backup system). This drive appears to be a bit flaky so I'm going to have to replace it. My silly question is, if I use dd to copy the entire contents from the old disk to the new one, am I going to be able to mount the new one via LUKS and it be able to access the data or is there some hidden gotcha that will prevent this from working? Cheers Steve

1 0

MicroSD card read issues
by Mark Rogers 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

Can anyone shed light on what the following entries in /var/log/syslog actually mean? Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212656] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212669] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212675] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212683] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 06 87 47 30 00 00 08 00 Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212688] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdf, sector 109528880 Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212696] Buffer I/O error on dev sdf1, logical block 13690854, async page read Background: This a pretty new Sandisk [1] 128GB MicroSD (UHS) card, taken out of my phone and plugged into my PC via a card reader (USB2). A previous card caused issues in my phone so I replaced it with this one, and it now is not behaving well (usually OK but sometimes if I try to look at photos on the card the phone will lock up temporarily). I'm trying to back everything up onto my PC so I can copy it across onto a Samsung card to see if that's better. The above errors crop up periodically in syslog whilst copying. Is the issue the card, the card reader, the PC, the drivers, ...? [1] I believe it to be genuine Sandisk, it was purchased from Amazon. Advice on how to verify it's not a fake welcomed! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

6 8

Raid10 degraded
by John Cohen 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

I have a small server Thinkserver ts140 for serving files via sftp to my colleagues, as well as a few other services. I run ubuntu 14.04 from a 500gig drive backed up nightly offsite, and have a separate raid10 array 4x 4TB (WD Reds) for the storage. They've been running fine for over a year until yesterday, when I received an email saying the array was degraded. " A DegradedArray event had been detected on md device /dev/md/0. P.S. The /proc/mdstat file currently contains the following: Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid10 sdb1[0] sde1[3] sdc1[4] 7813772288 blocks super 1.2 512K chunks 2 near-copies [4/3] [UU_U] unused devices: <none>" First thing I did was backup the most important files to an external drive via rsync. (I have run out of space for a full 8TB external drive backup and can't afford to buy any more drives just now) We also keep these more important files offsite) mdadm -D /dev/md0 shows that my third drive sdd1 was removed. I checked the smart tools to see if the drive was failing and saw nothing, even after running a self-test. I didn't check for disk errors on the drive itself as I'm not sure how this works in a raid setup. I did try re-adding the disk to the raid and it immediately picked it up and started recovering. This was the mdadm --examine shows of the raid status *before* I tried re-adding the removed drive: http://pastebin.com/P4Q4YhN7 I can't see anything wrong here, the only difference I saw was in the sdd section showing Array State AAAA instead of AA.A as the others were (. = missing) This morning I woke up to another email with the same message, and the disk sdd1 was removed again. I am adding the drive again to see what happens, but suspect the same results. Here's the mdadm --detail now: http://pastebin.com/CkBm6SbH dmesg since a recent reboot, with a lot of the repeats taken out: http://pastebin.com/jzWnYizV 1) Should I run any more tests on the drive itself? Any specific suggestions? Do you think it could be a hardware fault unrelated to the actual drive? I'm nervous of starting to swap things around to test this. 2) The drives are in warranty so I have contacted WD to ask for a replacement, although if the SMART tests don't show anything I don't know if they'll replace the drive 3) Should I tell my colleagues we're going to have to switch the machine off until the new drive arrives? (I am paranoid of a second drive failing before I get a new one) Any advice as to what I could do to test the drive/setup is appreciated. Please be aware I'm no linux guru, my field is in something completely different and I just happen to love learning about linux and have found it very useful to complement my office setup and work. Many thanks John

3 4

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st July.
by Viperfang 28 Jun '16

28 Jun '16

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

1 0

Synchronising a few 'isolated' files between systems - how?
by Chris Green 23 Jun '16

23 Jun '16

I have set up syncthing on my systems and it works very well for folders where one wants to synchronise all the files. However I have a few what one might call 'isolated' files that I want to synchronise and I can't see any easy way to do this with syncthing. It's possible to use syncthing's .stignore file to do it but it's very clumsy and one would need to edit several files just to add one file to the list to be synchronised. I have pondered putting the 'isolated' files in a directory by themselves (which syncthing can synchronise) and having symbolic links to them from where they are actually used. However adding one file to the list would mean edits in several places. Any better ideas anyone? -- Chris Green

2 2

Re: [ALUG] MicroSD card read issues
by Noel Galer 16 Jun '16

16 Jun '16

Hi I'm new to this, but have been 'Lurking' for a while as recommended for 'Noobs'. However, this is something I may be able to shed some light on, so here goes! There is an excellent website with lots of carefully prepared info on this topic and tools to help diagnose problems, test cards and make images. However, it is in Russia, and similar sites it is hosted alongside can have a bad reputation. Antivirus companies will make sweeping assumptions and some class the site as 'Bad'. I disagree, but you must decide for yourself. I suggest using Virustotal.com to check all the links and files before you download anything. I have successfully downloaded all the tools and have not had any issues. If you are not familiar with Virustotal you will be happy to know it scans what is on the internet before you download, simulating the use of the top 60 AntiVirus packages in the world and providing a comprehensive assessment. Having said that, 1 or 2 may try to indicate generic this and that. I believe this is just reverse engineering of one A/V by another based on a false positive. But you may decide to keep well clear - that's fine. You could always use a machine off your network that can be rebuilt / reimaged easily. But hey, isn't this one of Linux's strengths ? Here is the link, the text on it's own is quite informative and unlikely to infect anyone, many of the tools can also be found elsewhere too... https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterfeit-usb-flas h-drives-bought-from-ebay-with-h2testw/ Cheers, Xorsyst -----Original Message----- From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Mark Rogers Sent: 16 June 2016 11:54 To: alug-main Subject: [ALUG] MicroSD card read issues Can anyone shed light on what the following entries in /var/log/syslog actually mean? Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212656] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212669] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212675] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212683] sd 11:0:0:2: [sdf] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 06 87 47 30 00 00 08 00 Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212688] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdf, sector 109528880 Jun 16 11:43:45 mark-pc kernel: [92204.212696] Buffer I/O error on dev sdf1, logical block 13690854, async page read Background: This a pretty new Sandisk [1] 128GB MicroSD (UHS) card, taken out of my phone and plugged into my PC via a card reader (USB2). A previous card caused issues in my phone so I replaced it with this one, and it now is not behaving well (usually OK but sometimes if I try to look at photos on the card the phone will lock up temporarily). I'm trying to back everything up onto my PC so I can copy it across onto a Samsung card to see if that's better. The above errors crop up periodically in syslog whilst copying. Is the issue the card, the card reader, the PC, the drivers, ...? [1] I believe it to be genuine Sandisk, it was purchased from Amazon. Advice on how to verify it's not a fake welcomed! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER _______________________________________________ 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!

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