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10369 discussions

Jaw-dropper ...
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 17 Dec '08

17 Dec '08

Hi Folks, The following received this morning from the Seattle Linux List. (Still trying to recover from temporomadibular dislocation ... ). Ted. -----FW: <e35fe88f0812102328tbb31ac9m521c25f92fee2b10(a)mail.gmail.com>----- Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:28:34 -0800 Sender: linux-list-bounces(a)lists2.linuxjournal.com From: Jerry Horvath <jerroldhorvath(a)gmail.com> To: Seattle Linux Users Group <linux-list(a)ssc.com> Subject: [SLL] What is taught to some Austin, Texas students "In an age where Windows and OS X reign supreme, it's no wonder that a local AISD middle school teacher became enraged after discovering one of her students distributing what she believed to be bootlegged copies of an operating system in class <http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/ignorant-teacher-linux-in-education.html>." *No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.* <http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php> Regards, Jerry Horvath --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Dec-08 Time: 12:01:37 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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sshd configuration problem
by Chris G 16 Dec '08

16 Dec '08

By default I have sshd set up to disallow root logins, if I want to get to root from a remote login I login as myself (one password) and then su to root (another password). However I want to allow root login from one other system on the local LAN. To this end I added the following to the end of sshd_config:- PasswordAuthentication no AllowUsers root(a)192.168.1.7 However this, of course, prevents anyone logging in from anywhere except for root(a)192.168.1.7. How can I allow any non-root user from anywhere but root only from 192.168.1.7? -- Chris Green

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LAN addresses in /etc/hosts
by Chris G 12 Dec '08

12 Dec '08

Having got dnsmasq working somewhate better (thank you Brett!) I now need some advice on what to put in /etc/hosts on the machine that is running dnsmasq. The machine's name on the local LAN is "isbd", to the outside world it is known as "home.isbd.net". It has a static IP address on the local LAN of 192.168.1.4. "As built" ubuntu puts "isbd" in the /etc/hosts file as follows:- 127.0.1.1 isbd However I need dnsmasq to tell other machines on the LAN that "isbd" is 192.168.1.4. Do I just remove the above line and add:- 192.168.1.4 isbd Is the "127.0.1.1 isbd" only necessary when isbd's address is obtained using DHCP and thus not fixed so it needs to point at localhost? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 12 Dec '08

12 Dec '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back next week (Monday 15th December) at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hope to see you there, Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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I can't get dnsmasq to work at all, ideas please
by Chris G 12 Dec '08

12 Dec '08

I have installed dnsmasq on my xubuntu 8.10 system using the standard ubuntu apt-get which gives me version 2.45 of dnsmasq. It seems to have installed a reasonable default configuration and dnsmasq has been started up. However I can't get it to provide answers to any DNS requests. As I understand it dnsmasq should read the contents of /etc/hosts and give out local network IP addresses in response to DNS requests, only passing requests on the the external server(s) in /etc/resolv.conf if the address requested isn't a local one. I have dnsmasq running on 192.168.1.4 whose /etc/hosts has the following in it (after the standard default stuff):- # # # Local additions # 192.168.1.1 vigor 2820n 192.168.1.4 home.isbd.net isbd 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net chris.isbd.net 192.168.1.5 home 192.168.1.6 maxine 192.168.1.7 nas garage 192.168.1.44 hp7310 HPEDDBB7 HP000D9D068F7D 192.168.13.254 2wire BT2700HGV gateway.2wire.net I am attempting to use it from 192.168.1.7 which has no non-default additions to /etc/hosts and has the following in /etc/resolv.conf:- # Generated by NetworkManager 192.168.1.4 ... but if I do "host maxine" on 192.168.1.7 I just get:- ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached Sending signals to dnsmasq produces the expected responses in syslog so it is running and working, signal 1 reports "read /etc/hosts - 17 addresses". So it appears to have some addresses to respond with but the other systems on the LAN don't seem to be able to talk to it. Any ideas what might be wrong, or ways to diagnose it? -- Chris Green

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What FS might be on this CD?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 12 Dec '08

12 Dec '08

Hi Folks, I have a CD which was burnt using Windows Media Player on Vista. It carries a couple of directories with many (mostly PDF) files. When accessed with Vista, its contents are visisble and the files can be accessed. However, Linux doesn't want to know! For example: # mount -t auto /dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 mount: block device /dev/hdc is write-protected, mounting read-only mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdc, missing codepage or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so and # dmesg | tail hdc: media error (bad sector): error=0x30 { LastFailedSense=0x03 } ide: failed opcode was: unknown ATAPI device hdc: Error: Medium error -- (Sense key=0x03) Unrecovered read error -- (asc=0x11, ascq=0x00) The failed "Read 10" packet command was: "28 00 00 05 7c 80 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 " end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 1438208 Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 179776 UDF-fs: No fileset found Any ideas? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Dec-08 Time: 23:17:09 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] What FS might be on this CD?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 11 Dec '08

11 Dec '08

On 11-Dec-08 00:47:28, Ian Thompson-Bell wrote: > (Ted Harding) wrote: >> Hi Folks, >> I have a CD which was burnt using Windows Media Player on Vista. >> It carries a couple of directories with many (mostly PDF) files. >> >> When accessed with Vista, its contents are visisble and the files >> can be accessed. >> >> However, Linux doesn't want to know! > > I had this problem once before with A cd made by a friend with media > player under XP. It turned the disc had not be 'finalised' - I use the > term loosely - we put the disk back in the XP machine, ran media player > and did the finalizing and then linux could read it. > > HTH > Cheers > Ian I suspected that might be to root of the problem (given the error message). If so, though, how does one set about getting Windows (Vista) Media Player to "finalise" the disk as Ian describes? I can't find any option to get this to happen! (Sorry to bang on about such an unsavoury topic, but it's all for the sake of using Linux!) Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Dec-08 Time: 09:16:33 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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power problem mandriva solved
by Peter Alcibiades 11 Dec '08

11 Dec '08

It turns out that disabling 'cool and quiet' fixes it, in case anyone else encounters it. At least, it does on this machine. Peter

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Some python behind my apache server is *incredibly* slow
by Chris G 10 Dec '08

10 Dec '08

I have some python scripts which convert reStructuredText to HTML 'on the fly' when xxxx.rst files are browsed. When I look at the pages locally performance is acceptable but I have just tried remotely (from work) and it takes several minutes to display a new xxxx.rst page. Normal HTML and other stuff are shown at normal speed, I have some quite complex PHP (which I didn't write) being served by the same apache server and it's fine. The same rst to html conversion works fine on the old server system and I haven't changed the code significantly, my code is only a wrapper around some standard Docutils stuff anyway. Can anyone suggest any reason for remote access to this being so incredibly slow? It's probably some dire misconfiguration somewhere but I don't know where to start looking really. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 11 December 2008
by David Reynolds 06 Dec '08

06 Dec '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 11 December 2008 at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY; tel. 01603 762223). It's very near the junction of Dereham Road and the Norwich inner ring road (Grapes Hill) and serves a selection of real ales, nice pub food (if you fancy going early to eat) and coffee. There are generally people there from 20:00 onwards and we tend to sit to the left of the main entrance. We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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odd problem with poweroff on Mandriva
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Dec '08

05 Dec '08

Wonder if anyone has any ideas. I had an installation of Mandriva 2008 KDE which worked OK as far as powering off was concerned, but just now did a clean install of 2008.1 (leaving /home as it was). Worked fine means that both shutdown now -h resulted in power going off, and also using the kde off button did the same. Now, it seems to be impossible to powerdown from the keyboard. Previously either the KDE button or shutdown now -h closed the system down in an orderly way and did poweroff. Now, whatever you do, you end up with just a halted system and then have to use the on-off switch to poweroff. This applies either to shutdown now -h, and also to poweroff invoked as root. I can't see anything in the bios which has changed - I've disabled and then reenabled ACPI. In the kde control panel, anyone is enabled for powering the machine down. Its an Asus barebones with AMD processor, if it makes any difference. American Megatrends bios. Any ideas? Peter

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Issue/Bug Tracking Systems
by Mark Rogers 03 Dec '08

03 Dec '08

I have just found out that a client is looking at bug/issue management systems, with the ones they've mentioned being Axosoft, Track Studio and Projector. (All but the latter are easy to find online, I've not found Projector's website). The client will be using them, I believe, to track maintenance and other issues on their site (ie not software bugs). Are there any good FOSS alternatives I should suggest to them or should I stay out of their way? I suspect that none of the off-the-shelf packages will do what they want and a FOSS option would make it easier to modify, but the other suggestion of building something from scratch will probably be a big uphill struggle unless it turns out they have very simple needs. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Latitude ON with ARM system-on-chip linux in Latitude 4200 and 4300
by Albert Vilella 03 Dec '08

03 Dec '08

Hi all, Does anybody know if the Latitude 4200 and Latitude 4300 models sold in UK already come with the Latitude ON feature based on the ARM chip? It seems that Dell has split this feature in "Latitude ON Reader" and "Latitude ON full", the second one being the special purpose ARM chip in a mini-PCIe in the laptop running Linux. Looks pretty cool to me and want to get one early next year, so I am asking if someone else has looked into it as well, http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/12/dell-announces-new-latitude-e-series/ Cheers, Albert.

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Developer vacancy
by Steve Engledow 02 Dec '08

02 Dec '08

Hi all, My company is looking for another developer. We need someone with good all-round skillzzzz but particularly in java and webdev. Details are here: http://www.validus-ivc.co.uk/claims-analysis-vacancies.asp?i=44 If anyone's interested, give me a shout :) Cheers, Steve

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Migrating e-mail _to_ pst
by Dan Hatton 28 Nov '08

28 Nov '08

(I guess this is about half on-topic. Apologies for the other half.) I'm helping out a user who would like to migrate from Evolution to Outlook. Which means I'll need a tool that works something like readpst in reverse. Can anyone suggest such a tool, please? Thanks, Dan

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Display error when switching to console from X
by Chris G 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

I'm running xubuntu 8.10 (though I suspect the problem is common to all 8.10 ubuntu versions). I can run X fairly reliably though I do have some issues when logging in and out presumably due to switching resolutions. However switching to a console using CTRL/ALT/F1 (or any of the others) doesn't work. I just get an error message from my monitor saying the resolution is invalid. My monitor is a Dell 2001FP capable of up to 1600x1200 so I suspect that the CTRL/ALT/F1 is switching to a totally impossible resolution. How can I fix this problem? Is there any way to specify the mode and resolution to use for the text mode consoles? -- Chris Green

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[Fwd: Re: Display error when switching to console from X]
by Stevey.eu 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 11:03:46AM +0000, Stevey.eu wrote: > > Chris G wrote: >> >> I'm running xubuntu 8.10 (though I suspect the problem is common to >> >> all 8.10 ubuntu versions). >> >> I can run X fairly reliably though I do have some issues when logging >> >> in and out presumably due to switching resolutions. >> >> However switching to a console using CTRL/ALT/F1 (or any of the >> >> others) doesn't work. I just get an error message from my monitor >> >> saying the resolution is invalid. My monitor is a Dell 2001FP capable >> >> of up to 1600x1200 so I suspect that the CTRL/ALT/F1 is switching to a >> >> totally impossible resolution. >> >> How can I fix this problem? Is there any way to specify the mode and >> >> resolution to use for the text mode consoles? >> >> > > Chris, > > > > Ever considered trying www.google.com it is a marvelous invention. > > Strangely enough I am familiar with Google, I'd recommend using www.google.co.uk personally, it does offer advantages for UK users sometimes (although not in this case of course). I have spent quite a lot of time searching around using Google on this issue and have follwed a few leads but I don't have a solution yet. Asking on alug was just another approach. -- Chris Green

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What does 'seahorse' actually do?
by Chris G 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

Having just changed my login password on my new Linux box I have discovered that there's an application called 'seahorse' lurking in the background. After changing my password seahorse pops up a window when you log in to X demanding that you enter a password - what it's asking for is the *old* password which it has stashed away somewhere itself. What isn't clear though is what seahorse is for and reading the Help is no 'help' at all, it just tells you how to drive the program, which is fine in itself but doesn't help me at all in working out what it does. Can anyone here help? Does seahorse do the same as ssh-agent? Does it do it 'automagically' when you log in to X using your login password? I've found the seahorse home page http://projects.gnome.org/seahorse/index.html and that tells me just about nothing. The best there is (on the 'about' page) is:- With seahorse you can... * Create and manage PGP keys * Create and manage SSH keys * Publish and retrive keys from key servers * Cache your passphrase so you don't have to keep typing it * Backup your keys and keyring * more... It's rather a fundamental security thing to 'just happen' behind your back! -- Chris Green

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sSMTP
by Torben Stones 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

I'm trying to setup sSMTP on a small home server, so that I can get the output from the cron jobs e-mailed to me. I believe that I've got it all setup correctly, as the message seems to be sent, but I'm never reciving anything. The config is so that every thing is sent to my gmail account and I'm useing smtp.googlemail.com as the smtp server. I'm trying to test using the command echo "Hello from sSMTP" | sendmail -v root >From the output it looks like it is working OK, but nothing ever arives. Has anyone set this up using google and/or does anyone have any idea as what I can check next. Thanks Torben -- You've got a lot of choices in your life. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.

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PHP memory limit problem
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

I need to raise my memory limit as an upgrade of Gallery2 is failing due to running out of memory. I've increased the memory_limit in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to 256M but something else is preventing this from working. Running phpinfo() shows the following information (among other things):- Loaded Configuration File /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini additional .ini files parsed /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/gd.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mcrypt.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mysql.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mysqli.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/pdo.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/pdo_mysql.ini Local Value Master Value memory_limit 24M 256M So, what's reducing the "Local Value" to 24M? There's nothing in those other "additional .ini files parsed", has apache2 got some sort of limit of its own somewhere? How can I find what's limiting it? -- Chris Green

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Security - part II
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

I.e. thoughts and questions on backups. Continuing on from making my system secure against the most likely attacks etc. I need to make backups of the 'important' data. Currently I backup from my main server system (the pre-update one at the moment) to a system on the home LAN in the garage. The garage is a fair way from the house so in the event of a serious disaster (e.g. a fire) it should survive. I also backup the *most* important files off-site to my account at my hosting provider. At the moment these backups are 'pushed' from the main system, i.e. it is cron in that system that runs the backups. This requires that I have passwordless access to the destination system and here I see a hole! If a hacker got into my main system [s]he could immediately gain access to the backup destinations as well and destroy data there. How can one overcome this issue? I can see a partial way around it for the LAN backups, I can remove the passwordless access to the system in the garage and change to a 'pull' backup that is run by cron on the garage system. The garage system can have passwordless access to the main system to enable this, there's no access through the firewall to the garage system so a hacker would need to guess the garage system passwords to get to it. This at least provides another layer of pretection against malicious attacks. However I can see no way to pretect the off-site (across the internet) backups from similar attacks. If the shell account at my hosting provider was to have passwordless access to my home system that would lay me open to all sorts of malicious attacks so obviously that's not possible so I can't use the 'pull' backup from there. If I'm going to backup as at present the passwordless access to the off-site system needs to remain and therefore is open to a malicious attacker. It occurs to me that I could *possibly* do the backups from the garage system to the off-site system, that would improve things somewhat. How does the world at large do backups to remote systems without incurring security problems? -- Chris Green

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ALUG Ipswich Xmas Meal 2008
by samwise 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Hi, At the last Ipswich meet we discussed repeating the Xmas meal we had last year. Would anyone else on the list be interested in attending? We talked about having it on a different day to the usual December meet so if anyone else wants to join in, drop me a line and I'll try and co-ordinate a day that fits for everyone. Cheers, Peter.

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Is it possible to use DHCP for DNS only?
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Is it possible to set up a Linux system so that it has a fixed IP address on the LAN but uses the addresses given to it by a router (using DHCP) for DNS? -- Chris Green

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mySql - problems with passwords etc., is there no easy way?
by Chris G 24 Nov '08

24 Nov '08

I always seem to get in a tangle with installing and setting up mySql. The essential problem seems to be that mySql wants to refer to the local machine as 'localhost', and 127.0.0.1, and 'chris'. Thus when I try and add a user it seems that the user gets added with privileges for one (or some) but not all of 'localhost', and 127.0.0.1, and 'chris' and then doesn't work because I need to acces the database as one of the other host names. Adding a user as 'user'@* seems to be even worse and doesn't work at all. I also seem to be having trouble changing the password for the mySql super user, I tried doing it via phpmyadmin and that seems to have done nothing, I can't quite fathom the syntax for doing it in mySql from the command line in the mysql front-end. I *do* know SQL fairly well and usually once I have the password/host chaos sorted out mysql works well for me but this part of it really stinks IMHO when you're working on localhost (or is it 127.0.0.1 or is it chris?). It's fine when working remotely, there's only one possible name for the place where the database is. -- Chris Green

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Some thoughts/questions re: ssh security
by Chris G 24 Nov '08

24 Nov '08

As I'm in the process of moving my 'home server' across to a new machine it seems a good time to check out the security aspects. The machine runs behind an ADSL router which provides the firewall. I have the firewall set up so that the only access allowed from outside the home LAN is:- ssh port access from two specific IP addresses http and https access from anywhere I have data on the machine which I don't want to lose but it's not valuable or particularly confidential so I don't think I need to protect myself against concerted attacks from the CIA or MI5. :-) What I do want to prevent as far as possible is malicious attacks from hackers who, if they did get access, would probably just 'make a mess of things' for fun. The two IP addresses from which ssh access is allowed are the public address of my work machine and a machine where I have a shell login at my hosting company. Thus they are both moderately secure themselves but there is always a possibility that someone 'unfriendly' might get access. The choice (for ssh) lies between public/private key and ordinary passwords. I *know* that in general public/private key is regarded as more secure but I'm leaning towards using password security for the following reasons:- The machine where the password shadow file is stored is (relatively) secure, the only user is me. If someone (hacker) has access to the shadow file to apply brute-force/dictionary attacks then I've already lost the battle. I make very sure that passwords on my home machine bear no similarity to those on systems outside so knowledge of my 'outside' passwords will not make guessing my home machine's passwords easy. Someone who has access to my work/hosting accounts may well get access to the public key part of the public/private key pair. This, ultimately, lays it open to attack. They have *no* access to my home machine and thus, although the shadow file is fundamentally weaker in itself there is no opportunity at all to attack it. The *only* way that an attacker can break in is by guessing passwords. Does the above make reasonable sense or have I overlooked anything obvious? Obviously physical security matters and also I need to have the 'other half' of security based on backups etc. (probably subject of another E-Mail). Final question, how vulnerable does running apache2 on the system with general access make it? Are buffer overflow exploits and other such things likely to make my careful ssh security pointless? -- Chris Green

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