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Load averages
by Mark Rogers 23 Aug '11

23 Aug '11

I've been playing with monit[1] to monitor a server which has been having some problems (specifically a service would stop responding to TCP requests, so although it was still "running" it was no longer any use; monit is able to make connections periodically and check whether or not the they're being accepted and giving the expected response). It comes with an example configuration for monitoring the system (memory/swap/cpu usage, and load averages). I have it monitoring load averages based on the configuration but I'm getting a lot of alarm reports every day and I need to tweak the config. The existing config is fairly self explanatory: if loadavg (1min) > 4 for 2 cycles then alert if loadavg (5min) > 2 for 2 cycles then alert On other words, if the 1 or 5 min load averages exceed the level shown for two or more consecutive tests (which take place every 2 mins) I'll get an alert. My question is: what would be sensible load averages to set the thresholds at, or are they essentially meaningless and I should ditch them? The server has a AMD Athlon(tm) II Neo N36L Dual-Core Processor so as I understand it a load average of anything up to 2 means the CPU is under-utilised anyway? [1] http://mmonit.com/monit/ -- 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] Transferring audio to CD
by Anthony Anson 16 Aug '11

16 Aug '11

nev young wrote: > On 06/08/11 17:13, Anthony Anson wrote: >> >> Thanks. I'll look into it further. To connect to the audio bit on the >> flaptop I've got to make-up the cables (phono to midi-jackplug) before I >> do anything else - > Rusty, Take care if you're using a flaptop. The mic input is mono. The > second ring on the jack supplies volts to the microphone. > > see: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/sb_micinput.gif Ah, oh, ta. Has to be the flatpot because the hi-fi isn't portable, neither is the (full) tower with Lenny on it. Tower's upstairs and hi-fi's down. The record should be mono (1961), so I'll experiment with the headphone jack and the amp set to mono - output there is on volume control, and I have a suitable cable for that. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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How to find (or navigate to) parent directory *without* following symbolic links?
by Chris G 13 Aug '11

13 Aug '11

The subject says it all really. For example I have a directory /var/www/wiki/lib/plugins/indexmenu which is a symbolic link to /home/chris/src/dokuwiki-plugins/indexmenu. I want a way (in PHP in particular) to be able to navigate up to /var/www/wiki but everything I try program-wise takes me back to the /home/chris tree. I'm sure on the old SunOs/Solaris systems I used if you navigated up on the command line it didn't go backwards up symbolic links, but on this xubuntu 10.04 system if I do, for example, 'ls ../..' when I'm in /var/www/wiki/lib/plugins/indexmenu I see the contents of /home/chris/src which somehow feels wrong to me. The real issue is in PHP though as there are many places in dokuwiki which use ../../.. to access things and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to do this when there are symbolic links involved. One can use regular expressions to prune /var/www/wiki/lib/plugins/indexmenu down to /var/www/wiki/ but this seems a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 13 Aug '11

13 Aug '11

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 next week, Monday 15th August, 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://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. I'll definitely be there, so if any one new wants to drop in, look for the guy in the corner with the latest copy of LXF ... ;) We're normally in the downstairs-from-the-bar-bit, nearest the entrance on the library side. 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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Text email clients--Cone, Alpine, Mutt--anyone ever tried Cone?
by James Freer 12 Aug '11

12 Aug '11

I've just been installing the choice of text email clients - above three to try out. Mutt and Alpine fine, but Cone i can't get the smtp bit right. I've contacted the developer on the Cone list who just replies with very brief ambiguous replies. It can't be much different from Alpine but so far can't get it to go. To use Cone it seems one is expected to be a mind reader. I doubt if it's better than alpine but it would be nice to give it a go. I've got Alpine to work but setting 'Roles' for mail i'm still not 100% sorted. I never thought text email clients were worth bothering with... once i'd got Alpine going i could see why... speed. I find Thunderbird and Evolution too slow for large amounts of mail. Anyone really know the 'ins and outs' of email [oops on the witty side this morning!]. --james

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Further, more 'philosophical' git questions
by Chris G 11 Aug '11

11 Aug '11

I'm getting my mind round the mechanics of using git better now but before I go too far I have a couple of more 'philosophical' questions about it - not in the Plato/Sophocles sense, more in the how to use it sense! :-) It seems to make sense to me to use git 'directly' to manage places like ~/bin where one has a mixed bag of shell scripts and python. I.e. make ~/bin into a git repository. I don't see any significant downside to this, ~/bin is only for one's own use so you modify/create a script, test it and then 'git add' it to preserve the history. However I'm not quite so sure how to handle bigger projects and/or ones where there are multiple users (or at least multiple installations on my system). Taking dokuwiki (my current example) I can set up a local git repository which is derived from the dokuwiki repository latest stable release and then I can add patches of my own etc. and when the stable release moves on I can merge the patches into the new release. So far so good. However I'm not clear how, having got the 'stable release plus patches' 'git add'ed into the repository how do I then copy out to the various installations? I can't just copy what's in the repository as it appears because that *may* have further un-added changes. I don't really want to run every installation as a git repository. Is there a command to extract all the files from a given branch in git (which doesn't create a new repository)? -- Chris Green

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A rather more specific git question
by Chris G 10 Aug '11

10 Aug '11

OK, I have set up a local git repository on my machine and have checked out a mychanges branch so I can add local changes. Is there any git way of comparing the files in the git repository with files in a corresponding (but with *many* more files in) tree somewhere else on my system? I.e. I want to diff each file in the git repository with a file in a similar tree. I think all the git-diff commands just compare different branches within a git repository don't they? -- Chris Green

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How to use git (or similar) for locally patched versions of installed software?
by Chris G 10 Aug '11

10 Aug '11

I'm wondering what is the best way of setting about this. I use a PHP application called dokuwiki, it's mostly 'as released' and this makes updates etc. fairly easy. However I have a few local patches which I would like to keep track of and also would like to be able to re-install if/when they get overwritten when I get a newer version of dokuwiki. How do I do this using git (or similar)? I don't want to sit at the bleeding edge of dokuwiki releases which is where I would be if I ran a local copy of the dokuwiki git repository. What I want to do is to be able to use the current released version of dokuwiki but maintain a local collection of minor changes and patches. (Dokuwiki isn't the only software I'd like to do this with, it's just the one that's obvious to me at the moment). -- Chris Green

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Transferring audio to CD
by Anthony Anson 10 Aug '11

10 Aug '11

Something which (strangely) I've never tried, as my business, such as is remaining, is in audio, but I don't rate the quality of CDs... Last week I bought an interesting and scarce 45 rpm record - a university rag record - and several Sheddi (denizens of uk.rec.sheds) would like a copy and scan of the label. Scan's no problem, but what program (under Squeeze) would people suggest for writing the best quality audio files to CD (or DVD)? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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sudo crontab -e vs /etc/cron.d/xxx vs /etc/crontab
by Mark Rogers 10 Aug '11

10 Aug '11

I have a script, /etc/init.d/xxx, which I want to restart at 3am every morning. If I use sudo crontab -e .. and add MAILTO=<my email> 0 3 * * * /etc/init.d/xxx restart .. I get an email at 3am telling me that start-stop-daemon can't be found, so I assume that the environment isn't set up correctly? If I try creating: /etc/cron.d/xxx comprising MAILTO=<my email> 0 3 * * * root /etc/init.d/xxx restart .. then restart crond, I get no email and nothing appears to happen (I've tried with/without the MAILTO). On the other hand, just straight editing /etc/crontab and adding MAILTO=<my email> 0 3 * * * root /etc/init.d/xxx restart .. works a treat. I don't want to be directly editing /etc/crontab so where am I going wrong? Note that /etc/init.d/xxx is hand-crafted so could well be at fault here. -- 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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