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Local machine names/DNS - how to handle?
by Chris G 24 Jan '09

24 Jan '09

I know we've been here before but now I actually have everything working pretty well I'd like to decide how I *should* be doing this, i.e. the most elegant way of doing it. Our home network has a number of machines and devices on it:- My desktop machine - xubuntu 8.10 The TV/Lounge machine - xubuntu 8.10 The garage backup machine - Ubuntu server (8.10 too I think) An HP7310 printer A Siemens DECT VOIP box My wife's Windows XP machine plus occasional 'visiting' machines and devices These are all on the same 192.168.1.xxx subnet and a Draytek Vigor 2820n router connects them to the internet. There is a second backup ADSL connection provided by a BT "Business Hub" (2Wire) router on a different subnet. The Draytek Vigor shares its own ADSL and that of the BT router between users. I want to be able to refer to machines on the network by name, e.g. they are called isbd, lounge, garage, hp7310 etc. The methods I know about are:- Static IPs plus dnsmasq: Currently I do this by giving them fixed IP addresses which I put in the /etc/hosts file on my desktop machine (which runs all the time) and run dnsmasq in that machine to provide the other local machines with access to the names. Static IPs I used to set up /etc/hosts in all machines (well, all the Linux machines) separately before I used dnsmasq but although very simple it gets annoying to do this when a something is added or removed. It also means that one has to set up DNS host addresses everywhere. Dynamic IP This is where I get a bit lost. If I let everything go the the default then all IPs are assigned by DHCP. I.e. an ubuntu machine 'as installed' will ask for DHCP on the LAN, similarly the printer and the VOIP box will do so. The Draytek Vigor 2820n provides (as do nearly all routers) a DHCP service. If left like this though nothing wil have a name (as far as I know) and I will have no easy way to ssh to the garage machine for example. People keep telling me that this should be easy to resolve using (if I understand it correctly) the router but at the moment I don't really see how. If I *could* get names for everything using dynamic IP (i.e. DHCP provided by the router) then it would make for a simpler life as, at present, I have to change the Ubuntu default networking to give machines static IP and I also have to do slightly more configuration on the printer etc. There's a section in the router set-up called "Bind IP to MAC" which will allow the router to always give the same IP to each device/system but I don't see how I can get names in there. Am I missing something obvious somewhere? I don't think I've seen the ability to attach names to MAC addresses in any of the routers I've used over the past few years (Zyxel, Speedtouch). The BT 2Wire router allows you to manually give names to the MAC addresses but I'm not sure that it will let you use them to refer to them. -- Chris Green

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recommended commercial hosting companies?
by mbm 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

The recent discussion about mail access via ssh and ssh tunnels prompts me to ask about list members' experience of commercial hosting services. I have long since ceased to have any direct responsiblity for publicly accessible servers and my only network is now my home system. As I have said in earlier posts, I don't run 24/7 servers on that network and my only public servers are those provided by my (limited, home user) 1and1 contract. However, I have recently been playing with egroupware and a few friends and colleagues have asked if I could make the poc system I have built at home available on a public server. 1and1 provide good, reliable, fast, mail, DNS and web services, but they also offer virtual servers for the home user at around 15 UKP pcm. The other likely looking candidate is fasthosts who are a lot cheaper, have no traffic cap, but have different limitations. What I am looking for is a good quality commercial provider offering the following: root ssh/sftp access to a linux server apache/mysql/php/perl (preferably with no limit on the number of mysql databases, but I'd settle for 5 rather than the typical 1). ssl certificates for the webserver personal DNS management ideally local email server not too many restrictions on the outbound traffic (e.g. I'd like to be able to ssh out as well as in...) Any recommendations? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Why is it so hard? (Making Ubuntu Work)
by Mephi 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

Ok, I've been using Debian on my server for years and Knoppmyth (Debian based) on my media centre for slightly longer. But I've not really done much on the desktop. Since I do a fair amount of gaming, I've stuck with windows for my desktop. Recently though I've only been playing one game a lot (Guildwars) which is supposed to work fine under wine. Also I play GW with friends and we use skype. Which has a linux client, so I thought I'd give it a go... I downloaded and installed the 64-bit version of ubuntu, setup the ATI graphics card, setup the medibuntu repository and apt-getted skype and wine. So now I have 3 problems. 1. Now they're using something new in Ubuntu called Pulse Audio, which puts another layer between your devices and your applications, and apparently it's why I can't get my microphone working in skype. So, I've been working through everything on the Ubuntu forums (it appears I'm not the only one) documented by someone else here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1006163 But nope, none of that works... 2. I'm trying to setup my screens to work at their native resolution. I've got one that runs at 1680x1050 and another at 1280x1024. I managed to get them to run correctly, but the settings don't stick. It boots with both screens set at 1280x1024. To get them to work I do the following steps through the ATi Catalyst Control Centre: 1. Disable the second screen (1280x1024) 2. Reboot 3. Set the first screen to its correct resolution (1680x1050) which wasn't available before the reboot. 4. add the second screen in. Then it works, until I reboot. The third problem is that Guildwars doesn't want to run under Wine. I've not yet looked into this in great detail yet, as I've usually given up by this point and booted back into windows. Matt

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Can anyone explain why this HTML table displays as it does?
by Chris G 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

I'm trying to create a fairly simple table to lay out an itinerary. Currently I'm using OpenOffice as it makes it easy to generate the table with row spans and column spans etc. It actually seems to produce quite straightforward HTML. However neither Firefox 3 nor IE 7 seem to display the table borders correctly. Firefox 3 does really wierd things to some of the borders and IE 7 just shows them with differing thicknesses. All I want is the same cell/table borders everywhere. The url is:- http://www.isbd.net/images/itinerary.html There's very little CSS and not much HTML so why are the borders so wonky? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting: McGintys, Northgate Street (samwise)
by Adam Reid 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

So... I'm currently sat in McGinty's, have been for well over an hour now; a couple of members have appeared and left due to a distinct lack of anyone other than me being here, and issues with bus times. The barman doesn't know anything about a Linux group having either been here or moved on to pastures greener, and unless you're hiding down the well you certainly don't appear to be anywhere in the vicinity. The IRC channel hasn't a clue, not that anyone there is Ipswich-based but if it were cancelled/relocated it'd be handy to stick a note there or on the wiki and/or mailing list. Suffice to say I'm slightly cheesed off, I took time off of a rather tight project deadline to make the meet this month, and now have a half-hour walk back home again toting a laptop. So I have to ask, what the blazes happened? Did the regulars just not turn up, and the whole thing just fizzle out, or...? O_o

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Unbootable 2.6.28 kernel
by Dan Hatton 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Dear All, When I try to boot into kernel 2.6.28, I get a kernel panic with message `VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1" or unknown block (0,0)', followed by a list of available partitions which suggests that, between kernels 2.6.27.10 and 2.6.28, the drive on which I keep my root filesystem has changed its name from /dev/hda to /dev/sda. Is this expectable behavior? Should I edit my "root" boot option and fstab accordingly? Or does it indicate something wrong? -- Thanks, Dan

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Killing all programs on a virtual terminal
by Steve Fosdick 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Apart from the SAK Magic SysRq sequence does anyone know of a way to kill all the processes that have a particular virtual console open? TiA, Steve.

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Magic SysRq and odd scan codes
by Steve Fosdick 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Related to my other message I found that, with my current keyboard, Magic SysRq is not working. It is definitely compiled into the kernel. Documentation/sysrq.txt in the kernel tree suggested that the SysRq sending a strange scan code may be the reason. Running showkey -s gives me the following codes for SysRq: 0xe0 0x2a 0xe0 0x37 - on key down 0xe0 0xaa 0xe0 0xb7 - on key up. This does not match the description in setkeycodes which says that keys generate one or two byte sequences whereas this is clearly a four byte sequence. Has anyone seen anything similar or have any ideas if the necessary mapping can be established? Regards, Steve.

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HTML table editor - any recommendations?
by Chris G 17 Jan '09

17 Jan '09

I'm looking for a simple way to create HTML tables. In particular I want to be able to create tables with various (and fairly random) row spans and column spans. I don't really mind how it works, it can be a Web based application, a word-processor look-alike, or something that converts a text 'source' file into tables. I just want it to be simple to use. Currently I'm using reStructuredText which does most of what I want but its "Grid Table" syntax for tables is laborious to use and its "Simple Tables" don't give me all the row and column spans I need. I might take a look at Open Office, I assume that can generate HTML, what's its tables like? -- Chris Green

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Wireless keyboard with trackball for Linux - any experience?
by Chris G 17 Jan '09

17 Jan '09

Does anyone here have any experience of using a wireless keyboard with trackball built in with Linux? E.g. something like:- http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?referer=froogle&products_id=1789 I guess it will probably "just work" but I'd like to be sure there aren't any odd issues before I buy one. It's for a multimedia (well more of a photo display) box to go with the big new TV. -- Chris Green

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