Here's this month's 2nd edition...
Topics: [Alug] Syleham poster 4 u Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 [Alug] Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to [Alug] LPI Certification Re: [Alug] SSH/SCP No Password [Alug] Friendly Offer ? Re: [Alug] Security problems (was Lurkers) Re: [Alug] Disk Space for Linux Re: [Alug] Meeting report? [Alug] Getting data out of databases
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Date: 24 Aug 2001 15:47:18 +0100 From: MJ Ray markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk
Subject: [Alug] Syleham poster 4 u
Initial details of the syleham meeting should be on the website. A poster to be scattered around liberally is at http://mjr.towers.org.uk/alug/syleham20016.pdf
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Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:38:56 +0100 (BST) From: "D.I. Redhouse" dir21@cus.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5
On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, John Woodard wrote:
Announce ALUG 2001.5
The next meeting of ALUG (Anglian Linux User Group) will be on Sunday 16th September 2:00 - 6:00pm at Syleham and Wingfield Village Hall (Mid Suffolk venue). Venue details at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html
If nobody's got any objections I was planning to bimble along to this. So it seems only polite to say that since I have a nice fast connection and more CD burners than you can shake a stick at: if anybody wants CDs of ISOs that they can't get down a modem or whatever, I'll make them up and bring them along if you let me know what exactly you want (within reason, like).
Oh, and another thing. On the website at:
http://www.alug.org.uk/articles/2001a/alugfaq.html
it says:
`It can be installed alongside another OS (such as MS Windows or (i think?) Mac OS)' ^^^^^^^^^^ You can definitely dual-boot with MacOS, although I'm not entirely sure how easy it is to install Linux alongside an existing MacOS installation that already uses the whole disk. If you see what I mean. - - David Redhouse, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge 0787 6372962 dir21@cam.ac.uk http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/
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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:14:15 +0100 From: "John Woodard" mail@johnwoodard.co.uk
Subject: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5
Announce ALUG 2001.5
The next meeting of ALUG (Anglian Linux User Group) will be on Sunday 16th September 2:00 - 6:00pm at Syleham and Wingfield Village Hall (Mid Suffolk venue). Venue details at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html I will of as ever volunteer to organise this meeting and any future Mid Suffolk meets. If enough people want it I might be able to get the bar opened for the afternoon so make your requests now. The promotion of the meeting via Usenet can be left to me I will do it ASAP so if there are any news groups you think would be an appropriate place to advertise let me know in the past I have announced meets to:
uk.comp.os.linux alt.local.east-anglia comp.os.linux.announce (local:) and the pcplus.linux news groups are there any I have missed?
If you are coming mail me with what kit you are bringing and any requests for help and we will get it put up on the web site as before.
Cheers, BJ
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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:39:36 +0100 (BST) From: Adam Bower abower@thebowery.co.uk
Subject: [Alug] Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to 29th 30 th May 2002. (fwd)
Hi all,
Just got this mail in my inbox, so it is now on for May. I think we will organise an outing a bit nearer the time.
Adam - -=20 This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam
- --------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to 29th 30 th May 2002.
Dear Visitor,
Thank you for registering for LINUX EXPO BIRMINGHAM.
Please note that the show has been RE-SCHEDULED from 12th-13th September 2001 to 29TH-30TH MAY 2002.
The show will still take place at the NEC and will have exactly the same focus, dedicated to GNU/Linux and Open Source Solutions.
There is no need to register again - we will re-register you automatically for the 29TH-30TH MAY 2002.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused by re-scheduling the show.
We look forward to seeing you in May for a high-quality show!
Yours
Sacha Dunas CEO Sky Events / Linux Expo T=E9l : 0143456600 Fax : 0143459244 Portable : 0672802604 Email : sacha.dunas@sky-events.com
Linux Expo 2002
Amsterdam - 19 - 20 February Paris - 30 - 31 & 1 February Madrid - 3 - 4 April Sao Paulo - 15 - 16 May Birmingham - 29 - 30 May Milan - June
Sky Events 12 avenue de Corbera 75012 Paris
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Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 23:01:36 -0400 From: John Seago john.seago@btinternet.com
Subject: [Alug] LPI Certification
There was a query raised as to the costs of the Linux Professional=20 Institute Exam. Details can be found at :-
I understand the costs are $100 US for the Exam and a registration=20 fee. The nearest Exam centres are reported to me as being at Ipswich=20 and Peterborough.
John Seago=20 (I've got the time to browse!)
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Date: 19 Aug 2001 12:56:06 +0100 From: MJ Ray markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Alug] SSH/SCP No Password
"D" dsc@clara.net writes:
Anyone ever got this to work? Not sat down and tried yet but a guy I was talking to yesterday said its harder then it looks, surely you just need the host keys etc.. and your away.
I have eval $(ssh-agent) quite early in my .xsession file. This makes sure everything in my X session knows where to find the key manager. Then using ssh-add lets me add keys to it.
You generate ssh keys with ssh-keygen and have to copy the right one to the target machine's $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Other than that, it's fairly simple... ask questions if you want more than the manual pages say.
I even have a VPN using slip over ssh, for when I need to appear to be on an internal network somewhere.
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Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:37:26 +0100 From: "Martyn Ashworth" martyn.ashworth@eag.uk.com
Subject: [Alug] Friendly Offer ?
All,
I have got a copy of Kylix (Open Source) that I will gladly burn onto a CD for anyone interested (or who do not have the bandwidth to download 28Mb).
All you then have to do is register to play with an awesome RAD tool for Linux.
Sys Requirements:
RedHat >= 6.2 Mandrake >= 7.2 SuSE >= 7.0
175Mb Free HD Space.
Just e-mail me the postal address (mailto:martyn.ashworth@eag.uk.com) and i can get it sent out in the post tonight.
Martyn ------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:33:21 +0100 From: xsprite@bigfoot.com
Subject: Re: [Alug] Security problems (was Lurkers)
on Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 03:13:15PM +0100, MJ Ray scribbled:
MJ Ray markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk writes:
Can someone clue me in on how MITM attack would work here?
Key stroke analysis even.
http://www.openwall.com/advisories/OW-003-ssh-traffic-analysis.txt It's quite fun looking at a certain stream and guessing what the user is doing. One long burst normally indicates a full screen editor/program. Regular short updates tend to imply something like a progress bar (wget, bsd ftp). And as the paper says, single characters, sometimes typed quite quickly, sometimes slowly (because passwords can be complex to type), that are not echoed back, tend to be passwords. Surely the echo control should be on the client side. Anyhow.
I'm probably just hard-of-thinking this morning.
Yes, you are, aren't you?
hehe, it would seem soo.. :)
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Date: 15 Aug 2001 08:42:54 +0100 From: Andrew John Savory a.savory@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: [Alug] Disk Space for Linux
On 15 Aug 2001 08:41:44 -0400, John Seago wrote:
We would like to know what is the optimum size for one Linux distribution, as the Mandrake I have currently installed takes up a little over 2 gigabytes, (in a 5.5 gigabyte partition), how much more space do they needed over the the actual programme itself?
How long is a bit of string? The amount of space needed depends heavily on what it is you're doing with the machine. I've got a debian firewall using 300mb of a 2gb drive... but a debian desktop machine using every spare byte of 4gb... a debian server that has cheerfully chewed through the best part of 40gb...
There would also seem to a problem with the rest of my rather elderly computer recognising the whole of the 40 gigabytes, it seems to be able to `see' only 33 gigabytes of the new disk.
I've got a P133 that's able to see the entire partition of a 34gb disk (only one partition on there). It has to be slave though, as it's linux that can see the disk and not the machine itself (I can't boot off it).
Good luck with the experiment, anyway,
Andrew.
- - a.savory@btinternet.com All views are my own - who else would want them?
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Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 11:49:50 GMT From: David Freeman david_freeman@alug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Alug] Meeting report?
On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 11:21:16 GMT Martyn Drake wrote:
Okay, spill the beans - how did yesterday's meet go? :)
Regards,
Martyn
Having managed to give Mark 125MB of email since 7pm yesterday I think its now safe to post a report.
Well My worst fears didn't occur as I got a phone call from Mark at 1pm "Where are you" "getting cash out of a cash point which is giving me a DHCP error" replies I.
Once I arrive I get a call from Andrew "I'm at tesco's how do I get to you?" which was duely sorted.
8 people turned up including
Steve Fosdick Mark Ray Syd Hancock Neill Newman Andrew Glover Peter Holness Peter Clarke and me.
We got the cd-writter and sound working on my new debian install and discovered why I couldn't install netscape.
Other than that it was a typical meet with lots of chocy biscuits and stilulating conversation on various subjects.
Notable by absence
BJ Jen Jo Earl Tarquin
So who wants to do the next one?
Thanks
D
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Date: 11 Aug 2001 20:05:31 +0100 From: MJ Ray markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk
Subject: [Alug] Getting data out of databases
I'm the secretary of an association and responsible for keeping their membership lists. As a Linux user, it seemed natural to me to keep the membership records in a database and along the way I discovered two applications which make life very much easier for the non-programmer.
PostgreSQL is the database that I use, mainly because I like to have all the features available and I have never had any stability problems with it. For database design and data entry, I discovered the handy pgaccess application which presents an interface not dissimilar to a more famous program with a similar name. The notebook window which is displayed when you start up has tabs for Tables, Views, Forms, Queries and so on, while each one contains a list of available items and some actions on them. Once the command "CREATE DATABASE members;" had been given at the psql command line, it was simply a case of inputting the database details into pgaccess's "Open Database" window to be able to start entering the information.
pgaccess was downloaded as part of PostgreSQL, available from ftp.postgresql.org/pub and its home page is at http://flex.ro/pgaccess/
The report generator of pgaccess is not yet finished, so I was left with the problem of how to get the data out. I usually use LaTeX for writing letters and reports, so I was quite happy to discover the GNU Report Generator, gurgle, which was originally designed to work with that. To use it, you write a short gurgle script which includes a few definitions, the database query and the template for outputting the data to another file. Here's my script to print envelopes:
%%define PHYSDB "members" %%define NAMCOL %%define TEXEXT .tex %%database "members.sql" select name, institution, mailaddress from memberdetails %%header
%%record \envelope{%NAME \ %INSTITUTIO \ %MAILADDRES}
%%footer
%%end
The first line sets the database name to connect to, the next tells gurgle to use the names from the query, the third says to save the file with the .tex extension, then we have the query. An empty header and footer surround the record template, which simply puts the database results in a call to my "envelope" macro with some line breaks.
The file is then included into my envelope printing file (which also contains the association's logo, etc) and any small changes (replacing commas in the address with line breaks, for example) are done before sending the file to the printer and generating a stack of printed envelopes for a mailshot.
Gurgle can be downloaded from http://www.gnu.org/directory/GURGLE.html or http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/timc/gurgle/ and has optional modules for GNUSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL and CA-Ingres databases as well as text dump files.
Comments? Improvements? Your alternatives?