March 2010 - main

X authentication issue/question
by Chris G 10 Mar '10

10 Mar '10

I have a headless 'server' system which runs Ubuntu Server. Nearly all of the time I do maintenance, updates, etc. on the command line so it's just a matter of 'ssh server ....' to do what I need to do. However, occasionally, it's nice to use a GUI application to do something. Until now these have always needed root on the server system and the following sequence works OK:- chris$ ssh -X server chris@server:~$ sudo -s [sudo] password for chris: root@server:~# <run GUI program> The trouble is that when I try to do the same for a non-root user on the server system I get:- chris$ ssh -X server chris@server:~$ sudo -s root@server:~# su www-data www-data@server$ sqlitebrowser X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication. sqlitebrowser: cannot connect to X server localhost:12.0 I have xhost allowing the following:- chris$ xhost access control enabled, only authorized clients can connect NIS:www-data@server NIS:root@server SI:localuser:chris SI:localuser:gdm SI:localuser:root So why can root GUI programs display on my screen while non-root GUI programs can't? I've tried 'xhost +' to allow anyone to connect but I still get the same error. $DISPLAY is correctly carried through the various logins, I've checked that. Also www-data is the same UID on both systems though I don't really see why that would be relevant. OK, I *could* run sqlitebrowser as root (I have tried and it works OK) but I then end up with lots of files having wrong permissions, it would be much nicer if I could run it as www-data. -- Chris Green

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Any sqlite (ot other SQL database) experts here - how to copy a table?
by Chris G 10 Mar '10

10 Mar '10

It sounds like it should be easy but I can't see any reasonable way of doing it. How do you make a copy of a table in an sqlite3 database? I can copy the database, that's trivial, but I want to duplicate a *table* within a database and that seems distinctly un-trivial. Any ideas/suggestions anyone? -- Chris Green

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Recommend a DNS Provider?
by Greg Thomas 09 Mar '10

09 Mar '10

For a number of years, I've been happy with my hosting provider, 1&1. I've only really got two complaints; a) Lack of IPv6 support. Hopefully that will come in time, and b) They only support 10 sub domains for each DNS domain you have with them. It's the second that looks like it may begin to bite soon. Can anyone recommend a reliable DNS provider that will allow me an order of magnitude more subdomains (*) if I move my DNS to them? TIA, Greg (*) OK, so 20 would probably be enough for the forseeable future, but then I thought we;'d never get near 10 ...

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Moving mailboxes
by Chris Walker 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

Ive just bought myself a new machine and am wanting to move the mailboxes from this one to the new one. This one runs Mandriva 2010.1 and the new one runs the 64 bit version of it. I use both Sylpheed and Thunderbird on here so need to know how best to do it. Both machines dual boot and I've sort of managed it for Sylpheed under Windows XP and completely for Thunderbird on XP. Half the messages are missing on Sylpheed though and none of the accounts have transferred. I chose Sylpheed for XP as it started life on *nix and to date it's been much more reliable than Pegasus which is what I used before. But I want to avoid the same problem under Linux that I've just encountered under XP -> 7. Any help appreciated.

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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Thursday Pub Meet, March 11th (this Thursday)
by Jonathan McDowell 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 11th March 2010 at The Coach and Horses: 82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ There will be people there from 8pm (possibly earlier). If you are unsure you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or via IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. J. - who plans to make an appearance this month. -- Most people are descended from apes. Redheads are descended from cats. ----- 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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Vintage Computer Festival at Bletchley Park: 19-20 June 2010
by samwise 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

Hi, I don't know if this floats anyone else's boat but just an FYI - there's an event coming up in June at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. More info here: http://www.tnmoc.org/36/section.aspx/131 First confirmed speaker is Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson, co-designer of the BBC micro and developer of the RISC/ARM processor. I heard Prof. Steven Furber give a good talk last year about the development of the RISC processor so I'm hoping this should be as entertaining. I reckon this one looks quite interesting and more all-round than the usual gaming-type events I've been to so if anyone was considering a trip to Bletchley Park this year (a good place to visit, at any time), it might be worth coinciding it with this event. If you can't get that far but have an interest in old computers, the Centre for Computing History is based in Suffolk and at some point this year, I have intentions of arranging a gathering off-list. If anyone wants in on that, drop me a mail. Peter. Full Disclosure: I know at least one of the guys who's involved on the periphery with the organising of this event, but he's involved more with organising other exhibits like the working Acorn setups e.g. there should be a BBC Domesday Project running; that sort of thing.

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Samba share permissions
by Mark Rogers 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

I have a Samba share setup thus: [projects] path = /var/flexshare/shares/projects comment = Projects Drive create mask = 664 directory mask = 775 force group = user public = no valid users = @user browseable = yes writeable = yes This has files written to it by a number of users on Windows, and myself from a Linux desktop. When the Windows users create files, they're group writable (ie any of us can modify them), but when I create them nobody else gets write access. I am accessing the share through a cifs mount, as follows: //10.0.0.14/projects /smb/projects cifs credentials=/smb/.credentials,dir_mode=0775,uid=1000,gid=1010 0 0 (word-wrap added for email). Any ideas what is wrong? Something to note is that all users exist on the file server, and if I look at the directory listings in the shares from the file server then files are all owned by <user>.user (eg mark.user) depending who created them (to be clear, the group name is "user", the user name is that who created the file). However, if I list /smb/projects from my local machine, then all files are shown as owned by me (mark.user) regardless of who created them. This isn't a problem in itself, I only mention it in case it is relevant. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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simple file and web server
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Mar '10

07 Mar '10

What would you use for a very simple file and web server? I have looked at freenas, and it seems to fit the bill quite well, but no web server. Looked at Clear, which seemed unduly complicated and comes with apache, which is probably beyond me. Looked at voyage which promptly froze amid complaints about respawnings as soon as it was started up. Where I'm ending up is to do a basic debian install, then add nfs and one of the very simple stripped down web servers. Sensible? Its strictly for internal use, and all I need is central file storage, and very limited internal web sites, mainly photo galleries. Minimal traffic. By the way, the answer to the previous question, apps locked to specific machines, discovered after some work and consultation with a friend who only emerges from his basement after dark, seems to be to virtualize the app. A lot of work, but that's the answer. It all keeps blood flowing to the brain! A powerful preventative against intellectual infirmity, or so we hope. Peter "The best medicine we have for the heart is liberal quantities of sweat, taken externally " -- Eminent Cardiologist.

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Strange permissions problem with NFS, works from one system but not another
by Chris G 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

I have one home directory which is shared across our SoHo LAN, the /etc/exports file on the server has:- /home/isbd chris(rw,all_squash,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002,no_subtree_check) /home/isbd maxine(rw,all_squash,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002,no_subtree_check) On 'chris' mount shows:- server:/home/isbd on /home/isbd type nfs (rw,addr=192.168.1.2) ... and on 'maxine' mount shows:- server:/home/isbd on /home/isbd type nfs (rw,addr=192.168.1.2) ... and one the server /var/lib/nfs/etab is:- /home/isbd chris.isbd.net(rw,sync,wdelay,hide,nocrossmnt,secure,root_squash,all_squash,no_subtree_check,secure_locks,acl,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002) /home/isbd maxine.isbd.net(rw,sync,wdelay,hide,nocrossmnt,secure,root_squash,all_squash,no_subtree_check,secure_locks,acl,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002) I can happily create, write and read files in /home/isbd from chris@chris, I can only read files on /home/isbd from maxine@maxine when I try and write anything I just get "Permission denied". So what's the difference? Both chris and maxine systems are running xubuntu 9.10, everything looks the same but one works and the other doesn't. (Oh, for information, isbd is UID 1002, GID 1002 on the server system) (I think it's the gods getting their revenge because I said I preferred the simplicity of NFS!) -- Chris Green

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Does synchronization mean something different to other people?
by Chris G 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

After having a hard time trying to 'synchronize' a couple of applications which use iCalendar .ics files I had a little Google around to see if I could understand the problems I'm having. I think quite a lot of the problem is that what I call synchronization is quite different (and rather more than) what everyone else means by the word. For example I found several places with quotes like the following:- How to sync your google calendar with Evolution The access is read-only which means you cannot add events in Evolution and have them show up in your google calendar, but your events in google calendar will be available in Evolution for you to read. That's not even *remotely* synchronization! What I'm actually trying to do is to allow two people on a LAN to share a .ics file saved on a server, hardly hi-tech, but I'm really finding it well nigh impossible. A section of a whiteboard would be easier at the moment. If anyone has any ideas for implementing a way to share a calendar stored on a server than they'd be very welcome. One end will probably be using Evolution (but doesn't absolutely have to), the other end is very flexible and can use any available application really. -- Chris Green

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