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Help with YouTube videos
by Chris Walker 07 Nov '09

07 Nov '09

I've just visited my son and installed Mandriva for him, the same version I have here. As he's of a different generation to me, he likes watching videos. The problem is sound. He is being prompted to pay 28 euros for a codec pack whereas when I play them (both of us are using Firefox 3.0.15), they work fine and I didn't cough up any dosh. An example is this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQcNiD0Z3MU Any ideas anybody please?

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touch screens
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Nov '09

07 Nov '09

Thanks everyone, for the comments on this. Bottom line seems to be that it will most likely work, maybe not plug and play, but with a bit of tweaking, so maybe the thing to do is buy one and make quite sure, before committing to a bunch. They are getting quite reasonably priced now - ebuyer has the Ilyama 19 inch one for under 400, which is just about affordable. Thanks for the comments about kiosks also. The security issues are not too bothersome. We will not allow outside net access at all, we'll put these machines on a separate subnet, and if there is no keyboard and it boots from read only media....? Well, famous last words! Never underestimate the ingenuity of a bored 12 year old. Peter

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Anacron error
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 07 Nov '09

07 Nov '09

Hi, I use Ubuntu. I installed NTOP briefly, then decided I didn't want it. I then uninstalled it using Synaptic's "Completely remove including all configuration files". I then upgraded from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. Every day since installing and removing, I have received the error email below. I have searched the pc (including hidden files) and I cannot find any reference to ntop in etc or var or subdirectories thereof. I've googled and can't find a reason why this is. Most answers I find on google say there's a residual ntop file somewhere in etc or var, but I can't find it. There is a package file in /var/cache/apt/archives and a file called /var/lib/update-rc.d/ntop containing the text update-rc.d -f ntop remove Any idea how I can stop this happening? Regards Steve -------- Original Message -------- Title: Anacron job 'cron.daily' on myserver Subject: Anacron job 'cron.daily' on myserver Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:53:13 +0000 From: Anacron <redacted> To: <redacted> /etc/cron.daily/logrotate: error: error accessing /var/log/ntop: No such file or directory error: ntop:1 glob failed for /var/log/ntop/*.log

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Some advice needed
by Alistair Macgregor 06 Nov '09

06 Nov '09

Can someone please help with some advice. At the moment I run a dual boot system, with Windows XP and Ubuntu sharing my hard drive. I would like to go the whole hog and rid myself of windows. I know I can do 90% of what I use my computer for under Linux, office, graphics and music. The only thing I'm having trouble with is an equivalent for Planetside Terragen landscape generator. Is there anything compatible or am I stuck running it in WINE. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Alistair

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Difficult to diagnose ssh problem - can't connect at all
by Chris G 06 Nov '09

06 Nov '09

I'm trying to get connections working from the outside world into my SoHo LAN via my *second* ADSL. I'll try and explain the set-up. The SoHo LAN all sits on a 192.168.1.x/32 subnet connected to a Draytek Vigor 2820n ADSL router which connects to the internet via a standard ADSL connection with UKFSN. That all works fine and I have set up 'pinholes' through the firewall to allow incoming ssh, SMTP and HTTP connections. Thus I seem to know how to set up the firewall on the 2820n. The 2820n has a second WAN port which is an ethernet port, I have that connected to a BT Business Hub (2Wire 2700HGV) ADSL router which connects to the internet via a second phone line. The 2820n is set up to share the two connections and that works OK too. I.e. outgoing connections go via whichever of the two WANs is less busy. There are some things which are configured to use only one or the other WAN (e.g. SMTP, HTTPS). What I am trying to do (and failing miserably at) is to get incoming connections for a couple of protocols working through the 2Wire router. I really want to get SMTP working but I am also trying to get ssh working as that is (possibly) easier to diagnose. So, I have the 2Wire router set up so that it tells me the following 'pinholes' are set up in its firewall:- Device Allowed Applications Application Type Protocol Port Number(s) Public IP 192.168.13.65 SMTP Server - TCP 25 81.158.147.90 SSH Server - TCP 22 81.158.147.90 Device 192.168.13.65 is the WAN port on the 2820 router so that ssh and SMTP connections from the outside should get routed to the 2820n. I then have the 2820n set up (firewall and port forwarding) so that ssh and SMTP connections from WAN2 (the 2Wire WAN connection) get passed to my 'server' machine which is 192.168.1.2. It all *seems* to be correct, when I try and ssh from outside to 81.158.147.90 then the 2820n shows a NAT route to 192.168.1.2. If I 'telnet 81.158.147.90 22' from the outside I actually get an SSH 'hello' from 192.168.1.2, exactly the same as the one I get if I 'telnet 192.168.1.2 22' from inside my LAN. *BUT* ssh from outside doesn't work, no response at all, it just times out. ssh from inside works fine. I've tried winding up debug to maximum on ssh but it hasn't told me anything. I've stared intently at the port forwarding, NAT and firewall set-up on the 2820n and it all seems correct. Oh, and I can 'ping 81.158.147.90' OK from the outside. I'm stumped, any ideas for how to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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touch screens
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

Has anyone used these - touch screens? And how exactly do they work - I mean, stuff like clicking on a link or a button in a program? And are there generally linux drivers available, and do you need specific drivers or do they look like mice? My charity is thinking of a LAN based web site, internal only, accessed by touch screens so we don't have to have a keyboard out to get dirty and for mischevious hands to play with.... All you could do is click on what there is. Well, its a hope. We'd use browser Linux booted off an internal flash card, read only. Might be safe. But that part I can manage, its some experience with touch screens that would be appreciated. Peter

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open office calc problem
by Jenny Hopkins 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

Hullo there - is this a bug, or an error between chair and keyboard? The problem may be better asked in an open office forum, but just in case anyone here has come across this problem: I have an OO calc spreadsheet with a bunch of columns. The columns are summed in a final row using the SUM function button ("=SUM(A1:A10)" e.g.). I open a second spreadsheet and wish to reference these cells from the new sheet. First method tried: hit the equals button and click on the appropriate cell in the first sheet for each column. Result: some of the results show the correct value for the referenced cell, most do not. Second method: name the final row from first file as a named range. In 2nd file, use the insert and link external data button, selecting the appropriate sheet and range from the proferred choice. Result: all values show 0 where referring to a cell that was a SUM of other cells. I was playing with this on behalf of my other half, who wants to have a summary sheet of all his various site worksheets. For a start, it looks as though he would need the second link method as that is linked and therefore refreshes. Not much use if it shows 0 from summed cells however. I was also very curious why the first method didn't show the correct values. Thanks, Jenny

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Open Office spellchecker won't play ball
by Bev Nicolson 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

That sums it up really. I'm typing a document up and it would be _really_ helpful if the spellchecker underlined the words it thinks are misspelt but I've unchecked and checked boxes, I've installed the English language dictionary (having googled the problem) and nada. Zilch. Nothing. Help! Bev.

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FSCONS
by Sam Tuke 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

Is anyone going to FSCONS (Free Software Conference and Nordic Summit) the weekend after next (13-15th Nov) in Sweden? Ryanair still has flights for £10 (about £20 with fees). I calculate that in total the trip will cost approx. £200, including conference fees, food, accommodation, public transport and flight (assuming that the flights are still available). Amongst others Wikipedia and Nokia will be there, in addition to speakers on Hackerdom, writing kernel drivers, FOSS in public sector any many others. Sam.

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Testing new mail server without turning off the old one - how?
by Chris G 04 Nov '09

04 Nov '09

I am moving my mail server from my desktop machine to a server machine. Both these machines are on my SoHo LAN behind a NAT router. Thus to move incoming mail from one to the other I have to change the port forwarding and firewall setings in the router. Can anyone suggest a way to either send incoming mail to both machines or some other way of testing the new mail server before committing all my incoming mail to it? I already copy all my mail to another user where it isn't sorted but just gets kept for seven days and then deleted. That is done on my hosting companies system. So I have some protection from total disaster! In addition of course the 'sender' (my hosting supplier) will wait and retry if/when I stop accepting mail so mail shouldn't be lost but I'd really like to do at least some simple testing before the big switch over. -- Chris Green

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Network Manager job
by Christopher Dawkins 04 Nov '09

04 Nov '09

This job http://www.computerweekly.com/jobs/job/network-manager-essex-200615684.htm says "with particular skills in UNIX (preferably FreeBSD)" which is very unusual for a school. But with 13 OSS servers and 22 routers running OSPF over a 90-acre 25-building site, it's serious, and I hope they get someone with those skills. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Braintree Road, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DS cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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OT: ADSL T-Bar?
by Mark Rogers 03 Nov '09

03 Nov '09

One of our customers has been advised that something called a "t-bar" (phonetic spelling, I or he may have misheard and I've probably mis-spelled otherwise anyway) will improve his ADSL connection. Professor Google hasn't helped me work out what he is being told, does anyone here know? -- 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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Are there any good iptable routing configuration utilities out there?
by Chris G 30 Oct '09

30 Oct '09

I've been Googling around for a while and can't find any good utilities (command line or GUI, don't mind too much) for configuring iptables routing. Part of the trouble is that 'iptables configuration' mostly means firewall set up and I don't want/need to do that as it's in my ADSL router. What I want is to configure routing tables in a Linux 'server' box on my network. It *may* be that some of the firewall utilities will do what I want but it's difficult to penetrate the mass of information about firewall set up. I think Smoothwall can probably do what I want but is possibly overkill. Quagga maybe too but it is definitely overkill, I don't have complex requirements, just slightly non-standard ones. There are sites like http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.rpdb.multiple-links.html which tell you how to do some of what I want but they're very old and I wonder if they're still the right way to do things. They're mostly four or five years old and the kernel and routing have probably moved on somewhat since then. They don't really handle failover either. -- Chris Green

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Youtube stops buffering
by Barry Samuels 30 Oct '09

30 Oct '09

Debian Testing with kernel 2.6.26 Flah version 10.0.32.18 My wife uses Iceweasel to access youtube and she discovered that recently when she tries to play something it starts to buffer the stream but after a very short while the buffering stops. When the play indicator reaches the end of the buffer mark it stops and won't play any more. She also uses BBC iPlayer but that doesn't give any problems. Can anyone nudge me in the right direction in trying to diagnose this? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Routing/port forwarding question
by Chris G 29 Oct '09

29 Oct '09

If I set up a 'router' box which does connection sharing with something like the following in its routing:- ip route add default scop global \ nexthop via 192.168.0.2 dev eth0 weight1 \ nexthop via 192.168.0.3 dev eth0 weight1 (two ADSL modems/routers on 192.168.0/24 with approximately equal speed) Then how do I deal with SSL, incoming SMTP and similar which require that, once started, the 'session' continues to use the same interface? Is there a routing syntax that allows one to specify a port number which would override the above for specific port numbers? -- Chris Green

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USB error messages in syslog - what do they mean?
by Chris G 29 Oct '09

29 Oct '09

I have just tried connecting my 2Wire 2700HGV router to my ubuntu 9.04 linux system using USB. This produces the following in syslog:- Oct 26 23:12:34 chris kernel: [230365.857016] usb 6-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3 Oct 26 23:12:34 chris kernel: [230366.039734] usb 6-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.219736] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.468009] rndis_host 6-2:1.0: RNDIS_MSG_QUERY(0x00010202) failed, -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.708062] rndis_host 6-2:1.0: RNDIS_MSG_QUERY(0x01010101) failed, -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.708067] rndis_host 6-2:1.0: rndis get ethaddr, -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.709680] rndis_host: probe of 6-2:1.0 failed with error -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.709713] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.968010] rndis_wlan 6-2:1.0: RNDIS init failed, -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.968036] rndis_wlan: probe of 6-2:1.0 failed with error -110 Oct 26 23:12:35 chris kernel: [230366.968064] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan Is this an error (as in a bug in the Linux code) or is it just that the USB code in Linux doesn't know how to talk to the router? -- Chris Green

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USB to Ethernet - works!
by Chris G 29 Oct '09

29 Oct '09

Well my new, cheap, generic USB to ethernet dongle 'just works', excellent! It was about a fiver from Lambdatek (along with some other stuff to avoid carriage being too significant). It's branded "Dynamode" USB-NIC-1427-100 if anyone is interested. It means I can add extra NICs to my little Acer Aspire Revo to my heart's content, I only need the one for the moment. By the way I have Ubuntu Server 9.10 (last release candidate) installed on the Revo, went without a hitch. I tried xubuntu but that fell in a heap, I suspect the display drivers are not fully up to it yet and, as I don't really need X, I just went for the server installation. Next to configure it to actually start doing useful things so I can turn my desktop machine off when I'm not using it and the rest of our little network will continue to be happy. -- Chris Green

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Searching a web host for possible exploits
by Mark Rogers 29 Oct '09

29 Oct '09

In the past I've used a little script here: http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=92678 .. to scan my virtual hosts for any exploits that might have been uploaded (eg any PHP Shells, etc). It's quite a simple but effective script (just searching for keywords and emailing the offending section of code to me to investigate) but it isn't maintained and there's probably better tools out there. My question is: what tools do other people use/recommend? -- 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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Naive Wireless LAN question(s)
by Chris G 27 Oct '09

27 Oct '09

Up until now I have avoided using Wireless LANs as far as possible, I find wired ethernet much easier to understand and get my head around. We have occasionally turned on the Wireless on the router to allow my wife's laptop to connect when she's out in the garden but have always turned it off again after use. I now want/need to do something a bit more difficult and really don't quite know how wireless will handle it (or even if it can). I'll try and explain what I want to do. I have two phone lines each with ADSL from two different ISPs. Currently it's all hard wired with a Draytek Vigor 2820n on one and a BT Business Hub (2Wire) on the other. The 2820n provides simple load balancing sharing requests between its ADSL and the BT/2Wire ADSL which is connected to the second WAN port on the 2820n. What I want to do is do load balancing/sharing in a Linux 'server' box rather than using the 2820n as the 2820n's load balancing is a bit limited and I think that (maybe) I can do better using something like Zeroshell or Smoothwall in a dedicated Linux box. I'm aiming to try using an Acer Aspire Revo as the 'server' box but it only has one wired ethernet NIC (as do nearly all reasonably priced low power boxes) so I'll need to use its wireless LAN too. I'd like to use its hardwired Gigabit interface to connect to my existing LAN with our desktop machines, NAS etc. So, I want to use the wireless LAN on the Acer Aspire Revo to talk to both the routers, is this possible? I.e. will they all talk together in the same way as they would if plugged into a switch? Or would I be better off getting the Revo to talk to one of the routers using wireless and then use the switch in that router to get the other router onto the same subnet? Any all advice welcome (if anyone has waded through this so far!). -- Chris Green

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And now for something completely different - an iPlayer problem
by Barry Samuels 26 Oct '09

26 Oct '09

I'm having a BBC iPlayer problem. If I try to access content, using Iceweasel, I get a message "This content doesn't seem to be working" but my wife can access the same content from her computer connected to the same router. We are running the same versions of Debian and Iceweasel. I do have Flash enabled and I can access the ITV and Channel Four equivalents with problems. Any ideas? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Any experience of USB to ethernet converters with Linux?
by Chris G 26 Oct '09

26 Oct '09

Has anyone here used a USB to Ethernet converter with Linux? I want to add a second ethernet interface to an Acer Aspire Revo and the most obvious way to do it is to use a USB to ethernet thingy. Will it 'just work' or are there issues? A quick Google search suggests that I should have no problems but it would be good to have specific recommendations if anyone has any. -- Chris Green

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BBC iplayer desktop
by Bev Nicolson 26 Oct '09

26 Oct '09

Because the BBC programmes play back so badly if I watch them online I thought I'd try installing the desktop version of iplayer. However, towards the end of the process a message comes up saying 'Enter password for default keyring to unlock.' I had thought this would go away eventually but it hasn't. Googling tells me that this is used for wireless connection but of course all I wish to do is download a programme and I'm not able to. What do I do? Thanks. Bev.

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Re: [ALUG] And now for something completely different - an iPlayer problem
by Barry Samuels 23 Oct '09

23 Oct '09

On 23/10/09 14:24:57, Dennis Dryden wrote: > > Can you access it from the same machine under a different account? > Might be a plugin or something. > > Dennis Dennis set me on the right track. I logged in as a different user and iPlayer worked so then I logged in as my usual user and set up a new iceweasel profile and iPlayer still worked. So far I was accessing bbc.co.uk by typing the URL then I imported my bookmark list and selected my bookmarked URL and I got that error message again. I realised at this point that the bookmarked URL was bbc.net.uk not bbc.co.uk and changing 'net' to 'co' cured the problem. I don't know how I got onto bbc.net.uk in the first place but that's the one I bookmarked by chance and that was the cause of the problem. A bit of a weird one that. Thanks to Dennis for the initial clue and to the others who tried to help. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] And now for something completely different - an iPlayer problem
by Barry Samuels 23 Oct '09

23 Oct '09

On 23/10/09 14:24:57, Dennis Dryden wrote: > On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Barry Samuels > <bjsamuels(a)beenthere-donethat.org.uk> wrote: > > I'm having a BBC iPlayer problem. If I try to access content, using > > Iceweasel, I get a message "This content doesn't seem to be working" > > but my wife can access the same content from her computer connected > > to the same router. We are running the same versions of Debian and > > Iceweasel. > > > > I do have Flash enabled and I can access the ITV and Channel Four > > equivalents with problems. > > > > Any ideas? > > Can you access it from the same machine under a different account? > Might be a plugin or something. > > Dennis That's something I hadn't thought of. Tried that and got a little further to a picture with a 'Play' icon in the centre and a play button on the windows status bar but clicking either does nothing. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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blacklisting in Spamassassin
by Jenny Hopkins 21 Oct '09

21 Oct '09

Hullo, I'm finding mail headers a tad confusing. If the header of a mail is as below, what is the actual address that needs to be entered in a blacklist file in SpamAssassin? Or for the local user to enter into an evolution blacklist file on their local machine? info(a)courier.org smtpgw.nic.in ciyang22(a)yahoo.co.uk vastu3.nic.in wb.nic.in ? Many thanks, Jenny Return-Path: <info(a)courier.org> Envelope-To: user(a)dream.mydomain.co.uk Delivery-Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:01:09 +0100 Received: from stoneboat.mydomain.co.uk ([80.68.88.63]) by dream.mydomain.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from <info(a)courier.org>) id 1MzDaM-0005TE-SQ; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:01:03 +0100 Received: from smtpgw.nic.in ([164.100.17.13] helo=vastu3.nic.in) by stoneboat.mydomain.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from <info(a)courier.org>) id 1MzDZG-0007Kq-6R; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:59:55 +0100 Received: from vastu3.nic.in (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by vastu3.nic.in (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id n9HGohnY005375; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:20:50 +0530 Received: from wb.nic.in (wb.nic.in [164.100.199.2])by vastu3.nic.in (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id n9HGnfAp005107;Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:19:42 +0530 Received: from wb.nic.in (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])by wb.nic.in (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id n9HIAXt6014677;Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:40:33 +0530 Received: (from apache@localhost)by wb.nic.in (8.13.5/8.13.5/Submit) id n9HI9PTm014656;Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:39:25 +0530 X-authentication-warning: wb.nic.in: apache set sender to info(a)courier.org using -f Received: from 118.98.215.130 (proxying for 62.56.132.24) (SquirrelMail authenticated user pao-coochbehar) by wb.nic.in with HTTP; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:39:25 +0530 (IST) Message-id: <44260.118.98.215.130.1255802965.squirrel(a)wb.nic.in> Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:39:25 +0530 (IST) (19:09 BST) From: Mr. Tomo Sand Nori <info(a)courier.org> Reply-to: ciyang22(a)yahoo.co.uk

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