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Developer vacancy
by Steve Engledow 02 Dec '08

02 Dec '08

Hi all, My company is looking for another developer. We need someone with good all-round skillzzzz but particularly in java and webdev. Details are here: http://www.validus-ivc.co.uk/claims-analysis-vacancies.asp?i=44 If anyone's interested, give me a shout :) Cheers, Steve

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Migrating e-mail _to_ pst
by Dan Hatton 28 Nov '08

28 Nov '08

(I guess this is about half on-topic. Apologies for the other half.) I'm helping out a user who would like to migrate from Evolution to Outlook. Which means I'll need a tool that works something like readpst in reverse. Can anyone suggest such a tool, please? Thanks, Dan

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Display error when switching to console from X
by Chris G 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

I'm running xubuntu 8.10 (though I suspect the problem is common to all 8.10 ubuntu versions). I can run X fairly reliably though I do have some issues when logging in and out presumably due to switching resolutions. However switching to a console using CTRL/ALT/F1 (or any of the others) doesn't work. I just get an error message from my monitor saying the resolution is invalid. My monitor is a Dell 2001FP capable of up to 1600x1200 so I suspect that the CTRL/ALT/F1 is switching to a totally impossible resolution. How can I fix this problem? Is there any way to specify the mode and resolution to use for the text mode consoles? -- Chris Green

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[Fwd: Re: Display error when switching to console from X]
by Stevey.eu 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 11:03:46AM +0000, Stevey.eu wrote: > > Chris G wrote: >> >> I'm running xubuntu 8.10 (though I suspect the problem is common to >> >> all 8.10 ubuntu versions). >> >> I can run X fairly reliably though I do have some issues when logging >> >> in and out presumably due to switching resolutions. >> >> However switching to a console using CTRL/ALT/F1 (or any of the >> >> others) doesn't work. I just get an error message from my monitor >> >> saying the resolution is invalid. My monitor is a Dell 2001FP capable >> >> of up to 1600x1200 so I suspect that the CTRL/ALT/F1 is switching to a >> >> totally impossible resolution. >> >> How can I fix this problem? Is there any way to specify the mode and >> >> resolution to use for the text mode consoles? >> >> > > Chris, > > > > Ever considered trying www.google.com it is a marvelous invention. > > Strangely enough I am familiar with Google, I'd recommend using www.google.co.uk personally, it does offer advantages for UK users sometimes (although not in this case of course). I have spent quite a lot of time searching around using Google on this issue and have follwed a few leads but I don't have a solution yet. Asking on alug was just another approach. -- Chris Green

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What does 'seahorse' actually do?
by Chris G 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

Having just changed my login password on my new Linux box I have discovered that there's an application called 'seahorse' lurking in the background. After changing my password seahorse pops up a window when you log in to X demanding that you enter a password - what it's asking for is the *old* password which it has stashed away somewhere itself. What isn't clear though is what seahorse is for and reading the Help is no 'help' at all, it just tells you how to drive the program, which is fine in itself but doesn't help me at all in working out what it does. Can anyone here help? Does seahorse do the same as ssh-agent? Does it do it 'automagically' when you log in to X using your login password? I've found the seahorse home page http://projects.gnome.org/seahorse/index.html and that tells me just about nothing. The best there is (on the 'about' page) is:- With seahorse you can... * Create and manage PGP keys * Create and manage SSH keys * Publish and retrive keys from key servers * Cache your passphrase so you don't have to keep typing it * Backup your keys and keyring * more... It's rather a fundamental security thing to 'just happen' behind your back! -- Chris Green

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sSMTP
by Torben Stones 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

I'm trying to setup sSMTP on a small home server, so that I can get the output from the cron jobs e-mailed to me. I believe that I've got it all setup correctly, as the message seems to be sent, but I'm never reciving anything. The config is so that every thing is sent to my gmail account and I'm useing smtp.googlemail.com as the smtp server. I'm trying to test using the command echo "Hello from sSMTP" | sendmail -v root >From the output it looks like it is working OK, but nothing ever arives. Has anyone set this up using google and/or does anyone have any idea as what I can check next. Thanks Torben -- You've got a lot of choices in your life. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.

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PHP memory limit problem
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

I need to raise my memory limit as an upgrade of Gallery2 is failing due to running out of memory. I've increased the memory_limit in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to 256M but something else is preventing this from working. Running phpinfo() shows the following information (among other things):- Loaded Configuration File /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini additional .ini files parsed /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/gd.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mcrypt.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mysql.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/mysqli.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/pdo.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/pdo_mysql.ini Local Value Master Value memory_limit 24M 256M So, what's reducing the "Local Value" to 24M? There's nothing in those other "additional .ini files parsed", has apache2 got some sort of limit of its own somewhere? How can I find what's limiting it? -- Chris Green

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Security - part II
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

I.e. thoughts and questions on backups. Continuing on from making my system secure against the most likely attacks etc. I need to make backups of the 'important' data. Currently I backup from my main server system (the pre-update one at the moment) to a system on the home LAN in the garage. The garage is a fair way from the house so in the event of a serious disaster (e.g. a fire) it should survive. I also backup the *most* important files off-site to my account at my hosting provider. At the moment these backups are 'pushed' from the main system, i.e. it is cron in that system that runs the backups. This requires that I have passwordless access to the destination system and here I see a hole! If a hacker got into my main system [s]he could immediately gain access to the backup destinations as well and destroy data there. How can one overcome this issue? I can see a partial way around it for the LAN backups, I can remove the passwordless access to the system in the garage and change to a 'pull' backup that is run by cron on the garage system. The garage system can have passwordless access to the main system to enable this, there's no access through the firewall to the garage system so a hacker would need to guess the garage system passwords to get to it. This at least provides another layer of pretection against malicious attacks. However I can see no way to pretect the off-site (across the internet) backups from similar attacks. If the shell account at my hosting provider was to have passwordless access to my home system that would lay me open to all sorts of malicious attacks so obviously that's not possible so I can't use the 'pull' backup from there. If I'm going to backup as at present the passwordless access to the off-site system needs to remain and therefore is open to a malicious attacker. It occurs to me that I could *possibly* do the backups from the garage system to the off-site system, that would improve things somewhat. How does the world at large do backups to remote systems without incurring security problems? -- Chris Green

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ALUG Ipswich Xmas Meal 2008
by samwise 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Hi, At the last Ipswich meet we discussed repeating the Xmas meal we had last year. Would anyone else on the list be interested in attending? We talked about having it on a different day to the usual December meet so if anyone else wants to join in, drop me a line and I'll try and co-ordinate a day that fits for everyone. Cheers, Peter.

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Is it possible to use DHCP for DNS only?
by Chris G 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Is it possible to set up a Linux system so that it has a fixed IP address on the LAN but uses the addresses given to it by a router (using DHCP) for DNS? -- Chris Green

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mySql - problems with passwords etc., is there no easy way?
by Chris G 24 Nov '08

24 Nov '08

I always seem to get in a tangle with installing and setting up mySql. The essential problem seems to be that mySql wants to refer to the local machine as 'localhost', and 127.0.0.1, and 'chris'. Thus when I try and add a user it seems that the user gets added with privileges for one (or some) but not all of 'localhost', and 127.0.0.1, and 'chris' and then doesn't work because I need to acces the database as one of the other host names. Adding a user as 'user'@* seems to be even worse and doesn't work at all. I also seem to be having trouble changing the password for the mySql super user, I tried doing it via phpmyadmin and that seems to have done nothing, I can't quite fathom the syntax for doing it in mySql from the command line in the mysql front-end. I *do* know SQL fairly well and usually once I have the password/host chaos sorted out mysql works well for me but this part of it really stinks IMHO when you're working on localhost (or is it 127.0.0.1 or is it chris?). It's fine when working remotely, there's only one possible name for the place where the database is. -- Chris Green

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Some thoughts/questions re: ssh security
by Chris G 24 Nov '08

24 Nov '08

As I'm in the process of moving my 'home server' across to a new machine it seems a good time to check out the security aspects. The machine runs behind an ADSL router which provides the firewall. I have the firewall set up so that the only access allowed from outside the home LAN is:- ssh port access from two specific IP addresses http and https access from anywhere I have data on the machine which I don't want to lose but it's not valuable or particularly confidential so I don't think I need to protect myself against concerted attacks from the CIA or MI5. :-) What I do want to prevent as far as possible is malicious attacks from hackers who, if they did get access, would probably just 'make a mess of things' for fun. The two IP addresses from which ssh access is allowed are the public address of my work machine and a machine where I have a shell login at my hosting company. Thus they are both moderately secure themselves but there is always a possibility that someone 'unfriendly' might get access. The choice (for ssh) lies between public/private key and ordinary passwords. I *know* that in general public/private key is regarded as more secure but I'm leaning towards using password security for the following reasons:- The machine where the password shadow file is stored is (relatively) secure, the only user is me. If someone (hacker) has access to the shadow file to apply brute-force/dictionary attacks then I've already lost the battle. I make very sure that passwords on my home machine bear no similarity to those on systems outside so knowledge of my 'outside' passwords will not make guessing my home machine's passwords easy. Someone who has access to my work/hosting accounts may well get access to the public key part of the public/private key pair. This, ultimately, lays it open to attack. They have *no* access to my home machine and thus, although the shadow file is fundamentally weaker in itself there is no opportunity at all to attack it. The *only* way that an attacker can break in is by guessing passwords. Does the above make reasonable sense or have I overlooked anything obvious? Obviously physical security matters and also I need to have the 'other half' of security based on backups etc. (probably subject of another E-Mail). Final question, how vulnerable does running apache2 on the system with general access make it? Are buffer overflow exploits and other such things likely to make my careful ssh security pointless? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Red Hat Enterprise insanity
by Richard Bensley 24 Nov '08

24 Nov '08

> Been handed a Red Hat Enterprise 4.x box that needs nagios plugins. > > Problem: How do I download and install together with dependencies. I'm a > Debian user myself, so going after the individual rpm files is driving > myself and my colleague crazy. Don't really want to go down the tarball > route either. > > We've been under the impression that these issues must have been resolved > years ago, but I can't find much help through Google. > > TIA > > James Hi, I assume you don't have a support contract? Best to do would be to add the rpm repositories (https://rpmrepo.org/RPMforge) RHEL is pretty useless without support. CentOS is built off the same source but you don't need a subscription. I can highly recommend centos. To do things apt-get style use the program 'yum' i.e.: sudo yum install PACKAGENAME Synaptic can also be used for RPM repositories. Rich

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Gnome "Wastebasket" puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 23 Nov '08

23 Nov '08

Hi Folks, Something's happened whilch puzzles me a bit; and also I don't know how I should deal with it. What I did: 1: Insert a USB stick that I wanted to delete the files on. When it's Icon appeared on the Gnome desktop, I opened that. I could see the files stored on the USB stick, but the menu for each file (right-click on file icon) offered no explicit option to delete it, except "Move to Wastebasket". So, for each file I did that. 2: I then unmounted the USB stick, removed it, and opened the Wastebasket (to empty the files out of that). There I found two Icons: A: "Ted's Downloads" [folder] B: "Ted's Downloads (Copy") [folder] I have no idea how they got there. When I look in them, they contain the files which are in my real "Ted's Downloads" folder. Some of these were on the USB stick too, but only a few of them. My Dilemma: I do NOT want to destroy the real "Ted's Downloads". However, the only vaguely relevant Menu option I can find is "Empty Wastebasket". Presumably, this would destroy the real "Ted's Downloads" folder, since apparently that (with its full current contents) is apparently now in the Wastebasket, though still accessible both from its own Desktop icon and from the command line. If, in the command line from /home/ted, I do: $ ls -l .Trash total 4 drwxr-xr-x 2 ted ted 4096 2008-09-17 20:42 Ted's Downloads lrwxrwxrwx 1 ted ted 19 2008-09-17 20:52 Ted's Downloads (copy) -> /home/ted/Downloads and: $ ls -l Desktop total 8 drwxr-x--- 2 ted ted 4096 2007-10-30 17:07 Downloads -rw------- 1 ted ted 474 2007-09-22 23:29 Google-googleearth.desktop lrwxrwxrwx 1 ted ted 19 2008-09-17 21:35 Ted's Downloads -> /home/ted/Downloads What I want to do: Get "Ted's Downloads" out of the Wastebasket (if it's really there ... ) without destroying it, so that in future I can move other files to the Wastebasket and "Empty Wastebasket" without destroying "Ted's Downloads". And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash). Any ideas, comments? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Nov-08 Time: 18:43:57 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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1TB External Hard Drives
by Mark Reid 22 Nov '08

22 Nov '08

Hi Folks I'm thinking of getting a 1TB external hard drive to use as file storage. I plan to connect via USB. Does anyone have any experience of using one on a Linux system and can warn of any potential problems or pitfalls? I'm running Ubuntu Intrepid on a Dell Inspiron 6400. Thanks Mark Reid

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Wiki upgrade
by Jonathan McDowell 22 Nov '08

22 Nov '08

I've upgraded the wiki to the latest Moin release; we were somewhat out of date. I think it should all be working fine but let me know if you have any problems. J. -- If it was easy, the hardware people would take care of it.

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Red Hat Enterprise insanity
by James Green 21 Nov '08

21 Nov '08

Been handed a Red Hat Enterprise 4.x box that needs nagios plugins. Problem: How do I download and install together with dependencies. I'm a Debian user myself, so going after the individual rpm files is driving myself and my colleague crazy. Don't really want to go down the tarball route either. We've been under the impression that these issues must have been resolved years ago, but I can't find much help through Google. TIA James

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USB, hard drive, media player sort of question
by Chris G 21 Nov '08

21 Nov '08

If I have (well I do hope to have) a television which will display pictures from a USB memory stick plugged into it, what format(s) will it expect on the USB stick? The manual for the TV isn't all *that* helpful, it says (among other things) :- This TV Supports on JPEG and MP3 Only a USB storage device is recognizable Please use only a USB storage device which was formatted as a FAT32 file system provided with the Windows operating system. In case of a storage device formatted as a different utility programme which is not supported by Windows, it may not be recognized. File alignment method of USB storage device is similar to Window XP and filename can recognize up to 100 English characters So, OK, the USB stick needs to be formatted as FAT32 and have Windows XP compatible file names. That shouldn't be a problem. Does there have to be any particular directory structure? Oh a few more bits from the manual:- PHOTO(*.JPEG) supporting file Baseline: 7680 x 4320 • You can play JPEG files only. • Only baseline scan is supported among JPEG (SOF0, SOF1 only). • Non-supported files are displayed in the form of bitmap. Does anyone know what any of the above means, in particular "Baseline" and SOF0, SOF1? Going on from the above could one plug a USB disk into the same TV? The manual says "It doesn’t support USB HDD" but I don't really understand how it would know, sure a USB storage device looks the same whether it's a flash drive or a disk drive. This is all with a view to choosing a new TV on which I want to display photographs which are stored on my PC. I've decided that TVs with a network connection (ethernet) are too expensive and/or aren't particularly good in other ways so I'm looking at the alternative ways of transferring pictures. Quite a few TVs have a 'PC' input (either or both of Sub-D and HDMI) but that requires the PC to be reasonably close to the TV and/or a dedicated PC. If I can get the pictures off the network via USB it would be easier. Any/all information would be welcome, it's not something I know much about. -- Chris Green

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Free stuff
by David Reynolds 19 Nov '08

19 Nov '08

Hi, Anyone want any of these: Belkin PCI Firewire card Belkin PCI USB card RealMagic EM8300 MPEG decoder / TV Out card. Free to a good home .. I just ask that you either collect, or pay postage. Anyone want? Cheers, David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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OT: Search engine optimisation
by Mark Rogers 19 Nov '08

19 Nov '08

Not really on topic here but I think this is the most likely group of people (I know) to have anything to offer... Does anyone here know someone with SEO skills they can recommend (or are they that person themselves)? I have a couple of customers interested in paying for the services of someone, but while it's easy to find people who claim to be great at SEO its definitely something I'd only want to pursue with recommendations. PS: I'm only interested in White Hat SEO, no tricks or "guaranteed top 10 in Google" rubbish. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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formatting a hard drive in linux
by Barry Chater 19 Nov '08

19 Nov '08

hi I am intending to take a hard drive from a laptop and place it in a windows desktop.This drive has Ubuntu on it and so as not to cause any problems in windows, i would like to erase the operating system on it before removing from the laptop. Any tips on the best way to do this? Once in the desktop i plan to install Ubuntu back on it( i still have the live disc). thanks Barry

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Technical Arts Show: Curiosity Collective - forewarned is forearmed
by samwise 18 Nov '08

18 Nov '08

Hi, this might be of interest to the technical bodgers on the list. The Curiosity Collective is a techy arts groups who create pieces of art, using technical wizardry, in this case based around the theme of proverbs. I saw their last exhibition in Ipswich, and they had some neat pieces. They use Macs as well as Linux ... :) Peter. The Curiosity Collective present, "forewarned is forearmed" - a preview of our forthcoming proverbs show. We are a group of artists, inventors and mad scientists working in Ipswich, who make interactive curiosities. In our new show we shall give you a sneak peak at our reinterpretations of proverbs - many as strange machines and computer trickery! The show will be on from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th November, in St Mary at Quay (http://www.google.com/maps?q=52.052847%2C+1.156300) Key Street, Ipswich (thanks to the cooperation of Key Arts - http://www.keyarts.org) Friday: 5pm to 9pm - reception at 7pm Saturday: noon until 5pm Sunday: 2pm to 5pm - talk at 3pm The final show will be in the New Year; for details of this and our various projects keep an eye on our website: http://www.curiositycollective.org Ipswich Borough Council and Turnstone - Arts Grants aided

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Report on low power PC exercise
by Chris G 17 Nov '08

17 Nov '08

Well I have my low power[ish] PC put together now, I had a couple of issues while assembling it. 1 - The Foxconn G31MG-S isn't available anywhere, it looks as if it won't become available for a few weeks yet. Since I want the computer now I have used a boring/generic/cheap Foxconn motherboard instead. As a result consumption is rather higher than predicted but is still quite acceptable at around 50 watts when idling with two disk drives and a CD/DVD drive. I could save a watt or two by unplugging the CD/DVD but it's hardly worth the effort. 2 - Some power supplies don't handle SATA drives well. I wasted a load of time on this. I ordered a case *and* a power supply when I ordered the parts for the system. The case (to my surprise) came with a 355 watt power supply so I though I might as well use that and keep the ordered (430 watt) one as a spare. I built the system and it worked OK until I added a second SATA drive, or at least I saw the same symptom a few times with only one SATA drive but put it down to misconfiguration. However when I tried to get it going with two drives it always just powered up for two or three seconds and then powered down again. A bit of searching suggested that it *might* be a power supply problem and so it was, using the 430 watt supply instead has made it work perfectly. Amazing that a system which idles at 50 watts and always uses less than 100 watts can't start up with a 355 watt power supply. Apparently SATA drives hit the 12 volt rail harder than IDE drives used to. I'll probably buy a Foxconn G31MG-S when they become available, more for the fun of seeing how low power I can be than for any real saving. The difference of 20 watts will only save about 0.5KWh per day so the annual saving is only around £20. -- Chris Green

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32 versus 64 bit
by Peter Alcibiades 17 Nov '08

17 Nov '08

Tim wondered: would you recommend upgrading to a 64bit environment? Definitely not. In fact, the solution to my own problems might be to do a clean install of a 32 bit environment. Its just not worth the aggravation. Maybe if you need to be able to address more memory. Or if you don't install all kinds of odd things that are 32 bit only - something which has given me untold grief. There don't seem to be any gains, and there is lots of aggravation. I have narrowed down the FF .xsession-errors issue a bit further, it seems to have something to do with the user, and to be not just with FF. I created another user, started up FF, exercised it a bit, and the errors file was empty. So another and less drastic action than doing a new clean install might be to create a new user and move all the files over. But equally, maybe the thing to do is just get it over with and move to 32 bit. Peter

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Video Conversion
by Steve Fosdick 15 Nov '08

15 Nov '08

My G/F has a Sumsung E100 pocket media player. Whilst this supports a nice range of audio formats including Ogg/Vorbis and FLAC the video capabilities seem rather restrictive - MPEG4 (in an AVI container) or VMV9. I have an MPEG2 transport stream that I'd like to be able to put on that player which means converting it to one of those two supported formats. Does anyone have any recommendations of software to do this? TiA, Steve.

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