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10369 discussions

Printing speeds, Linux vs Windows
by Mark Rogers 04 Sep '20

04 Sep '20

If I have a large file to print, on Linux it can takes ages spooling - hours even - where on Windows it can be printing in seconds. I've noticed this many times over the years, on all types of printer I've had use of. (Large typically means graphical, eg I tried printing a 2 page A3 PDF as my Windows PC was offline, and I managed to rebuild my Windows PC, transfer the file and be ready to print before I hear a peep from the printer, and on cancelling the Linux print, Windows had the printer clunking away a few seconds later.) Is there a good reason for this? Is it just me? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Dual booting Kubuntu install on EFI / Secure Boot Acer laptop not booting up
by Srdjan Todorovic 24 Aug '20

24 Aug '20

Hi all, I'm getting a bit stuck installing Kubuntu 20.04.1 LTS on my laptop with Secure Boot / dual booting with Win10. I can complete the installation process but Windows always boots. I can see that the ESP partition has the EFI/ubuntu/*.efi files (while I'm live-booted using the linux disk) and efibootmgr shows what appears to be correct entries for the bootup definitions for the ubuntu's .efi files. I've had conflicting advice when searching online as to where to install the bootloader - some say on the start of the disk (where MBR used to be) and some say at the Linux root partition. I've done the latter. I have booted off the CD immediately after the install to enrol using the MOK manager which comes up automaticall. The Acer UEFI "Security" menu doesn't show any files in the ubuntu folder to choose them as trusted components for boot. The Microsoft folder has entries, and also importantly the . and .. directory entries. I have already fsck.vfat the partition, initially showed incorrect free clusters but that was correct before another reinstall. Anyone have some advice please on anything I may have missed? Thanks kindly, Srdjan

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nextcloud move
by Phil Thane 19 Aug '20

19 Aug '20

Hi Lugs I was amazed how easy it is to set up Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi using the NextcloudPi image (once I'd bought a bigger SD card). It works even on a first generation Pi but some things are slow, login via the web, moving around directories and apps. I've just bought a new Pi4 which I assume will be a lot faster but I already have about 50GB of files on an external HD attached to the original Pi. It took a long time to put them there and I'd rather like to avoid doing it again. Does anyone have experience of attaching an external drive with existing data to a new Pi? During installation of NextcloudPi there's an option to use external (USB) storage but it assumes a new disk and formats it. No good in my case. If I decline that and just set up on SD card how hard is it to mount an HD later without losing the data already on it? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printer Recommendations
by Steve Mynott 19 Aug '20

19 Aug '20

Can anyone recommend a small, cheap monochrome laser printer which is easy to connect using wifi from linux? I'd rather avoid HP or anyone with bad karma and expensive toner and I'm not too bothered about colour. -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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data deduplication / compare
by B D 18 Aug '20

18 Aug '20

Hi, I suppose that this could be an issue that the majority of us have faced at some point in the past. So you might have a simple solution. In last few weeks I had to move my small and old NAS box (adding some drives to make it a tad more resilient). I moved all the data to a portable drive and now I would like to merge all I have on my laptop with what's on the USB HDD. Content.. endless folders with various photos, music and video. The idea is that once files are organized the NAS will become a storage share for Nextcloud running on Pi. Any ideas are greatly appreciated Cheerio! Bart

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th August.
by Viperfang 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 182, Issue 2
by Peter 03 Aug '20

03 Aug '20

On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 12:00:01 +0100 main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." I used unison. One or two oddities but a lot better than manually doing it.

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Mailing list software
by Mark Rogers 30 Jul '20

30 Jul '20

I want to set up a mailing list for a local charity, for the purposes of discussion/announcement between members of the club. mailman jumps out simply because it's all I know (and by "know" I mean I've used and administered lists hosted by lug.org.uk but that's it). So I thought I'd see if there are others I should consider. What ideally I want to achieve is: - A single list, with all members emails in it, mapped to something obvious like "everyone@<charity>.org.uk" - Messages sent to the list from members of the list get circulated automatically - Messages sent to the list from non-members get moderated: -- At moderation there are options to reject, accept, or accept and add sender to the list as allowed sender (not receiver), ie for the many of us with multiple email addresses who might email from any but only want to receive to one - Web interface for easy admin by people other than me The normal mailing list subscribe/unsubscribe stuff I don't need as the list will be managed by me and/or others (the GDPR stuff is handled separately). I manage an Ubuntu server which hosts the website but not currently mail for the charity's domain so there's going to be some configuration to do there (and probably some fresh questions when I get there) but for now: is mailman the tool I want? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Non-google phone tracker
by Phil Thane 30 Jul '20

30 Jul '20

Hello, Last year when I went away on my canal boat adventure I set up a tracker on my phone that plotted by position and track on a website, and embedded that page in my blog. Two snags this year, one Google has removed the app from their store and even if they hadn't it wouldn't help much because I've wiped the phone and installed LineageOS with no Google components. I really don't want to have to backtrack and sign up to Google again. Anyone know any alternatives? Yes, I have tried searching (not Googling) but all the apps seem to come from Google Play. I use OSM on the desktop and OSMAnd sat nav app on the phone and I have read it's possible to do what I want using those. However all the advice I can find is aimed at people logging journeys to update OSM (which I have done in the past) not using it to display a real-time (or almost) map showing where I am. Can anyone help? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Horribly off-topc, sorry - uk telecoms groups/mailing lists/forums?
by Mark Rogers 14 Jul '20

14 Jul '20

I know this is off topic but I think there may be people here in the know and I've come up blank everywhere else I've tried. Back in the day there was a thriving community on uk.telecom* newsgroups but unless I'm missing something that has all gone. Does anyone know where such people can be found these days? Public forums, mailing lists, etc? Admin: feel free to delete if you'd rather I didn't ask here, Mark

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th July
by Viperfang 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 9th July at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Re: [ALUG] Sound problem
by Bev Nicolson 05 Jul '20

05 Jul '20

Sent this in error, just to Chris so re-sending to the list. Have just tried it unplugged and while it isn't perfect, it is better. Bev On 04/07/2020 17:36, Bev Nicolson wrote: > <snip> > > > Also, is there anything else plugged in to the laptop, USB > devices or whatever, if so try disconnecting them as well. > > > > > By the way - by 'hum' you do mean mains hum do you? I.e. a very low > > frequency hum of fixed frequency. > > > > Hopefully this short audio clip will explain the hum. I don't hear it as > I record anything, but only on play back. > > https://sndup.net/72c6 > > I have headphones and a mouse plugged in, to answer your other query, > but if anything it's worse without the headphones. > > > Bev

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Sound problem
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jul '20

04 Jul '20

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but I could do with some help here. How do I reduce or remove the hum from my laptop? I use Mint and the sound gui doesn't offer much detail. (There's only one plug socket for headphones, btw.) Thanks. Bev.

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How to extend a bash built-in but still use it within the new function?
by Chris Green 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

I want to extend the 'cd' command slightly so that I can execute some specific actions when entering (and leaving) a particular directory hierarchy. So I need to create a bash function called 'cd' to do this, but I still need to call the underlying bash built-in cd. Is there any way of doing this? -- Chris Green

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PC Sales Recommendations?
by Steve Mynott 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

So my hardware is usually years ago laptops and slow due to me being a cheapskate but I'm finding the new Ryzens quite tempting. I was wondering about a new linux desktop PC with 16Gb Ryzen (with in-built GPU) and a 1Tb M2 but in a medium to small case (due to lack of space in office) maybe for about 500quid. Can anyone recommend a more exact spec or recommend a website pc dealer? Back in the day I used to favour smaller local PC shops and I was wondering if there was anyone in East Anglia (who is linux friendly maybe) able to ship via delivery? -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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using xrandr to set scale of monitor
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 01 Jul '20

01 Jul '20

Can anyone help with how to do this? The problem is that my new monitor is 2K, so it has a native resolution of 2560x1440. My onboard graphics seems only to support 2048 x 1280, so that's what I am using it at. Yes, I do plan on getting a proper graphics card soon! However, even with it running at 2048 x 1280, the result is that the fonts and layout is a lot too small for comfort. Taking the resolution down does work, but it defeats the object of having bought a 2K monitor in the first place, and it apparently lowers quality, particularly of text, so I don't want to do that as a permanent solution . Apparently the correct solution is to use xrandr to set the scale factor to a whole number, in this case probably 2, and to use panning in some way so that the desktop display, being smaller than the display as configured, acts as a sort of moveable window into it. I have read the man pages on xrandr, and think I know what to do, but the problem is, it seems that if you get this wrong, your monitor becomes unusable. Maybe this is just alarm over nothing? Don't know. Has anyone actually done this successfully? Or have you found any other solution to the high DPI problem? Here is what my xrandr looks like in case that helps $ xrandr -q Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2048 x 1280, maximum 8192 x 8192 VGA-1 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-2 connected 2048x1280+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm 2560x1080 60.00 59.94 59.98 2048x1280 59.99* 1920x1200 59.95 ..... and so on...... 2560 x 1080 isn't satisfactory because it elongates everything. I suppose a proper graphics card will enable 2560 x 1440. But that will only make the problem worse unless 'scale' and 'panning' can be used to fix it. I'm using fluxbox on Debian by the way so I don't have the Gnome or KDE GUI tools. Peter

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 3rd July.
by Viperfang 30 Jun '20

30 Jun '20

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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ePub reader, is there really not one in Ubuntu/Debian?
by Chris Green 27 Jun '20

27 Jun '20

I want to read (well, 'use', it's a programming manual) that's in ePub format. There seems to be no default, or even available, ePub reader in Ubuntu. There are dozens of programs for creating ePub format but nothing for simply reading it. Am I missing something obvious somewhere? -- Chris Green

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Ensuring that a systemd unit starts *before* any networking
by Mark Rogers 25 Jun '20

25 Jun '20

Not sure if there are any systemd experts here, but I'll ask on the off-chance; I've already posted on Stack Overflow [1] if anyone knows the answer and wants credit for answering it there. How do I ensure a systemd unit runs to completion before any network tasks start? It sounds like a simple task but I've been banging my head on this for ages and every time I think it's working it turns out I was just lucky with timing. I have some code which generates dhcpcd.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf from settings in a database so obviously that needs to happen before any of those network tools start. But whatever magic I try in my unit configuration seems to have no impact on the start order of the unit. My current attempt is: [Unit] Description=Config generation from DB Before=networking.service [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/home/mark/bin/db2config.py [Install] RequiredBy=network.target Any ideas? [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62574482/ensuring-that-a-systemd-unit-s… -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Mint mirrors
by Bev Nicolson 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

Anyone else having issues refreshing the mirrors? (WiFi is fine generally so I don't think it's problem at my end.) This isn't a one-off. I get this message: <<Failed to fetch http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/packages.linuxmint.com/packages/dists/te… 503 Service Unavailable [IP: 91.230.243.15 80]Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.>> Bev

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dhcpcd fallback
by Mark Rogers 04 Jun '20

04 Jun '20

I have the following in /etc/dhcpcd.conf (on a Pi), which (as I understand it) should seek an IP via DHCP but fallback to 192.168.60.100 if none is offered. My problem is that more often than not I end up with the fallback IP address rather than one from DHCP, despite the Pi being on a network with a DHCP server. (The connection to DHCP is a bit convoluted: Pi cabled to Wifi access point, which is on my home wifi network, which gives it access to my home router's DHCP server.) Any suggestions how I can diagnose this? I'm not sure if the complex connection to DHCP is the issue or not (and it does sometimes work so I don't think it's a config issue) but I'm not sure where to start looking and I'd like this to work over unreliable links if possible. If I comment out the fallback line I get a reliable DHCP address. # fallback to static profile on eth0 profile static_eth0 static ip_address=192.168.60.100/24 static routers=192.168.60.250 static domain_name_servers=192.168.60.250 interface eth0 fallback static_eth0 -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th June.
by Viperfang 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Updating Ubuntu from 16.04 to 18.04 (xenial to bionic)
by Christopher Dawkins 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

I tried this first a year or two ago and came across the same problem - a problem with the rfkill package, one for which I have no use anyway. Last Friday I had three desktop Ubuntu 16.04 systems, set up at three different times. On Saturday one updated smoothly to 18.04 using the proper 'sudo do-release-upgrade' method. Both the others failed with the nasty 'Hash Sum mismatch' error on rfkill. As one did last year, when I learnt that it was a repository sync problem that would clear up later. I have googled widely and implemented (I think) every solution. I have cleaned, updated, upgraded, done dist-upgrade, autoremoved, wiped /var/lib/apt/lists and /var/cache/apt/archives, and made sure both Acquire-by-hash and Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order::=gz are operating. I have downloaded (with wget) both the 4945 bytes of the xenial version and the 5005 bytes of the bionic version and installed them at separate times in /var/cache/apt/archives before trying the update again. Every time, it barfs on rfkill with a 'Hash Sum mismatch'. I find in my notes three other reported sizes for rfkill: 5045, 8530, 8580 and 8612 bytes. Since I don't need rfkill, can anyone suggest any way to get over this? Maybe the problem is that I purged it half way through a long weekend of wrestling. It refuses to reinstall with the following message. ==================================================================================== Need to get 8,530 B of archives. After this operation, 33.8 kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 0.5-1ubuntu3.1 [8,530 B] Err:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 0.5-1ubuntu3.1 Hash Sum mismatch Fetched 4,945 B in 0s (238 kB/s) E: Failed to fetch http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/r/rfkill/rfkill_0.5-1ubuntu3.… Hash Sum mismatch E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing? =================================================================================== and I note that it fetched only around half of what it needed, but it seems to always do this. When I try again with apt --fix-missing install rfkill I get the same with a final error: E: Internal Error, ordering was unable to handle the media swap The usual error message involves two GETs: ==================================================================================== Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 2.31.1-0.4ubuntu3.6 [24.8 kB] Err http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 2.31.1-0.4ubuntu3.6 Hash Sum mismatch Fetched 4,945 B in 0s (0 B/s) Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 2.31.1-0.4ubuntu3.6 [24.8 kB] Err http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 rfkill amd64 2.31.1-0.4ubuntu3.6 Hash Sum mismatch Fetched 5,005 B in 0s (0 B/s) Could not download the upgrades ====================================================================================== though at times there is a second occurrence of the second four-line message. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU 07816 821659

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ALUG] Peculiar DNS clash on Ubuntu 18
by Al 24 May '20

24 May '20

This is what I did: :~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf # Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8) # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN nameserver 9.9.9.9 nameserver 9.9.9.9 nameserver 127.0.0.53 search lan :~$ sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved [sudo] password for xxxx: Removed /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/systemd-resolved.service. :~$ Al On Sun, 24 May 2020 12:00:01 +0100 main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..."

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odd DNS lookup results
by mick 23 May '20

23 May '20

Hi Guys This may be deemed off topic because it is not strictly directly Linux related, although all the machines involved are running Linux. However, there are some networking experts here and I would welcome a view on something that is driving me nuts. The background is that I am experimenting with moving all my DNS lookups to DNS over TLS (to preserve privacy). I run local dnsmasq caching resolvers on two of my internal networks and for a while now I have forwarded upstream DNS requests to one of four unbound resolvers running on my OpenVPN end points. (So if I use the VPN on the machine called tap, I forward requests to unbound on tap). Because any observer between my VPN endpoint and the root, TLD or other domain DNS servers can see my requests I want now to encrypt all requests leaving my networks. I /could/ retain my unbound resolvers with suitable configuration changes so that they accept DoT requests from my local nets and then in turn forward upstream using DoT, but there are a limited number of servers accepting DoT requests in the wider world. So if I retain unbound, I would end up forwarding my upstream requests over DoT to third party resolvers such as Google, Quad9 or Cloudflare. I see no point in doing that when I can (and indeed have) install stubby on my local DNS resolvers and simply pass requests from dnsmasq through stubby to a public resolver (or actually a round robin list). Because I really don't want to pass my DNS requests to a large resolver which then logs them (as does Google) or both logs and interferes with them (as do cleanbrowsing, OpenDNS or Quad9) I have been testing outside DNS resolvers using a shell script tool called dnsperftest I found here[1]. I modified that script to add some additional resolvers taken from the defaults provided in stubby's configuration plus some others taken from privacytools.io [2] and dnsprivacy [3]. I also added some other domains to the test set so that I had 20 domains to test across some 18 public resolvers. Some of those resolvers (such as google 8.8.8.8 and Quad9 at 9.9.9.9) I will not actually use in real life, but they are big anycast systems and I wanted a benchmark for my likely slower choices which are privacy conscious. I then ran the test script from my desktop using an untampered connection through my ISP, followed by connections through each of my four VPN endpoints. As expected, I got faster lookups without the VPNs than with. I then ran the same tests from the machines I use as VPN endpoints. And again, as expected, and because those VMS are in large datacentres dotted around europe, I got much faster lookups from there. Herein lies the interesting bit. The bit I really don't understand. Take a look at the results (averages only) in the attached text file. You will see there that on all the tests run from my desktop either straight through my ISP or through my VPNs, cloudflare's anycast servers on 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 come out fastest, But, and this is the bonkers bit, if I run the same test directly on the VPN end points, 1.1.1.1 is slowest (and in fact I cannot ping 1.1.1.1 from any of my VPN enpoints but I can when I run the connection through a VPN to that same endpoint.) This bothers the hell out of me because it should make no difference whether I try to reach 1.1.1.1 through my VPN or direct from the machine which constitutes the endpoint of that VPN /UNLESS/ my traffic is taking a route I do not understand. If that is the case, then my protective security stance has a major problem. So: does anyone out there have any idea what is going on? (Oh, and I know that cloudflare got the 1.1.1.1 address from APNIC, and I also know that 1.1.1.1 has been used as a "test" address in a lot of places in the past and that can cause some routing oddities, but if that were the problem then I would see the same difficulty from my desktop through the VPN as I see at the VPN endpoint. Wouldn't I?) Thanks in advance Mick [1] https://github.com/cleanbrowsing/dnsperftest [2] https://www.privacytools.io/providers/dns/#icanndns [3] https://dnsprivacy.org/wiki/display/DP/DNS+Privacy+Public+Resolvers --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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