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More impressed by my OKI MC342 now
by Chris Green 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

Well having fixed the scanner software installation with my OKI MC342 I like it even more. The scanner utilities are really neat! When you select 'Start scan' in the panel applet you are offered a straightforward scan or save as PDF or save to folder. Each of these can be configured from the applet to specify destination directory, scanner options, etc. In addition you can add new scan types so you can, for example, add a 'Scan to Tiff' if you want. By default the basic scan squirts the scan into the Gimp, scan to PDF saves the PDF and then fires up the default PDF viewer, etc. It's nearly all written in Python too so if one really wanted to change things radically it wouldn't be too difficult. All in all I'm very pleased with it now, I was fairly happy before I got the scanning to work from Linux, now it's well nigh ideal. It is rather big but the price from eBuyer (£171 inc shipping) seems pretty reasonable for an all singing, all dancing, all-in-one printer, copier, scanner, fax machine. It prints duplex (of course) and has an ADF for the scanner and fax which also does duplex. -- Chris Green

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How to diagnose startup script not running?
by Chris Green 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

I have worked out why the 'scan from computer' utilities don't work with my new OKI printer. They expect a device /dev/okiscand which should be created when '/etc/init.d/okiscand start' runs. If I run '/etc/init.d/okiscand start' manually as root then everything is fine, I can scan from the computer. However I can't work out why it's not working correctly at startup. There's nothing in the logs at all and it always works fine when run manually. I *suspect* now I look a bit harder that the oki installation is for an old V5 setup using the /etc/rcN.d directories. There is a link from (for example) /etc/rc5.d/S03okiscand to the script in init.d but there's nothing in /etc/init that refers to it. What do I need to do to get upstart to start it? (Don't tell me I should use systemd, a step too far!) -- Chris Green

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claws-mail POP3S failure with Dovecot
by mick 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

OK guys this is now driving me crazy. For some yaers now I have run my own mail service using postfix and dovecot on debian. My preferred email client is claws but I use K9 when out and about on my android (cyanogenmod) devices. For purely historic reasons I use IMAPS on all portable devices so that I leave mail on the server until I sit at my desk where claws is configured to use both IMAPS and POP3S. I do this so that mail is actually downloaded from my server over POP3S and stored locally (where it is backed up to two separate external systems. I also use IMAPS on claws so that I have access to the "sent" folders for my email boxes (in case I send from a mobile device). I can then simply move sent mail to tjhe mailbox of my choice locally where it matches the incoming mail. So far so hunky dory for some long time. Yesterday I upgraded my mailserver from Debian 7.9 to 8.3. As expected, everything went fine and all seemed well - until I fired up claws. Claws successfully connects to IMAPS and to my submission port (587) but it fails to connect to POP3S with the error: * Account 'mbm(a)rlogin.net': Connecting to POP3 server: smtp.rlogin.net:995... *** SSL handshake failed Sure enough, the mail.log shows entries like: Feb 19 12:27:59 pipe dovecot: pop3-login: Disconnected (no auth attempts in 0 secs): user=<>, rip=178.238.155.43, lip=213.138.100.26, TLS handshaking: SSL_accept() failed: error:14076102:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_CLIENT_HELLO:unsupported protocol, session=<Bu4YnR4swgCy7psr> No athentication takes place because I insist on TLS (on both client and server ends) before I allow credentials to be passed. Here's the bonkers bit. The X509 certificate I use on the server is self generated and is identical for SMTP, POP3S and IMAPS. Using openssl client ("openssl s_client -connect smtp.rlogin.net:pop3s" and "openssl s_client -connect smtp.rlogin.net:imaps3") to test the connections returns identical (successful) results. I see: New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 Server public key is 2048 bit Secure Renegotiation IS supported Compression: NONE Expansion: NONE SSL-Session: Protocol : TLSv1.2 Cipher : ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 blah, blah, etc. Nothing has changed client side and the fact that K9 and claws can successfully send/receive indicates server side is OK too. I have been over the dovecot configuration probably a dozen times now and can see nothing wrong (though dovecot's configuration files are a nightmare). Doveconf -n shows a perfectly acceptable setup. So my suspicion is that claws cannot handle the elliptic curve cipher offered by the server in its new configuration for POP3S (but why for IMAPS?????) (Debian 8.3 shows "OpenSSL 1.0.1k 8 Jan 2015" whereas 7.9 shows "OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013") I really don't want to have to change from claws on the desktop (I'm not a tbird fan) so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Meanwhile I'll keep on searching (there's nothing on the claws buglist) Mick (I suppose I could just stick to IMAP - I know POP is an old protocol, but I like the way I work, and this is just bugging me.....) (Or I could try Cyrus...) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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TV Progs
by Chris Walker 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

With the move of BBC3 to online I can plainly use get_iplayer to grab any files from there should I be so desperate. The problem I have is with another stream where the only option is to watch it as it's broadcast as my tv won't record it as "It's not a digital broadcast". The programme is Auto Mundial on Motors TV which is now only receivable on Ch240 on terrestrial or some satellite streams , none of which I have. Has anybody managed to circumvent this restriction? Or does anybody have any suggestions about which forum to frequent to gain further info? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Mint blues!
by Michael Goddard 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

Using Mint 17.3; it has suddenly started supplying a folder and a separate file when d/l an article when I just want the file. Something this newbie has got wrong or not perhaps? Any guidance much appreciated. Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

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Does anyone here use wxGlade, or even any other Python GUI generator?
by Chris Green 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

I've recently been banging away at my 'grid view of a database' requirement. I've actually got a Python program that does basically what I want (modified some code I found on the Web) and I could develop from there. However it would be much easier if I could use something to do the spade work of designing the layout etc. so to that end I've been trying wxGlade. I'm beginning to understand how it's supposed to work but seem to keep hitting bugs and 'infelicities' that stop it working. For example I now have a saved wxGlade app that is totally unresponsive when reloaded into wxGlade. Is this normal, i.e. is wxGlade this bad? I tried the Windows version (in a VirtualBox guest) and that actually seems somewhat better in that I don't keep hitting a situation where wxGlade doesn't respond. Should I persevere with wxGlade or are there better GUI designers out there? .... or should I just go back to writing native Python with wxPython? -- Chris Green

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Certificates from LetsEncrypt - looks good to me!
by Chris Green 10 Feb '16

10 Feb '16

I just decided I ought to use https for accessing my Owncloud calendar and contacts so needed to configure a certificate for my isbd.uk host (it's a Gandi virtual server). My Google search for Ubuntu https showed LetsEncrypt as the second hit so I took a look, seemed sensible so I followed the instructions at:- https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-apache-with-… Absolutely brilliant, not only did it generate a certificate for me, it did all the Apache configuration too so https://isbd.uk worked after I'd run the commands given on the above web page. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th February
by Viperfang 08 Feb '16

08 Feb '16

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 11th February 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 http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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How to find logging apps that aren't to do with computer logging?
by Chris Green 06 Feb '16

06 Feb '16

I'm looking for programs that might help with maintaining a log, as in a ship's log or a log of maintenance activity on a vehicle. It's well nigh impossible to use the word log in the search because one is immediately swamped by hits relating to computer logging, e.g. things which write to syslog. The word journal isn't much better because it too has computer related meanings which swamp any useful output and, anyway, journal isn't quite the right word for what I'm looking for. So does anyone have any bright ideas either for what to search for or programs that I might find useful. -- Chris Green

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DAAPD (music streaming) alternatives
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

Hi Y'all! I have a server which used to run Firefly (mp-daapd), which is/was a clone(ish) of Apple Airplay. After updating the server, Firefly started misbehaving, so I uninstalled it, and was going to re-install it, but found no installation packages. Being flaky, and as I knew it was an unmaintained project, I decided to install forked-daap instead. Eventually, after a few glitches were fixed, I managed to get this running OK. One thing I don't like about it is it relies on AVAHI, which basically sits there advertising what services are available on my server. I don't particularly like this, and I'm quite capable of typing the IP address and port number into any DAAP clients I use. Anyway, this got me thinking: are there any other better, possibly more open source and/or more modern equivalents or replacements for daap? I think I looked once at DNLA or something like that but got hopelessly confused. Any advice or comments? The use-case I have in mind is for the server to be able to stream songs on demand primarily to android phones, but possibly to a couple of raspberry pis. The Pis are currently set up with MPD (Music Player Daemon) which is working quite well. As an aside, I once found a webpage that explained how to set up some machines with (I think) MPD so that playing between them was synched, as it is on a Sonos device, so you could have all the machines playing the same tune at the same time, in different rooms. Anyone got any idea how to do this? My google fu has deserted me and I can't find it again. I once tried enabling http streaming from my server and getting the pis to play that but it flooded my network and brought it to it's knees, so that's not really a way to go! TIA Steve

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th February.
by Viperfang 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

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

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FTP servers with remote admin tools
by Mark Rogers 01 Feb '16

01 Feb '16

I need to set up an FTP server on a virtual server keeping overheads to a minimum. What I'd like is some kind of GUI to administer it (add new users etc) which runs on my desktop and does the admin remotely, so that when not in use it has zero overhead (compared with having to install a web server and database to manage it, for example). Not fussed as to which FTP server at this point. (It strikes me that a tool that was able to manage text based config files over SSH for FTP servers but also other services would be quite useful, does such a thing exist?) -- 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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Firewall log entry
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 26 Jan '16

26 Jan '16

Hi y'all! I'm confuzzled. I have repeated entries in my syslog in log file viewer. Jan 26 08:31:42 MYSERV kernel: [25624.013276] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=BIG_MAC SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=28 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=0 PROTO=2 Jan 26 08:31:42 MYSERV kernel: [25624.013768] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=BIG_MAC SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=0 PROTO=2 Jan 26 08:33:48 MYSERV kernel: [25750.017039] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=BIG_MAC SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=28 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=0 PROTO=2 Jan 26 08:33:48 MYSERV kernel: [25750.017562] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=BIG_MAC SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=0 PROTO=2 Where MYSERV is the name of my server, and BIG_MAC is what appears to be a mac address but longer than I am used to . always the same number, =01:00:5e:00:00:01:a0:21:b7:43:91:37:08:00 As far as I can see, 192.168.1.1 is connecting to a broadcast address, to see if anyone's there. Thing is, 192.168.1.1 IS NOT an address that I'm aware I'm using; my subnet is 192.168.0.*. If I open 192.168.1.1 in a webbrowser, it opens a trivial webpage I have set up as an adblock-replacement page. The thing is, this web page normally serves on 127.0.0.1 On the server, if I ping 192.168.1.1 it responds in about the same amount of time as 192.168.0.1 I suspect that 192.168.1.1. is my own server bound somehow to another ip address. I doubt that this is something from outside getting in to my network. Can anyone help me find out what it is, where it is, and how to stop it? Cheers Steve

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Thunderbird
by Anthony Anson 21 Jan '16

21 Jan '16

Updated Mint last week and since then, Thunferguts has refused to write copies of e-mails into the 'Sent' folder. Could there be a connection? -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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Anyone have experience of OKI printers under Linux?
by Chris Green 21 Jan '16

21 Jan '16

I'm thinking of replacing my HP printers (a mono laser and a multi-function inkjet) with a single multi-function colour laser printer. The current front runner is an OKI MC342DN. Does anyone have any experience of using OKI printers under Linux? There are Linux PPD drivers for the MC342DN but that's about as much as I can find out. -- Chris Green

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Good option for occasional printing
by Steve Engledow 21 Jan '16

21 Jan '16

Printing has long been the bane of my (and I'm sure most people's) existence and several years back, I swore I would never buy another printer. However, I have a new job now which is based from my home and I no longer have the convenience of the office printer for the occasional (a couple of times a month) return label or plane ticket. What I'm looking for is something that will solve my needs for a reasonable price. The last time I bought a printer, it cost me £30 and included some ink that ran out after around 15 pages of black and white. Replacement ink cost me around £45. I've got two short words for that. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'll only need B&W, A4, and have no need for high resolution print. Cheers, Steve

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Slightly OT for the list: - GPG bad signature
by mick 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

Hi Guys Steve tells me that he had a problem with my last email to the list (Re: Rural Broadband). He got a bad signature from GPG. In a follow up exchange off list Steve said: "Here's what gpg says: --- $ gpg -v --verify signature.asc msg gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) gpg: Signature made Tue 19 Jan 2016 14:04:01 GMT using RSA key ID 5BADD312 gpg: using PGP trust model gpg: BAD signature from "Mick Morgan (Mick's new 4096 bit key) <mick(a)rlogin.net>" [unknown] gpg: textmode signature, digest algorithm SHA256, key algorithm rsa4096 --" Ive been using this key since the middle of 2012. I have also been using claws (with PGP/MIME enabled) as my MUA for ages. There seem to be a couple of reasons why GPG should complain. The most obvious is that the email has been changed after signature. Paranoia aside, this can easily happen if the MUA (at either end?) changes the mail by wrapping at a particular line length. Another possible reason is that my signature key length (4096 bits) is too long for the recipient's system to handle correctly. But as I say, I have been using the current key for nearly four years now, so my question is, has anyone else seen this problem with my signature? And does anyone know what may be going on here? Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Rural Broadband
by Laurie Brown 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

Hi folks, I know this question has been asked here before, but it was ages ago, and things change quickly. I have a client who is 1.8 miles form the nearest exchange, who is getting appalling line speeds. She's been with Eclipse for years, and like me, has found their support getting steadily worse. Recently, it took then 45 hours to respond to a support call from me which I regard as utterly unacceptable. I'm looking for another supplier for my rural clients as well as myself (I can get fibre). This particular client has speeds of Down: 1.8 and Up: 0.3. As she runs an office from home, this is clearly unacceptable. The line has become steadily worse over the last couple of years, and she has received absolutely nothing but obfuscation and requests for more money from both BT and Eclipse. She's tried Bonded DSL, but was told that it didn't work because she uses VOIP. No, they won't retract that. She has a spare line, equally slow, effectively unused now. So, my question is, do any of you out there have any recommendations for getting the best rural broadband? Suppliers, methods, etc.? She does need static IP if at all possible. It can be worked around, but that's not ideal. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Does anyone here use Gambas?
by Chris Green 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

As per the subject, I'm wondering whether Gambas would be a useful tool for me. In particular for creating GUI data entry programs for sqlite3. -- Chris Green

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iPlayer improvements
by Chris Walker 18 Jan '16

18 Jan '16

I know that some here use get_iplayer to grab BBC files. Perhaps those people would like to know that the BBC are experimenting with 320k aac downloads. To make use of them you need a 'dev' version of get_iplayer available from the git resource. There are only a few files available so far apparently but nonetheless, if you want to experiment, feel free. If you want to know some of the background to compression etc, you might like to listen to this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tvgp1 -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Re: [ALUG] Printing
by Christopher Dawkins 15 Jan '16

15 Jan '16

> 1. Good option for occasional printing (Steve Engledow) I have an LJ6M that is nearly twenty years old and still working, although it occasionally mangles the paper. However, I now mostly use an HP OfficeJet Pro 8620, which did cost £130. But (with an extra eight pounds or so on the PrinterShare app) it prints documents wirelessly from my Android as well as via CUPS (I hate CUPs, by the way) from all my Linux/FreeBSD machines, it's a colour photocopier, it sheet feeds and it duplexes, and the cost per print seems fine once you get onto the big cartridges. Whatever, the ability to print email attachments from a the comfort of a phone is worth a lot to me! Colour photographs need expensive paper, however: the colour laser I had before this did colour photos well on normal paper. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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No space for Audacity
by Chris Walker 13 Jan '16

13 Jan '16

I'm having a problem with my system and I can't see where the solution is despite looking online. Audacity said that the disc was short of space and just sat there doing nothing. So I killed the task and looked at the space with 'df'. It shows that /dev/sdb5 has zero space left. Here's the relevant output from df :- Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on devtmpfs 3.0G 0 3.0G 0% /dev tmpfs 3.0G 1.4M 3.0G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 3.0G 940K 3.0G 1% /run /dev/sdb5 7.6G 7.2G 0 100% / /dev/sdb7 7.6G 5.6G 1.7G 78% /usr tmpfs 3.0G 0 3.0G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs 3.0G 88K 3.0G 1% /tmp /dev/sdb8 849G 202G 647G 24% /home tmpfs 597M 12K 597M 1% /run/user/1000 So where has the 7.6 gigs worth of space gone on sdb5 or am I looking in the wrong place ? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Laptops
by Michael Goddard 07 Jan '16

07 Jan '16

I'm considering purchasing a laptop (say 15.6" screen + Intel i7 CPU type) and I would be grateful to anybody for any comment on recommended brand, model, and potential supplier suitable for use with Mint. Here's wishing all ALUG-gers a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year! -- Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

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PUA Win 32 files?
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

So I ran ClamAV a while back and as usual it identified four Win.32 files from usr/lib/momo/4.0mscorlib.dll as potentially dodgy. (Same files as this questioner had: http://askubuntu.com/questions/583729/clamav-pua-win32-packer-privateexepro… ) My questions are 1) Are they dangerous? Opinion seems divided on this. 2) If I deleted them anyway, just in case, would I do my system any harm? Bev.

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st January.
by Viperfang 29 Dec '15

29 Dec '15

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

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