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File/directory synchronization (or synchronisation)
by Chris Green 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

All the recent discussions on backups and the peer to peer question has suddenly become a bit more relevant to me as I'm playing with Calibre for keeping my E-Books. I installed Calibre on my desktop machine, it's improved quite a bit since I last played with it and it now fits my requirements rather better than before. So I've imported quite a few E-Books into it and have started sorting them out a bit. However I then realised that E-Books in particular need to be able to be carried around with me, so I want them on my laptop as well as on my desktop machine - synchronisation! Initially it feels as if there's a lot of choice but in reality there isn't if you filter with the following basic requirements:- Must work across the 'net in some way or other, just file synchronisation doesn't really do what one wants. It needs to work when not connected as well though so a remote FS is no good. Should update automatically, preferably in 'real time'. Would like it to synchronise existing directories, not require things to be synchronised to be put in a special place. Looking at the Wikipedia list there's only two or three satisfy the first two requirements and adding the third seems to mean nothing does what I want. I guess Conduit might do it but it seems to be dead which is a pity. Owncloud is possibly the least worst and has the advantage (for me) that I have a Owncloud server running already. It expects you to put files in a special place though. -- Chris Green

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How did I break this?
by William Hill 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

I've got a linux board that can't connect to anything. It just gives me "192.168.1.1 - no route to host". Won't even ping. Bill PS, I'm logged in using ssh through wifi via router 192.168.1.1

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Dead hard drive?
by Srdjan Todorovic 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

Hi fellow ALUGgers, Started getting fsck errors on a drive, ran smartctl -t long and smartctl -a. Full output: http://pastebin.com/tQX0TX4m Snipped output: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green Device Model: WDC WD10EACS-11FBRB0 SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity was completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever been run. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 198 198 051 Pre-fail Always - 101 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 123 114 021 Pre-fail Always - 6850 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1022 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 1 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 089 089 000 Old_age Always - 8569 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1000 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 53 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 180 180 000 Old_age Always - 60861 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 130 102 000 Old_age Always - 17 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 199 199 000 Old_age Always - 1 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 355 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 170 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 260 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 8563 323143936 # 2 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 8560 323143936 # 3 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 8303 - # 4 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 732 - Is the drive cooked? Why does the self test execution status report all is ok? Why does offline data collection status report without error? Why is the overall status PASSED? Thanks, Srdjan

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Re: [ALUG] Incremental/snapshot backups using rsync - is it really this simple?
by Chris Green 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 09:38:58PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote: > On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 04:41:14PM +0100, Chris Green wrote: > > > Not to mention one more fundamental problem with obnam, it doesn't > > offer any obvious/easy way to automate daily/monthly/yearly backups. > > If only there was a way on unix systems to run a command on a regular > schedule without user intervention. > Strangely enough I do know about cron. HOWEVER a decent backup facility integrates with cron as part of its design, obnam's documentation doesn't show how one can do daily/weekly/monthly/yearly backups. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] device only (or caldav) calendar on android
by MJ Ray 22 Oct '14

22 Oct '14

mick wrote: > I am /not/ a huge fan of Google, but since I hate apple even more, > the android device offers me the best functionality for the least > inavsion of privacy (within limits). [...] I had to put a CyanogenMod fork on mine to stop it demanding a Google login before it would work properly. > [...] Previous devices (from HTC, Sony and Samsung) have allowed me > to set up a local, "device only" calendar. This new one won't and > insists that I link in a google account before I can add /any/ > data at all. So I'm looking for an alternative app. [...] I don't have that problem and I even have "Offline Calendar" (org.sufficientlysecure.localcalendar on fdroid) to give me a calendar which isn't synchronised anywhere. If you really want a whole new app, then I think aCal is one of the few. That will use caldav and its user email list was fairly helpful when I was using it. With Android 4, I moved to CaldavSyncAdapter (org.gege.caldavsyncadapter) and don't use it much any more. Android phones are basically a strange type of GNU/Linux device. Have fun! Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

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Re: [ALUG] Dropbox alternatives
by Chris Green 21 Oct '14

21 Oct '14

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 02:27:24PM +0100, mick wrote: > On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:05:57 +0100 > Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> allegedly wrote: > > > > > > Surely, as they're not providing any computing power or resources, it > > can be 'free' in the same way as most Open Source software is. > > > > "TANSTAAFL" > > If you do not pay for a service, you are not the customer, you are > the product. Google, Facebook and others base their entire (hugely > profitable) businesses on that fact. > > I cannot understand how anyone would willingly synchronise any > personal data of any kind with a "free" cloud service. > Who is confused here?? As far as I can tell syncthing is *purely* software, you are not synchronising data with 'their' servers. All syncthing does it make it easy to synchronise data between two systems that are both your own. ... or have I totally lost the plot? -- Chris Green

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Dropbox alternatives
by Mark Rogers 21 Oct '14

21 Oct '14

I've had the luxury of 50GB free Dropbox space courtesy of an offer that came with my Android tablet, but that is now about to expire. I've been wanting to shift to something else anyway so now's the time. But what do I pick? There are several options... Objective: To be able to sync as much stuff as I like. I have no desire for a central repository (although I could set one up if needed); I prefer a peer to peer model. I'd really prefer a good sync mechanism (in particularly handling file deltas rather than having to upload a whole file if something changes). ARM compatibility is important. Android integration would be a big plus (eg I like that my phone automatically uploads photos to Dropbox, I'd like to move them to the new solution). BTSync: Free only as in beer but otherwise looks pretty good. Syncthing (now called Pulse): Properly free. I think it meets all my criteria. Any others I should consider? Any experiences to report? -- 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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Incremental/snapshot backups using rsync - is it really this simple?
by Chris Green 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

I've been using rsnapshot to do backups for a year or two now but my backup NAS is just about full so I need to move to something with a bigger disk. Rsnapshot uses rsync's --link-dest to create the hard-linked snapshots along with a lot of arcane perl (as far as I'm concerned Perl is always arcane!) and a big, complex configuration file. So I'm considering a roll-your-own approach, it seems just too simple to be true. Does following pseudo-code look right:- Run every day in the small hours IF (day_of_month = 1) IF (month = 1) # i.e. January 1st rename month12 to this_year ELSE remove month12 FI rename month11 to month 12 .... month1 to month2 rename day31 to month1 ELSE remove day31 FI move day30 to day31 .... day1 to day2 rsync with the --link-dest=DIR pointing to day2 I can create all the directories empty to start with so they're all there to be moved even though with nothing in them. This will (hopefully!) create daily backups for 31 days, monthly backups for 12 months and yearly backups for ever (!?). -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Dropbox alternatives
by Mark Rogers 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

On 20 October 2014 14:27, mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > If you do not pay for a service, you are not the customer, you are > the product. Google, Facebook and others base their entire (hugely > profitable) businesses on that fact. > > I cannot understand how anyone would willingly synchronise any > personal data of any kind with a "free" cloud service. SyncThing/Pulse is a P2P sync service that runs entirely on your own hardware. They are "providing" software not a service, although I daresay they will provide a hosted option in future for those who want it. It's entirely open source. BTsync is similar without the benefits of being open source. It's plus, however, is that it's easier to set up (albeit with some loss of security). SyncThing would get my vote of the two, other than that at the moment I've not got it to work properly... (see other response to Steve) -- 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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How to prevent a system from changing its ssh key every time it boots?
by Chris Green 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

My dlink NAS backup is working nicely now except for one fly in the ointment, it regenerates its ssh key every time it's rebooted. We had a (planned) power cut last week and thus the key was changed and my backups failed until I fixed things up again. So what's the best way around this problem? At the moment I can't see where ssh-keygen gets run though I'm still searching. Is there any specific way around this issue of a remote system's ssh key changing frequently (other than relaxing checks so it's just a warning rather than a failure)? -- Chris Green

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PGP signing
by Steve Engledow 17 Oct '14

17 Oct '14

Hi folks, Some time ago, you may remember I wrote a meeting report about a successful keysigning event we had at an ALUG pub meet. Shortly after that, I went and forgot the passphrase for my private key. Because I'm a genius. I posted to this list that I had a new key and would people please sign it but I couldn't prove it via PGP. Now I can because some muscle memory suddenly remembered the passphrase for me! Here's a revocation certificate for the old key: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v2 Comment: A revocation certificate should follow iGAEIBEIACAFAlRBi/YZHQFUaGUgbmV3IGtleSBpcyBGM0MxODZEMQAKCRAIRtlz 1F7jmuj2AJ9KOrw/fGdcP0pc1KwVRV0YhuD+DgCgxL9N3PivCbq4b/hBV0JUlR9e Uwk= =GR6J -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- And I've signed that revocation certificate with my current key: -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v2 owGbwMvMwMG4/7sM1+eDbRcZTx+IS2IIcezx0AUBJ1d3Tz+FAPcAhYBQJx9PZwVv 10gFJx9/Z2+wNFdYalFxZn6elYJ7XmmAu0KZEZdzfm5ual6JlYKjQlFqWX5yYglQ XiE5tagkMy0TyEtVKM7IL81JUUjLz8nJL+fiynR3dPV0cvV0dHZ0c8wJcsrUj4zy CHQLTXQPTU/KDTP2dC/JSQ12KkiudHL3NfCt8HeJcvUNdPR2DnL0DCrJqeIydDPP yi3NMnL0svT2LyrXT3NPSQ4wKEg29C4PCwoziMwoddF2SXdOr/Cx9DMOyCxzTio0 SdLPcAoz8ArNCbJM5Qotz7blsnUPMvPiAvvK1c8Fj5c7mWRYGBg5GNhYmUDBxMDF KQALvJ36/P/MG5MVM3i2uzlUvtHmaeZ/+epTxvMP951Zqs3nfpVSDTeUOiAubcus olt9bmLw9+zCf/N0Z57YI3hb+7rbmutO3x69PJNVK/ui+lf6CQujFVMO3p/MHyXF cezXDutrJe+XzLrnvG5BJ++EgvSiNRZNxd84Mo7q+C/ZIxX8/sM70VrlM9rzLxcZ 5u4WkvGeZ/87ylj6TYj5nfZ1a5Uk92j/DNuyf/Pa0i977W6/T9956t37qUr8LrfP pho7CCxaL1svWTz354+5eucupYVX2boka16TWhT+vWGbqpPuB5+mCs+jU8LnWaVf aL825fcu4UVmZn5sjXGRe+12LDHZ9aIzSpbPXmqWvdHl0M7yzQKM5+v/+YrPsIhW 2CLBcSxrxuRDc/SX2Krv+KaR2vX87GneiW/NPmsdKXnsyLd1pdnTvq9sP80rX6UK yec8O6edVsDw1IBTpmU71zmdls7AAxw7l4bz1sSv+r5jU0vrI/+XqXJ72zUeFP9+ 9ev4s0kTzXMEti4sKt6jH2IyY+o2Ld2X1T/t+eWXyMztvG4pY5shxbr2PXd8yPSu 48UvZ95UkYm6dTblS0XS0ndBKortbatKWXT2a+o4L533853Ox8xNexIn2YcvMWjj nL3W9MTmvn8OBpql7V1Jb0XdbG/cT/7eNbk6zLpm1YbQWVMmx2nYHpQXlzvaNF/L ptlcTb7zwobW3JB/Ty2OifFtSQQA =wAkV -----END PGP MESSAGE----- That ought to do it. Anyone who has signed my old key, please feel free to sign the current one now you have proof it's me :) Cheers, Steve

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Best way to backup a server prior to decommissioning
by Mark Rogers 17 Oct '14

17 Oct '14

What's the best way to backup a (virtual) server prior to shutting it down and disposing of it? Assume only a single filesystem, which in turn means that the backup will have to go onto that filesystem (obviously on completion the file would be copied off before the server was killed!); also assume no access to it except via SSH so no image backups etc. Objectives: To have access to everything in case it was needed, and ideally to be able to rebuild the server as it was should it be needed again in future. Mark -- 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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Thunderbird and LDAP
by Jenny Hopkins 15 Oct '14

15 Oct '14

Hullo, I've set up an LDAP server for a client to share his address book between thunderbird (running on Ubuntu 14.04) and webmail. A new entry can be added manually from thunderbird, but there is no option to auto-add new addresses to any other address book than the thunderbird one. I've had a google goggle, and it seems I can't do anything about this - can anyone tell me I'm wrong and it is possible? If not, are there any clients that will allow this option? This is a serious drawback. Thanks, Jenny

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My incremental/snapshot backup system - now working
by Chris Green 09 Oct '14

09 Oct '14

Well I have implemented my simple incremental/snapshot backup strategy and it works pretty well. The whole thing comprises an rsync backup run daily by anacron in /etc/cron.daily, an rsync server/daemon on the backup NAS and a script on the NAS that rotates the backups. The whole lot is probably 100 lines of code in total - and that's *with* lots of comments! :-) I have appended the three main component files for those who want to see. The 'clever' bit is that all of the backups on the NAS except the two latest ones are completely inaccessible from the outside, you can only get at them if you have a login on the NAS. That's the bit that is rare in most backup systems I've looked at. You could maybe get a similar result with a 'pull' system run from the backup server but then that would be very slow on the underpowered NAS processor, on my system most of the work is done at the sending end (my desktop). ... oh and the *BIG* advantage is that all the backups are complete mirrors of the backed up files, no compression, no tar archives, you can navigate around the backups exactly as you can navigate around your current home directory. It means it's *very* eay to check that backups are OK and no special tools at all are needed to restore files, just copy the file you want. So, here is the rsync bit that is run by anacron on my desktop every day. The password is *only* for the rsync server on the backup machine, so access to the script only allows someone to run backups, nothing more. #!/bin/sh export RSYNC_PASSWORD='XXXXXX' # # # Daily backups, copy everything important to the backup machine # EXCLUDE1='--exclude tmp/ --exclude 'Mail/??/' --exclude .VirtualBox/ --exclude .gvfs/' EXCLUDE2='--exclude .cache/ --exclude lost+found' # # # Home directories # rsync -a --port=874 $EXCLUDE1 $EXCLUDE2 --link-dest=/old/home /home/ chris@dlink::chris2day/new/home # # # /etc # rsync -a --port=874 --link-dest=/old/etc /etc/ chris@dlink::chris2day/new/etc This is probably the most difficult bit, the rsyncd configuration file on the backup NAS. I could relax the security somewhat and it would be shorter and simpler. The 'post-xfer exec' runs the rotate.sh script after rsync has transferred the data. hosts allow = 192.168.1.4 hosts deny = * use chroot = no uid = chris gid = allaccount secrets file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/secrets pid file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/pid timeout = 300 strict modes = false # log file = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/rsyncd/log [ chris2day ] path = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/today read only = false list = yes post-xfer exec = /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/bin/rotate.sh auth users = chris ... and finally the rotate script which is the bit I was asking about previously. I had the algorithm pretty much right. It's a bit clumsy in the shell (ash, it's a busybox based NAS) but it's not quite messy enough to want to move to something better like Python. #!/bin/sh # # # Script to 'rotate' snapshots, runs after rsync creates a new # backup in the today/new directory # cd /mnt/HD/HD_a2/chris/bak # # # Get day, month and year # day=`date +%d` month=`date +%m` year=`date +%Y` # # # Check for first of the month # if [ $day = "1" ] then if [ $month = "1" ] then mv month12 $year else rm month12 fi # # # Move all the months up one # m=11 while [ $m != "0" ] do mv month$m month`expr $m + 1` m=`expr $m - 1` done else rmdir day31 fi # # # Move all the days up one # d=30 while [ $d != "0" ] do mv day$d day`expr $d + 1` d=`expr $d - 1` done # # # and copy the new day1 from today # # # Move the older backup from 'today' to 'bak' and change the # name of the newer one # mv ../today/old day1 mv ../today/new ../today/old mkdir ../today/new chown chris:allaccount ../today/new Like I said I really don't quite understand why rsnapshot et al manage to make it so complicated. OK, the above has 31 days and 12 months hard-coded but given that they're hard-linked snaphots that many backups doesn't take much space at all. -- Chris Green

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Unwanted hardware
by Chris Walker 08 Oct '14

08 Oct '14

I realise that it's unlikely but does anybody here have a use for an Asus desktop machine and a load of floppy discs? The desktop machine was originally running Windows XP but now has a copy of Robolinux on it - it's had various distros on it as I was trying them out for ease of install among other things. It only has 512MB of RAM but does come with an NEC LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. Also kicking about are several boxes of 3.5" floppies totalling around 150. A few are 720k but most are 1.44MB and some are unused although I did buy them in 1994! If nobody wants them, they'll be going on Freecycle/Freegle. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th October
by Viperfang 06 Oct '14

06 Oct '14

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, 9th October 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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Default anacron run time of 07:30, what's the logic (if any) for this?
by Chris Green 03 Oct '14

03 Oct '14

I was just wondering why my system is sometimes somewhat busy in the morning and it occurred to me to that anacron might be something to do with it. This is my desktop system which is left turned on all the time. So, after digging around a bit I found that anacron gets run (via /etc/cron.d) at 07:30. So anything that takes a while, like a weekly incremental backup, can often be running when I'm using the computer. What's the reason for choosing 07:30? If the computer is never turned on at 07:30 then does anacron ever get run? Presumably it must get run as part of system start-up otherwise anacron tasks would never be run. So, why not set the default time to 02:30 or something similar so that, if the computer is turned on tasks get run in the small hours? It's easy enough to change of course and I will do so, but the default seems a little odd. -- Chris Green

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.deb vs .rpm (or apt-get vs yum)
by Mark Rogers 03 Oct '14

03 Oct '14

It's been many years since I last used a .rpm based distribution in anger, but the experience lead me to dislike them compared with .deb based distros. In particular I had a number of occasions where an installation issue lead me to a system that I could not fix, where that has never happened to me yet in all my years with .deb-based systems (Debian and Ubuntu). Sure I've had conflicts and problems, but I've always been able to get pas them. Am I right to trust .deb more than .rpm? Should I give (eg) Fedora another chance? Incidentally I also found package management faster with .deb (eg apt-get update vs yum update, apt-get install vs yum install). Stable beats speed but .deb seemed to give me both. Mark -- 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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Command line database editor (for sqlite3)
by Chris Green 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

Is there such a thing? Of course I know and use the sqlite3 command line utility but that's just a way of running SQL from the command line. What I want is some sort of wrapper/utility that reads the data from the database, presents it to me in some sort of reasonably editable format and then, when I've changed something writes it back. I'd be happy enough with a simple browse facility plus some sort of way of changing individual fields. So "dbedit xyz.db table1" just presents me with the data in some sort of reasonable, scrollable column layout. Then some sort of command says "change column 10, row 4 to 'ABCDE'". -- Chris Green

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OT Domain name hosts
by Bev Nicolson 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

A bit off topic perhaps but I thought I'd ask you lot. Domain name hosting. Ted might be puzzled by this since I recommended 1&1 a while ago now. They haven't been a bother but it looks like I should think about transferring things for various reasons. Who out there is cheap and reliable? How do you find out exactly how much any one package will cost per year? I'm just talking about a domain name and related email address. Bev.

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Linux (Debian) boot problem
by Barry Samuels 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

I want to move my wife's operating system to another computer so that should involve a simple 'move the hard drive' operation shouldn't it? Wrong! I've not come across anything like this before. The drive boots happily in my wife's computer but if I move it to either of two other computers it starts to boot and then stops with various errors. mount: mounting /dev/root on /root failed: No such file of directory the same with sys and proc. Then there is a Busybox line and I end up in a shell prompt: '(initramfs) but the line before that says: /bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off and nothing appears when I type on the keyboard so I'm stuck. This is using Squeeze with a standard Debian linux-image package, 2.6.32-5-686, which includes an initrd image. My wife's current computer uses an Athlon XP CPU and the one I'm trying to move to uses a Core 2 Duo both of which are covered by the linux-image. Any ideas would be very welcome. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Sort of design/philosphy/way to do it sort of question about remotely gathering data and putting in a database
by Chris Green 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

I have a Beaglebone Black which gathers various bits of data on our boat in France. At present these comprise some temperatures and battery voltages and currents but there might be other things added. I want to store these in a sqlite database on my desktop machine here at home. The mechanics of doing this are easy enough, I store the data in a file named for the date and time on the Beaglebone Black and at intervals my desktop machine mounts the directory where these files are saved (using sshfs), reads the data, inserts it into the database and then deletes the file. This means that if the connection fails for a while then nothing is lost, it's probably not by any means perfect but it's good enough, my life doesn't depend on the data! :-) At the moment the receiving end just assumes there are ten values sent and that they are in a specific order. E.g. there's a file there at the moment whose name is "2014-09-29_15:05.od" and whose contents are:- '2014-09-29 15:05', 22.125, 22.75, 13.6285714286, 13.8876923077, 34.36875, 0.253125, 14.85, 8.803125, 8 I'm not really happy with this because it means that any changes I do have to be 'synchronised' at the two ends to keep their knowledge of which value is which in step. Is there a standard way of labelling values in this sort of situation? Should I send a file something like:- DateTime, '2014-09-29 15:05' InsideTemperature, 22.125 OutsideTemperature, 22.75 LeisureVolts, 13.6285714286 StarterVolts, 13.8876923077 LeisureAmps1, 34.36875 etc. Then the first column of this data is the database field name and the second column is the data. If a field name doesn't exist then the receiving program/script will create a new column. This rather depends on there always being a DateTime field so maybe the receiving script could reject files with no DateTime value. Does this seem a reasonable way to do it or are there better ways, or should I just stay with the existing set-up where the order is significant? -- Chris Green

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 3rd October.
by Viperfang 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

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

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Bash flaw - uh oh
by Bev Nicolson 29 Sep '14

29 Sep '14

What should we do? Here it's just me and my computer to worry about for example and I have a firewall and a virus checker installed. Is that enough? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29361794 Bev

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Phone backups
by Chris Walker 27 Sep '14

27 Sep '14

Hello, I have a Jolla phone which runs linux. Unfortunately the speaker has stopped working which rather renders it useless as a phone so it has to go back to Finland for repair. Jolla have suggested I take a backup as they will reset it and wipe it. But their backup doesn't backup everything so can I copy everything off it perhaps from this machine? I easily ssh into the phone as a user and then switch to 'devel-su' mode but I don't appear to be able to ssh into it as root. I've tried to run scp from within the phone (using ssh) to a NAS drive but I can't make it connect. At this stage I'd rather not install loads of extra software on the phone just to do the backup so any ideas about copying everything off the phone before it goes back would be appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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