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Camera media disk corrupted
by Jenny Hopkins 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

Hi All, My camera battery died during a file transfer, with the photographs only partially transferred. After recharging the battery, I'm left with a corrupt file system, with listings such as: -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 268435456 Jan 1 1980 ??.Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Jan 3 1980 Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Jan 3 1980 Ã? -rw-r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 0 Dec 31 1979 Ã?.? drwx------ 5183 jenny jenny 655360 Mar 29 2012 DCIM drwx------ 3 jenny jenny 32768 Mar 29 2012 MCSOFQ -r--r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 268435456 Dec 31 1979 ]?MSTICK.â??nd -r--r--r-- 1 jenny jenny 33554432 Dec 31 1979 mstk_?ro.IND d????????? ? ? ? ? ? TRASH-~1 Is there any hope at all of getting any further photos from the disk, or is it a lost cause? DCIM takes an age to open, then refuses to copy any of the listed files to my computer hard drive, mostly complaining of input/output error. ls: cannot access DCIM/!â”‚Ã©(a)xn--~-6baq9uc29df93o.xn----mca0s): Input/output error total 9697785440 d????????? ? ? ? ? ? 01ÎŽ\5iâ?¥â??.ÂµÂ¬/ Thanks, Jenny :-(

4 5

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 14th August
by Viperfang 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '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, 14th August 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

1 0

Bit OT: Libreoffice Writer macros
by Mark Rogers 07 Aug '14

07 Aug '14

I've never played with LO macros before, and I have no idea if this is possible, but: At a certain point in the document I need to insert the document's filename (easy to do using fields), and then later on to insert the same filename after a simple search+replace operation (which is where I'm stuck). I assume macros are the way to go but if there's a better/different way I'm all ears. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Can anyone help with a Postfix problem please?
by Barry Samuels 05 Aug '14

05 Aug '14

I bought myself a new computer at the end of last week to replace my aging 32 bit machine. I decided to install Debian Testing/Jessie 64 bit from scratch and set it up to match, roughly, what was on my old machine. I included Postfix which was on my 32 bit machine on the assumption that I could copy the Postfix configuration across and it would work. I have to admit that I find email configuration to be one of the black arts which uses magic incantations. Needless to say it didn't work. After a bit of research I discovered that putting 'inet_protocols = ipv4' in main.cf enabled me to send emails. Some of the sent emails appear to get to their intended destinations and some don't with messages as under: <mywife(a)gmail.com>: host mx1.spamfiltering.com[212.113.130.124] said: 550 relay not permitted! (in reply to RCPT TO command) <me(a)myaddress.co.uk>: host mx1.spamfiltering.com [72.249.150.158] said: 550 81.151.115.33 is listed on sem-black.rbl.spamrl.com. Please organise removal and retry. (in reply to end of DATA command) I have obscured some of the details but it should still give an idea. the ip address 81.151.115.33 is btinternet.com our ISP. Similar emails sent from my old machine don't produce those error messages. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels

3 8

Problem with sound on new install
by Jenny Hopkins 01 Aug '14

01 Aug '14

Hi folks, I posted the following to the ubuntu alsa forums with the hope of some pointers, but nothing has come back. Can anyone from alug offer anything further on this? <snip> I've newly installed ubuntu 14.04 on to a Gigabyte GA-J1800N-D2H board, and am trying to get sound working with a Samsung S24D590L monitor through the HDMI cable. Pulse audio control detects Port: HDMI / DisplayPort (plugged in), and the volume meter is showing it is responding to the levels, but no actual sound can be heard. Alsamixer shows the card as HDA Intel PCH and the chip as Intel Valleyview2 HDMI, and I've checked nothing is muted. Monitor volume is not muted. There is no output from "beep". </snip> I was asked for the output of wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && chmod +x ./alsa-info.sh && ./alsa-info.sh --upload, which is now here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1a91c118837f2f6038ddb73c397dae4bf340e0b5 I did wonder if I need to install some dedicated drivers from RealTek, such as LinuxPkg_5.18rc8.tar.bz2? And yes, this is the same board I posted about last week - finally managed to create a dos boot stick it would respond to (had to make it from a virtualbox running windows), upgraded the bios from F2 to F4, and off we went. Thanks, Jenny

4 5

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st August.
by Viperfang 29 Jul '14

29 Jul '14

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

1 0

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 21 Jul '14

21 Jul '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 ----- Gah! Sorry for the late email - I totally forgot! The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 21stth July, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. ----- 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

1 0

Date Scheduling
by Michael Goddard 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

I'm on a volunteer project and want to use program/app that will give me fixed dates over a given period. For instance, a given start date and dates for each 21 day period thereafter, or what are the dates of the second tuesday each month over a given period. I'm quite prepared to do my own DIY learning etc, but would appreciate a heads up in the right direction rather than stumbling down too many blind alleys in an effort to find, I hope, a simple program/app that would do this task. Tia Michael -- Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

4 4

Motherboard can't detect debian bootloader
by Jenny Hopkins 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

Hullo there, I've been having a bit of a battle with trying to persuade a new motherboard to see a debian bootloader. The machine is a mini-ITX with 1 SATA drive, the new motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2H, I have a pxe netboot debian set up which the BIOS doesn't detect, a USB stick set up with the image from here: http://grml.org/, and the already-installed SATA drive running debian wheezy/grub. All I get is either a black screen after the motherboard logo, or the logo keeps reappearing as if it were constantly rebooting. The support at mini-ITX say they have booted ubuntu successfully from a USB stick running Ubuntu (video to support this shown here: http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/84742025/file.html). I found various comments on amazon about this board and linux, saying the BIOS has to be upgraded, but the mini-ITX support reckon the board already is running version 4. Now, they could be wrong and I need to upgrade BIOS to see my humble boot offerings, but I wondered if maybe there was something else about debian that is too out-dated for this board? If so, the board is of no use and I need to return it rather than wasting time piddling about with trying to upgrade the BIOS. I suppose my question is: if anyone can say yes, debian won't work whatever you do at the moment, then I'll know not to waste further time. Unfortunately I have to replace the old board into my client's machine each time I try and fail miserably to make it work, so it isn't currently plugged in and running to inspect the BIOS version... I did try every combination of boot order, CSM settings though. Hardware, *sigh*. Thanks, Jenny

2 3

Looking for a reasonable Linux laptop/netbook
by Chris Green 11 Jul '14

11 Jul '14

My wife recently lost (or maybe had stolen, we're not quite sure) her new[ish] Acer Travelmate laptop. So we're looking for a replacement. The Travelmate was OK but she found the touchpad very difficult to use, it's one where the 'buttons' are not actually separate from the mouse movement touchpad and she found that very difficult. We want something small like the Acer with its 11.6" screen, similar processor power etc. Also obviously needs to be reasonably easy to install Linux (xubuntu). Any recommendations? -- Chris Green

5 7

How is one supposed to work out what's what on a LAN nowadays?
by Chris Green 10 Jul '14

10 Jul '14

I know, I've been here before, but it's bitten me again. With most modern routers/switches not providing local DNS how is one supposed to find out who's who on a small LAN? At home I run dnsmasq but that's overkill for where I am now with just three or four devices on the LAN:- root@acer-aspire:~# arp-scan -l Interface: eth0, datalink type: EN10MB (Ethernet) Starting arp-scan 1.8.1 with 256 hosts (http://www.nta-monitor.com/tools/arp-scan/) 192.168.13.102 d0:ff:50:07:b7:96 (Unknown) 192.168.13.103 00:0c:43:4a:55:66 Ralink Technology, Corp. 192.168.13.100 00:21:04:f5:7c:a0 Gigaset Communications GmbH 192.168.13.254 10:fe:ed:50:8f:fa (Unknown) So, I know that 192.168.13.100 is the Gigaset DECT phone but for the other three I'm stuffed. Surely there's supposed to be a way to know how to talk to these things! (One's a Beaglebone Black, two are TP-Link routers) It can take a while guessing which is which and trying to ssh to them. It's especially frustrating because I only see this for a few days every few months so I *don't* remember what's what and much of it is powered down so gets different IP addresses next time around. It's just not stable (as in the same all the time) enough to get the router to always assign the same IPs and it wouldn't help all that much anyway as I don';t remember after two months absence. -- Chris Green

5 19

How to test for existence of a file matching a pattern?
by Chris Green 09 Jul '14

09 Jul '14

This really sounds simple but I can't think of a neat way of doing it, I want to test (in bash) if there's any file with a specific suffix in a particular directory. This means I can't use "[ -f <filename> ]" because I don't know the filename and I don't see how I can use "[ *.sfx ]" because if there are no *.sfx files the string is still not empty. I suppose I could say something like "[ *.sfx = '*.sfx' ]" but it's a quoting nightmare. Any better ideas? -- Chris Green

4 3

Electromagnetic Field 2014: Call for Participation
by Jonty Wareing 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Hello! Electromagnetic Field (EMF) is a volunteer-run non-profit maker/hacker camping festival in the UK. We held our first event in 2012, and this year we're back and bigger than ever: a camping festival with over 1200 people of all ages, just outside Milton Keynes for a long weekend between the 29th and 31st of August. We run this event to promote people making and learning things across as many disciplines as possible. We'll take over a large field, roll out power and internet to every tent, and put on talks and workshops for three days. If you'd like a better idea of what that looks like, our website might help: https://www.emfcamp.org/about Our Call For Participation is open: we're looking for people to talk or give workshops. At previous events, we've had a huge variety of talks on everything from genetic modification to electronics, blacksmithing to high-energy physics, reverse engineering to lock picking, computer security to crocheting, and quadcopters to brewing. If you'd like to talk, we'll try and fit you in. We're especially keen to receive proposals from people outside the normal tech conference circuit (we welcome imposters!). If you need some inspiration, take a look at the list of talks from 2012: https://www.emfcamp.org/talks/2012 If you'd like to submit a talk, simply fill in this short form: https://www.emfcamp.org/cfp We're also looking for groups to run villages: camps within EMF where like-minded people can camp together and host activities for other members. Previous villages have been anything from retro-gaming to lockpicking, chillout areas, and a full workshop complete with laser cutter! Some groups just camp together so interested people can find them, some organise a village around a topic of interest and allow anyone to join them. If you'd like to register a village there's more information here: https://wiki.emfcamp.org/wiki/Villages We're also looking for people to build installations and art around the site. We have a limited budget available to help fund these projects, and you can find the application form on the call for participation page. Previous years have seen anything from ride-on tanks to floating LED screens and gigantic metal letters spelling out the event name! We'll consider anything interesting, so don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to contribute. Last but not least: EMF is an entirely volunteer-run event and takes a vast amount of time to organise. We need volunteers to help out in a variety of roles before, during, and after the event. If you'd like to get involved, email volunteer(a)emfcamp.org. If you would like promotional posters, flyers and stickers to display in your hackspace or give out at a meeting, email your address to contact(a)emfcamp.org and we'll post them out as soon as possible! You can find out more about EMF 2014 on our website: https://www.emfcamp.org You may also be interested in the BBC coverage of the event in 2012: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19441861 Tickets are available from http://www.emfcamp.org/tickets, hope to see you in the field! Thanks, Jonty

1 0

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th July
by Viperfang 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '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, 10th 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 http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

1 0

SSHFS
by Chris Walker 05 Jul '14

05 Jul '14

Hello, I have a 1TB disc attached to a Raspberry Pi which is attached to my tv. I'd like to able to copy/move stuff to and from that drive so I've been trying to mount it from my main machine. I did this :- sudo sshfs pi@192.168.1.27:/media/New_Volume /media/win_c3 I also entered sudo usermod -a -G fuse chris sudo chown chris:chris /media/win_c3 Having done all I wanted for the day, I then issued a fusermount -u /media/win_c3 But I felt the win_c3 (a leftover from previous experiments) was not right, so I renamed it to RaspberryPi. That's when it all stopped working. I can still issue the sudo sshfs pi@192..... command but the RaspberryPi folder disappears from the Dolphin window at that point and doesn't re-appear until it's dismounted. I see that /media/RaspbeeryPi now shows this sort of thing :- drwx------ 1 1000 1000 36864 Jul 5 10:09 Humax_TS_Files So how can I fix the 1000 problem? I've tried doing another chown as sudo but it tells me Permission denied. Any help appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 0

Fonts and Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jul '14

04 Jul '14

Not a huge technical challenge for you but something I find a tiny bit tedious. In Firefox, I can see some special characters or graphics but others are just squares with numbers or diamonds with a question mark inside. I've tried using a font with a bigger file (so more characters to pick from) but that hasn't solved it. Is it a unicode problem? Or something else entirely? (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Firefox 26.0) Is there something in Synaptic I need to install? etc etc. Bev.

3 9

Good energy usage/performance CPU/mobo combo
by Mark Rogers 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

Sparked by Laurie's thread, but different so I don't want to hijack it. My desktop PC (Intel G630 w/ 8GB RAM) is a bit slow these days. It is used for those wonderfully high memory applications we call web browsers, and for running VMs, and runs 24/7. Ubuntu 14.04 as the O/S. I'd like to upgrade the motherboard and processor (and the RAM if necessary) whilst retaining the rest of the box. What would be a good motherboard and CPU combo for the above on a budget of say £150-£200? (I'd want the motherboard to support at least 16GB RAM, 4x SATA and have USB3 but other than that I'm not too fussy. I currently have onboard graphics and continuing that way makes sense for my usage, but happy to look at alternatives.) Energy usage is something I would like to keep an eye on when the system is idle, but I don't want it to be held back when I actually want it to do something. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 11

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th July.
by Viperfang 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

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

1 0

LXLE Menu problem
by Chris Walker 26 Jun '14

26 Jun '14

Here's hoping somebody can help me with this. I was having problems making VirtualBox work on a 64bit LXLE machine so I uninstalled the old version, grabbed the latest from Oracle and installed it. But although the old version did, the latest version is not showing up in the menu system. I've tried running the Menu Editor and although I can add it, and save it, it never appears in the menu. So can somebody give me a clue as to where I'm going wrong with this please? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

2 2

Why do mail programs make moving to a new installation so difficult?!
by Chris Green 23 Jun '14

23 Jun '14

My wife is using Thunderbird on a new[ish] xubuntu 14.04 system. She has now got it fairly well configured and working the way she wants so the next step is to move her old 'local' E-Mail across. No way is this remotely easy, I can sort of see how it might be done but there are so many gotchas that I fear it's going to be a mess. Why can't modern E-Mail program simply use mbox (or maildir, I'm not too fussed) as they were designed rather than having to add all sorts of specially named directories and indexes? In mutt it would be trivial! -- Chris Green

4 5

Low energy use systems
by Laurie Brown 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

I'd like to tap into the collective brain here, if I may. For many years we've had a philosophy of using small machines to perform specific roles, say web-server, email-filter, SMB box, that sort of thing. We even have some of the Single-core Athlon boxes with 512Mb memory we bought 10 years ago still running, and working fine. However, of late, energy consumption has become a real issue. These things just consume too much electricity to justify keeping them running despite them have paid their way years ago, and still preforming faultlessly. I've had a look at the local guys at http://www.linitx.com (Needham Market) but the choice is mind-boggling, and I haven't really kept up to speed with this stuff. We already have a miniITX machine here as a firewall, but I might recycle it as a web server and use a Jetway JBC373 Fanless Quad Gigabit LAN Barebones System to replace it. However, what I need very soon is a couple of low-power consumption systems with at least 2Gb of memory, preferably a multi-core CPU (but not essential), at least one LAN port, standard VGA and PS/2 ports, and capable of taking a standard SATA 2.5" or 3.5" drive. We use Gentoo and Ubuntu on our servers. I'm thinking maybe the Jetway JNC9I-525 JC110 Barebone System but, recommendations anyone? Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

3 4

Storing dropbox folder on a truecrypt volume
by Mark Rogers 16 Jun '14

16 Jun '14

First off: I know all about the potential issues (or otherwise) of using Truecrypt that have surfaced recently. For now I'm taking the view that data on a truecrypt volume is more secure than data that isn't... Anyway, I want to store my Dropbox folder on my truecrypt volume. This is about making sure that files in my dropbox folder are inaccessible to someone who steals my laptop, not about making them inaccessible to Dropbox employees (and US governments). There are loads of discussions out there about creating an encrypted container and storing that in Dropbox, but that is not what I am trying to do here. I want my ~/Dropbox folder to be located inside a truecrypt container. Does anyone have any ideas how to achieve this? At the moment Dropbox starts when my laptop does and complains that the dropbox folder isn't present. I need to delay its start until the Truecrypt container has been mounted. My guess is that I need a wrapper script that runs on startup and checks that the container is mounted before starting dropbox, but I'm unclear about the best way to do that - in particular taking into account that I might not even start Truecrypt, and if so Dropbox should never start. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Re: [ALUG] my questions recently about securely transferring files from remote system
by Chris Green 16 Jun '14

16 Jun '14

This is just an update about my recent questions regarding how to transfer files reasonably securely (as in system security rather than confidentiality of file content) from a remote unattended system. I have what seems to me to be a satisfactory solution that also makes some other things a bit easier. While hunting around for ideas and solutions for this and other issues I came across an explanation and examples of the use of ProxyCommand in the ssh config file. This has provided me with my solution. Just to recap, the remote system is a Beaglebone Black running Ubuntu which is on our boat in France monitoring temperatures, battery voltages, etc. It's connected to the internet via a WiFi hotspot so is behind a NAT router (presumably) and a firewall which are out of my control. So, to make the BBB accessible it runs an ssh tunnel to an intermediate system (my web hosting provider) where I have an ssh login account. To maintain this connection through power failures and/or other glitches I run ssh on the BBB using autossh:- autossh -N -R ?????:localhost:22 -l isbdnet3 <host on the internet> (port number masked to ??????, there's a real number there of course) To connect from home to the BBB I used to ssh from home to <host on the internet> and then from there, via the tunnel, to the BBB. The reason for the intermediate system is that my home firewall only allows connections from <host on the internet> and a couple of other specific IP addresses. (This is to protect my home system from long term attacks using ssh) Adding a ProxyCommand to my ssh config at home allows me to connect 'directly' from my home system to the BBB, the line is:- Host bbb ProxyCommand ssh <host on the internet> nc -q0 localhost ????? Now I can just 'ssh bbb' and it goes straight to the BBB. Even better and more importantly it means that I can use sshfs to mount a directory from the BBB onto my home system, thus I can:- sshfs bbb:tmp odin ... and the files being stored in ~/tmp on the BBB appear on my home desktop in ~/odin. This means I can manipulate them as required (which means add the values to a database) *and* when this has been done I can delete them safely, ideal! :-) -- Chris Green

2 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th June
by Viperfang 09 Jun '14

09 Jun '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, 12th June 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

1 0

Security when transferring files - passwordless ssh or rsync daemon?
by Chris Green 04 Jun '14

04 Jun '14

I want to copy files from a BeagleBone Black (running Ubuntu) to my home dmz system. This has got to work unattended as the BBB is sat on our boat moored on the Somme. It's also got to be a 'push' from the BBB as it's connected via WiFi and while I can connect to it through an ssh tunnel copying files via that connection would be decidedly tricky. So, as I see it, I have two obvious options:- 1 - Set up a public key login for the BBB on my dmz that requires no passphrase, so it's effectively passwordless. Then the BBB can run rsync to copy the files. The security hole in this approach is that if someone accessed the BBB then they could login to the dmz without further difficulty. 2 - Run an rsync daemon on the dmz and copy the files by connecting to this from the BBB. The advantage is that someone at the BBB end can't do anything but copy files (and I can limit what can be copied with the rsyncd configuration), the disadvantage is that the connection isn't encrypted at all. There's nothing valuable in the files, they're just temperature and electrical measurements from the boat so I don't care at all about the files being visible to the world. My security concern is to minimise the risk of someone getting into my dmz system. OK, it's a dmz and it's just a Raspberry Pi so is hardly full of valuable data but it would be a nuisance and *might* be a jumping off place for further nefarious deeds. I guess I'm being a bit paranoid really, the BBB on the boat is headless and anyone breaking into the boat is hardly likely to be an accomplished Linux hacker. Option 1 above is certainly the easiest as rsync daemon takes a bit of setting up. Are there any really obvious flaws - is it only really vulnerable to someone who accesses the BBB? There is an option 3 but it's more difficult to set up, I could implement a passphraseless rsync connection from the BBB to the dmz that only allows rsync file copying to a specific directory. I've done this on one other system and it works pretty well (you do it by adding a command= at the front of the authorized_keys file) but like the rsync daemon it takes a bit of setting up and I'm wondering if it's worth the effort. Any comments anyone? Are there more obvious and/or easier ways of copying files without making systems vulnerable to other attacks? -- Chris Green

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