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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 17th June, 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

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program for simple graph representation recommendation?
by Anthony Anson 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

I want to make a simple linear graph of blood-pressure readings over a month with a minimum interval of half an hour. (Greater intervals will have to be 'understood' by interpolation.) Ideally the background would be squares (to make it easier for me...) and it doesn't matter whether the plotted lines are vertical or horizontal - just so long as they are scrollable. Exportability to pdf would be an advantage All suggestions appreciated. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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Confused about mdstat output
by Mark Rogers 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

cat /proc/mdstat gives me: md1 : active raid5 sdi1[4](S) sdh1[2](F) sdg1[1] sdf1[0] 5860145664 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/2] [UU__] The history of this array is that it was a functioning RAID5 array, that wasn't really being used. I pulled one of the disks out for other uses temporarily, then wiped it and returned it, the idea being that it was returned to the array as a "new" disk to replace the "failed" (removed) one, albeit that it was actually the same disk. This is the RAID array that's been causing problems via a USB caddy (I now have a cheap SATA card that seems to work reliably). I was able to mount the array (albeit degraded because it was missing a disk) with the disk removed. Now I can't (makes sense, 2-out-of-4 disks in a RAID5 array isn't going to work very well!). My reading of mdstat is that sdi1 is currently "spare" (I think that's the one that came out and went back in), and that sdh1 has failed. Seems like quite a coincidence. As I said, the data on the array wasn't important, I'm using this as an opportunity to learn more about what's going on because next time the data may well matter. 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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Re: [ALUG] Exit Script if sudo password not entered
by Ewan Slater 12 Jun '13

12 Jun '13

Hi Steve, What's wrong with kicking the script off with sudo? For example: ewan@bluebox:~$ cat dist-upgrade.sh #!/bin/bash sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Bad typing: ewan@bluebox:~$ sudo ./dist-upgrade.sh [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. [sudo] password for ewan: Sorry, try again. sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts ewan@bluebox:~$ Good typing: ewan@bluebox:~$ sudo ./dist-upgrade.sh [sudo] password for ewan: Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com quantal Release.gpg Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net quantal Release.gpg Hit http://security.ubuntu.com quantal-security Release.gpg Hit http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com quantal Release.gpg Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com quantal Release Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net quantal Release.gpg Hit http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com quantal-updates Release.gpg ...<yada-yada/> Cheers, Ewan On 12 June 2013 12:00, <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 > http://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..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Exit Script if sudo password not entered (steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:16:34 +0100 > From: steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: [ALUG] Exit Script if sudo password not entered > Message-ID: <51B785A2.20502(a)hst.me.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi geniuses! > > I have a few scripts with several commands prefixed by sudo. > I often mistype my password, as it's complex, and, if I mistype it 3 > times, I want the script to exit, rather than continue on to the next > line and ask for the password again. > > Is there a recommended way of doing this? I've googled & thought. > One example I've seen asks for the password via zenity, then passes it > through to a sudo line which does something like sudo cat /dev/nul > >dev/nul and then checks if it failed - if it fails it displays a > message and quits. See: > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2052976&page=2 > > Another alternative I dreamt up whilst reading another webpage was: > sudo echo || { echo 'Login Failed'; exit; } > > Is there a recommended/preferred/suggested/best way of doing this? > > Cheers > Steve > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > > > End of main Digest, Vol 96, Issue 15 > ************************************

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Diagnosing USB3 HDD disconnections
by Mark Rogers 12 Jun '13

12 Jun '13

I'm having problems with a USB3 HDD caddy of four disks randomly disappearing from my Ubuntu box. As the fours disks are set up as RAID5 this is a particular nuisance, not least because I recently replaced one of the disks and it is unable to complete resyncing. I think this is a clue; it was stable until it reached ~93% complete but now every time I reassemble the array it gets to a little over 94% before it drops out again, returning to 93.7% on each reassemble. The array isn't being used (in most cases it isn't even mounted). Looking at the logs: http://paste.ubuntu.com/5757858/ .. it starts with: --snip-- Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912073] usb 6-2: USB disconnect, device number 2 Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912079] sd 6:0:0:2: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912099] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] Unhandled error code Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912104] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK Jun 12 09:57:14 FileServer kernel: [ 3973.912111] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdh] CDB: Read(10): 28 40 de c4 0a 98 00 00 f0 00 --snip-- A couple of seconds later the caddy reconnects on its own, although does not reassemble the array (see link to full logs above). Googling the error has found a number of suggestions that this is a software issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hdparm/+bug/515023 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/580983 One suggestion is that this is down to /lib/udev/rules.d/85-hdparm.rule and I've made the tweak suggested to prevent it running on USB-connected drives, but I don't understand what the rule does and as such have no idea whether this is happening, or whether I have correctly disabled it for USB drives). Suggestions? Aside: The caddy also supports eSATA but because it needs to talk to 4 drives over one connection would need multiplier support on the eSATA card, so any suggestions for a suitable card welcomed. -- 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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Exit Script if sudo password not entered
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 11 Jun '13

11 Jun '13

Hi geniuses! I have a few scripts with several commands prefixed by sudo. I often mistype my password, as it's complex, and, if I mistype it 3 times, I want the script to exit, rather than continue on to the next line and ask for the password again. Is there a recommended way of doing this? I've googled & thought. One example I've seen asks for the password via zenity, then passes it through to a sudo line which does something like sudo cat /dev/nul >dev/nul and then checks if it failed - if it fails it displays a message and quits. See: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2052976&page=2 Another alternative I dreamt up whilst reading another webpage was: sudo echo || { echo 'Login Failed'; exit; } Is there a recommended/preferred/suggested/best way of doing this? Cheers Steve

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th June
by Viperfang 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

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, 13th 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

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Why are some of my ports appearing in a port scan?
by steve-alug＠hst.me.uk 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

Hi folks. I'm confused. Every now and again, I use Shields UP! at grc.com to check that there's unexpectedly open ports on my system. I checked last night and I found 2 open ports, 5 closed ports and all the rest were "stealth" ports. The 2 open ports I was expecting. Stealth ports mean simply that they don't reply in any shape or form to the outside world. I expect, and usually get, all my ports except for the two open ones to appear as "stealthy". I don't understand why I'm now getting 5 closed ports showing up. I have a cable modem that's configured to do NAT for me. It has 3 port forwarding rules, each for single tcp ports. (One of these rules is outside the range usually scanned for by SheildsUp, that's why it's not included in the count of open ports) I don't forward any port ranges. I don't have a DMZ. UPnP is disabled. The ports that are appearing as closed are: 135, 137, 138, 139, 445 I turned off my server's smbd service and rescanned, and I got 135, 137, 138, 445 i.e. port 139 disappeared. So it does seem that services running on the server directly affect ports that are being shown as closed on the router, despite there being no port forwarding rule for them to get past the router onto the server. 135 DCOM Service Control Manager 137 NetBIOS Name Service 138 NETBIOS Datagram Service 139 NETBIOS Session Service 445 Microsoft Directory Services I've just used NetScan on my mobile, (whilst not connected to wifi), and scanning my public IP address I got two expected ports open, and also 80 HTTP 110 POP 143 Internet Message Access I tried with a different mobile app (Port Scan) and I got 1 of the expected ports listed as open, and 80 HTTP 110 POP 143 Internet Message Access 8080 Alternate HTTP I tried with an on-line port scanner, http://nmap.online-domain-tools.com/, and I got only the two expected ports open. I've just tried rerunning GRC's Shields up and now it reports the two expected open ports and also just 137 and 138 as closed. I'm rather confused as to what's going on. Anyone got any ideas? Regards Steve

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Can someone check this site?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 09 Jun '13

09 Jun '13

Greetings all! I am having trouble connecting to http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com which just hangs indefinitely for me. A traceroute traceroute oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com proceeds reasonably rapidly down to step 11, which is where it hangs: 10 * 178.236.0.58 (178.236.0.58) 59.452 ms 178.236.3.129 (178.236.3.129) 64.219 ms 11 ec2-79-125-0-77.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.77) 57.412 ms ec2-79-125-0-73.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.73) 68.999 ms ec2-79-125-0-5.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (79.125.0.5) 57.819 ms 12 * * * This may be a problem to do with routing via my ISP's DNS lookups. The ISP in question is zen.co.uk. The server 178.236.0.58 at the preceding step (10) is (from whois): inetnum: 178.236.0.0 - 178.236.7.255 netname: IE-AMAZON descr: Amazon Data Services Ireland Any comments? With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 09-Jun-2013 Time: 13:26:17 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

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Scripted FTP downloads
by Mark Rogers 08 Jun '13

08 Jun '13

This is basically a follow-on from my last question, now that the VPN is working... I need to download a set of backup files from a (Windows) server, deleting all but the newest from the server once successfully downloaded. In other words: - Download all files (re-starting any previously failed downloads and skipping files I already have in full) - Delete all files from the server that are older than X days The script will run daily. Files vary in size from a few K to a couple of GB (hence the need to remove old files from the server and to avoid re-downloading files I already have). I looked at lftp which has a "mirror" command that can be scripted and that is able to delete files, but it isn't working quite as expected. (We set it to download all files older than 2 days, deleting on success, then to download all files (no age limit) without deletion. That works fine, but the following day it skips the files it already has and doesn't delete the ones that are now older than 2 days from the server.) Suggestions? As it's a Windows server I don't have control of it unfortunately has to be FTP, although if there's a really clever solution that would work with some tweaks[*] on the Windows box I'll put them forward. [*]Wiping Windows and installing Linux doesn't count as a "tweak" :-( -- 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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Re: [ALUG] Android headache
by Bev Nicolson 08 Jun '13

08 Jun '13

D'oh. Sorry Steve. Bev. On 7 June 2013 18:13, Bev Nicolson <lumos60(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Do I have this right: When you switch the phone on, you're getting a >> message saying that there is a voicemail message for you. You have since >> disabled the voicemail service, but you're still getting the message? > > Yes, that's it. > >> If so, to remove the message, you will have to do something like this: >> Go to Settings menu. >> Select Call. >> Click on "Clear Voice Notification." > >> >> Options like this (but possibly with slightly different names) have been >> around for a while, > > And guess what? I don't have that option. :¬/ I had a long > conversation with Orange and there are two options. I either go for a > factory reset (would rather not) or (from Googling earlier) reactivate > voicemail and send myself a message, which I then delete. Thanks > though. > >> >>> Like I say, if this is totally off topic, be kind about saying so. Ta. > >> Well.... Android is Linux (for some value of is) >> > Indeed. Shame it isn't more so. An Ubuntu phone perhaps...

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Android headache
by Bev Nicolson 07 Jun '13

07 Jun '13

I'm not sure if this will be horribly off topic. If so, be gentle about pointing that out but you lot are more techie than me so you may have an answer to this. Phone is Android Gingerbread. Theoretically it has no voicemail service now but, along with others (I have googled and followed what advice I could) the notification still comes up when I switch it on. I rang my provider yesterday and they deleted the voicemail message for me but it's still there today. Points to note: I cannot listen to it because I have no idea what my pin number is so I couldn't delete it for myself. I have no phone app anywhere to remove. Any ideas? Like I say, if this is totally off topic, be kind about saying so. Ta. Bev.

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Maintaining a PPTP connection on Ubuntu Server
by Mark Rogers 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

I have an Ubuntu Server (headless) box, which needs to establish a PPTP connection (as client) to a PPTP server elsewhere. The box's sole purpose is to connect to the VPN, and download files for backup purposes. So keeping the VPN connection up is important. After an afternoon Googling all I've come up with are several dozen ways to skin the same cat, and the cat is feeling a bit unloved. So any recommendations? 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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More ftp
by Anthony Anson 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

Support@ asks: > Do you know what your public IP address is? Do you have a fixed IP > address? I'm in the Tea House in Naardge, so haven't access to my hard copy crib(s) - I don't *think* my IP address is fixed, BICBW. I can't discover anything on this box (MSi Wind Notebook running Mint) which will tell me - I'm sure there is, but I've never had to look. Can I ask the terminal, and if I can, what would the magic formula be? (Pretty please...) -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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UPnP vunerability
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

Hi all, I came across this and thought I'd better spread it, in case it may affect you. This show http://twit.tv/show/security-now/389 pointed out that someone has discovered that there is a UPnP vulnerability in a large number of routers out there. Basically, UPnP allows devices to configure your router for you, and discover what services are available on the network. UPnP has its flaws, but is reasonably safe if confined within your local area network. Unfortunately, a bunch of routers expose UPnP to the public internet. There is a possibility that if you have one of these routers, a hacker could use UPnP to discover what's on your network, and connect to it, and compromise it. There's an easy way to check. Go to https://www.grc.com/default.htm Click on the link for Shields up (3/4 of the way down the page) Click on the proceed button. Then click on the GRC's Instant UPnP Exposure Test button. This will scan your system. If you see the message "THE EQUIPMENT AT THE TARGET IP ADDRESS DID NOT RESPOND TO OUR UPnP PROBES! (That's good news!)" Then you're ok. If it doesn't say that, then try disabling UPnP on your router, and try again. I personally always disable UPnP - however, I don't have anything that needs it, e.g. XBox games. HTH Steve

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th June.
by Viperfang 04 Jun '13

04 Jun '13

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

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O/T Uninstalling Linux and making Windows boot again
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 02 Jun '13

02 Jun '13

Hi geniuses :-) I have a laptop that I purchased with Windows XP installed on it. I installed Ubuntu on it, and then migrated that to Lubuntu, but there's still Windows on a partition of it's own, and it still boots. I'm thinking about giving this machine to my kid who doesn't need linux, just windows. Is it possible to uninstall Linux and get the copy of Windows to boot correctly again. The problem is I don't have the windows install disk, so I'm reliant on any windows programs that may be installed on the disk, or any genuine tools that may help - I don't want to download a dodgy copy of Windows to do it! Afaik, if I just format the linux partitions, it will remove most of the initial boot loader, and then it won't boot windows any more. I'm using Grub btw - the old version (V1.??) Has anyone done this before or have any ideas? Cheers Steve

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RAID discs
by Chris Walker 31 May '13

31 May '13

Having seen that others are suffering RAID problems, perhaps now is an opportune time to ask about mine. I have an Edimax enclosure with 2 x 1TB discs in it. I got a notification from it yesterday to say that sdb had either failed or would fail within the next 24 hours. The drives were bought at the same time as the enclosure so given that one is failing or has failed, is it wise for me to replace both? The discs in there at the moment are Seagate drives and I don't think I specified anything special for them i.e. I just bought 2 discs. This time I'm going to go for something like a WD Red drive which are specified for NAS use. So 2 questions. Does anybody have any recommendations for discs or are the Western Digital discs ok? And second, should I replace both or is one ok for the time being?

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ftp problems
by Anthony Anson 31 May '13

31 May '13

Using up-to-date Mint, and happily using Fire FTP. Suddenly, half the page vanishes, leaving me with just the local side and a 'send' arrow. I can navigate through the local directories. Can't restore Fire FTP it to its proper configuration (AFAICS), so have been using Filezilla, mainly successfully - but - from time to time it connects, but the remote site spits my shaking-hand out. Status: Waiting to retry... Status: Connecting to ###.###.###.#:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Response: 438 Access denied. Please contact your support. Error: Could not connect to server (The :21... is kindly supplied by remote server, and should show there. It's a Linux server BTW.) Contacted Support and in the morning received two e-mails, just after I'd successfully ftpeed the file I tried to put up the evening before. No change in user, password or remote address data. Support has no idea why it wouldn't work the previous evening. *Could* the server be too busy, and <rhetoric> if so, couldn't it say so </rhetoric>? Any idea what 438 is? (I don't want to use a search injun using this dongle on GPRS unless I really have to...) -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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Compaq Proliant servers going free
by mick 29 May '13

29 May '13

I'm not sure how many freeglers there are on this list, but I thought I'd pass this on anyway. "THREE complete Compaq PROLIANT 8500R servers offered in Eaton: http://norfolkfreegle.org/Post/ViewPost/13591" Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Software RAID error
by Mark Rogers 29 May '13

29 May '13

I'm having problems understanding what is happening on my RAID array. $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1](F) 976629568 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [U_] To me, that suggests that sdb has failed, however, syslog contains lots of errors on sda but no mention of sdb. Amongst the things I've learned this morning, is the fact that I'm not getting any notifications; this only came to light because a VM that is hosted on this RAID array has lost the ability to write to one of its virtual disks (but not all of them). Should I conclude that both disks have failed? What is the best route to recovery here? Ie which disk do I swap out first with a new disk? Logically swapping out sda is the only thing that makes sense to me but advice welcomed. smartctl reports that neither disk had SMART enabled, which is odd because I thought they had, so there's no information there. I have enabled it this morning but don't want to try doing self-tests at this stage unless someone more knowledgeable than me says I should. 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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Re: [ALUG] how to block new connections whilst allowing existing established
by mick 27 May '13

27 May '13

On Sun, 26 May 2013 20:34:24 +0100 Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 08:09:07PM +0100, mick wrote: > > > > Before I start playing in earnest, does anyone know of a more > > elegant solution? > > Have you looked at profiling the connection length and how the client > works? I work for a CDN and to be honest since we acquired a > particular customer the scenario changed from us having a traffic > pattern that when taking a node out of our delivery group after 2 > hours it would see no connections, since this new customer even after > removing a node from delivery it will still see significant amounts > of traffic after 24 hours. > > The way we deal with it is to let some customers get "unlucky" but > then given the client immediately does a new dns lookup and goes to a > new server it means the interruption to them would be very brief. > > Anyhow, you might want to look at some kind of load balancer like > varnish for this scenario as if not a stuck connection might mean your > reboot never happens. > > Also, see if the clients can support range headers, if so they can > resume the download from the missing bit. This means it's not the end > of the world when a download fails. > Adam Thanks for this. But I should have said that my mirrors are on VMs in datacentres I don't control. So I have no chance of sticking a load balancing proxy in front of the servers. Furthermore, the "customers" are not paying me anything (I give the mirrors to the community) so I have no form of communication with them. I /could/ just be brutal, but I don't want to be - and as you will see from my answer to Nev, it turns out I don't have to be either. Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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how to block new connections whilst allowing existing established
by mick 27 May '13

27 May '13

Hi guys I run a couple of mirrors serving "tails" over http. Occasionally I need to shut those servers down and reboot (for example I have just upgraded both of them to wheezy). Both servers are reasonably busy (they ship out about 2-3 TiB each per month) and normally have active connections at the time I want to power cycle them. Connections can (of course) come from anywhere and some people may be on slow lines and may be over half way through a download of one of the 700 meg iso files. If I simply power cycle the server they will likely lose the connection and the download. I'd like to be more friendly than that. So what I have in mind is some mechanism that I can invoke to prevent new connections being established but permit the existing ones to complete before I switch off. I've thought about cobbling together an iptables script which will change the lines: BLAH –dport 80 -m state –state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT to BLAH –dport 80 -m state –state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT temporarily and then switch it back afterwards. But I have yet to try it. Before I start playing in earnest, does anyone know of a more elegant solution? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Network printing again
by Chris Walker 25 May '13

25 May '13

I'm having another try at making network printing work. I bought a Buffalo ADSL router recently with the facility to print using the inbuilt USB port. I connected up the printer and tried to make my system see the it. But it never does. If I set the host address as 192.168.1.1, the system picks the port number as 9100. I've looked on the router and all I can see is a WebAccess External Port set to 9000 so I'm guessing that 9100 isn't likely to be about right. The router can also be used as a media server with a USB disc plugged in instead of the printer. If I do that, the disc is seen as smb://ap0024a5bdb4dc/disk1_pt1/ and I can see and read the files (the buffalo is seen on a wifi network as Buffalo-BDB4DC so that ties in too). But I'm still stuck as to why I can't print. Can anybody suggest a way forward please?

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Fire FTP trying to confuse me...
by Anthony Anson 23 May '13

23 May '13

and succeeding. Up to this morning Fire FTP has been intuitive and easy to use, however, from having a local and a remote side in separate panes on the same page, it has taken the liberty of listing everything on one side, and only having an upload arrow - no download one. I may have accidentally clicked something which has brought this about, but I can't find anything to restore the default position. Any ideas? -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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