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Would some people please try this URL?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 31 Oct '12

31 Oct '12

Greetings all! I would be grateful if some people would try the following link: http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/EcoSim/EcoSim.html I get the response: Forbidden You don't have permission to access /~ngotelli/EcoSim/EcoSim.html on this server. Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat) Server at www.uvm.edu Port 80 On the other hand, a collaborator of mine (who is accessing it from a Bristol University computer) gets straight through. I'm wondering if it's due to academic institute versus private domain, or just due to some peculiarity of my Firefox (Iceweasel 2.0.0.19). One test, therefore, is whether other people, not on academic networks, can get through. So reports of tests would be very welcome! With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 31-Oct-2012 Time: 11:22:50 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

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Voltage logging with a PC, ideas wanted for cheap ways to do it
by Chris Green 30 Oct '12

30 Oct '12

I'm looking for reasonably priced and reasonably easy to implement ways to measure voltages with a computer. To be more specific:- The computer will either be the existing eeePc running Ubuntu (but no GUI) or a raspberry pi. I need to monitor at least four and preferably eight or so voltages, some of these are 12 volts (i.e. lead acid batteries) and others are current transducers giving an output around 2.5 volts with a +-0.5 volts swing. I don't need *incredible* accuracy but something around 2% or better is necessary for it to be useful in monitoring battery charge state. I want it to be cheap! Sample rate can be slow, once an hour would be fine. I have a 1-wire interface implemented which currently measures temperatures but I can't find any quick/easy way to add voltage measurement to 1-wire. It can be done but gets 'messy' and 1-wire seems to be a disappearing technology. I've looked for volts->USB interfaces but can't find much, if someone knows of anything I'd be pleased to hear about it. Any ideas for cheap hardware to do this (I am happy to solder things etc.) would be very welcome. -- Chris Green

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd November.
by Viperfang 30 Oct '12

30 Oct '12

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

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Re: [ALUG] Solved [was How to limit passwordless ssh login to allow only outgoing tunnel? Possible?]
by mick 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:57:23 +0000 Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > On 27 October 2012 18:02, mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > > > I had a think about this and then set up a test system to enable > > someone "on the internet" to connect to another system "on the > > internet" behind two (or more) NAT routers. > > > > That all looks great, thanks for the effort. I need to find the time > to play with it but it looks like a good starting point for me. > > I wasn't sure looking through it (I haven't read it in detail yet) > whether it dealt with Chris' specific problem of ensuring that anyone > who got onto the boat did not thus gain access to his home network? Yes it does. Because the VPN end point is on a VPS "somewhere out there" and not on his home network (where it could easily be placed). The only connection between the VPS and the home network is an SSH session out to the VPS from the home network. Of course someone on the boat could get out to the VPS if they could compromise the boat system and knew the client VPN passwords (though I didn't use passwords in my example). > For my needs, what I really want is a single server (VPS) with the > ability to control which connections can connect to which (and in > which direction). Ie I might have 10 "devices" and 10 "users" (ie 20 > connections to the VPN/VPS). In general (but I'm sure I'd find an > exception!) no two "users" should be able to connect to each other. > The "devices" should not be able to connect to anything (again I'm > sure I'd find an exception). I'd then be able to control which > "users" could connect to which "devices", ideally though something I > can easily manage (eg a database). Beyond that basic level I don't > really need the ability to control which ports are accessed by which > users but again I'm sure I'd quickly find exceptions to that rule. > So, is this something I can manage completely at the VPS end? Is it > "just" an iptables configuration issue? (I don't have much experience > with iptables but really should change that.) No, it is not just iptables configuration. Take a look at the main openvpn.net "howto" - specifically the section marked: "Configuring client-specific rules and access policies" Essentially what you do is specify individual client configurations in a specific directory on the server and then refer to those configurations in a server side directive (e.g. "client-config-dir /etc/openvpn/clients/client-1"). Each client is then given a specific (and separate) ip address and route to the VPN end point. The VPN server "pushes" those addresses and routes out to the clients when they connect. You then use iptables rules to forward the appropriate traffic over the tun interface. This has the advantage that (as you want) no two clients can see each other's networks (unless you want them to and configure the VPN server appropriately) > > (For the record, I think I have already come up with exceptions for > all of the cases listed above, so think of the above as "defaults" > not "fixed in stone" :-) There are /always/ exceptions... Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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How to limit passwordless ssh login to allow only outgoing tunnel? Possible?
by Chris Green 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

If I want to do something like:- ssh -R 12345:localhost:80 -N chris(a)mycomputer.com from a remote machine with a passwordless login is there any way I can make it so that the *only* thing allowed from the remote machine is the ssh tunnel? I want to be able to see the apache web server running on the remote computer from my home machine. The remote computer may have occasional reboots/upgrades etc. so it needs a passwordless login to be able to reconnect the ssh tunnel. At present I don't allow passwordless (i.e. public key with no passphrase) logins and I don't want to allow them unless I can, as stated above, somehow allow ssh to only be used to create a tunnel. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Norwich Based MongoDB Users Group
by Anthony Anson 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Paul Grenyer wrote: > Hi Anthony > >> You'll have to expand on that for this Bear of Very Little Brain[TM] >> >> Wosser MongoDB? > > It's a NoSQL database: http://www.mongodb.org/ Oh, ta. Sorry, forgot this pogrom sends back to author unless told otherwise. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Norwich Based MongoDB Users Group
by Paul Grenyer 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Hi All I'm hoping some of you might be interested in the local MongoDB users group I've started: http://www.meetup.com/EastAnglia-MongoDB/ I'm hoping to get someone from 10gen to speak at the first meeting in January. -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com t: pjgrenyer SyncNorwich: http://www.syncnorwich.com East Anglia MongoDB User Group: http://www.meetup.com/EastAnglia-MongoDB/ ACCU Member: License to code: http://www.accu.org

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Interrupt to emulate key-press?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Greetings All! Background: I have my screen set to blank out after 5 minutes of user inactivity. Fine for its purpose, since if I'm working at the computer I shall be generating key-presses, mouse actions, etc., far more frequently than that! On the other hand, if I'm not doing anything, then there is not excessively long screen on-time. However, it can be irritating if I'm watching a video or similar, since if I forget to (e.g.) tap on the Ctrl key (which resets the timeout) then the screen will go blank on me just when I don't want it to! So what I'm looking to do is set up a script which would send an interrupt, say every minute, which would be interpreted by the OS as a key-press or similar. Then I could forget about it until I've done watching. Is there some signal that can be sent using kill <signal> ... which would do that? I've not been able to suss out anything suitable. With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 25-Oct-2012 Time: 17:46:57 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

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I post without comment
by mick 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/ What do you think? --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 Note that I have recently upgraded my GPG key see: http://baldric.net/2012/07/20/gpg-key-upgrade/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Voltage logging with a PC, ideas wanted for cheap ways to do it
by Phil Ashby 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

On 25/10/12 12:00 Chris Green wrote: > I'm looking for reasonably priced and reasonably easy to implement ways > to measure voltages with a computer. To be more specific:- > > The computer will either be the existing eeePc running Ubuntu (but > no GUI) or a raspberry pi. > > I need to monitor at least four and preferably eight or so voltages, > some of these are 12 volts (i.e. lead acid batteries) and others are > current transducers giving an output around 2.5 volts with a +-0.5 > volts swing. > > I don't need *incredible* accuracy but something around 2% or better > is necessary for it to be useful in monitoring battery charge state. > > I want it to be cheap! > > Sample rate can be slow, once an hour would be fine. I built myself a home power monitor using a Freescale 8-bit HCS08 series micro-controller and an FTDI USB/serial interface chip, both powered from USB. I'm running two ADC channels @1kHz sample rate to take differential samples from either side of a biased current detector clamp. I'm sure something similar would be ideal for battery monitoring. Total cost - micro-controller free - obtained as a 'sample', FTDI chip you might get a 'sample' for free, but more likely to pay ~ £5, PCB ~ £0.50 if you use 0.1" DIP pinout devices and stripboard. The fun bit is writing the code :) P

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Re: [ALUG] sda1 missing in action
by Phil Ashby 19 Oct '12

19 Oct '12

On 19/10/12 12:00, John Woodard <mail(a)johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote: > I got this returned > > xubuntu@xubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda count=1 bs=512 | hexdump -s 446 > 0+0 records in > 0+0 records out > 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000170134 s, 0.0 kB/s > > Does this mean I'm screwed? Possibly - you might like to try using ddrescue (standard Ubuntu package) which is a much enhanced version of dd designed to get as much data as possible off a disk. You will need another disk to hold the image file (external USB is probably easiest). From your recovered image file you should then be able to use testdisk to locate the partitions and recover the contents. Good luck (I got all but 12k of my head-crashed disk back a couple of weeks ago). Phil.

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sda1 missing in action
by John Woodard 19 Oct '12

19 Oct '12

I'd really appreciate some help with this but I do fear the worst. Yesterday I had a broken super block on my boot drive sda1 which I fixed by finding the backup superblocks with: mke2fs -n /dev/sda1 Then by replacing the corrupted superblock with: e2fsck -b <backup_superblock_number>/dev/sda1 This I thought had fixed the problem, Linux booted up went through a fschk on all disks which passed and gave me a desktop that seemed okay. I left it over night and thought I'd grab the home partition and replace the physical disk in the morning to be on the safe side. Today I can't see sda? lsscsi returns: [0:0:0:0] cd/dvd SONY DVD RW AW-G170A 1.71 /dev/sr0 [2:0:0:0] disk ATA WDC WD5000KS-00M 07.0 /dev/sda [3:0:0:0] disk ATA ST31500341AS CC1H /dev/sdb [4:0:0:0] disk ATA ST31500341AS CC1H /dev/sdc [6:0:0:0] disk Generic USB SD Reader 1.00 /dev/sdd [6:0:0:1] disk Generic USB CF Reader 1.01 /dev/sde [6:0:0:2] disk Generic USB SM Reader 1.02 /dev/sdf [6:0:0:3] disk Generic USB MS Reader 1.03 /dev/sdg [7:0:0:0] disk SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8.01 /dev/sdh So the node sda is there and the physical disk is being reported correctly. sda1 is not seen in gparted and fdisk -l doesn't show it up either. mke2fs -n /dev/sda1 returns: mke2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011) Could not stat /dev/sda1 --- No such file or directory The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly? There is obviously something wrong with the disk which I'm going to replace but I would like to get the data from /home if at all possible. This isn't a raid disk or anything fancy just standard ext3 with 1 primary partition / and an extended partition containing a swap partition. Any help from the ALUG Community in getting me to my data would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, BJ

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Vector graphics tools
by Mark Rogers 17 Oct '12

17 Oct '12

I want to mock up something similar to the design here: http://www.reallygood.uk.com/bright-side-wedding-guest-book-guests-p-2941.h… Specifically, lots of individual characters (in various fonts, sizes and colours) jumbled around a bit. I had a quick play in gimp (because it was installed) but that got me nowhere, which could well be down to me. Before I start installing lots of different tools does anyone have any suggestions? Assume little or no graphics competency. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Last night's Ipswich ALUG meet
by samwise 16 Oct '12

16 Oct '12

Hi, all. Just wanted to say a thank you to Richard and Viperfang for making the effort to head down south to join our monthly gathering last night. It was a nice surprise and great to meet you both, plus it was a reminder that I promised ages ago to make an effort to get to a Norwich meet eventually, so we'll have to see about organising a reciprocal trip. :) In an effort to stay slightly on-topic, there was some interest shown in the Android beta of VLC I had installed on my phone. It's available from the Play Store, if anyone's interested: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc.betav7neon Thanks again to Adam for entertaining us with fireballs and Viperfang for sorting me out with a new Rockbox app to play with, once I've got my music files transferred over to my new device. :) Cheers, Peter.

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IP forwarding
by Mark Rogers 16 Oct '12

16 Oct '12

I have a Linux (Debian on ARM) box on a remote network (IP 192.168.150.100, subnet 255.255.255.0). The Linux box is also running Hamachi VPN software, which has given it an address (5.50.60.177) that I can reach from desktop (via a local Hamachi install). I can therefore ping 5.50.60.177 and SSH to it. I would like to route to the 192.168.150.x network via the working Hamachi connection. To that end I have enabled IP forwarding: $ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 1 .. and at the desktop end route -p add 192.168.150.0 mask 255.255.255.0 5.60.70.177 (desktop is Windows because the Hamachi VPN client was already running on it, but I don't think that's relevant to the problem). I am unable to reach either my box via its local address (192.168.150.100) or the rest of the remote LAN. What am I missing? [IP addresses changed to protect the innocent.] Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 15 Oct '12

15 Oct '12

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 tonight, 15th October, 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. I'll be along this month, showing off some of my recent holiday snaps on my gigantically huge new Note II phablet. I can probably also bring along a recent presentation I made on Martin Edmondson of Ubisoft Reflections Studio fame (Shadow of the Beast, Demolition Derby, Driver, Stuntman etc.) if anyone's interested, who I was scheduled to be interviewing this past weekend at the Play Expo show in Manchester (which was cancelled at the last minute when the audio-visual suppliers failed to show). If anyone's going to be late, do drop me a message so I know to stick around if it's quiet. 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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jQuery UI problem - anyone here use jQuery?
by Chris Green 11 Oct '12

11 Oct '12

I am trying to get the jQuery UI datepicker to submit a form when I click on one of the days in the datepicker. I can get the datepicker to appear as expected and, if I click on the explicit submit button I have added the post method gets called. However I can't get onSelect to submit the form. I seem to be doing what is described in examples I can find on Google. Can anyone here see the (probably obvious) error? The javascript code in the headers is:- jQuery(function() { jQuery( "#xvpicker" ).datepicker({ onSelect: function (dateText, inst) { jQuery(this).parent('form').submit(); alert("onSelect()");}, dateFormat: "dd/mm/yy"}); }); ... and the HTML form is:- <FORM METHOD=post ACTION="form.php" ID="xyzform" accept-charset="utf-8" enctype="multipart/form-data" > <p>Date: <input type="text" name="xvdate" id="xvpicker"><input type="submit" name="xvsubm"></p> </FORM> Oh, and the alert message *does* pop up when I click on a day in the date picker. So the onSelect: code is executing, it's just that the submit() call doesn't seem to be submitting the form. I have tried using the form ID instead, i.e. jQuery('#xyzform').submit() but this doesn't work either. -- Chris Green

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source code management
by Chris Walker 09 Oct '12

09 Oct '12

I'm still trying to write a program for my phone but I've already got lots of versions of it spread over various filesystems. My son has suggested that I use git and I see that there's an installable version for Mandriva. But before I go ahead and install it, is there anything I should know? I'm not particularly interested in storing the my source code online so I would like to have everything local, either on this 'ere machine or perhaps on a NAS drive. Is this the best approach though?

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th October
by Viperfang 08 Oct '12

08 Oct '12

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 11th 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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Sound Problem
by Michael Goddard 06 Oct '12

06 Oct '12

My ASUS mb P8H6-M LE requires driver/codec for a Realtek ALC887 8-channel HD audio setup - Any help much appreciated.

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I nearly have a VPN working, but I can't get any data through it
by Chris Green 06 Oct '12

06 Oct '12

Well I'm having a wonderful time playing with ideas to access the web server on my eeePc on the boat. My home router is a Draytek Vigor 2820n which has VPN capability itself. So I decided to try it. I can connect using pptp from the eeePc on the boat to the 2820n's VPN service:- root@eeepc:~# pptpsetup --create home --server zbmc.eu --username chris --start Password: Using interface ppp0 Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/1 CHAP authentication succeeded Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP local IP address 192.168.1.202 remote IP address 192.168.1.1 root@eeepc:~# ... and I can then ping the router from the eeePc OK. However I can't get anything else to work, i.e. I can't seem to get any data across the VPN connection at all. I have tried adding a route at the eeePc end:- root@eeepc:~# route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ppp0 root@eeepc:~# route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 192.168.1.1 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 84-45-228-40.st 192.168.13.1 255.255.255.255 UGH 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ppp0 192.168.13.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 default 192.168.13.1 0.0.0.0 UG 100 0 0 eth0 root@eeepc:~# but still no joy. root@eeepc:~# ping 192.168.1.1 PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=82.0 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=76.7 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=79.6 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=77.8 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=76.6 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=74.9 ms ^C --- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5007ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 74.905/77.992/82.087/2.345 ms root@eeepc:~# ping 192.168.1.4 PING 192.168.1.4 (192.168.1.4) 56(84) bytes of data. From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=6 Destination Host Unreachable ^C --- 192.168.1.4 ping statistics --- 7 packets transmitted, 0 received, +6 errors, 100% packet loss, time 6031ms , pipe 3 (the eeePc is on a 192.168.13.0 LAN so the IP addresses shouldn't conflict) Similarly at the other end (my desktop machine) I can see the VPN but I can't push any data through it:- root@chris:~# 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/) 192.168.1.1 00:50:7f:8b:35:40 DrayTek Corp. 192.168.1.2 00:01:6c:6c:c7:9b FOXCONN 192.168.1.6 00:04:4b:07:13:30 NVIDIA 192.168.1.84 70:f1:a1:2d:da:86 Liteon Technology Corporation 192.168.1.90 00:90:a9:70:06:ff WESTERN DIGITAL 192.168.1.122 78:ac:c0:63:90:d4 Hewlett Packard 192.168.1.150 00:04:20:26:55:19 Slim Devices, Inc. 192.168.1.202 00:50:7f:8b:35:40 DrayTek Corp. 192.168.1.81 00:01:e3:9d:8b:b5 Siemens AG 9 packets received by filter, 0 packets dropped by kernel Ending arp-scan 1.8.1: 256 hosts scanned in 1.360 seconds (188.24 hosts/sec). 9 responded That 192.168.1.202 is the VPN network IP address on the router, but I can't ping it or anything:- root@chris:~# ping 192.168.1.202 PING 192.168.1.202 (192.168.1.202) 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- 192.168.1.202 ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 3023ms Am I missing something obvious somewhere and/or any ideas how to diagnose what's wrong? -- Chris Green

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Do most/all 'real' SMTP servers follow reasonably retry strategies?
by Chris Green 05 Oct '12

05 Oct '12

As per the subject line, do most SMTP servers (as in systems 'out there' which send me mail) behave reasonably sensibly when my SMTP server is temporarily not functioning? I currently have both a desktop machine *and* a small server machine which are on all the time. It's the server machine that receives my E-Mail. The only reason I have it configured this way is because I'm more likely to rebuild/reconfigure my desktop machine than the server machine and I felt that keeping my SMTP server online consistently was important. However I'm wondering if the effort (and cost) of running two systems all the time is worth it. The other functions of the server system (DNS and CUPS) can easily be run on my desktop machine, occasinal downtime of those services is easily explained to other family members! :-) If real world SMTP servers 'out there' will cope quite happily with my domain's MX machine being AWOL for several hours then I may as well put everything on the one server machine. (Note it's only *my* E-Mail that is delivered by SMTP, all other family members do their own thing as in use Webmail, or IMAP, or whatever) -- Chris Green

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th October.
by Viperfang 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

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

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WiFi range, what am I likely to get outdoors line-of-sight, without special equipment?
by Chris Green 26 Sep '12

26 Sep '12

The subject says it all really, what sort of range is one likely to get outdoors with WiFi? It's basically line of sight, base station is in a shop, my WiFi router will be sitting in a window maybe 200 meters away. Do I have any chance of it working? -- Chris Green

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Catch 22 situation when disk gets full - how to solve?
by Chris Green 23 Sep '12

23 Sep '12

I have a sort of Catch 22 situation on my little eeePc. It has tried to update kernels automatically and, after a few months (it's on our boat doing monitoring) it has run out of disk space. It still runs OK and I can ssh into it. It has quite a long list of old kernels installed but I can't delete them to make space because it has half an update of the latest kernel:- So when I try and do anything with apt-get I see:- root@eeepc:/var/lib# apt-get remove linux-headers-2.6.32-39 linux-headers-2.6.32-39-generic-pae linux-image-2.6.32-39-generic-pae Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. linux-headers-generic-pae: Depends: linux-headers-2.6.32-43-generic-pae but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). So how do I uninstall all the old headers etc. so that there *is* space to do things? -- Chris Green

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