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What would cause this lack of decision about a host on the LAN?
by Chris G 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

What might cause this somewhat confusing response to a 'host' command? root@mws:~# host oldchris oldchris.zbmc.eu has address 192.168.1.140 Host oldchris.zbmc.eu not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) -- Chris Green

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why won't xterm start?
by Chris Walker 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

Having given up on the idea of installing a Nokia SDK on my base machine, I thought I'd try creating a Ubuntu system in VirtualBox. I did that using an iso of 10.10 - Maverick Meerkat. But partway through the install, it's meant to fire up an xterm offering me a choice of installs, but it fails. I can start xterm simply by issuing the command but the script fails every time. I've googled this and others have had similar problems when they've upgraded from 10.4 to 10.10. I haven't. I've gone straight in with a vanilla 10.10 build. I've tried various tweaks and hacks but the script still fails. For info, this is what I'm trying to run - http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Maemo_5_SDK_installation_for_beginners It does the scratchbox install ok. It's when I get as far as the SDK install it fails. The ./maemo-sdk-install_5.0.sh script displays an agreement and I page down using the space bar. It then asks me to press the Enter key. At that point, it's supposed to open up a terminal window to enable me to choose an option. It falls over with an error - unable to open xterm. Any ideas? As I'm playing with VirtualBox, I did grab a copy of Ubuntu 9.04 and that ran through the whole thing so I do have an almost working copy of the setup so it's something peculiar to 10.10. The 'almost' working bit refers me not being able to see the host machine from the guest OS but I'll persevere with that. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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hexdump formatting
by Mark Rogers 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

Has anyone here got any experience of hexdump output formatting? If I use hexdump -C I get: $hexdump -C -n32 /usr/bin/lsof 00000000 7f 45 4c 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.ELF............| 00000010 02 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 60 97 04 08 34 00 00 00 |........`...4...| 00000020 What I want to do is extend the number of bytes per line to 32, but as there isn't a format for it that means using the horribly complicated -e option. I have got as far as: $ hexdump -n 32 -e '"%04.4_ao: " 16/1 "%02X " " " 16/1 "%02X " " " "xx" "\n"' /usr/bin/lsof 0000: 7F 45 4C 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 60 97 04 08 34 00 00 00 xx .. but haven't worked out how to insert the ascii values in place of "xx". -- 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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Is there any way to run an rsync daemon/server on-demand as a non-privileged user?
by Chris G 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

Is there any way to do the equivalent of running rsync from an entry in inetd.conf that can be done by a non-provileged user? I want to run rsync from cron to backup files to a couple of places where I have shell logins (but not the privilege to make additions to inetd.conf). I suppose I could just run rsync in daemon mode using a cron job on the remote system (and kill it later) at the right time but that seems a little crude. -- Chris Green

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An odd bluetooth problem
by Barry Samuels 22 Nov '10

22 Nov '10

I have just got Bluetooth working on my Thinkpad (Debian Testing/Squeeze) and it will pair with my Android 'phone but the signal keeps fluctuating. The link quality between 100% and -1%, the strength between 58% and -1 and it does this at around 2-5 second intervals. It does it even when the 'phone is next to the laptop. Can anyone suggest a reason for this? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] Free Teeth Whitening for you
by Steve Engledow 19 Nov '10

19 Nov '10

Well I don't know about you, but I'm convinced. Does this whitening kit run on linux though? Cheers, Steve On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 04:33:16 +0000, "paul Frei" <onetofifteeneco(a)aol.com> wrote: > Untitled Document > > Get a Pro Whitening Kit 30 Day supply and two touch-up pens Free - > only pay £2.95 P&P. > > ? They know how important their smiles are and they've spent > thousands > and thousands of pounds to have the whitest teeth. Now you can have > the celebrity smile you deserve with . Try our today! > > People seeking better smiles spend £1.74 billion per year to have > white teeth. Celebrities know their success depends on having a great > smile. They are no different than you. __, and you can with . > > Get the white smile you've always wanted. will give you the bright, > celebrity smile you deserve. See if you qualify for your today! > > "I was so excited about my wedding until I tried on the perfect dress > and looked in the mirror. The dress was perfect and white, but my > teeth were yellow. I looked horrible. So I tried __ and it saved my > wedding." > > "I had an interview scheduled for the job I really wanted and needed, > but years of smoking and coffee drinking had stained my teeth so > badly > I knew the impression I would make would be bad. I tried __ and am > amazed at how white my teeth are." > > Be Attractive & Confident > ! > > We all want to look younger, happier and more confident. Everyone > would like to be attractive, successful and > have an incredible > relationship. > . > > in 3 simple steps with > Choice White advanced- > formula gel. > > if you do not wish to hear from us again please reply with cancel in > the subject line

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HDD errors
by Mark Rogers 19 Nov '10

19 Nov '10

I have a hard disk connected via a IDE/USB convertor. I was asked to look at the disk because of issues, and with a combination of tools (surprisingly mount and cp did most of what I needed!) have managed to recover most of his files (well the ones that matter anyway). However, I'm getting lots of the following in /var/log/messages: Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430217] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled sense code Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430221] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430225] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430230] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: No additional sense information Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430234] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 01 00 95 a0 00 00 08 00 Nov 11 10:44:28 user-desktop kernel: [268615.430248] __ratelimit: 41 callbacks suppressed .. and I was just curious to learn what they were telling me about what was wrong with the drive? I've Googled for some of the key phrases but don't seem to get a clear picture. I've seen references to Sense Key etc before with problems in the past (often USB thumb drives) so I figured a little extra knowledge might be no bad thing! -- 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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Is there a fairly easy way to allow two users to write to the same hierarchy of files?
by Chris G 19 Nov '10

19 Nov '10

I want to enable two users to write to a specific hiearchy of files and I really can't see an easy way to do it. To be specific I have a hierarchy of files making up the data files of a wiki which I (mostly) edit directly but also need to be able to edit in the normal wiki fashion. Thus they need to be writeable by the apache2 process (which is user www-data) and directly by the user (which is me, user chris). Can anyone suggest a way to allow these to be writeable by both users? When a user creates a new file it must be editable by the other user as well so simply creating a common group to which both users belong won't work as, in general, the umask won't give files user write permission. -- Chris Green

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Snapshots
by Chris Walker 19 Nov '10

19 Nov '10

Is it possible to take a snapshot of a running system rather in the way it's possible to do in things like VirtualBox? I'm thinking of installing some software but am not sure that once installed, I will be able to back it out with leaving files everywhere. Hence the idea of a snapshot. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Sharepoint alternatives
by Mark Rogers 19 Nov '10

19 Nov '10

A customer has asked us to look at setting up a hosted sharepoint server for them. What are the best FOSS alternatives I should look at to give them some options? -- 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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SBCs that run Linux - someone mentioned some a while ago
by Chris G 18 Nov '10

18 Nov '10

A while a go when we were discussing low-powered backup solutions someone here mentioned a couple of Linux based SBCs (Single Board Computers). At the time I was looking for something somewhat different but now I think I might have a use for such a device. Can someone point me in the right direction (the mail list archive isn't searchable so doesn't help much as I haven't a clue how long ago it was). -- Chris Green

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Mostly OT: Kindle 3G
by Mark Rogers 18 Nov '10

18 Nov '10

There seem to be some Kindle fans here? £150 for the Kindle 3G seems like a good deal. I'm just looking for someone to persuade me to part with the cash! Any experiences with the "experimental" web browser? The relevant bit to this list: Any PC interaction I have with it will be from my Linux (Ubuntu) box. Any reason to have any concerns? I've never owned an eBook but I gigure something like Calibre should allow me to convert between ebook formats (the wife is concerned she'll buy an ebook from Waterstones that she can't use on it, for example; my concern is more about keeping her off MY Kindle in the first place!) -- 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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tail and awk
by Barry Samuels 17 Nov '10

17 Nov '10

I'm running Debian Squeeze/Testing and have this in my /etc/rc.local: tail -f /var/log/syslog | awk '/kernel: sdb: sdb1/ {system("/bin/sleep 10; /sbin/hdparm -Y /dev/sdb")}' & Whenever I insert a hard drive caddy I want the disc to be put into sleep mode until it's required. The drive is used only once every 24 hours to backup and the drive is changed each day. However it doesn't work. If I remove a drive caddy and then replace it the relevant lines appear in syslog but the drive keeps spinning. If I stop the current tail/awk processes, remove and replace the caddy then run /etc/rc.local from the command line it does work and the drive stops spinning. I have now run out of expertise. Any suggestions please? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Mostly OT: Kindle 3G
by mark fernandes (IFR) 17 Nov '10

17 Nov '10

Mark, I've made some comments about the Kindle browser on my blog (http://www.codingscience.blogspot.com/) I have successfully used it to access my work e-mail (Outlook Web Access) whilst on my travels. It is a bit like going back to Black and White TV (God that ages me!) but still quite usable (but roll on colour e-paper). My biggest problem is viewing scientific papers (usually only avail as PDFs) in 3 columns which is e-reader unfriendly. If anybody knows of a tool to reformat these to single column reliably, 'I'll be over the moon' as it is a bit of a deal-breaker for some of my colleagues. I say reliable - I tried tools like calibre and stanza (and a google code project whose name escapes me - I said I'm getting old) and get weird effects (Which I'm beginning to believe is down to quirks of PDF format when having multiple columns with diagrams and images (:-() rather than the programs). Anyway, back to original question - Browser is usable but I wouldn't use it as the 'weapon of choice'. Or put it another way don't try and use a hammer to put in a screw... :-) Hope that this helps, Mark

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 13 Nov '10

13 Nov '10

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 next week, Monday 15th November, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hopefully, see some of you there! 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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Reliable friendly hosting companies
by Mark Rogers 09 Nov '10

09 Nov '10

We currently use MemSet for most of our hosting requirements. We run Ubuntu virtual servers and have very few problems caused either by us or Memset. However, Memset don't provide out-of-hours emergency support except with fully managed servers (£40/month overhead, on a virtual server which might only be costing £10/month itself). This has occasionally caused problems in the past, with an upgrade taking place late on a Friday evening leaving the server inaccessible until after 9am Monday. It means we can't risk a major update out-of-hours in case of problems, but equally don't want to schedule downtime in office hours either. We prefer to run multiple virtual servers rather than having one "big" one - spreading the load but more importantly meaning that one outage it less likely to hit all customers or all services at the same time (much easier to manage!). At £40/mo for multiple servers this means paying around £3-4k just to be able to contact emergency support typically once per year when we have a problem that requires it. So, what are the current suggestions for hosts that other people can recommend with 24/7 support availability for those rare disasters? I know this type of thread crops up fairly often but recommendations change and I haven't seen the specific issue of out-of-hours support cropping up. Other than this I have no reason to wish to move away from Memset, but we have reached the stage of migrating several sites to new virtual servers and that can either be at Memset or elsewhere, so I need to consider the alternatives. -- 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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Tools for laying out images and text on web pages - suggestions wanted
by Chris G 06 Nov '10

06 Nov '10

Are there any good tools/utilities for easily laying out pictures and text on a web page? I want an easy way to put some images and text on a page with text beside pictures and/or more than one picture across the page. I know that HTML is fundamentally not really designed to do such a thing (because it creates content rather than layout) but in the real world it's a rather fundamental thing to want to do. While CSS is 'the right answer' it doesn't really fill the bill because I want to layout 'this particular bit of text I have written' in a specific position relative to 'this particular image'. I'm not after a generic two column or three column layout into which I can drop my text and images, I'm after saying "put this text top left next to this image top right then this text across the page, then this image on the left with this text to the right of it ....." etc. I guess the WYSIWYG way of doing it would be draggable boxes with configurable constraints such that you could say "this one must be next to this one". (... and yes I know WYSIWYG doesn't really fit the web because of different sized screens etc. but this is mostly for me to use so it doesn't have to work for everyone's screen and browser) Any suggestions? -- Chris Green

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Does anyone else's Alt key do this - multiplier entry - can it be turned off?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

While recently playing around with my keyboard and looking at ways to enter special characters I discovered that the Alt key (that's the one on the left, i.e. *not* the AltGr key) doesn't act as a modifier like the AltGr key but, in some cases, acts as a multiplier for the next character. I.e. if I enter Alt+<digit> the prompt changes to (arg: <digit>) and entering further Alt+<digit> keys adds to the value after arg:. Then on entering the next character it is repeated arg times. This is (for me anyway) a totally useless facility, I'd much rather the Alt key acts as a shift key (like the AltGr key) and gives special characters. I have some documentation that gives the standard/default characters generated by Alt and AltGr as follows (intermediate mail systems willing):- Unshifted Shifted Unshifted Shifted Key Alt AltGr Alt AltGr Key Alt AltGr Alt AltGr ` à | ¬ 1 ± ¹ ¡ ¡ A á æ Á Æ 2 ² ² ¢ S ó ß Ó § 3 ³ ³ £ £ D ä ð Ä Ð 4 ´ ¤ ¼ F æ Æ ª 5 µ ½ ¥ G ç Ç 6 ¶ ¾ Þ H è È 7 · ¦ J ê Ê 8 ¸ ª K ë Ë 9 ¹ ¨ ± L ì Ì 0 ° © ° ; » º - ß ¿ ' § À = ½ « # £ þ Q ñ Ñ \ Ü ü ¦ W ÷ × Z ú « Ú < E å Å X ø » Ø > R ò ¶ Ò ® C ã ¢ Ã © T ô Ô V ö Ö Y ù Ù ¥ B â Â U õ Õ N î n Î N I é É M í µ Í º O ï ø Ï Ø , ¬ ¼ × P ð þ Ð Þ . ® · ¾ ÷ [ Û û / ¯ ¿ ] Ý ý In all my terminal windows the above AltGr combinations work but none of the Alt ones do, I'd like the Alt ones as well. I could then type things like ¢ (cents) and ® (registered) without too much hassle. (The above ways of typing accented characters aren't so much use as they're not easy to remember and I use a Compose key to do them) -- Chris Green

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Why are these disks subtly different? Does it matter?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

I have just added a second WD 1Tb disk to my desktop system for backups and such. It *looks* like the one that the system started with but it has some subtle differences and I wonder whether these are significant in any way. Firstly fdisk reports slightly different geometry:- Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf24a2de7 Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 81 heads, 63 sectors/track, 382818 cylinders Units = cylinders of 5103 * 512 = 2612736 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x4e451e03 Secondly (and the one I have *slightly* more concern about) blkid reports as follows:- /dev/sdc1: UUID="c4ae6fbe-18b3-4af9-aed8-a442e0fb6893" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" /dev/sdb1: UUID="6976542f-0471-411e-8c0d-97492c3f49b5" TYPE="ext3" What does that SEC_TYPE="ext2" mean? I used mkfs.ext3 to create the file system on the disk with no explicit option. Presumably the other disk (/dev/sdb1) was partitioned and formatted when I installed xubuntu. -- Chris Green

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Where is this pseudo-wifi network coming from?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Our Dell Vostro V13 laptop keeps telling us that there's a WiFi network called dcuc160 which it successfully connects to, unfortunately it doesn't actually work. This network appears wherever we are, even in Belgium on our boat and at home where there aren't any neighbours in wireless range so I don't think it's any sort of real network. How can we get rid of it as it's a right pain. I've searched for dcuc160 on Google and got just one hit for "Duelund Coherent Audio CAST inductors homepage", not relevant! -- Chris Green

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eSata disk on Linux, are they normally hot-pluggable?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

I have an external eSata disk drive that I want to use on my desktop machine occasionally. I have powered it up and connected it and absolutely nothing seems to happen. I've done a bit of Google'ing and there doesn't seem to be a very consistent result, I've found everyting from "doesn't work at all" to "works perfectly, just pops up when plugged in". I've searched for it specifically with Ubuntu 10.04 as that's what I'm using. Has anyone here had success (or otherwise) with hot-plugging eSata disks? I have had the disk working on another system but I can't remember whether that was hot-plugged or present at power up. I will try rebooting the dekstop with the eSata powered and connected to see if it works then but I really want to be able to hot-plug it. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] weird problems
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Ha! Weird problem, undid the machine to take a look at the innards, and noticed a slight rattling sound. Odd, but get distracted and take a look a the hard drive. This has a yellow sticker on it bearing the legend Drive 1, and someone has written in marker across it Windows 7. Interesting. Think about this for a while. This is after all a new custom built machine. Then move the machine around to see where the rattle might be coming from. It seems to come from the fan, which is a stock Intel fan and heat sink. Odder and odder. Waggle it a bit, and it comes up easily on one side! In short, three of the four securing pins are not secured into the main board, so presumably the fit of the heat sink is, well, dodgy. Oh dear. This might be the solution. In the meantime my friend lost his sense of humour and trashed all the previous partitions, well, hard to blame him. So here we go again.... Peter

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weird problems
by Peter Alcibiades 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

How about this? Friend with a windows 7 installation. He tells me he was using skype and suddenly the system crashed after which Norton had vanished and several pictures went missing. System restore done by his current helper tried twice and failed to work. I told him to buy a new oem copy of windows (his last being of dubious provenance), have his helper partition the machine into two NTFS partitions and some free space for Linux, and reinstall. He did this, but was unable to reinstall, not sure why, so brought the machine over. I reinstalled Windows with no problem, and then proceeded to Debian. Well, there was a message about the fstab not being right because of an error involving the partition id. I didn't understand this, but proceeded. All goes well, we install grub, we reboot, and the windows install is nowhere to be found in the bootloader. After a long story, I put in PCLinux instead, and this goes in and works fine, grub picks up the windows install, we can boot from either linux or from windows, no problem. He goes home, sends me a couple emails showing windows at least works. I get this message: Email from Windows, printer driver, sound, flash player, microsoft security, Admin account for Windows, and it's all still working! This morning, sad message from another computer, he is down again. It will boot neither Linux nor Windows. Do you think this might be hardware? I wonder about trying memory diagnostics or hard drive verification program? I can restore the boot sector in windows, I can also take him to lilo, but will it last any better than the others? Or if not that, any other suggestions? Peter

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Search and replace(insert) - can anyone help?
by Govind Chandra 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

Hi Barry, I made a slightly bigger test file from your input for testing. ===================================================================== <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> </tr> </table> <table class="sociheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This cannot be used</td> </tr> </table> <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This is different each time</td> </tr> </table> <table class="socialhear" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This is not usable</td> </tr> </table> ========================================================================= I think the perl script below (or some modification thereof) will do what you want. ===================================================== #! /usr/bin/perl use strict; open(INFILE, "<$ARGV[0]"); my $social_flag = 0; while(<INFILE>) { my $line=$_; chomp($line); if($line=~m/\<table class\=\"socialheader\"/) { $social_flag = 1; print("$line\n"); next; } if($line=~m/align\=\"left\"/ and $line=~m/width\=\"85\%\"/ and $line=~m/nowrap/ ) { if($social_flag) { print("$line\n"); print("One new line here\n"); print("Another new line here\n"); $social_flag = 0; } else { print("$line\n"); } } else { print("$line\n"); } } close(INFILE); ============================================================== Hope this helps. Govind > Subject: [ALUG] Search and replace(insert) - can anyone help? > To: Alug <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Message-ID: <1288625418.1815.0@dataman1> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> > > <tr> > <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> > </tr> > > </table> > > I have over 2500 pages with the above HTML in ( the "Three Sisters, Glen > Coe" bit is different in every file) and I want to add two lines so: > > <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> > > <tr> > <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> > <One new line here> > <Another new line here> > </tr> > > </table> > > The pair of lines to be inserted is identical in each case but the only > unique identifier is the "class=socialheader". > > Is there any way I can do it with a script? > > -- > Barry Samuels > http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk > The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Kerberos
by Richard Lewis 02 Nov '10

02 Nov '10

Hi ALUG, I've just tried to add a new user to a Debian unstable system I manage on a virtual server but have run up against some sort of authentication problem. As normal, I used adduser: $ sudo adduser interface Adding user `interface' ... Adding new group `interface' (1002) ... Adding new user `interface' (1002) with group `interface' ... Creating home directory `/home/interface' ... Copying files from `/etc/skel' ... But then it said this: Current Kerberos password: passwd: User not known to the underlying authentication module passwd: password unchanged Try again? [y/N] n Hitting n continued like this: Changing the user information for interface Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: Interface2011 Room Number []: Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []: Is the information correct? [Y/n] y It seems I can't set a password for this user now: $ sudo su interface $ passwd Current Kerberos password: passwd: User not known to the underlying authentication module passwd: password unchanged I've heard of Kerberos and it all sounds great, but as far as I know, I don't "use it" (if that's the right expression) on this system. And I'd prefer just to use an ordinary UNIX password, because I just want it to work. I tried commenting out a line in /etc/pam.d/common-password: #password requisite pam_krb5.so minimum_uid=1000 password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure use_authtok try_first_pass sha512 But I'm not whether: a) this has been effective; or b) would solve the problem anyway. Any ideas how to make it not try and use Kerberos? Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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