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10372 discussions

Linux/OSS conference at UEA
by Karamoon 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

Is anyone interested in a Linux/OSS conference at UEA? It should be in term time so we can get some students involved. It would essentially be a day of talks and possibly some workshops aimed at people who are new to linux and oss. A talk on installing and using Ubuntu would be great as I got 100 Ubuntu packs this morning. Positive comments and suggestions our welcome. Matthew __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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UEA ALUG society
by Karamoon 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

At the recent kitmeet several people(5) expressed interest in starting an ALUG society at Norwich UEA. Starting a UEA society involves getting 30 people to pay £3 each. The society would then be given a grantEli has suggested the name "ALUG/U" for the group. If anyone would be interested in a UEA ALUG society, or has any comments/suggestions, I would be grateful if they could let me know. Thanks for your time and consideration, Matthew(Karamoon) __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

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Job specs to make you smile
by Guy Eastwood 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

Here's the result of a jobspec work asked me for a while back. I didn't give the print guys the final copy so the typo's aren't mine yet.. the wording... well, see what you think ;o) We got two really good members of staff added to tech dept as a result too! http://surefyre.com/surefyreold/surefyre_images/nomcse.png (No the position isn't open still) I've since come across people all over the place that have seen/heard of this ad LOL! Is weird reading the ad again, the jobspec is so much more demanding now. G

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Advice required on implementing, configuring and managing a large number (> 500) of networked desktops
by Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice and hints on how to go about installing and managing a large group of desktop machines, with shared file stores and resources such as applications, printers, etc. By large, I mean more than 500 machines. Think of a large university lab or internet cafe, where people can login to any machine, do their 'work', access their files independent of terminal used, etc. Based on my knowledge so far, under Debian GNU/Linux, the actual installation of all the machines is relatively straight-forward. Once I have setup the roles and machine groupings (based on tasks and application needs), I can use the FAI (Fully Automated Installer) which hold master 'settings' to assign each machine to a group and watch the install take place. As and when machines fail, I can just configure a new one for a specific group and then let it install and put it on the network. My confusion comes when I want to work out how to get central authentication, shared file stores, and where the line should be drawn for local/network storing of applications, files, etc. There is also the problem of scaling to 500+ machines. I know this is possible, as I used to see it in action at UEA when I studied in SYS. xdm used to talk to something (LDAP?) before allowing login. The directory of users/passwords was shared between nearly all machines so you could login to any machine using your assigned userid. So: 1) How do I do central authentication? 2) Could I use NFS for shared file access with user /home being mounted as r/w at login, or would this cause a denial of service attack on the server? Are there more scalable alternatives with intermediate caching, etc? 3) Will > 500 desktops require more than one server for shared file access? What are the preferred replication procedures in this case? 4) What the best way to network that many machines? I can run switches and bridges between the machines. Should I load-balance or shape the traffic in some way to ensure fair and fast access to the shared file store? How do I check for network saturation other than looking at blinking coloured lights :) 5) Security. I would assume standard unix security would stop one user fiddling with another's files, but how does that work over a network file store? 6) Am I correct to assume that it is best to have applications installed locally on the machines given the number of machines? 7) Is there a way to sandbox the user, so they don't enter parts of the system they aren't supposed to? I know that there is the normal root access restriction, but what about forcing them to use their network file store, rather than leaving stuff in /tmp. I know quite a bit of this depends on what the machines will be actually used for. At present, I am looking for more general advice from people who have done this before to help guide my research into this topic. In fact, I am also interested on how this would work on non-linux machines, e.g. Windows and Macs. Do these need to run separatedly, or could non-Linux based machines authenticate against a shared profile directory? I know there are many large windows based deployments. For example the Norfolk Library Services runs one for internet and application access. In fact, they seems to run a reduced version of Windows that limits what the user can and can't do. Does anyone know how that actually works? To keep this on topic, please email me off-list for non-linux based discussions. -- Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. http://www.ashleyhowes.com "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it." - Karl Marx

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Linux.com article: Hardware emulation with QEMU
by Keith Watson 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/1845248 Regards, Keith ____________ You can never turn your back on reality, it surrounds you. - Stanislaw J. Lec

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Re: [ALUG] Hunt the Swap Hog
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

On 01-Nov-05 Maz Walker wrote: > On 11/1/05, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> What might be the best way to find out what could be >> hogging swap-space? > > > Hi Ted > > Try running top and then press the f key to add another field, > then the p key to add the swap size. You can change the sort > order of top on the latest versions, press h for help to see > if yours can do that. Hope that helps, > Maz. Thanks, yes it does a bit! Unfortunately swap is not one of the variables I can sort on in my 'top'. A:age M:resident memory usage N:pid T:time (or cumulative time) P:CPU usage only! Tried getting 'ps' to show me, but it's confusing and I'm not sure whether it did or not. Cheers, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Nov-05 Time: 20:44:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Hunt the Swap Hog
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

What might be the best way to find out what could be hogging swap-space? Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Nov-05 Time: 19:29:43 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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RE: [ALUG] Help for UEA student
by Keith Watson 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

> Quoting Laurie Brown < >: > > > I'm pretty sure one or two subscribers to this list work > at/in UEA... > > A friend of mine's daughter has just started there and has been > > obliged to put McAfee on her (XP Pro) laptop. The problem is, > > everytime she joins the UEA net, the machine slows to a > crawl. Would > > anyone be so kind as to take a look at it for her please? > > > > Cheers, Laurie. > > From: Simon Sent: 31 October 2005 16:59 > > This is true and also some-what annoying. Windows users > *have* to install McAfee anti-virus 8 before they can connect > to the network. A friend of mine had to uninstall McAfee 10 - > seems silly but I suppose it's a good thing in a way. I have > McAfee on my Windows 2000 installation, I haven't noticed > that it slows down. The only thing I would put it down to, > would be scanning all the files on the disc for virii which > would slow the machine down but you can't really stop it doing that. > Yes, we use McAfee here at work and it seems to run ok on my HP laptop (Win XP Pro). You do get an initial hit as it insists on doing a full scan of all the local disks which does hammer the machine at first. It may be worth her just starting up and leaving it for a couple of hours (days?). Other than that, Simon may be right in suspecting something else that's doing a lot of disk i/o, that may also cause McAfee to do a lot of work if it involves disk writes. I'm going to shut up now as this is way of topic for an ALUG post - sorry folks! Regards, Keith ____________ The shortest answer is doing. - George Herbert

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 31 Oct '05

31 Oct '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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PHP / MySQL web developer Job
by David Reynolds 30 Oct '05

30 Oct '05

Hi, I've been asked to post this job application here, in case anyone is interested: Job Type: Permanent Job Title: PHP MySQL Website Developer Location: North Norwich, Norfolk Salary: Negotiable Details: We are looking for a team player to join our development team. We have an excellent track record in delivering a diverse range of web projects to small and medium sized business across Norfolk. Ideally you will have commercial experience developing websites using PHP and MySQL preferably in a Linux environment. Ideally you'll also have an ability to create graphic designs for a web environment. Please forward a covering letter and CV to paul(a)paston.co.uk Cheers, David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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