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Weird NFS problem
by Stuart Bailey 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

I'm having trouble with NFS on a Fedora 3 server. The client machines are a mixture of HP Unix and Solaris (also samba is used for Windows clients). Most of the time the NFS export point runs perfectly fine, a client have it mounted all the time, and files and directories can be listed as expected. All users have write access. However, occasionally (about once a day) the files in various directories disappear from the client machines. If I go to the server and cd to the troublesome directories, they immediately become available to the clients again. The only error I get in the logs is: Jun 13 07:39:58 kelvin rpc.statd[2248]: Received erroneous SM_UNMON request from kelvin.test for 172.16.44.23 but this indicates a write access problem with /var/lib/nfs/statd/sm and sm.d. But I have checked that the rpc users has r/w access to these. I tried a tcpdump and got the following: 13:27:36.751186 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 52539, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 148) tescat2.680050 > kelvin.test.nfs:108 lookup [|nfs] 13:27:36.751223 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 14271, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 160) kelvin.test.nfs > tescat2.680050:reply ok 120 lookup ERROR: No such file or directory post dattr: 13:27:36.751646 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 52540, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 132) tescat2.680051 > kelvin.test.nfs:92 getattr [|nfs] Based on this I have tried turning off client side attribute caching, to no effect. I have exported the directories as such: /data 172.16.44.0/24 (rw,async,insecure,insecure_locks,no_subtree_check) I have also tried sync instead of async, and removing the no_subtree_check flag, also to no effect. Other things I have tried: reducing the MTU on the network to 1000 from 1500 Any ideas would be appreciated. Many thanks, Stuart. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) Linux Specialist (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ---------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please email postmaster(a)linusoft.co.uk immediately. You should not copy or use this email or attachments for any purpose nor disclose their contents to any other person. NO BINDING CONTRACT WILL RESULT FROM THIS E-MAIL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A WRITTEN DOCUMENT IS SIGNED ON BEHALF OF LinuSoft. LinuSoft cannot accept any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of this message as it has been transmitted over public networks. *************************************************************************

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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OpenOffice Printing
by Wayne Stallwood 12 Jun '05

12 Jun '05

If there is one thing I hate about OpenOffice it's the silly printer spadmin thing. I am running OpenOffice 1.1.3, I am not running OpenOffice2 yet because Ubuntu haven't released the AMD64 OOo2 packages yet. On my SuSE install I had it set up (or SuSE had it set up) to print to kprinter so that rather than having to set up my printers with spadmin I could just print through the KDE printer dialogue. Is there a way to achieve the same sort of thing with Gnome...i.e. print in such a way that it launches the Gnome print dialogue ?

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Who will benefit from this, I wonder???
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 11 Jun '05

11 Jun '05

A brief casually-overheard news item in tonight's Radio 4 News Bulletin at 8pm got me looking for more detail. The best I've found is on the "East Kent Mercury" website (linked from BBC News/Kent): ======================================================= http://www.eastkentmercury.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=20841 Controversy over heads' term-time trip to States by Political Editor Paul Francis COUNTY education chiefs have defended a decision to take nearly 100 secondary headteachers to America for a study tour and conference that will cost tens of thousands of pounds of public money. More than 90 of Kent's 106 secondary heads have accepted Kent County Council's invitation to travel to four different States in October for a week-long visit. The trip is costing every school that has agreed to go around £1,500 and will take place in term time. The headteachers will be accompanied by a 20-strong group of senior education officials and county councillors and will visit Seattle, New York, Boston and San Francisco. The county council insists the costs of its party will be financed from money made by the education directorate. The study tour will primarily involve headteachers visiting schools and end with a conference in Seattle hosted by Microsoft. KCC says the trip will enable Kent heads to learn from the experience of schools that have developed advanced methods of "personalised learning" to boost classroom standards, often using state-of-the-art computer technology. Teachers will visit so-called "charter schools" in the four different states. These are smaller secondary schools usually run by non-profit making sponsors who have much greater freedom over the curriculum. In a statement, KCC said: "Personalised learning is key to our strategy for secondary education and so it will be invaluable for our headteachers to discuss the way Charter schools have responded to their situation and identify which elements could be modified and implemented in Kent schools." Asked why the trip was taking place during term-time when parents were being urged not to take their children out of school, KCC said it was important headteachers visited schools to "experience the different ways of motivating students to ensure they maximise their potential and thereby create a step change in the provision for Kent students." The education authority stressed schools had "structures in place to allow headteachers to be attend conferences and meetings." However, not all headteachers believe it is necessary. One, who asked not to be identified, said: "I do not feel it is right to be out of school for a week on a trip that will cost the school more than £1,000. It has not properly been explained to me why it is regarded as so important to go." Earlier this year, the Kent Messenger Group revealed how foreign travel trips by education officials and headteachers had cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds. Among them was a visit by 20 headteachers and education officials to Seattle that cost £30,000. ======================================================= There's also a link at the end of the article to "on-line debate", which might be interesting to follow. Bloody hell. 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: 11-Jun-05 Time: 22:16:09 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Goods on offer
by Peter Hunter 11 Jun '05

11 Jun '05

Hi everyone, I have a couple of computers I am parting with if anyone is interested. I have decided to convert my main PC to Linux only and concentrate on using nothing but linux. Equipment offered is as follows: Apple eMac 1.25GHz G4, 512Mb RAM, 80Gb hard drive, 8 speed DVD RW (superdrive). It has 3 x USB 2, 2 x USB 1.1 (on the keyboard), 2 x Firewire, 10/100 ethernet, built in 56k modem, etc. Includes Apple keyboard and mouse. OS X 10.3.9 installed. All discs and books etc. All in original box and just 6 months old. Also included is an Apple iSight camera (boxed) with stands and Firewire cables. Plus (not so new) Lexmark X 85 all-in-one printer (low on ink) with software etc (no box). All together cost over £900, will accept £450. Also. Fujitsu Scenic eD P 3 800MHz desktop. 10 Gb hard drive, 160Mb RAM, floppy, MSI 4 x DVD RW, 17" CRT monitor (nearly new), keyboard and mouse. Has SuSE 9.2 installed from magazine DVD. Open to offers around £100. Buyer(s) must inspect and collect. You can email me direct at: peterslinuxbox(a)ntlworld.com, or telephone me on: Norwich 464999 Regards all, Peter

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Outlook Web Access screen scraping
by Chris Green 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Does anyone know of any more up to date versions of these Outlook Web Access screen scrapers:- msweb outlook-grabber.pl Or for that matter does anyone know of any recent utilities for fetching mail from a MAPI server? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Importing mail into Evolution
by Wayne Stallwood 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Right, in a fit of alcohol induced madness I have decided that after about 5 years of computing with SuSE I should give something else a try. I had a Ubuntu Virtual Machine running for a bit and was pretty impressed with it so I thought (again remember here I had been drinking) why not just nuke / (leaving /home intact) and install it. So far most things seem to be working quite well, there is however one slight gotcha. For some reason kmail on SuSE seemed to be saving my messages in two formats. Inbox and a few others are a single large file that Evolution seems quite happy importing. But some other folders (including my ALUG folder and more importantly my "Sent Items" are in a format whereby each message is an individual file in a folder called "Sent-Items" and then within that I have "cur" "new" and "tmp" The Messages are all in "cur" presumably because they are read, the filename is composed of some random looking number like "1032089908.1918.F3H0:2,S" How do I import these messages, Evolution lets me select a single one in the import file dialogue, but I can't select them all. Many Thanks Wayne

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More mutterings about ssh, passwordless login, ssh-agent, etc.
by Chris Green 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

I've been thinking about the security of my system(s) a bit more over the past week or so. I use ssh from home to work, from work to home and to connect from both home and work to a couple of remote systems where I have Linux shell login accounts. All the accepted 'rules' about security when using ssh say that one shouldn't use a 'no passphrase' key to get passwordless login, instead one should use a key phrase and ssh-keygen. From where I'm looking a 'key phrase' is exactly the same (from a user point of view) as a password - it's a (supposedly) difficult to guess string that I have to enter in order to log on to a remote system. The *only* advantage that using ssh-keygen gives you is that you (may) only have to type the passphrase in once for several logins. Since I tend to only login to remote systems once per session using ssh-keygen is (for me) no different from using a normal password. So, I've been looking around at other things that relate to this. One possibility is HostBasedAuthentication where it's the machine rather than the user that has the RSA/DSA keys. Doing this allows the keys to be readable by root only which adds a little extra protection but not a great deal (one site even says HostBasedAuthentication is less secure than a 'no passphrase' personal key). It also requires quite a lot more fiddling around with .shosts files and such and, of course, requires root access. So I have decided HostBasedAuthentication doesn't really do much for me. Another utility I have discovered is keychain, this is a sort of super ssh-agent which provides ssh-agent type facilities for a whole system which only needs to be renewed (i.e. the passphrase re-entered) when the system is rebooted. However, on thinking about it, I don't really see how this offers any better security than a 'no passphrase' personal key. Anyone who could steal your 'no passphrase' key could also use the running keychain, I really don't see what use it is at all, it just makes things more complicated. So finally I'm back at staying where I am, using a 'no passphrase' key to provide passwordless logins. One thing that would improve my security is to restrict ssh access without a password to specific IP addresses, I wonder if it's possible to do this as well as allowing password based access from other systems. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Re: [ALUG] Norwich Anarchist Bookfair
by Sunflowerinrain 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

MJ Ray wrote... > Norwich 2nd Anarchist Bookfair 11 June Waterloo Park. > See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/06/312709.html > > I'm not able to attend, but I'll send ALUG, AFFS or GNUstep > leaflets and/or CDs to anyone who wants to go. I'd be happy to go to the Bookfair, as last year, but only to smile sweetly and hand things out. Somebody else is needed to answer questions! e

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alug library
by Paul 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

What's happened to the alug library ? Last I heard, Wayne was in the process of setting up an online catalogue and reservation system, but http://cgi.digimatic.plus.com/opendb/ goes nowhere.. /me was hoping to browse the available titles and reserve a few.. Regards, Paul. -- Pieces of seven, pieces of seven - A parroty error. "To err is human...to really f*** things up requires the root password." From a collection of quotes at http://www.indigo.org/quotes.html

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