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Announce digest, Vol 2 #30 - 3 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 09 Jan '04

09 Jan '04

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." --------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Topics: 1. [ALUG] FW: High-Availability & Reliability Conference: Bournemouth, 25-26 Feb (UKUUG) (Alasdair G Kergon) 2. Norwich thursday evening meeting 8th January 2004 (Syd Hancock) 3. ALUG Sunday meeting in Norwich January 25th (Syd Hancock) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Alasdair G Kergon <agk(a)ukuug.org> To: UK LUG mailing lists <uklugs(a)lug.org.uk> Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 21:09:32 +0000 Subject: [Alug Announce][ALUG] FW: High-Availability & Reliability Conference: Bournemouth, 25-26 Feb (UKUUG) UK Unix User Group LISA/Winter Conference and Tutorial: High-Availability and Reliability Bournemouth, UK, Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th February 2004 http://www.ukuug.org/events/winter2004/ The main theme of the conference is High-Availability and Reliability, with topics including large-scale email services, High-Availability Linux, storage replication, MySQL, and choosing reliable hardware. The conference starts in the afternoon of Wednesday, 25 February and will be preceded by a half-day tutorial on High-Availability Linux clusters, and the Heartbeat cluster monitoring software. This is being given by Alan Robertson and Lars Marowsky-Bree, who will both also deliver talks in the main conference. Lars currently works as technical lead and developer for the SUSE Labs. His main areas of expertise are high-availability and cluster related topics, ranging from storage (multi-pathing, RAID, and replication) over network load balancing to cluster infrastructure service, resource management and administration. Alan, who is now based at IBM's Linux Technology Center, has been an active developer and project leader for High-Availability Linux for several years. He maintains the Linux-HA project web (www.linux-ha.org) and has been a key developer for the open source Heartbeat program. The technical talks of the conference run from the Wednesday afternoon and will finish late afternoon on the Thursday. The provisional programme includes: Matt Asay Open Source Capitalism: Innovation Business Models (Novell) for an Innovative Development Methodology David Axmark MySQL High-Availability Features (MySQL) Mark Baker and javaGMA: A lightweight implementation of Matthew Grove the Grid Monitoring Architecture (University of Portsmouth) Matthew Bloch Getting the best from your server with (Bytemark Hosting) User-Mode Linux Peter T. Breuer NetRAID (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) Tim Chown IPv6 Deployment Status (University of Southampton) Julian Field MailScanner (University of Southampton) Tony Finch Scaling up Cambridge University's email service (University of Cambridge) Niall Mansfield Experiences with the Sobig worms and (UIT Cambridge Ltd) how we combatted them (and other Spam) Lars Marowsky-Bree High-Availability Cluster Design and (SUSE LINUX AG) Set-up Stephen Mayo Hardware for high-availability (Hewlett-Packard) Richard J. Moore Preparing Linux for the Enterprise (IBM Linux technology Centre) Philipp Reisner Storage Replication with DRBD (LINBIT Information Technologies GmbH) Alan Robertson Heartbeat (IBM Linux Technology Centre) Steve Whitehouse Cluster filesystems (ChyGwyn Ltd) The event is open to both members and non-members of the UKUUG. Bookings must be received by 18 February 2004, and a discounted early booking rate is available until 23 January 2004. A limited number of free and subsidised places is available for those who would otherwise be unable to attend. See <http://www.ukuug.org/events/winter2004/> for booking information and full details of the programme including abstracts and speaker biographies. For further information, contact: Jane Morrison UKUUG Secretariat PO Box 37 Buntingford Herts SG9 9UQ Tel: 01763 273 475 Fax: 01763 273 255 office(a)ukuug.org www.ukuug.org The UKUUG was formed to represent users of UNIX and Open systems in the UK. It uniquely caters for the needs of people in this area and is completely independent of specific hardware and software vendors. Any profits are used to further the activities of the organisation. Provisional dates for Linux 2004 conference in Leeds: 29th July - 1st August 2004 _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! --__--__-- Message: 2 From: Syd Hancock <syd(a)toufol.com> To: alug <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 07:42:06 +0000 Cc: alug <announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Subject: [Alug Announce]Norwich thursday evening meeting 8th January 2004 It's come around quickly this month but the 'second thursday' Norwich evening meeting is this week, thursday 8th January 2004, from 8pm at the Forum Coffee bar. Details on the alug website http://www.alug.org.uk Regards Syd --__--__-- Message: 3 From: Syd Hancock <syd(a)toufol.com> To: alug <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 07:45:44 +0000 Cc: alug <announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Subject: [Alug Announce]ALUG Sunday meeting in Norwich January 25th There will be a sunday afternoon meeting in Norwich on the 25th January 2004, from 2pm at The Billy Bluelight, Hall Road. Full details of venue etc are on the ALUG website http://www.alug.org.uk Following Norwich sunday meeting planned for April 25th. Details later. Regards Syd --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

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New User Info
by zbys kaznowski 08 Jan '04

08 Jan '04

I work in the NHS. In fact I look after a small number of systems in the NNUH in Norwich. I am a keen exponent of Open Source Systems for the NHS and other Public organisations. I run a PHPWebsite server and dedicated web fronted Database on a SUSE box. My experience is limited and as such I am becoming frustrated in my endeavours to further Open Source uptake in the Hospital environment. I am particularly keen to interact with people who are very experienced in various forms of integration with Unix/Windows environment. Regards, Zbys Kaznowski --

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Re: [ALUG] More Linux support for CF card readers?
by Chris Glover 08 Jan '04

08 Jan '04

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=card-file HTH Chris -- Chris ---------------------------------- E Mail chris(a)glovercc.clara.co.uk On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Chris Walker wrote: > On Wed 07 Jan, Dennis Dryden wrote: > > > > On Sun, 2003-12-28 at 15:05, Stuart Hammond wrote: > > > CF cards use the IDE specification and so i would imagin that they would > > > work with any distro of linux. you can get compact flash to IDE > > > converters, try www.cfide.co.uk (they are about 22 each with P&P) which > > > id assume would work (as it is just a cable converter) Yours S Hammond > > > > Oh well this little usb device cost's £6.99 so it seemed like a better > > idea then paying £20+. It can read a load of other card types then just > > compatct flash. I cant get the damed thing to work though. It's being > > seen by my usbdrivers(well its in usbveiw), and if i look at dmesg i can > > see that scsi has started playing with the device as sda but i cant > > mount it =(. > > > > I've tryed this to mount the card but have had no luck(as shown): > > > > icedesk:/home/dennis# mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/sda /mnt/usb-cardreader/ > > mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, > > or too many mounted file systems > > > > Does anyone have nay suggestions on what to try? > > I can get my USB card to read in under Linux with the following entry in the > fstab file - > /dev/sda1 /mnt/memory_card auto user,iocharset=iso8859-15,kudzu,codepage=850,no auto,umask=0,exec 0 0 > (no line wrap in case you want to cut and paste it in yours) > > but have a problem that I would appreciate some help with. Is it possible to > read the entire device in as a file of say 64MB or 128MB or whatever the > device size is? The reason is that the card belongs to a work colleague and > her husband has inadvertantly deleted some of her pictures using the camera > controls. They normally use the dark side to read the card while it's in the > camera but I just took the card out and bunged it in my reader. If I have a > file I can then scan it for JPEG headers and might be able to recover stuff. > > Any help appreciated. > >

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Reminder: Norwich meeting this evening
by Syd Hancock 08 Jan '04

08 Jan '04

(Possibly redundant reminder) Norwich evening social meet-up this evening, from 8pm at the Forum Bar. All welcome. Regards Syd

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ISOLINUX
by x0151262 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

Hello List, I'm just trying to install a few distros on a low spec machine and each one I've tried (Slackware 9.1, Redhat 9, Debian 3.0) all come up with an ISOLINUX error: "ISOLINUX 2.00 2002-10-25 isolinux: Loading spec packet failed, trying to wing it... isolinux: Failed to locate CD-ROM device: boot failed" Any suggestions? Cheers, Richard

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Norwich thursday evening meeting 8th January 2004
by Syd Hancock 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

It's come around quickly this month but the 'second thursday' Norwich evening meeting is this week, thursday 8th January 2004, from 8pm at the Forum Coffee bar. Details on the alug website http://www.alug.org.uk Regards Syd

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Re: [ALUG] Microsoft and schools
by Stuart Hammond 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

I think the idea of the government using OSS (eg Linux OS) on school desktop computers is slightly narrow sighted for education is there to allow people to go forth and gain employment and as most workplaces don't use Linux as the OS for there desktop machines it would not really be following that ethos. How ever as some one who has just started to use Linux i am gradually finding windows terrible. i use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer in Windows as it dose not crash when ever i get a popup ad also the GUI of Linux is so much nicer than Windows exspecaly with the built in multiple desktops and the ability to have more than one taskbar, however i think what Linux needs is easier software installation (tarballs etc. scare me) and better device/games support and then it would really be truly superior to Windows in every way (from a user point of view). What it needs to solve all of these is probably better reconition in the business arena on desktops which would at least force the government to teach people how to use it. Yours S Hammond _________________________________________________________________ Get Hotmail on your mobile phone http://www.msn.co.uk/msnmobile

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Predictions for 2004
by Graham Trott 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

The link below is to an article at silicon.com predicting winners and losers in 2004. Linux is in the first list for servers and the second for client side, partly because of the unnecessary, confusing and destructive battle between KDE and Gnome. While I don't necessarily agree completely with the article I think it has some fair points. http://www.silicon.com/management/ itdirector/0,39024673,39117578,00.htm?nl=e20040106 I'd also like to predict some more losers: 1 The public wi-fi access point. As long as prices stay where they are, that is. 2 Java as a client-side solution, given the increasing bloat with every version release. (That may well apply to .NET too, for the same reason, but I wouldn't know.) Why in hell can't Sun or IBM modularise the thing so if you don't want it all you don't have to download it (or force your customers to)? 3 Sun - already in the loser list, but for the additional reason that they don't understand end-users. Some fine ideas but seemingly targetted at a world that won't exist for another five or more years. 4 Anyone who expected broadband to be taken up by every Mom and Pop in the land. 5 Mom and Pop, who can't download the service patches from Microsoft and thus catch every virus and worm going. Nice to think Linux could gallop along on its white horse and save the day, but it's too fragmented and difficult for said Mom and Pop to set up. After all, ain't nobody else gonna do it for them. And just to show I'm not all negative, a winner: Computer users everywhere, able to use an increasing base of good-quality free software as an alternative to overpriced commercial stuff or nag'n'bitch shareware. When this trend gets far enough along, coupled with much better standards than at present and making source downloads a LOT easier to use, Linux may emerge as a viable desktop candidate for ordinary people. -- GT

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Re: [ALUG] Does anyone know lftp -c commands ?
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

I wondered why the response I sent below hadn't appeared on the list. I had sent to to Mark by mistake - sorry Mark! Here it is again: > Similar to Graham, my untested guess: lftp -e 'open -u > mylogin,mypassword mydomain ; ls' Bingo! I tried semicolons and it didn't work but I didn't think of enclosing the whole lot in single quotes. The combination of the two works. Thanks to you both. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Security problem - some ideas sought
by James Green 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

Hello All, Here's an interesting scenario for you security buffs out there - I've been approached to think about the issues and return with some verdicts and would appreciate some intelligent ideas I'm sure you can conjure up... Company A has its software installed on lots of customer Windows machines around the world. The software has effectively got 'root' access on the machine, and talks regularly to a central server to gain upgrades etc. If the software is tampered with, the computers could well cause disruption. [ Yes, really bad idea. Microsoft should indeed be shot for allowing it. ] The upgrades can be 'pushed' out at will to a subset of customers, or to all. The software, having full Administrator access, needs to be careful. Or, more to the point, the procedure for releasing upgrades and changes to the software needs to be highly secure. One idea that was my initial on the subject is as follows: Six 'trusted' employees, six 'secure' servers. Employees are minor shareholders in the company. For an upgrade to be pushed out, a majority of the trusted employees must submit the same upgrade package to a majority of the servers, and the servers between them must agree that the upgrade is verified as coming from the claimed sources. Combined, they should check out. If any one employee, or one machine, were to raise a black flag, the process is aborted. In the event that a bad upgrade is indeed rolled out any two employees can activate a rollback procedure (which I can't think of procedurally right now). Normally I would of course be thinking in terms of specialised identity and verificaton equipment, but Company A doesn't exactly have the resources of the CIA or NSA, so remote servers and a chain of trust is the closest they can get. PGP keys all round I suspect. A nightmare to secure, and is still open to attack, both internally and externally, however thats how I see it. I warn that I got almost three hours sleep last night due to "server issues" so if I make no sense thats probably why. Comments/suggestions on completely different ideas/etc most welcomed. I don't have experience in this field. Thanks all, James

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