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hosts.deny
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 05 Sep '15

05 Sep '15

Hi y’all! Could someone enlighten me about hosts.allow & hosts.deny please? I was reading up on linux networking, and it said I should consider the contents of these files. So networking aside, I've read up a bit and am a lot confused. As far as I can find, 1) if there's an match in hosts.allow an address is allowed to contact the machine. 2) if no match in 1), then if there's a match in hosts.deny, then the address is not allowed to contact the machine 3) if no match in 1 or 2, then the address is allowed to contact the machine. Is this right so far? If so, what's typically in hosts.deny? I ask because I've obviously edited this in the past - I have a vague recollection of doing it because I couldn't get anything working and I just stripped it all out - I know - a very very bad idea. All I've got in there is: ALL: ALL: ::1 As far as I can figure out, the first line, ALL: would do nothing. ALL: ::1 I think would block all IPV6 addresses from contacting. Is my interpretation of the above right? What's typically in the hosts.deny for a server? If it's set up to block by default, then what should I enable? Is it sufficient to use netstat to work out what's listening for a conversation and just allow these things if I think they should be allowed. If so what's the correct use of netstat to find out? If I have things running as cron jobs rather than as a daemon to check things, do I have to specifically allow these to contact the outside world, or is hosts.allow/deny just for daemons? Lastly, does this work like a firewall? As I have firewall already set up, is it a good idea to spend time on hosts.allow/deny as well? Any advice appreciated muchly! Steve

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Linux laptops
by samwise 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

So my main HP Pavilion laptop recently died ... it looks pretty permanent. It had a fairly good run, so I'm going to have to start looking for a replacement. Just wondered if anyone had any interesting thoughts or suggestions. I'm looking for a main PC. Sort of interested in shared tablet things like the Lenovo Yoga 3, though I'm not sure if it's a mite small. I see there has been some success getting Debian running on it. Peter. -- I ran the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum

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Cambridge Beer?
by Brett Parker 03 Sep '15

03 Sep '15

This probably more belongs on alug-social, but as we've not had a post on there in, like, totally forever... Anyone around the Cambridge area fancy a beer or 3 tomorrow? I recommend the Haymakers, but am happy to be convinced of the merits of other pubs... Cheers! -- Brett Parker

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th September.
by Viperfang 03 Sep '15

03 Sep '15

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

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Disc Errors
by Chris Walker 02 Sep '15

02 Sep '15

Hello, I have 3 SATA discs on my machine. One has Windows on it, another has Mageia 5 and the third is designated as Disc_Swap_Space to allow me to swap files between Windows and Mageia. It's formatted to NTFS. I prefer that to allowing Windows to write to any linux drives. But even though the swap drive functions perfectly under Windows, Mageia won't mount it. It complains 'non-zero exit status 14' and say that the file system is unclean. But I've run all the checks under Windows and that thinks it is clean. So how can I persuade Mageia to use it again? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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update-alternatives --config java
by Paul Grenyer 02 Sep '15

02 Sep '15

Hi All I've installed Java 8 on my Linux Mint machine here: /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0_60 and I want to be able to switch between it and currently installed Java version with: sudo update-alternatives --config java However, I can't find how to add Java 8 to one of the update alternatives options. Can someone help me out, please? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com t: pjgrenyer Have you thought what Naked Element could do for you? http://nakedelement.co.uk/ It's time to get technical: http://norfolkdevelopers.com

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Want an application for scanning and maximising WiFi signals
by Chris Green 30 Aug '15

30 Aug '15

I'm currently playing with an Alpha Networks external/outdoor USB WiFi device. It's essentially just a WiFi dongle with an aerial in a waterproof box on the end of a long USB cable. Thus you can position it in a window or up a pole outside to get a connection to a fairly distant WiFi source. I need a way to find and then maximise WiFi signals, you can't really just use Network Manager as there no easy way to monitor a signal while waving the aerial around. I have found wpa_gui which isn't very good, I can't get it to scan repeatedly at any reasonable rate. I have also tried iwScanner which is better but is no longer maintained and crashes at intervals, it would be nice if it could scan faster too. Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently. -- Chris Green

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Sort of OT (off Linux) but still - outdoor router that supports EAP-SIM authentication
by Chris Green 16 Aug '15

16 Aug '15

It's not really specifically Linux but it's computery. Does anyone know of an outdoor WiFi client box (i.e. something similar to the TP-Link TL-WA7210) that supports EAP-SIM authentication? EAP-SIM is authentication using data from a SIM but authenticates a WiFi connection. There are descriptions of how to do EAP-SIM authentication via wpa_supplicant in a Linux box but that requires the WiFi hardware to be in (or directly connected to) the Linux box. I'm after a way of doing it in a remote outdoor router connected by ethernet to my Linux box. I'm already investigating the alternative way of doing this with an outdoor USB WiFi adapter plugged into the Linux box. This is possibly the way to go but it's not all that straightforward getting USB WiFi adapters to work with Linux so the above external router method might be easier. -- Chris Green

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Exploit
by Anthony Anson 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

Can't remember where I saw this, but in case it's news to anybody: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/08/06/firefox-exploit-found-in-the-w… -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th August
by Viperfang 12 Aug '15

12 Aug '15

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, 13th August 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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