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Any idear how this router running Linux configures itself?
by Chris Green 21 Sep '14

21 Sep '14

I have a little Solwise 3G router on my boat. I have just discovered it runs Linux and I can telnet into it. Even better it runs dnsmasq so, if I can configure it appropriately then I can get it to provide local DNS. However I can't work out where it configures itself from at boot time. If I edit /etc/hosts for example then, if I reboot, my changes are lost. There's an /etc_ro directory but nothing really much in there gives a clue. There's even an /etc_ro/rcS file which is obviously executed fairly early on in the boot sequence but it's not early enough to indicate where the basic configuration lives. The motd file says:- ------------------------------------------------------ Welcome to HAME Technology Co.,Ltd =System Architecture Department= ------------------------------------------------------ ... oh, it as busybox for most of the commands. Does anyone have any idea how it starts up and configures itself? -- Chris Green

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Is there such a thing as a 'WiFi switch' to add WiFi to a LAN - if so what's it called?
by Chris Green 18 Sep '14

18 Sep '14

I'm not even sure such a thing exists but it feels as if it ought to. I want a 'WiFi switch' that I can plug into an existing LAN such that it allows WiFi access on the *same* subnet. Thus it won't do anything clever like DHCP or DNS or anything as that will be done by existing devices on the LAN. All the 'range extenders' I can find are WiFi both in and out and also tend to create their own subnet. Anyway I need something that hangs on a hard-wired ethernet connection. Is there such a thing? -- Chris Green

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Ubuntu startup scripts
by Mark Rogers 17 Sep '14

17 Sep '14

Where are the various places that processes can be started on desktop login on Ubuntu? Specifically: My laptop has an encrypted Truecrypt partition, and a Dropbox share on it. On login Dropbox tries to start and can't access its directory because at that point I haven't mounted the TC volume. Dropbox is listed in the Startup Applications GUI, which as far as I can tell just lists whatever is in ~/.config/autostart. However, if I remove it from there (either from the GUI or by deleting dropbox.desktop, and with Dropbox stopped when I do it), if I log out and back in again it puts itself back and starts again. Where is that coming from? Furthermore: if I replace dropbox.desktop with an empty read only file, it doesn't get replaced but Dropbox still starts. How? Further furthemore: I have my own bash script which prompts me for the TC volume password, mounts it, then starts dropbox. I have added that to ~/.config/autostart (via the GUI), but my script doesn't seem to start. What might I be doing wrong? Over the years I have spent ages removing viruses on Windows and got used to the idea that there are dozens of places that you can configure applications to start automatically but I thought Linux would be a bit cleaner than that! This has prompted me to learn more about the startup process. -- 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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Simple way to find local subnet?
by Chris Green 16 Sep '14

16 Sep '14

Is there a simple way to get the value of the local subnet to which one is connected? I know I can derive it from what ifconfig outputs but using grep to get '192.168.13.0' from output like:- eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr f0:de:f1:2b:f9:13 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1533 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:2135 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:820119 (820.1 KB) TX bytes:231948 (231.9 KB) Interrupt:20 Memory:f2500000-f2520000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:1181 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1181 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:126765 (126.7 KB) TX bytes:126765 (126.7 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:d7:6e:3d:08 inet addr:192.168.13.104 Bcast:192.168.13.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::224:d7ff:fe6e:3d08/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:8144 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:8180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:3358385 (3.3 MB) TX bytes:1152063 (1.1 MB) .... seems a little more difficult than it should be. Presumably arp-scan does it somehow when you use 'arp-scan -l'. -- Chris Green

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Thunderbird oddness
by Bev Nicolson 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

Thunderbird seems to be selective about which emails it marks as replied to with the blue arrow now so I'm uncertain whether they've been sent or not. I haven't changed any settings so does anyone know why this might be? (24.2.0) Bev.

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Raspberry Pi hwclock
by Mark Rogers 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

Anyone here added a real time clock to the Pi? It's pretty trivial in principle but "The Internet" seems to be littered with various ways to configure the Pi to use it, most of which include adding it to /etc/rc.local rather than (for example) /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh. My objective is to have a solution that (a) requires minimal changes to a stock Raspbian (ie the fewer files to add/modify the better), (b) will detect whether an RTC has been added and roll back to using the fake hwclock concept otherwise, (c) use NTP to maintain the clock (including writing to hwclock) when an Internet connection is available and (d) do all this as early into the boot process as possible so minimal services start up with an inaccurate clock. All of that sounds like a fairly desirable standard but most solutions I've found seem to fall short of at least part, and frequently most, of that. -- 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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How to find IPs on a wireless network?
by Chris Green 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

If I have a wired connection to my LAN I can use 'arp-scan -l' to find the IP addresses of other systems on the LAN. However arp-scan only works if *I* have a hard-wired connection. How can one find IP addresses on a LAN when connected by WiFi? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How to find IPs on a wireless network?
by Chris Green 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 07:12:29PM +0100, Laurie Brown wrote: > On 13 September 2014 19:09:17 BST, Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > > If I have a wired connection to my LAN I can use 'arp-scan -l' to find > the IP addresses of other systems on the LAN. However arp-scan only > works if *I* have a hard-wired connection. > > How can one find IP addresses on a LAN when connected by WiFi? > > Try an Android device running fring... > Not a lot of help when I'm sitting here on a boat in France with two Beaglebone Black systems, an IBM Lenovo laptop, a Siemens Gigaset VOIP phone, an internet radio, but nothing running Android. -- Chris Green

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Broadband puzzle
by Bev Nicolson 11 Sep '14

11 Sep '14

Me again. I hope this is on topic. I like to download a few podcasts from time to time from the BBC and audioboo but recently it's been taking roughly twice as long for them to be saved. It also looks as though it's trying to do two at a time though only one remains on my desktop at the end. Any ideas? (Firefox 26.0) (It's fine for using iPlayer, though.) Bev

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nologin warning - any ideas what causes it?
by Chris Green 09 Sep '14

09 Sep '14

I keep getting the following in my logwatch output:- --------------------- Connections (secure-log) Begin ------------------------ **Unmatched Entries** nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN: 1 Time(s) Does anyone have any idea what might be causing it? It's separate from the sshd report so isn't an ssh attempt from 'outside'. ... and here's the /var/log record of it:- auth.log:Sep 8 08:20:04 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log:Sep 9 08:27:00 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 2 08:05:26 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 3 08:31:55 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 4 08:26:50 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 5 08:21:08 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 6 08:24:48 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN auth.log.1:Sep 7 08:23:18 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN So it's happening some time after eight every morning. ... and further, here's the context from auth.log :- Sep 8 08:20:01 chris CRON[16693]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user chris by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:02 chris CRON[16693]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user chris Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: Successful su for news by root Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: + ??? root:news Sep 8 08:20:03 chris su[16743]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user news by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:03 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c6. Sep 8 08:20:03 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c7 of user news. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris nologin: Attempted login by UNKNOWN on UNKNOWN Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16743]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user news Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c7. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c8 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16800]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c8. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c9 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16813]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: Successful su for nobody by root Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: + ??? root:nobody Sep 8 08:20:04 chris su[16834]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: Removed session c9. Sep 8 08:20:04 chris systemd-logind[1106]: New session c10 of user nobody. Sep 8 08:25:01 chris CRON[16935]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user chris by (uid=0) Sep 8 08:30:34 chris CRON[16935]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user chris Sep 8 08:31:39 chris su[16834]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user nobody -- Chris Green

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