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Date: Wed May 28 11:16:14 1997
Subject: Help wanted: 2.1.40 will not boot
From: Duncan Simpson, D.P.Simpson@ecs.soton.ac.uk
2.1.40 dies after displaying the message Checking whether the WP bit is honored even in supervisor mode...
A few prints hacked in later reveals that in enters the page fault handler, detects the bootup test and gets to the end of the C (do_fault in traps.c). However it never gets back to continue booting---exactly where it gets lost is obscure.
Anyone have any ideas/fixes?
Duncan
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 16:17:47 -0400
Subject: CD-ROMs
From: James S Humphrye, humpjs@aur.alcatel.com
I just found the LG today, and I have read most of the back issues... Great job so far! Lots of really useful info in here!
Now to my "problem". I installed Slackware 3.0, which went just fine. I had XFree86 and all the goodies working perfectly (no, really, it all worked just great!) Then I upgraded my machine to a P150, and installed a Trident 9660) PCI video card. Then the X server wasn't happy any more. So...I upgraded the kernel sources to 2.0.29, got all the required upgrades for GCC, etc. I built a new kernel, and it was up and running...sort of.
Despite having compiled in support for both IDE and SCSI CDROMs, I can only get the IDE one to work. I have edited the rc.* scripts, launched kerneld, run depmod -s, and all the other things the docs recommend.
I have rebuilt the kernel to zdisk about 25 times, trying different combinations of built-in and module support, all to no avail. When the system boots, the scsi host adapter is not detected (it is an AHA1521, located on a SB16/SCSI-2 sound card, and it worked fine under 1.2.13 & 1.3.18 kernels) When the aha152x module tries to load, it says it does not recognize scd0 as a block device. If I try to mount the SCSI unit, it says "init_module: device or resource busy". Any advice would be welcome. What I want is to at least be able to use the SCSI CDROM under Linux, or better yet, both it and the IDE CDROM...
There are also a bunch of messages generated by depmod about unresolved symbols that I don't understand, as well as a bunch of lines generated by modprobe that say "cannot locate block-major-XX" (XX is a major number, and the ones I see are for devices not installed or supported by the kernel) The second group of messages may be unimportant, but I don't know..
Thanks in advance, Steve
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 12:18:40 -0700
Subject: Need Help From Linux Gazette
From: Scott L. Colantonio, scott@burbank.k12.ca.us
Hi... We have Linux boxes located at the remote schools and the district office. All remote school clients (Mac, WinNT, Linux) attempting to access the district office Linux boxes experience a 75 second delay on each transaction. On the other hand, we do not experience any delay when district office clients (Mac, WinNT, Linux) attempt to access the remote school Linux boxes. The delay began when we moved all the remote school clients to a separate network (and different ISP) than the district office servers.
To provide a map, consider this:
remote school <-> city hall city hall <-> Internet Internet <-> district office
We experience a 75 second delay: remote school client -> city hall -> Internet -> District office Linux box
We do not experience any delay: remote school client -> city hall -> Internet
We do not experience any delay: city hall -> Internet -> District office Linux box
We do not experience any delay: District office client -> Internet -> city hall -> remote school Linux box ...
The remote schools use a Linux box at City Hall for the DNS.
In effect, the problem is isolated to the remote school clients connecting to the district office Linux boxes, just one hop away from city hall.
As a result, the mail server is now a 75 second delay away from all educators in our district. Our Cisco reps do not think, after extensive tests, that this is a router configuration problem.
I setup a Microsoft Personal web server at the district office to test if the delay was universal to our route. Unfortunately, there was no delay when remote school clients attempted to access the MS web server.
Is this a known Linux network problem? Why is this a one-way problem?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Scott L. Colantonio
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 16:16:58 -0700
Subject: inetd
From: Toby Reed, toby@eskimo.com
I have a question for the inetd buffs out there...perhaps something like xinetd or a newer version has the capability to do the job, but what I want is this:
normal behavior: connect to inetd look in /etc/inetd.conf run program enhanced behavior: connect to inetd find out what hostname used to connect to inetd look in /etc/inetd.conf.hostname if it exists, if not, use /etc/inetd.conf run program listed in /etc/inetd.conf
So if dork1.bob.com has the same IP address as dork2.bob.com, inetd would still be able to distinguish between them. In other words, similar to the VirtualHost directive in Apache that allows you to make virtual hosts that have the same IP address, except that with inetd.
Or, depending on the hostname used to access inetd, inetd could forward the request to another address.
This would be extremely useful in many limited-budget cases where a multitude of IPs are not available. For example, in combination with IP masquerading, would allow a lan host to be accessed transparently both ways on all ports, so long as it was accessed by a hostname, not an IP address. No port masquerading or proxies would be required unless the service needed was very very special. Even non-inetd httpd servers would work with this kind of redirection because the forwarded connection would still be handled by httpd on the machine with the masqueraded machine.
Anyone know if this already exists or want to add to it so I can suggest it to the inetd group?
-Toby
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 08:05:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: S3 Virge Video Board
From: Tim Gray & Family, timgray@lambdanet.com
I have a Linux box using a S3 Virge video board with 4 meg Ram. The problem is that X refuses to start with no other color depth than 8bpp. As X is annoying at 8bpp (Color flashing on every window and several programs complain about no free colors) Is there a way to FORCE X to start in 16 bpp? using the command .... startx -bpp 16 does not work and erasing the 8bpp entry in the XF86Config file causes X to self destruct. Even changing the Depth from 8 to 16 causes errors.. Anyone have experience with this X server?
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 09:20:05
Subject: Linux and NT
From: Greg McNichol, mcnichol@mcs.net
I am new to LINUX (and NT 4.0 for that matter) and would like any and all information I can get my hands on regarding the dual-boot issue. Any help is appreciated.
--Greg
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 00:02:04
Subject: Help with CD-ROM
From: Ralph, ralphs@kyrandia.com
I'm relatively new to Linux...not a coder or anything like that...just like messing with new things....anyways I have been running Linux for about a year now and love the H*** out of it. About two weeks ago I was testing some HD's I picked up used with this nifty plug and play bios I got and when I went to restore the system back to normal and now my CD-Rom does not work in Linux...I booted back into 95 and it still worked so I tried forcing the darn thing nothing, nada , zero. I booted with the install disks and still no CD-Rom...its on the 2nd eide set for cable select I tried removing the 2nd hard drive and moving it there still nothing....can anyone give me some more suggestions to try?
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 12:40:27 -0700
Subject: Programming in C++
From: Chris Walker, crwalker@cc.weber.edu
Hi, I'm Chris Walker. I'm an undergrad computer science major at Weber State University. During my object oriented programming class Linux was brought up. The question was asked "if c++ is so good for programs that are spread over different files or machines, why are Linux and Unix programmed in c not c++?" I was hoping that you may have an answer. Has anyone converted Linux source to c++, would there be any advantages/disadvantages?
Thanks, Chris Walker
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:27:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Programming Serial Ports
From: Celestino Rey Lopez, claude@idecnet.com
First of all congratulations for your good job in the Linux Gazette. I'm interested in programming the serial ports in order to get data from other computers or devices. In other Unixes it is possible, via ioctl, to ask the driver to inform a process with a signal every time a character is ready in the port. For example, in HP-UX, the process receive a SIGIO signal. In Linux SIGIO means input/output error. Do you know where can I get information about this matter? Is there any books talking about that?
Thanks in advance and thanks for providing the Linux community with lot of tricks, ideas and information about this amazing operating system.
Date:Fri, 16 May 1997 10:53:18
Subject: Response to VGA-16 Server in LG Issue 17
From: Andrew Vanderstock, Andrew.van.der.Stock@member.sage-au.org.au
I'll look into it, even though VGA_16 has a very short life. Yes, he is correct, there isn't much in the way of testing dual headedness with a herc card and VGA16, as both are getting quite long in the tooth. VGA_16 disappears in a few months to reappear as the argument -bpp 4 on most display adapters. One bug fixer managed to re-enable Herc support in the new source tree a while back, so there may be life there yet.
Also, there was one 2c issue that was a little out of whack in regards to linear addressing. The Cirrus chipsets are not fabulous, but many people have them built into their computers (laptops, HP PC's etc).
All I can suggest is that he try startx -- -bpp 16 and see if that works. If it doesn't have a look at the release notes for his chipset. If all else fails, report any XFree bugs to the bug report cgi on www.xfree86.org
I'll ask the powers that be if I can write an article for you on XFree86 3.3, the next version of the current source tree, as it is due soon. How many words are your articles generally?
Andrew Vanderstock
Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 01:32:29 -0700
Subject: Secure Anonymous FTP setup mini-howto spotted, then lost
From: Alan Bailward, ajb@direct.ca
I saw once on a friend of mines linux box, running Slackware 3.1, in /usr/docs/faq/HOWTO/mini, a mini-howto on how to setup a secure anonymous FTP server. It detailed how to setup all the directories, permissions, and so on, so you could upload, have permissions to write but not delete on your /incoming, etc etc etc. It looked like a great doc, but for the life of me I can't find it! I've looked on the slackware 3.2 cdrom, the 3.1 cdrom, searched all through the net, but to no avail. As I am trying to setup an anonymous ftp site now, this would be invaluable... I'd feel much better reading it than 'chmod 777'ing all over the place :)
If anyone has seen this document, or knows where it is, please let me know. Or even if there is another source of this type of information, I would sure appreciate it sent to me at ajb@direct.ca
Thanks a lot, and keep on Linuxing!
alan
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 13:21:20 +0800
Subject: Tuning XFree86
From: Soh Kam Yung, kysoh@ctlsg.creaf.com
I've been reading Linux Gazette since day one and it has been great. Keep up the good work.
I've been seeing comments and letters in the Gazette from people who are having trouble with their XFree86. Well, here's a tip for those not satisfied with the way their screen looks (offset to one side, too high/wide, etc.).
While looking through the XFree86 web site for tips on how to tweak my XF86 configuration, I noticed a reference to a program called xvidtune. Not many people may have heard about it, but it is a program used to tune your video modes. Among its features include:
Just run xvidtune and have fun with it! But be careful: as with XFree86 in general, it does not guarantee that the program will not burn your monitor by generating invalid settings. Fortunately, it has a quick escape (press 'r' to restore your previous screen settings).
Regards, -- Soh Kam Yung
Date: Fri, May 30 1997 12:34:23
Subject: Certification and training courses for Linux
From: Harry Silver, hsilver@pyx.net
I am currently on a mailing list for consultants for Red Hat Linux. One of my suggestions to that list is contained below. I truly hope as part of a broader international initiative, Linux International will pick up the ball on this one so as to ensure that Linux generically will survive. I truly hope that someone from your organization will follow up both with myself and with the Red Hat consulting mailing list as to a more generic Linux support effort in this area. All that would be required is gathering up the manuals from the older Unixware CNE course and 'porting' them to Linux and creating an HTMLized version. This along with online testing could easily generate a reasonable revenue stream for the generic Linux group involved.
Respectfully,
MY SUGGESTION: About two years ago, Novell still had Unixware before sending it over to the care of SCO. At the time Unix was under the stewardship of Novell, a Unixware CNE course was developed. Since, Ray Noorda of Caldera and former CEO of Novell is also an avid supporter of Linux as well as the good folks at Red Hat and other distributions, rather than RE-INVENT the wheel so to speak, wouldn't it make more sense to pattern certification AFTER the Unixware CNE courses by 'porting' the course to Linux GENERICALLY ?
Harley Silver
Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 11:39:25 +0200
Subject: Duplicating a Linux Installed HD
From: Dietmar Kling, kling@tao.de
Hello. I did duplicate my Hard disk before you release this articles for it. A friend of mine new to linux tried to do it, too using your instructions. But we discovered, when he copied my root partition, that he couldn't compile anything on his computer afterwards. A bug in libc.so.5.2.18 prevented his old 8 MB Machine from runnig make or gcc. it always aborted with an error. After updating libc.so5.2.18 and running ldconfig the problem was solved.
We had a SuSe 4.0 installation.
Dietmar
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 16:09:29 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Re: X Color Depth
From: Roland Smith, rsmit06@ibm.net
In response to Michael J. Hammel's 2cent tip in issue #17: I disagree that a 16bit display displays less colors than a 8 bit display.
Both kinds of displays use a colormap. A color value is nothing more than an index into a color map, which is an array of red,green,blue triplets, each 8 bits. The amount of colors that can be shown simultaneously depends on the graphics hardware.
An 8bit display has an eight bit color value, so it can maximally have 256 different color values. The color map links these to 256 different colors which can be displayed simultaneously. Each of these 256 colors can be one of the 2^24 different colors possible with the 3*8 bits in each colormap entry (or color cell, as it is called).
A 16bit display has a sixteen bit color value, which can have 2^16=65536 different values. The colormap links these to 65535 different, simultaneously visible, colors (out of 2^24 possible colors). (actually it's a bit more difficult than this, but thats beyond the point).
So both a 8 and 16 bit display can show 2^24=16.7*10^6 colors. The difference lies in the number of colors they can show *at once*.
Regards, Roland
Date: Fri, May 30 1997 13:24:35
Subject: Using FTP as a shell-command with ftplib
From: Walter Harms, Walter.Harms@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE ...
Any drawbacks? Of course, for any ftp session you need a user/paswdr. I copy into public area using anonymous/email@ others >will need to surly a password at login, what is not very useful for regular jobs or you have to use some kind of public login but still I think it's easier and >better to use than the r-cmds.
-- walter
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:05:09 -0700
Subject: RE: Using ftp Commands in Shellscript
From: James Boorn, jboorn@optum.com
I recommend you depend on .netrc for ftp usernames and passwords for automated ftp.
James Boorn
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 09:09:35 -0500
Subject: X limitation to 8 Bit Color (Response to Gary Masters)
From: Omegaman, omegam@COMMUNIQUE.NET
I read your question in Linux Gazette regarding an X limitation to 8 bit color when the system has more that 14 megs of RAM. Where did you find that information? I ask because my system has 24 megs of RAM, and I run 16 bit color all the time. One difference between our systems is that I am using a Diamond Stealth 64 video card.
Gary,
Just caught this letter in Linux Gazette. This limitation is specific to Cirrus Logic cards, particularly those on the ISA bus and some on VLB (ie. old systems -- like mine. Since you're using a Diamond Stealth 64, you don't have this limitation.
Full details are in the readme.cirrus file contained in the XFree86 Documentation. Some cirrus owners may be able to overcome this limitation. See http://xfree86.org
Date: Fri, May 30 1997 8:31:25
Subject: Response to Gary Masters
From: Ivan Griffin, Ivan
Griffin@ul.ie
From: Gary Masters gmasters@devcg.denver.co.us
I read your question in Linux Gazette regarding an X limitation to 8 bit color when the system has more than 14 megs of RAM. Where did you find that information? I ask because my system has 24 megs of RAM, and I run 16 bit color all the time. One difference between our systems is that I am using a Diamond Stealth 64 video card.
XFree86 needs to be able to map video memory in at the end of physical memory linearly. However, ISA machines cannot support greater than 16MB in this fashion - so if you have 16 or greater MB or RAM, you cannot run XFree86 in higher than 8 bit color.
Ivan
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More 2¢ Tips!
Monitoring a ftp Download.
Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 09:57:20 -0400
From: Bob Grabau bob_grabau@fmso.navy.
mil
Here is a tip for monitoring a ftp download. in another virtual console enter the following script:
while : do clear ls -l <filename that you are downloading> sleep 1 done
This virtual console can be behind (if you are using X) any other window and just showing a line of text. This will let you know if your download is done or stalled. This will let you do other things, like reading the Linux Gazette.
When you type this in, you wll get a > prompt after the first line and continue until you enter the last line.
-- Bob Grabau
Logging In To X Tip
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 10:17:12 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tom Barron barron@usit.net
Xlogin.mini-howto
Several people regularly use my Linux system at home (an assembled-from- components box containing a 133 Mhz Pentium, 2Gb of disk, 32Mb of memory, running the Slackware distribution) -- my step-son Stephen, who's learning to program and likes using X, my younger step-son Michael, who likes the X screen-savers and games like Doom, my wife Karen, who prefers the generic terminalness of the un-X'd console, and myself -- I like to use X for doing software development work since it lets me see several processes on the screen at once. I also like to keep an X screen saver running when no-one is using the machine.
I didn't want to run xdm (an X-based login manager), since Karen doesn't want to have to deal with X. She wants to be at the console when she logins in and not have to worry about where to click the mouse and such. But I wanted to have a simple way of getting into X when I login without having to start it up manually.
Here's what I came up with:
A.L.S.
The Mailbag!
if [ "$DISPLAY" = "" ]; then
cal > ~/.month
xinit .Xsession > /dev/null 2>&1
clear
if [ ! -f .noexit ]; then
exit
fi
else
export TTY=`tty`
export TTY=`expr "$TTY" : "/dev/tty\(.*\)"`
export PS1="<$LOGNAME @ \h[$TTY]:\w> \n$ "
export PATH=${PATH}:~/bin:.
export EDITOR=emacs
export WWW_HOME=file://localhost/home/tb/Lynx/lynx_bookmarks.html
export DISPLAY
alias cls="clear"
alias dodo="$EDITOR ~/prj/dodo"
alias e="$EDITOR"
alias exit=". ~/bin/off"
alias l="ls -l"
alias lx="ls -x"
alias minicom="minicom -m"
alias pg=less
alias pine="export DISPLAY=;'pine'"
alias prj=". ~/bin/prj"
alias profile="$EDITOR ~/.profile; . ~/.profile"
fi
When I first login, on the console, $DISPLAY is not yet set, so the
first branch of the if statement takes effect and we start up X.
When X terminates, we'll clear the screen and, unless the file
.noexit exists, logout. Running cal and storing the output in
.month is in preparation for displaying a calender in a window
under X.
: xsetroot -solid black fvwm & oclock -geometry 75x75-0+0 & xload -geometry 100x75+580+0 & emacs -geometry -0-0 & xterm -geometry 22x8+790+0 -e less ~/.month & color_xterm -font 7x14 -ls -geometry +5-0 & exec color_xterm -font 7x14 -ls -geometry +5+30 \ -T "Type 'exit' in this window to leave X"So when my color_xterms run, with -ls as an argument (which says to run a login shell), they run .profile again. Only this time $DISPLAY is set, so they process the else half of the if, getting the environment variables and aliases I normally expect.
xlock Tip
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 10:14:12 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tom Barron barron@usit.net
Xscreensaver.mini-howto
Several people regularly use my Linux system at home (an assembled-from- components box containing a 133 Mhz Pentium, 2Gb of disk, 32Mb of memory, running the Slackware distribution) -- my step-son Stephen, who's learning to program and likes using X, my younger step-son Michael, who likes the X screen-savers and games like Doom, my wife Karen, who prefers the generic terminalness of the un-X'd console, and myself -- I like to use X for doing software development work since it lets me see several processes on the screen at once. I also like to keep an X screen saver running when no-one is using the machine.
I didn't want to run xdm (an X-based login manager), since Karen doesn't want to have to deal with X. She wants to be at the console when she logins in and not have to worry about where to click the mouse and such. But I wanted to have a simple way of starting up the X-based screensaver xlock when I (or anyone) logged out to the console login.
Here's what I did (as root):
if [ "$DISPLAY" = "" ]; then xinit .Xsession > /dev/null 2>&1 clear exit fi
: exec xlock -nolock -mode random
In my next article, I show how I arranged to jump into X from the console login prompt just by logging in (i.e., without having to start X manually).
Hex Dump
Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 00:29:20 -0400
From: Joseph Hartmann joeh@arakis.sugar-river.net
Hex Dump by Joseph L. Hartmann, Jr.
This code is copyright under the GNU GPL by Joseph L. Hartmann, Jr.
I have not been happy with Hex Dump. I am an old ex-DOS user, and am familiar with the HEX ... ASCII side-by-side presentation.
Since I am studying awk and sed, I thought it would be an interesting excercise to write this type of dump.
Here is a sample of what you may expect when you type the
(script) command "jhex If you like it, read on....
To the right of the repeated address, "F i l e n a m e"
is the 8 ascii equivalents to the hex codes you see
on the left.
I elected to dump 8 bytes in one row of screen output.
The following software is required: hexdump, bash, less and gawk.
gawk is the GNU/Linux version of awk.
There are four files that I have installed in my /joe/scripts
directory, a directory that is in my PATH environment.
The four files are:
combine -- an executable script: you must "chmod +x combine"
jhex -- an executable script: you must "chmod +x jhex"
hexdump.dashx.format -- a data file holding the formatting
information for the hex bytes.
hexdump.perusal.format -- a data file holding the formatting
information for the ascii bytes.
Here is the file jhex:
I found the "sed & awk" book by Dale Dougherty helpful.
I hope you find jhex useful. To make it useful for yourself, you
will have to replace the "/joe/scripts" with the path of your
choice. It must be a path that is in your PATH, so that the
scripts can be executed from anyplace in the directory tree.
A trivial note: do not remove the blank line from the
hexdump.dasx.format and hexdump.perusal.format
files: it will not work if you do!
A second trivial note: when a file contains many characters all of
same kind, the line-by-line display will
be aborted and the display will look similar
to the example below:
Instead of displaying *all* the 20's, you just get the
I don't like this myself, but I have reached the end of my
competence (and/or patience), and therefore, that's the way it
is!
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 07:30:38 -0400 I have been using Linux for about a year, as each day passes and my
knowledge increases, my Win95 patitions decrease. This prompted me to
by a notebook, which of course is loaded with Windows. Currently these
two machines are NOT networked :-( But that doesn't mean I can't print
a document created in Word for Windows, Internet Explorer, etc., without
plugging my printer cable into the other machine.
My solution is rather simple. If you haven't already, add a new
printer in the Windows control panel, using the driver for the printer
that is connected to your Linux box. Select "FILE" as the port you wish
to print to and give it a name, eg: Print File (HP Destjet 540). Now
print your document to a floppy disk file, take it to the Linux machine,
and issue a command simular to: cat filename > /dev/lp1. Your document
will be printed with all the formatting that was done in Windows.
Enjoy,
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 21:42:34 Ever wonder how you can grep certain files in a directory
tree for a particular string. Here's example how
This command will generate a list of all the .c files in
the current working directory or any of its subdirectories
then use this list of files for the grep command. The
grep will then search those files for the string "foo" and
output the filename and the line containing "foo".
The only caveat here is that UNIX is configured to limit
max chars in a command line and the "find" command may
generate a list of files to huge for shell to digest when
it tries to run the grep portion as a command line. Typically
this limit is 1024 chars per command line.
-earl
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 22:41:28
A couple suggestions to people with video cards based on the ViRGE Chipset...
Note: this trick has not been authorized, reconignized, or in any way
endorsed, recommended, or even considered by the guy(s) who wrote svgalib in
the first place. (that last version of svgalib is over a year old, so I
don't expect there to be any new versions real soon) It works for me, so I
just wanted to share it with the Linux community that just might find it useful.
Peter Amstutz
Suppose you have an X running, and want to start another one (perhaps
for a different user).
startx alone will complain.
Writing
Then start it rather with
Of course, if no Xserver is running yet, you can get a non-default depth
by just starting with
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 12:58:11 +0200 (MDT)
Hi there,
Here is a small tip concerning the 'automatic' file transfer;
Linux Gazette Issue 17, May 1997. Everything is known stuff in Unix
and Linux. To 'automate' file transfer for me means to minimize the
load on the remote server as well as my own telephone costs - you
have to pay for the time you think if or not to get a special file,
for changing the directories and for the time to put the names into
the PC. The procedure is called with the address as parameter and
generates a protocol.
Ftp now looks if a .netrc file exists; in this file I use macros
written in advance and numbered consecutively:
Now I first get the contents of several directories via dir . C131...
and, to have some book-keeping, logically use the same numbers for the
macros and the directories. The protocol shows, if I am really in the
directory I wished to. Until the next session begins, the file C131...
is used to edit the last .netrc file, therefore the names will always
be typed correctly. If you are downloading under DOS from your account
the shorter names are defined in the .netrc file. Everything is done
beforehand with vi under Linux.
Dr.Werner Gerstmann
Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 16:19:05 -0600
But I just can't seem to find any documentation explaining
how to set up local newsgroups. smtpd and nntpd are running,
but the manpages won't tell anything about how to set up ng's
smtpd and nntpd are just transport agents. They could just as easily
transport any sort of message files as they do mail or NetNews files.
What you're looking for is the software which manages these files on
your local system (if you want newsgroups available only locally then
you need to have this software on your system). I used to use CNEWS for
this. I believe there are some other packages, much newer than CNEWS,
that might make it easier. Since I haven't used CNEWS in awhile I'm
afraid I can't offer any more info than this.
Michael J. Hammel
Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 09:25:01 -0400 (EDT)
Saw some X Window tips, so I thought I'd send this one along..
I tend to use lots of color rich applications in X. After
cranking up XEmacs, Gimp, etc., I find that I quickly run
out of palette on my 8-bit display. Most programs don't behave
sensibly when I run out of colors - for example, CGoban comes up
black and white and realaudio refuses to run at all (not enough
colors to play sound, I suppose.
I've found I can solve these problems by passing a "-cc 4" option
to the X server. This tells it to pretend I have a bigger
pallete and to pass back closest matches to colors when necessary.
I've never run out of colors since then.
There are caveats: programs that check for a full colormap
and install their own (color flashing) will automatically do so.
This includes netscape and XForms programs (which I was running
with private color maps anyway). My copy of LyriX
makes the background black. Also, I tried Mosaic on a Sun and
had some odd color effects.
oly
Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 09:40:10 -0400 (EDT)
I forgot to add that the -cc 4 can be used like this:
sorry about that
oly
Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 20:44:13 -0400
A couple suggestions to people with video cards based on the S3/ViRGE
Chipset... (which is many video cards that ship with new computers that
claim to have 3D accelerated graphics. Don't believe it. The 3D graphics
capability of all ViRGE-based chips sucks. They make better cheap 2D
accelerators)
Save it! You're home free! Recompile, re-install libraries, and now, what
we've all been waiting for, test some svga modes! 640x480x256!
640x480x16bpp! 800x600x24bpp! YES!!!
But wait! One thing to watch out for. First, make sure you reinstall it in
the right place! Slackware puts libvga.a in /usr/lib/, so make sure that is
that file that you replace. Another thing: programs compiled with svgalib
statically linked in will have to be rebuilt with the new library, otherwise
they will just go along in their brain dead fashion blithely unaware that your
card is not being used to nearly it's full potential.
Note: this hack has not been authorized, reconignized, or in any way
endorsed, recommended, or even considered by the guy(s) who wrote svgalib.
The last version of svgalib is over a year old, so I don't expect there to
be any new versions real soon. It works for me, so I just wanted to share
it with the Linux community that just might find it useful. This has only
been tested on my machine, using a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000, so if you have a
different ViRGE-based card and you have problems you're on your own.
No, there are no Linux drivers that use ViRGE "accelerated 3D"
features. It sucks, I know (then again, the 3D performance of ViRGE chips
is so bad you're probably not missing much)
Peter Amstutz
Date: 5 May 1997
I wanted to print out a c source with line numbers. Here is one
way to do it:
Assuming you are using bash, install the following function in
your .bashrc file.
"nl" is a textutils utility that numbers the lines of a file.
"-ba" makes sure *all* the lines (even the empty lines) get numbered.
/tmp.tmp is my true "garbage" temporary file, hence I write over it,
and send it to the line printer.
For example to print out a file "kbd.c", with line numbers:
There are probably 20 different methods of accomplishing the same
thing, but when you don't even have *one* of them in your bag of
tricks, it can be a time-consuming detour.
Note: I initially tried to name the function "nl", but this led to
an infinite loop. Hence I named it jnl (for Joe's number lines).
Best Regards,
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 13:30:04 -0700
Hi, I read your 2c tip in Linux gazette regarding ftplib.
I am not sure why you recommend downloading ftpget, while
another package, actually, a single program, which is available
on many systems does various ftp services pretty well.
I mean ncftp ("nikFTP"). It can do command line, it can work
in the mode of usual ftp (with the "old" or "smarter" interface")
and it also does full-screen mode showing ETA during the transfer.
It has filename and hostname completion and a bunch of other niceties,
like remembering passwords if you ask it to.
Try man ncftp on your system (be in Linux or Solaris) ...
also, ncftp is available from every major Linux archive
(including ftp.redhat.com where you can find latest RPMs)
Hope this helps, Igor
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 13:52:02 -0700
I have a dial-up with dynamic IP and it has always been an
incontinence for me and my friends to learn my current IP address
(I had an ftp script which put the address every 10 minutes into
~/.plan file on my acct at UCLA, then one could get the address
by fingering the account).
However, recently I discovered a really cool project
http://www.ml.org which
Once their nameserver reloads its tables (once every 5-10mins!)
your computer can be accessed by the name you selected
when registered.
For example, my Linux box has IP name math4.dyn.ml.org
Caveat: if you are not online, the name can point to
a random computer. In my case, those boxes are
most often wooden (i.e. running Windoze ;-) so
you would get "connection refused".
In general, you need some kind of authentication
scheme (e.g. if you telnet to my computer, it would
say "Office on Rodeo Drive")
Isn't that cool ?
Cheers,
Igor
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 11:55:28 -0400
I used Redhat 4.0's netcfg tool to install my PPP connection, but found
that I could only use the
Internet as root. I set the proper permissions on my scripts and the
pppd (as stated in the
PPP Howto and the Redhat PPP Tips documents), but I still could not use
any Internet app from
a user's account. I then noticed that a user account _could_ access an
IP number, but could not
do a DNS lookup. It turns out that I merely had to chmod ugo+r
/etc/resolv.conf
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 13:24:45
Sometimes it might be useful to allow trusted friends to connect to your
personal Linux box over the Internet.
An easy way to do this is to put links to your IP address on a full-time
web server, then give the URL to whomever.
Why would you want to do that? Well, I do it so my sister can telnet to
Magnon, my laptop, for a chat whenever I'm connected.
However it might prove difficult if, like me, your ISP assigns your
IP address dynamically. So I wrote a short script to take care
of this... The script generates an html file containing my local
IP address then uploads the file via ftp to a dedicated web server
on which I have rented some web space. It runs every time a ppp
connection is established, so the web page always contains my current
IP, as well as the date/time I last connected.
This is pretty easy to set up, and the result is way cool. Just give my
sis (or anyone else I trust) the URL... then she can check
to see if I'm online whenever she wants, using Netscape from her vax
account at RIT. If I am connected, she can click to telnet
in for a chat.
Here's how it works....
To get ftp to work, I had to create a file named .netrc in my home
directory with a line that
contains the ftp login information for the remote server. My .netrc has
one line that looks like this:
For more information on the .netrc file and its format, try "man ftp".
Chmod it 700 (chmod 700 .netrc) to prevent other users from reading the
file.
This isn't a big deal on my laptop, which is used primarily by yours
truly. But it's a good idea anyway.
Here's my script. There might be a better way to do all of this,
however my script works pretty well.
Still, I'm always interested in ways to improve my work, so if you have
any suggestions or comments,
feel free to send me an email.
Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 11:16:32
Shockingly enough, there seems to be a DOS product out there that will
happily make "image files" of entire hard disks and copy these image files
onto blank hard disks in a sector-by-sector fashion. Boot sectors and
partition tables should be transferred exactly. See:
http://www.ingot.com
for more details. Seagate (I think...) has also made a program that does
the duplication in one step - transfers all of one hard disk to another
identical disk. I'm not sure which of these products works with
non-identical disks.
Hope this helps.
Michael Jablecki
From: Paul
Oh, here's a little tidbit of info to pass on, this has been bugging me
for a while. Often times when people send in tips 'n' tricks, it requires
one to untar and unzip an archive. It usually suggested that this be done
in one of several cumbersome ways:
gzcat foo.tar.gz | tar zxvf -
or 1. gunzip foo.tar.gz
2. tar xvf foo.tar
or some other multi-step method. There is a much easier, time-saving,
space saving method. The version of tar shipped with most distributions
of Linux is from the FSF GNU project. These people recognized that most
tar archives are usually gzipped and provided a 'decompress' flag to tar.
This is equivalent to the above methods:
tar zxvf foo.tar.gz
This decompress the tar.gz file on the fly and then untars it into the
current directory, but it also leaves the original .tar.gz alone.
However, one step I consider essential that is usually never mentioned, is
to look at what's in the tar archive prior to extracting it. You have no
idea whether the archiver was kind enough to tar up the parent directory
of the files, or it they just tarred up a few files. The netscape tar.gz
is a classic example. When that's untarred, it dumps the contents into
your current directory. Using:
gtar ztvf foo.tar.gz
allows you to look at the contents of the archive prior to opening it up
and potetially writing over files with the same name. At the very least,
you will know what's going on and be able to make provisions for it before
you mess something up.
For those who are adventurous, (X)Emacs is capable of not only opening up
and reading a tar.gz file, but actually editing and re-saving the contents
of these as well. Think of the time/space savings in that!
Seeya,
Paul
Linus Torvalds, the "Kernel-Kid" and creator of Linux, Jon
"Maddog" Hall, Linux/Alpha team leader and inspiring Linux
advocate, David Miller, the mind behind Linux/SPARC, and Phil
Hughes, publisher of Linux Journal, and many more will speak
at the upcoming Atlanta Linux Showcase.
For more information on the Atlanta Linux Showcase and to
reserve your seat today, please visit our web site at
http://www.ale.org.showcase
SSC is currently putting together a Linux Speaker's Bureau.
http://www.ssc.com/linux/lsb.html
The LSB is designed to become a collage of speakers specializing in Linux.
Speakers who specialize in talks ranging from novice to advanced - technical
or business are all welcome. The LSB will become an important tool for
organizers of trade show talks, computer fairs and general meetings, so if
you are interested in speaking at industry events, make sure to visit the
LSB WWW page and register yourself as a speaker.
We welcome your comments and suggestions.
The Linux System Administrator's Guide (SAG) is a book on system
administration targeted at novices. Lars Wiraenius has been writing it for
some years, and it shows. He has made an official
HTML version, available at the SAG home page at: Take a Look!
The Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory has made available the first
public release of omniORB (version 2.2.0). We also refer to this version
as omniORB2.
omniORB2 is copyright Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory. It is free
software. The programs in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU General
Public Licence as published by the Free Software Foundation. The libraries
in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU Library General Public
Licence.
For more information take a look at http://www.orl.co.il/omniORB.
Source code and binary distributions are available from
http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB.html
The Wurd Project, a SGML Word Processor for the UNIX environment (and
hopefully afterwards, Win32 and Mac) is currently looking for developers
that are willing to participate in the project.
Check out the site at:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/paulc/wp Mailing list archives are available, as well as the current source,
documentation, programming tools and various other items can also be found
at the above address.
Check it out...
Here's the online copy of Metro's article on Linus...
Announcing BlackMail 0.24. This is a bug-fix release over the previous
release, which was made public on April 29th.
BlackMail is a mailer proxy that wraps around your existing mailer
(preferrably smail) and provides protection against spammers, mail
forwarding, and the like.
For those of you looking for a proxy, you may want to
look into this. This is a tested product, and works very well. I am
interested in getting this code incorporated into SMAIL, so if you are
interested in doing this task, please feel free.
You can download blackmail from ftp://ftp.bitgate.com.
You can also view the web page at
http://www.bitgate.com.
Red Hat Software is proud to announce the arrival of Red Hat's TriTeal CDE
for Linux. Red Hat Software, makers of the award-winning, technologically
advanced Red Hat Linux operating system, and TriTeal Corporation, the industry
leader in CDE technology, teamed up to bring you this robust, easy to use CDE
for your Linux PC.
CDE includes
Red Hat's TriTeal CDE for Linux provides users with a graphical
environment to access both local and remote systems.
It gives you icons, pull-down menus, and folders.
Red Hat's TriTeal CDE for Linux is available in two versions. The Client
Edition gives you everything you need to operate a complete licensed copy
of the CDE desktop, incluidng the Motif 1.2.5 shared libraries. The
Developer's Edition allows you to perform all functions of the Client
Edition, and also includes a complete integrated copy of OSF Motif version
1.2.5, providing a complete development environment with static and
dynamically linked libraries, Motif Window Manager, and sample Motif
Sources.
CDE is an RPM-based product, and will install easily on Red Hat and other
RPM-based Linux systems. We recommend using Red Hat Linux 4.2 to take full
advantage of CDE features. For those who do not have Red Hat 4.2, CDE
includes several Linux packages that can be automatically installed to
improve its stability.
Order online at: http://www.redhat.com
Or call 1-888-REDHAT1 or (919) 572-6500.
Announcing the release 2.0.1 of TCFS
(Transparent Cryptographic File System) for Linux.
TCFS is a cryptographic filesystem developed here at Universita' di
Salerno (Italy). It operates like NFS but allow users to use a new
flag X to make the files secure (encrypted). Security engine is based on
DES, RC5 and IDEA.
The new release works in Linux kernel space, and may be linked as
kernel module. It is developed to work on Linux 2.0.x kernels.
A mailing-list is available at tcfs-list@mikonos.dia.unisa.it.
Documentation is available at http://mikonos.dia.unisa.it/tcfs.
Here you can find instructions for installing TCFS and docs on
how it works.
Mirror site is available at http://www.globenet.it
and
http://www.inopera.it/~ermmau.tcfs
Qddb 1.43p1 (patch 1) is now available
Qddb is fast, powerful and flexible database software that runs
on UNIX platforms, including Linux. Some of its features include:
Qddb-1.43p1 is the first patch release to 1.43. This patch
fixes a few minor problems and a searching bug when
using cached secondary searching.
To download the patch file:
ftp://ftp.hsdi.com/pub/qddb/sources/qddb-1.43p1.patch For more information on Qddb, visit the official Qddb home page:
http://www.hsdi.com/qddb
AUSTIN, TX- Crack dot Com, developers of the cult-hit Abuse and the
anticipated 3D action/strategy title Golgotha, recently learned
that Kevin Bowen, aka Fragmaster on irc and Planet Quake, has put up
the first unofficial Golgotha web site.
The new web site can be found at http://www.planetquake.com/grags/golgotha,
and there is a link to the new site at http://crack.com/games/golgotha.
Mr. Bowen's web site features new screenshots and music previously available
only on irc.
Golgotha is Crack dot Com's first $1M game and features a careful
marriage of 3D and 2D gameplay in an action/strategy format featuring
new rendering technology, frantic gameplay, and a strong storyline.
For more information on Golgotha, visit Crack dot Com's web site at
http://crack.com/games/golgotha.
Crack dot Com is a small game development company located in Austin,
Texas. The corporation was founded in 1996 by Dave Taylor, co-author
of Doom and Quake, and Jonathan Clark, author of Abuse.
ImageMagick-3.8.5-elf.tgz is now out.
This version brings together a number of minor changes made to
accomodate PerlMagick and lots of minor bugs fixes including
multi-page TIFF decoding and writing PNG.
ImageMagick (TM), version 3.8.5, is a package for display and
interactive manipulation of images for the X Window System.
ImageMagick performs, also as command line programs, among others
these functions:
ImageMagick supports also the Drag-and-Drop protocol form the OffiX
package and many of the more popular image formats including JPEG,
MPEG, PNG, TIFF, Photo CD, etc.
Check out:
ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/linux
Linux Systems Labs, The Linux Publishing Company is pleased to announce
Slackware 3.2 on CD-ROM
This CD contains Slackware 3.2 with 39 security fixes and patches since
the Official Slackware 3.2 release. The CD mirrors the slackware ftp site
as of April 26, 1997. Its a great way to get started with Linux or update
the most popular Linux distribution.
This version contains the 2.0.29 Linux kernel, plus recent versions of
these (and other) software packages:
LSL price: $1.95
Ordering Info: http://www.lsl.com
A new release of mtools, a collection of
utilities to access MS-DOS disks from Unix without mounting them.
Mtools can currently be found at the following places:
http://linux.wauug.org/pub/knaff/mtools Mtools-3.6 includes the features such as Msip -e which now only ejects Zip
disks when they are not mounted, Mzip manpage, detection of bad passwords
and more.
Most GNU software is packed using the GNU `gzip' compression program.
Source code is available on most sites distributing GNU software.
For more information write to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
CM3 version 4.1.1 is now available for Unix and Windows platforms:
SunOS, Solaris, Windows NT/Intel, Windows 95, HP/UX, SGI IRIX,
Linux/ELF on Intel, and Digital Unix on Alpha/AXP. For additional
information, or to download an evaluation copy, contact Critical Mass,
Inc. via the Internet at info@cmass.com or on the World Wide Web at newsBot: mailBot: siteSee:
linkCheck: All products require Linux, SunOS or Solaris. And all are sold as
"age ware": a free trial license allows full testing. When the
license expires, the products "age", forget some of their skills,
but they still retain about 80% of their functionality.
A GUI text editor named "Red" is available for Linux.
The editor has a full graphical interface, supports mouse and key
commands, and is easy to use.
These are some of Red's features that might be interesting:
It can be downloaded free in binary form or with full source code. The web site also includes a full Manual - have a look if you are
interested.
Announcing Emacspeak-97++ (The Internet PlusPack). Based
on InterActive Accessibility technology, Emacspeak-97++
provides a powerful Internet ready audio desktop that
integrates Internet technologies including Web surfing and
messaging into all aspects of the electronic desktop.
Major Enhancements in this release include:
Emacspeak-97++ can be downloaded from:
From: David E. Stern, lptsua@i/wasjomgtpm/edu
The end goal: to install FileRunner, I simply MUST have it! :-)
My intermediate goal is to install Tcl/Tk 7.6/4.2, because FileRunner
needs these to install, and I only have 7.5/4.1 . However, when I try to
upgrade tcl/tlk, other apps rely on older tcl/tk libraries, atleast that's
what the messages allude to:
I have enough experience to know that apps may break if I upgrade the
libraries they depend on. I've tried updating some of those other apps,
but I run into further and circular dependencies--like a cat chasing it's
tail.
In your opinion, what is the preferred method of handling this scenario?
I must have FileRunner, but not at the expense of other apps.
It sounds like you're relying too heavily on RPM's.
If you can't afford to risk breaking your current stuff,
and you "must" have the upgrade you'll have to do some
stuff beyond what the RPM system seems to do.
One method would be to grab the sources (SRPM or tarball)
and manually compile the new TCL and tk into /usr/local
(possibly with some changes to their library default
paths, etc). Now you'll probably need to grab the
FileRunner sources and compile that to force it to use the
/usr/local/wish or /usr/local/tclsh (which, in turn, will
use the /usr/local/lib/tk if you've compiled it all right).
Another approach is to set up a separate environment
(separate disk, a large subtree of an existing disk
-- into which you chroot, or a separate system entirely)
and test the upgrade path where it won't inconvenience you
by failing. A similar approach is to do a backup, test your
upgrade plan -- (if the upgrade fails, restore the backup).
This is a big problem in all computing environments (and
far worse in DOS, Windows, and NT systems than in most
multi-user operating systems. At least with Unix you have
the option of installing a "playpen" (accessing it with the
chroot call -- or by completely rebooting on another partition
if you like).
Complex interdepencies are unavoidable unless you require that
every application be statically linked and completely self-sufficient
(without even allowing their configuration files to be separate.
So this will remain an aspect of system administration where
experience and creativity are called for (and a good backup
may be the only thing between you and major inconvenience).
--
Jim
From: Bill Johnson, b_johnson@cel.co.chatham.ga.us
I have two networking problems which may be related. I'm using a
dial-up (by chat) ppp connection.
1) pppd will not execute for anyone without root privilege, even
though it's permissions are set rw for group and other.
I presume you mean that it's *x* (execute) bit is set.
It's *rw* bits should be disabled -- the *w* bit ESPECIALLY.
If you really want pppd to be started by users (non-root)
you should write a small C "wrapper" program that executes
pppd after doing a proper set of suid (seteuid) calls and
sanity checks. You might be O.K. with the latest suidperl
(though there have been buffer overflows with some versions
of that.
Note that the file must be marked SUID with the chmod command
in order for it to be permitted to use the seteuid call
(unless ROOT is running it, of course).
Regardless of the method you use to accomplish your SUID of
pppd (even if you just set the pppd binary itself to SUID):
I suggest you pick or make a group (in /etc/group) and make
the pppd wrapper group executable, SUID (root owned), and
completely NON-ACCESSIBLE to "other" (and make sure to just
as the "trusted" users to the group.
'sudo' (University of Colorado, home of Evi Nemeth) is a
generalized package for provided access to privileged programs.
You might consider grabbing it and installing it.
I'd really suggest diald -- which will dynamically bring the
link up and down as needed. Thus your users will just try to
access their target -- wait a long time for dialing, negotiation,
etc (just like pppd only a little faster) and away you go
(until your connection is idle long enough to count as a
"timeout" for diald.
2) http works, and mail works, and telnet works, but ftp does not
work. I can connect, login, poke around, and all that. But when I
try to get a file, it opens the file for writing on my machine and
then just sits there. No data received, ever. Happens with
Netscape, ftp, ncftp, consistently, at all sites. Even if user is
root. Nothing is recorded in messages or in ppp-log.
/etc/protocols, /etc/services and all that seems to be set up
correctly. Any suggestions?
Can you dial into a shell account and do a kermit
or zmodem transfer? What does 'stty -a < /dev/modem'
say? Make sure you have an eight-bit clean session.
Do you have 16550 (high speed) UARTS.
Do you see any graphics when you're using HTTP?
(that would suggest that binary vs. text is not the
problem).
--
Jim
From: Zia Khan, khanz@foxvalley.net
I have a question regarding fetchmail. i've been successful at using it
to send and recieve mail from my ISP via a connection to their POP3
server. there is a slight problem though. the mail that i send out has
in its from: field my local login and local hostname e.g.
ruine@clocktower.net. when it should be my real email address
khanz@foxvalley.net those who recieve my message recieve an non existant
email address to reply to. is there any way in modifying this behavior?
i've been investigating sendmail with hopes it may have have a means of
making this change,to little success.
Technically this has nothing to do with fetchmail or POP.
'fetchmail' just *RECIEVES* your mail -- POP is just the
protocol for storing and picking up your mail. All of your
outgoing mail is handles by a different process.
Sendmail has a "masquerade" feature and an "all_masquerade"
feature which will tell it to override the host/domain portions
of the headers addresses when it sends your mail. That's
why my mail shows up as "jimd@starshine.org" rather than
"jimd@antares.starshine.org."
The easy way to configure modern copies of sendmail is to use
the M4 macro package that comes with it. You should be able to
find a file in /usr/lib/sendmail-cf/cf/
Mine looks something like:
(I've removed all the UUCP stuff that doesn't apply to you
at all).
Note: This will NOT help with the user name -- just the host and
domain name. You should probably just send all of your outgoing
mail from an account name that matches your account name at your
provider. There are other ways to do it -- but this is the
easiest.
Another approach would require that your sendmail "trust"
your account (with a define line to add your login ID as one
which is "trusted" to "forge" their own "From" lines in
sendmail headers. Then you'd adjust your mail-reader to
reflect your provider's hostname and ID rather than your local
one. The details of this vary from one mailer to another --
and I won't give the gory details here).
Although I said that this is not a fetchmail problem -- I'd
look in th fetchmail docs for suggestions. I'd also read
(or re-read) the latest version of the E-Mail HOW-TO.
--
Jim
Justin Mark Tweedie, linda@zanet.co.za
Our users no not have valid command shells in the /etc/passwd file (they
have /etc/ppp/ppp.sh). I would like the users to use procmail to process
each users mail but .forward returns an error saying user does not have a
vaild shell.
The .forward file has the following entry
How can I make this work ???
Cheers Justin
I suspect that its actually 'sendmail' that issuing the
complaint.
Add the ppp.sh to your /etc/shells file.
procmail will still use /bin/sh for processing the
recipes in the .procmailrc file.
Another method would be to use procmail as your local
delivery agent. In your sendmail "mc" (m4 configuration
file) you'd use the following:
(and make sure that your copy of procmail is in a place
where sendmail can find it -- either using symlinks or
by adding:
Then you don't have to muss with .forward files at all.
'sendmail' will hand all local mail to procmail which will
look for a .procmailrc file.
Another question to as is whether you want to use your
ppp.sh has a login shell at all. If you want people to
login in and be given an automatic PPP connection I'd look
at some of the cool features of mgetty (which I haven't
used yet -- but seen in the docs).
These allow you to define certain patterns that will be
caught by 'mgetty' when it prompts for a login name --
so that something like Pusername will call .../ppplogin
while Uusername will login with with 'uucico' etc.
If you want to limit your customers solely to ppp services
and POP (with procmail) then you've probably can't do it in
any truly secure or reasonably way. Since the .procmailrc
can call on arbitrary external programs -- the user with a
valid password and account can access other services on the
system. Also the ftp protocol can be subverted to provide
arbitrary interactive access -- unless it is run in a
'chroot' environment -- one which would make the processing
of updating the user's .procmailrc and any other .forward or
configuration files a hassle.
It can be done -- but it ultimately is more of a hassle than
it's worth. So if you want to securely limit your customers'
from access to interactive services and arbitrary commands
you'll want to look at a more detailed plan than I could
write up here.
--
Jim
From: Mike West, mwest@netpath.net Hi Jim,
This may seem like a silly question, but I've been unable to find any
HOW-TOs or suggestions on how to do it right. My question is, how should
I purge my /var/log/messages file? I know this file continues to grow.
What would be the recommended way to purge it each month? Also, are
there any other log files that are growing that I might need to know
about? Thanks in advance Jim.
I'm sorry to have dropped the ball on your message.
Usually when I don't answer a LG question right away
it's because I have to go do some research. In this case
it was that I knew exactly what I wanted to say -- which would be
"read my 'Log Management' article in the next issue of LG"
However haven't finished the article yet. I have finished
the code.
Basically the quick answer is:
The HUP signal being send to the syslogd process is to
tell it to close and re-open its files. This is necessary
because of the way that Unix handles open files.
"unlinking" a file (removing the directory entry for it)
is only a small part of actually removing it. Remember that
real information about a file (size, location on the device,
ownership, permissions, and all three date/time stamps for
access, creation, and modification) is stored in the
"inode." This is a unique, system maintained data structure.
One of the fields in the inode is a "reference" or "link"
count. If the name that you supplied to 'rm' was the only
"hard link" to the file than the reference count reaches
zero. So the filesystem driver will clear the inode and
return all the blocks that were assigned to that file to the
"free list" -- IF THE FILE WASN'T OPEN BY ANY PROCESS!
If there is any open file descriptor for the file -- then
the file is maintained -- with no links (no name). This
is because it could be critically bad to remove a file out
from under a process with no warning.
So, many daemons interrupt a "Hang-up" signal (sent via
the command 'kill -HUP') as a hint that they should
"reinitialize in some way. That usually means that they
close all files, re-read any configuration or options files
and re-open any files that they need for their work.
You can also do a
I don't really know why this doesn't get the syslog
confused -- since it's offset into the file is all
wrong. Probably this generates a "holey" file -- which
is a topic for some other day.
Another quick answer is:
Use the 'logrotate' program from Red Hat.
(That comes with their 4.1 distribution -- and
is probably freely usable if you just want to
fetch the RPM from their web site. If you don't
use a distribution that support RPM's you can
get converters that translate .rpm files into
tar or cpio files. You can also just use
Midnight Commander to navigate through an RPM
file just like it was a tar file or a directory).
The long answer looks a little more like:
That should be fairly self explanatory except for the
part at the end with the (....) | sendmail ....
stuff. The parenthese here group the output from all
of those commands into the pipe for sendmail -- so the
provide a whole message for sendmail. (Otherwise
only the last echo would go to sendmail and the
rest would try to go to the tty of the process that ran
this -- which (when cron runs the job) will generate a
different -- much uglier -- piece of mail.
Now there is one line in the sendmail group that bears
further explanation:
/root/bin/filter.log /root/lib/messages.filter OLD/messages.$TODAY
This is a script (filter.log) that I wrote -- it
takes a data file (messages.filter) that I have created
in little parts over several weeks and still have to
update occasionally.
Here's the filter.log script:
That's about eight lines of gawk code.
I hope the comments are clear enough. All this
does is reads one file full of pattern, and then
use that set of patterns as a filter for all of the
rest of the files that are fed through it.
Here's an excerpt from my ~root/lib/messages.filter
file:
Basically those first seventeen characters on each
line match any date/time stamp -- the antares
obviously matches my host name and the rest of each
line matches items that might appear in my messages
file that I don't care about.
I use alot of services on this machine. My filter
file is only about 100 lines long. This scheme trims
my messages file (several thousand lines per day)
down to about 20 or 30 lines of "different" stuff
per day.
Everyone once in awhile I see a new pattern that
I add to the patterns list.
This isn't an ideal solution. It is unreasonable to
expect of most new Linux users (who shouldn't "have to"
learn this much about regular expressions to winnow
the chaff from their messages file. However it is
elegant (very few lines of code -- easy to understand
exactly what's happening).
I thought about using something like swatch or some other
log management package -- but my concern was that these are
looking for "interesting things" and throwing the rest
away. Mine looks for "boring things" and whatever is
left is what I see. To me anything that is "unexpected"
is interesting (in my messages file) -- so I have to use a
fundamentally different approach.
I look at these messages files as a professional sysadmin.
They may warn me about problems before my users notice them.
(incidentally you can create a larger messages file that
handles messages for many hosts -- if you are using
remote syslogging for example).
Most home users can just delete these files with abandon.
They are handy diagnostics -- so I'd keep at least a few
days worth of them around.
--
Jim
From: William Macdonald will@merchant.clara.net Hi,
I was reading one of the British weekly computing papers this week and
there was an article about a shoot out between Intranetware and NT.
This was to take place on 20th May in the Guggenhiem museum in NYC.
Intranetware sounds interesting. Sadly I think it may be
too little, too late in the corporate world. However, if
Novell picks the right pricing strategy and niche they may be
able to come back in from the bottom.
I won't talk about NT -- except when someone is paying me
for the discomfort.
The task was to have a system offering an SQL server that could process
1 billion transasctions in a day. This was supposed to be 10 time what
Visa requires and 4 time what a corporation like American Airlines. It
was all about proving that these OSs could work reliably in a mission
critical environment.
If I wanted to do a billion SQL transactions a day I'd probably
look at a Sun Starfire running Solaris. The Sun Starfire
has 64 SPARC (UltraSPARC's??) running in parallel.
Having a face off between NT and Netware (or "Intra" Netware
as they've labelled their new release) in this category is
really ignoring the "real" contenders in the field of SQL.
Last I heard the world record for the largest database system
was owned by Walmart and ran on Tandem mini-computers. However
that was several years ago.
I haven't seen the follow up article yet so I can't say what the result
was. The paper was saying it was going to be a massive comp with both
the boss' there etc.
Sounds like typical hype to me. Pick one or two companies
that you think are close to you and pretend that your small
group comprises the whole market.
How would linux fair in a comp like this ?? The hardware resources were
virtually unlimited. I think the NT box was a compaq 5000 (proliant
??). Quad processors, 2 GB RAM, etc.
The OS really doesn't have to much to do with the SQL
performance. The main job of the OS in running an SQL
engine is to provide system and file services as fast as
possible and stay the heck out of the way the real work.
The other issue is that the hardware makes a big difference.
So a clever engineer could make a DOG of a OS still look
like a charging stallion -- by stacking the hardware in
his favor.
If it was me -- I'd think about putting in a few
large (9 Gig) "silicon disks." A silicon disk is really
a bunch of RAM that's plugged into a special controller
that makes it emulate a conventional IDE or SCSI hard
drive. If you're Microsoft or Novell and you're serious
about winning this (and other similar) face offs -- the
half a million bucks you spend on the "silicon disks"
may pay for itself in one showing.
In answer to your question -- Linux, by itself, can't
compete in this show -- it needs an SQL server. Postgres
'95 is, from what I've seen and heard, much too lightweight
to go up against MS SQL Server -- and probably no match for
whatever Novell is using. mSQL is also pretty lightweight.
Mind you P'gres '95 and mSQL are more than adequate for
most businesses -- and have to offer a price performance
ratio that's unbeatable (even after figuring in "hidden"
and "cost of ownership" factors). I'm not sure if Beagle
is stable enough to even run.
So we have to ask: That's all that are listed in the Commercial-HOWTO
However -- here's a few more:
Sadly the "big three" (Informix, Oracle, and Sybase)
list nothing about Linux on their sites. I suspect they
still consider themselves to be "too good" for us -- and
they are undoubtedly tangled in deep licensing aggreements
with SCO, Sun, HP, and other big money institutions. So
they probably view us as a "lesser threat" -- (compared
to the 800 lb gorilla in Redmond). Nonetheless -- it doesn't
look like they are willing to talk about Linux on their
web pages.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to lament the
poor organization and layout of these three sites. These
are the large database software companies in the world --
and they can create a simple, INFORMATIVE web site. Too
much "hype" and not enough "text."
(My father joked: "Oh! you meant 'hypertext' -- I thought
it was 'hype or text'" -- Obviously too many companies
hear it the same way and choose the first option of a
mutually exclusive pair).
--
Jim
From: Alex Pikus of WEBeXpress alex@webexpress.net
I have a DEC XLT-366 with NTS4.0 and I would like to add Linux to it. I
have been running Linux on an i386 for a while.
I have created 3 floppies:
I have upgrade AlphaBIOS to v5.24 (latest from DEC) and added a Linux
boot option that points to a:\
You have me at a severe disadvantage. I'll be running
Linux on an Alpha based system for the first time next
week.
So I'll have to try answering this blind.
When I load MILO I get the "MILO>" prompt without any problem. When I
do "show" or "boot ..." at the MILO>" I get the following result ...
SCSI controller gets identified as NCR810 on IRQ 28 ... test1 runs and
gets stuck "due to a lost interrupt" and the system hangs ...
In WinNTS4.0 the NCR810 appears on IRQ 29.
My first instinct is the ask if the autoprobe code in
Linux (Alpha) is broken. Can you use a set of command-line
(MILO) parameters to tell pass information about your
SCSI controller to your kernel? You could also see about
getting someone else with an Alpha based system to compile
a kernel for you -- and make sure that it has values in
it's scsi.h file that are appropriate to your system -- as
well as insuring that the corrective drivers are built in.
How can make further progress here?
It's a tough question. Another thing I'd look at
is to see if the Alpha system allows booting from a
CD-ROM. Then I'd check out Red Hat's (or Craftworks')
Linux for Alpha CD's -- asking each of them if they
support this sort of boot.
(I happened to discover that the Red Hat Linux 4.1 (Intel)
CD-ROM was bootable when I was working with one system that
had an Adaptec 2940 controller where that was set as an
option. This feature is also quite common on other Unix
platforms such as SPARC and PA-RISC systems -- so it is
a rather late addition to the PC world).
--
Jim
From: Stuby Bernd, eacj1049@inuers17.inue.uni-stuttgart.de
Hello there,
First I have to metion that my Soundcard (MAD16 Pro from Shuttle
Sound System with an OPTi 82C929 chipset) works right under Windows.
I tried to get my Soundcard configured under Linux 2.0.25.with the same
Parameters as under Windows but as I was booting the new compiled Kernel
the Soundcard whistled and caused terrible noise. The same happened
as I compiled the driver as a module and installed it in the kernel.
In the 'README.cards' file the problem coming up just with this
Soundcard is mentioned (something like line 3 mixer channel).
I don't know what to do with this information and how to change the
sounddriver to getting it working right.
May be there's somebody who knows how to solve this problem or where
I can find more information.
With best regards
Bernd
Sigh. I've never used a sound card in my machine.
I have a couple of them floating around -- and will
eventually do that -- but for now I'll just have to
depend on "the basics"
Did you check the
Hardware-HOWTO?
I see the MAD16 and this chipset listed there. That's
encouraging.
How about the
Soundcard-HOWTO?
Unfortunately this has no obvious reference to your
problem. I'd suggest browsing through it in detail.
Is your card a PnP (plug and "pray")? I see notes
about that being a potential source of problems.
I also noticed a question about "noise" being "picked
up" by the sound card Did you double check for IRQ and DMA conflicts?
The thing I hate about PC sound cards is that most of them
use IRQ's and DMA channels. Under DOS/Windows you used to be
able to be fairly sloppy about IRQ's. When your IRQ conflicts
caused conflicts the symptoms (like system lockups) tend to
get lost in the noise of other problems (like system lockups
and mysterious intermittent failures). Under Linux these
problems usually rear their ugly heads and have nowhere to
hide.
Have you contacted the
manufacturer
of the card?
I see a Windows '95 driver. No technical notes on
their sound cards -- and no mention of anything other
than Windows on their web site (that I could find).
That would appear to typify the "we only do Windows"
attitude of so many PC peripherals manufacturers.
I've blind copied their support staff on this -- so
they have the option to respond.
If this is a new purchase -- and you can't resolve the
issue any other way -- I'd work with your retailer or
the manufacturer to get a refund or exchange this with
hardware that meets your needs.
An interesting side note. While searching through
Alta
Vista on
Yahoo!
I found a page that described itself as
The Linux Ultra Sound
Project.
Perhaps that will help you choose your next PC sound system
(if it comes to that).
--
Jim
From: Larry Snyder, larrys@lexis-nexis.com
Just re-read your excellent article on procmail in the May LJ.
(And yes, I've read both man pages :-). What I want to try is:
This should be a MUCH cheaper (in cpu cycles) way of implementing a spam
filter than reading the header then going through all the possible domains
that might be applicable. Most of the headers are forged in your
average spam anyway....
Not my idea, but it sounds good to me. What do you think, and how would
I code a body scan in the rc?
I think it's a terrible idea.
The code would be simple -- but the patterns you suggest
are not very specific.
Here's the syntax (tested):
... note the capital "B" specifies that the recipe
applies to the "Body" of the message -- the line
that starts with an asterisk is the only conditional
(pattern) the parentheses enclose/group the regular
expression (regex) around the "pipe" character. The
pipe character means "or" in egrep regex syntax. Thus
(foo|bar) means "'foo' or 'bar'"
The square brackets are a special character in regexes
(where they enclose "classes" of characters). Since
you appeared to want to match the literal characters
-- i.e. you wanted your phrases to be enclosed in
square brackets -- I've had to "escape" them in my
pattern -- so they are treated literally and not taken
as delimiters.
The * (asterisk) character in the regex means
"zero or more of the preceding element" and the . (dot or
period) means "any single character" -- so the
pair of them taken together means "any optional characters"
If you use a pattern line like:
... it can match fool fooool and fooooolk and even fol but
not forl or foorl. The egrep man page is a pre-requisite to
any meaningful procmail work. Also O'Reilly has an entire
book (albeit a small one) on regular expressions.
The gist of what I'm trying to convey is that .* is needed
in regex'es -- even though you might use just * in shell
or DOS "globbing" (the way that a shell matches filenames
to "wildcards" is called "globbing" -- and generally does
NOT use regular expressions -- despite some similarities
in the meta characters used by each).
Not also that the * token at the beginning of this line
is a procmail thing. It just identifies this as being
a "condition" line. Lines in procmail recipes usually start
with a token like a : (colon), a * (asterisk), a | (pipe) or
a ! (bang or exclammation point) -- any that don't
may consist of a folder name (either a file or a directory)
or a shell variable assignment (which are the lines with
= (equal signs) somewhere on them.
In other words the * (star) at the begining of that line
is NOT part of the expression -- it's a token that tells
the procmail processor that the rest of the line is a regex.
Personally I found that confusing when I first started with
procmail.
Back to your original question:
I'm very hesitant to blindly throw mail away.
I'd consider filing spam in a special folder which is
only review in a cursory fashion. That would go something
like this:
Note that I've added a trailing : (colon) to the start
of the recipe. This whole :x FLAGS business is a throwback
to an early procmail which required each recipe to specify
the number of patterns that followed the start of a recipe.
Later :0 came to mean "I didn't count them -- look at the
first character of each line for a token." This means that
procmail will can forward through the patterns and -- when
one matches -- it will execute ONE command line at the end
of the recipe (variable assignments don't count).
I'm sure none of that made any sense. So :0 starts a
recipe, the subsequent * ... lines provide a list of patterns,
and each recipe ends with a folder name, a pipe, or a
forward (a ! -- bang thingee). The : at the *END* of the :0 B
line is a signal that this recipe should use locking -- so that
to pieces of spam don't end up interlaced (smashed together)
in your "prob.spam" mail folder. I usually use MH folders
(which are directories in which each message takes up a single
file -- with a number for a filename). That doesn't require
locking -- you'd specify it with a folder like:
... (notice the "/." (slash, dot) characters at the end of this).
Also note that folder names don't use a path. procmail
defaults to using Mail (like elm and pine). You can set
the MAILDIR variable to over-ride that -- mine is set to
$HOME/mh. To write to /dev/null (where you should NOT
attempt to lock the file!) you must use a full path
(I suppose you could make a symlink named "null" in your
MAILDIR or ev
0000000 46 69 6c 65 6e 61 6d 65 0000000 F i l e n a m e
0000008 3a 20 2f 6a 6f 65 2f 62 0000008 : / j o e / b
0000010 6f 6f 6b 73 2f 52 45 41 0000010 o o k s / R E A
0000018 44 4d 45 0a 0a 62 6f 6f 0000018 D M E . . b o o
0000020 6b 2e 74 6f 2e 62 69 62 0000020 k . t o . b i b
0000028 6c 69 6f 66 69 6e 64 2e 0000028 l i o f i n d .
0000030 70 65 72 6c 20 69 73 20 0000030 p e r l i s
The 0000000 is the hexadecimal address of the dump
46 is the hexadecimal value at 0000000
69 is the hexadecimal value at 0000001
6c is the hexadecimal value at 0000002
...and so on.
hexdump -f /joe/scripts/hexdump.dashx.format $1 > /tmp1.tmp
hexdump -f /joe/scripts/hexdump.perusal.format $1 > /tmp2.tmp
gawk -f /joe/scripts/combine /tmp1.tmp > /tmp3.tmp
less /tmp3.tmp
rm /tmp1.tmp
rm /tmp2.tmp
rm /tmp3.tmp
Here is the file combine:
# this is /joe/scripts/combine -- it is invoked by /joe/scripts/jhex
{ getline < "/tmp1.tmp"
printf("%s ",$0)
getline < "/tmp2.tmp"
print
}
Here is the file hexdump.dashx.format:
"%07.7_ax " 8/1 "%02x " "\n"
Here is the file hexdump.perusal.format:
"%07.7_ax " 8/1 "%_p " "\n"
0000820 75 65 6e 63 65 20 61 66 0000820 u e n c e a f
0000828 74 65 72 20 74 68 65 20 0000828 t e r t h e
0000830 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 0000830 .
0000838 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 0000838
* *
0000868 20 20 20 20 20 6c 61 73 0000868 l a s
0000870 74 20 72 65 63 6f 72 64 0000870 t r e c o r d
* * .
A Fast and Simple Printing Tip
From: Tim Bessell tbessell@buffnet.net
Tim Bessell
Grepping Files in a Directory Tree
From: Earl Mitchell earlm@Terayon.COM
grep foo `find . -name \*.c -print`
ViRGE Chipset
From: Peter Amstutz amstpi@freenet.tlh.fl.us
Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 21:02:10 +0200
Maintaining Multiple X Sessions
From: David Kastrup dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
startx -- :1
will work, however (if screen 0 is already taken). Start another one
with
startx -- :2
if you want. You want that to have hicolor, and your Xserver would
support it?
startx -- -bpp 16 :2
startx -- -bpp 16
or
startx -- -bpp 8
or whatever happens to be non-standard with you.
--
David Kastrup
Automatic File Transfer
From: Gregor Gerstmann gerstman@tfh-berlin.de
#!/bin/bash
#
date > prot
#
ftp -v $1 >> prot
#
#
date >> prot
#
...
machine ftp.ssc.com login anonymous password -gerstman@tfh-berlin.de
macdef T131
binary
prompt
cd ./pub/lg
pwd
dir . C131.2
get lg_issue17.tar.gz SSC17
macdef init
$T131
bye
...
Setting Up Newsgroups
From: "Michael J. Hammel" mjhammel@emass.com
Color Applications in X
From: Oliver Oberdorf oly@borg.harvard.edu
X With 256 Colors
From: Oliver Oberdorf oly@borg.harvard.edu
startx -- -cc 4
(I use xdm, so I don't have to do it this way)
Video Cards on the S3/ViRGE
From: Peter Amstutz amstpi@freenet.tlh.fl.us
case 0x11E0:
s3_chiptype = S3_TRIO64;
break;
becomes
case 0x11E0:
case 0x31E1:
s3_chiptype = S3_TRIO64;
break;
Replace 0x31E1 with the appropriate ID if your card returns a different code.
C Source with Line Numbers
From: joeh@sugar-river.net
jnl () {
for args
do
nl -ba $args > /tmp.tmp
done
lpr /tmp.tmp
}
jnl kdb.c
Joe Harmann
ncftp Vs. ftplib
From: Igor Markov imarkov@math.ucla.edu
Domain and Dynamic IP Names
From: Igor Markov imarkov@math.ucla.edu
netcfg Tool
From: Joseph Turian turian@idt.net
Putting Links to Your Dynamic IP
From: Nelson Tibbitt nelson@interpath.com
machine ftp.server.com login ftpusername password ftppassword
#!/bin/sh
# *** This script relies on the user having a valid local .netrc ***
# *** file permitting automated ftp logins to the web server!! ***
#
# Slightly modified version of:
# Nelson Tibbitt's insignificant bash script, 5-6-97
# nelson@interpath.com
#
# Here are variables for the customizing...
# Physical destination directory on the remote server
# (/usr/apache/htdocs/nelson/ is the httpd root directory at my virtual
domain)
REMOTE_PLANDIR="/usr/apache/htdocs/nelson/LinuX/Magnon"
# Desired destination filename
REMOTE_PLANNAME="sonny.htm"
# Destination ftp server
# Given this and the above 2 variables, a user would find my IP address
at
# http://dedicated.web.server/LinuX/Magnon/sonny.htm
REMOTE_SERVER="dedicated.web.server"
# Local (writable) temporary directory
TMPDIR="/usr/tmp"
# Title (and header) of the html file to be generated
HTMLHEAD="MAGNON"
# Existing image on remote server to place in html file..
# Of course, this variable isn't necessary, and may be commented out.
If commented out,
# you'll want to edit the html file generation below to prevent an empty
image from appearing
# in your web page.
HTMLIMAGE="/LinuX/Magnon/images/mobile_web.gif"
# Device used for ppp connection
PPP_DEV="ppp0"
# Local temporary files for the html file/ftp script generation
TFILE="myip.htm"
TSCPT="ftp.script"
# Used to determine local IP address on PPP_DEV
# There are several ways to get your IP, this was the first
command-line method I came
# up with. It works fine here. Another method, posted in May 1997
LJ (and which looks
# much cleaner) is this:
# `/sbin/ifconfig | awk 'BEGIN { pppok = 0} \
# /ppp.*/ { pppok = 1; next } \
# {if (pppok == 1 ) {pppok = 0; print} }'\
# | awk -F: '{print $2 }'| awk '{print $1 }'`
GETMYIP=$(/sbin/ifconfig | grep -A 4 $PPP_DEV \
| awk '/inet/ { print $2 } ' | sed -e s/addr://)
# Used to place date/time of last connection in the page
FORMATTED_DATE=$(date '+%B %-d, %I:%M %p')
#
#
# Now, do it! First give PPP_DEV time to settle down...
sleep 5
echo "Current IP: $GETMYIP"
# Generate the html file...
# Edit this part to change the appearance of the web page.
rm -f $TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "Writing $REMOTE_PLANNAME"
echo >$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "<html><head><title>$HTMLHEAD</title></head><center>" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "<body bgcolor=#ffffff><font size=+3>$HTMLHEAD</font>" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
# Remove the <imgtag in the line below if you don't want an image
echo "<p><img src='$HTMLIMAGE' alt='image'<p>The last " >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "time I connected was <b>$FORMATTED_DATE</b>, when the " >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "Net Gods dealt <b>$GETMYIP</bto Magnon. <p><a href=" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "http://$GETMYIP target=_top>http://$GETMYIP</a><p>" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "<a href=ftp://$GETMYIP target=_top>ftp://$GETMYIP" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "<p><a href=telnet://$GETMYIP>telnet://$GETMYIP</a><br>" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
echo "(Telnet must be properly configured in your browser.)" >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
# Append a notice about the links..
echo "<p>The above links will only work while I'm connected." >>
$TMPDIR/$TFILE
# Create an ftp script to upload the html file
echo "put $TMPDIR/$TFILE" $REMOTE_PLANDIR/$REMOTE_PLANNAME >
$TMPDIR/$TSCPT
echo "quit" >$TMPDIR/$TSCPT
# Run ftp using the above-generated ftp script (requires valid .netrc
file for ftp login to work)
echo "Uploading $REMOTE_PLANNAME to $REMOTE_SERVER..."
ftp $REMOTE_SERVER > $TMPDIR/$TSCPT &/dev/null
# The unset statements are probably unnecessary, but make for a clean
'look and feel'
echo -n "Cleaning up... "
rm -f $TMPDIR/$TFILE ; rm -f $TMPDIR/$TSCPT
unset HTMLHEAD HTMLIMAGE REMOTE_SERVER REMOTE_PLANDIR REMOTE_PLANNAME
unset GETMYIP FORMATTED_DATE PPP_DEV TMPDIR TFILE TSCPT
echo "Done."
exit
Hard Disk Duplication
From: Michael Jablecki mcablec@ucsd.edu
Untar and Unzip
This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Contents:
News in General
Atlanta Linux Showcase
Linux Speakers Bureau
The Linux System Administrator's Guide (SAG)
http://www.iki.fi/liw/linux/sag
Free CORBA 2 ORB For C++ Available
The Wurd Project
Linus in Wonderland
http://www.metroactive.com/metro/cover/linux-9719.html
Software Announcements
BlackMail 0.24
CDE--Common Desktop Environment for Linux
TCFS 2.0.1
Qddb 1.43p1
Golgotha
ImageMagick-3.8.5-elf.tgz
Slackware 3.2 on CD-ROM
mtools
http://www.club.innet.lu/~year3160/mtools
ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu
or look at:
http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/order/ftp.html
CM3
http://www.cmass.com
Extracts exactly what you want from your news feed. Cuts down
on "noise". Sophisticated search algorithms paired with
numerous filters cut out messages with ALL CAPS, too many $ signs,
threads which won't die, wild cross posts and endless discussions
why a Mac is superior to a Chicken, and why it isn't.
newsBot is at:
http://www.dsb.com/mkt/newsbot.html
Provides itendical functionality but reads mailing lists and e-zines
instead of news groups. Both are aimed at responsible Marketers
and Information managers. The *do not* extract email addresses and
cannot be mis-used for bulk mailings.
mailBot is at:
http://www.dsb.com/mkt/mail.bot.html
A search engine running on your web server and using the very same
search technology: a very fast implementation of Boyer Moore.
siteSee differs from other search engines in that it does not require
creation and maintenance of large index files. It also becomes
an integrated part of your site design. You have full control over
page layout.
siteSee is located at:
http://www.dsb.com/publish/seitesee.html
linkCheck
A hypertext link checker, used to keep your site up to date. Its
client-server implementation allows you to virtually saturate
your comms link without overloading your server. LinkCheck is fast
at reading and parsing HTML files and builds even large deduplicated
lists of 10,000 or more cross links faster than interpreted languages
take to load.
linkCheck is at:
http://www.dsb.com/maintain/linkckeck.html
ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/mik/red
Also, take a look at the web site at:
http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~mik/red-manual/red-main-page.html
Emacspeak-97++
http://cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/emacspeak
ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/raman/emacspeak
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
The Answer Guy
By James T. Dennis,
jimd@starshine.org
Starshine Technical Services,
http://www.starshine.org/ Contents:
Tcl/tlk Dependencies
libtcl7.5.so is needed by some-app
libtk4.1.so is needed by some-app
(where some-app is python, expect, blt, ical, tclx, tix, tk, tkstep,...)
Networking Problems
Fetchmail
divert(-1)
include(`../m4/cf.m4')
VERSIONID(`@(#)antares.uucp.mc .9 (JTD) 8/11/95')
OSTYPE(`linux')
FEATURE(nodns)
FEATURE(nocanonify)
FEATURE(local_procmail)
FEATURE(allmasquerade)
FEATURE(always_add_domain)
FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)
MAILER(local)
MAILER(smtp)
MASQUERADE_AS(starshine.org)
define(`RELAY_HOST', a2i)
define(`SMART_HOST', a2i)
define(`PSEUDONYMS', starshine|antares|antares.starshine.org|starshine.org)
Procmail
|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75 #justin
FEATURE(local_procmail)
define(`PROCMAIL_PATH', /usr/local/your/path/to/procmail);
/var/log/messages
rm /var/log/messages
kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/syslog.pid)
(on systems that are configured to conform to the FSSTND
and putting a syslog.pid file in /var/run).
cp /dev/null /var/log/messages
.. and you get away without doing the 'kill -HUP'.
#! /bin/bash
## jtd: Rotate logs
## This is intended to run as a cron job, once per day
## it renames a variety of log files and then prunes the
## oldest.
cd /var/log
TODAY=$(date +%Y%m%d) # YYYYMMDD convenient for sorting
function rotate {
cp $1 OLD/${1}.$TODAY
cp /dev/null $1
}
rotate maillog
rotate messages
rotate secure
rotate spooler
rotate cron
( echo -n "Subject: Filtered Logs for: " ; date "+%a %m/%d/%Y"
echo; echo; echo;
echo "Messages:"
/root/bin/filter.log /root/lib/messages.filter OLD/messages.$TODAY
echo; echo; echo "Cron:"
/root/bin/filter.log /root/lib/cron.filter OLD/cron.$TODAY
echo; echo; echo "--"; echo "Your Log Messaging System"
echo; echo; echo ) | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oe root
## End of rotate.logs
#! /usr/bin/gawk -f
# filter.log
# by James T. Dennis
# syntax filter.log patternfile datafile [datafile2 .....]
# purpose -- trim patterns, listed in the first filename
# from a series of data files (such as /var/adm/messages)
# the patterns in the patternfile should take the form
# of undelimited (no '/foo/' slashes and no "foo" quotes)
# Note: you must use a '-' as the data file parameter if
# if you to process stdin (use this as a filter in a pipe
# otherwise this script will not see any input from it!
ARGIND == 1 {
# ugly hack.
# allows first parameter to be specially used as the
# pattern file and all others to be used as data to
# be filtered; avoids need to use
# gawk -v patterns=$filename .... syntax.
if ( $0 ~/^[ \t]*$/ ) { next } # skip blank lines
# also skip lines that start with hash
# to allow comments in the patterns file.
if ( $0 !~ /^\#/ ) { killpat[++i]=$0 }}
ARGIND > 1 {
for( i in killpat ) {
if($0 ~ killpat[i]) { next }}}
ARGIND > 1 {
print FNR ": " $0 }
... ..? ..:..:.. antares ftpd\[[0-9]+\]: FTP session closed
... ..? ..:..:.. antares getty\[[0-9]+\]: exiting on TERM signal
... ..? ..:..:.. antares innd: .*
... ..? ..:..:.. antares kernel:[ \t]*
... ..? ..:..:.. antares kernel: Type: .*
OS Showdown
Subject: OS showdown
What other SQL packages are available for Linux?
Pulling out my trusty _Linux_Journal_1997_Buyers's_Guide_
(and doing a Yahoo! search) I see:
Adding Linux to a DEC XLT-366
Configuration Problems of a Soundcard
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO-6.html#ss6.23
That might not match your probelm but it's worth looking at.
Procmail Idea and Question
[*emov* *nstruction*]
or remove@*
:0 B
* (\[.*remove.*instruction.*\]|\[.*remove@.*\])
/dev/null
* foo*l
:0 B:
* (\[.*remove.*instruction.*\]|\[.*remove@.*\])
prob.spam
:0
* ^TO.*tag
linux.gazette/.