From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 15:19:53 EDT Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #12 Linux-Admin Digest #12, Volume #1 Sun, 22 Aug 93 15:19:53 EDT Contents: Re: How to add a new partition. (John Henders) Re: Why use shadow? (Yan Xiao) fsck and disk care questions... (Harvey J. Stein) Re: Why use shadow? (Byron A Jeff) ATI GU +, mouse is hiding (Jay Freeman) Linux HOWTO Index (Matt Welsh) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Re: How to add a new partition. Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 13:59:22 GMT danw@panix.com (Dan Wold) writes: >Also I editted manpath.config to reflect the new location of my manpages. >I'm wondering if this is the best approach. I'd like to put more stuff on >/dev/hda3. Also I don't understand the function of /etc/fstab, although I've >searched the faqs for info on it. If anyone has suggestions or comments I'll >be grateful - I'm sorta new at this. Several things. To make effective use of fstab, you need to get the utile* package and compile the mount from there. The other utilities are also handy. The mount that comes with SLS seems to be an older one that doesn't have the utility of the new one. Then fstab allows some handy options. I quote from Steven Tweedie on this. ============================================================================ Each fstab line has the fields: device directory type options freq pass and the options field recognises the noauto option. This option merely prevents 'mount -a' from mounting that filesystem. So, in my /etc/fstab I have two lines: /dev/hda1 /dos msdos noauto,gid=51,umask=002,conv=auto /dev/fd0 /mnt msdos noauto,gid=51,umask=002,conv=auto ... which means that although I don't normally have my HD dos partition mounted, I can mount it any time I want just by doing a "mount /dos". Similarly I can mount and unmount dos floppies with "[u]mount /mnt". (The other options just set up the group ownership of the dos files to a group "dos" which on my setup has gid 51, and sets up permissions so that the dos files are world-readable but only writeable by the dos group. Finally, conv=auto specifies that the dosfs should automatically decide which files to do dos-to-unix text conversion on.) ========================================================================= Strangely, the man page that comes with the utile* package makes no mention of most of the options mentioned here, but I have verified that at least the noauto option does indeed exist and work. Astute readers will notice that this allows another method of setting user permissions on mounted directories. On allocating space on multiple partitions. The method I use, which seems to be fairly common, is to use symbolic links to hang directories off the main directory tree. In your case, rather than changing man path, if you mounted the new partition on /f, then moved man/ there, then you would ln -s /f/man /usr/man. Doing a ls -l of /usr should then show man -> /f/man. This allows you to have several directories in the new /f filesytem attached to common directories under /. Unfortunately, the gnu du seems to have a problem with this. If you du a directory with another directory linked inside, du wont count the linked directory. If you use the -L flag to tell du to follow the link, du will happily proclaim the normal directories to not exist. This makes it difficult to find the total space taken up by a tree. This happens even as root, so is not permission releated. I'm still waiting (Ian) to hear if this is a du bug or a linux bug. -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ ------------------------------ From: xiao@ie.utoronto.ca (Yan Xiao) Subject: Re: Why use shadow? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 15:36:25 GMT Previous posters seem to suggest that 8 letter password can be cracked easily in reasonable time (even Apple-II appears in the arena). Can someone tell me what I have missed here? I thought dictionary check is the only way to crack password, which obviously can be dealt with with a 'good' password. Xiao Yan Xiao, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto 4 Taddle Creek Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A4 ============---------------====================-----------------========= - "What, doc? 500 bucks for putting me to sleep!?!" - "Well, it only takes 50 to do that, but it takes 450 to wake yo up" ------------------------------ Subject: fsck and disk care questions... From: hjstein@sunrise.huji.ac.il (Harvey J. Stein) Date: 22 Aug 93 15:43:38 Hi - I have some questions about fsck and proper disk care. I currently have the following setup (reported by fdisk): Disk /dev/hda: 12 heads, 55 sectors, 1010 cylinders Units = cylinders of 660 * 512 bytes Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 1 249 82142+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/hda2 250 250 950 231330 83 Linux extfs /dev/hda3 951 951 1010 19800 82 Linux swap I know that I should be running e2fsck from within /etc/rc, but I've also read that I shouldn't run the program on a mounted partition. Since the boot procedure mounts the root partition (/dev/hda2) at boot-time, how can I do this?!?!? Or is it ok to run e2fsck from within /etc/rc even though the root partition has already been mounted? Is it better to have at least 2 Linux partitions, a minimal one with the root partition and with /usr/bin /etc, ... (whatever's needed for booting) and the other with everything else? If I do this, how do I set it up cleanly? Lots of symbolic links? And if I do this, I'll have used up all my primary partitions. Can I set up new partitions as extended partitions? Are there any complications or limitations to doing this? Does it go the same way as with a primary partition? What's considered to be the best or the standard partitioning and directory allocation scheme? Also, I heard in the past that e2fsck doesn't work too well, and that it should always be run interactively, never automatically. Is this still the case? If not, when did this change? I'm running e2fsck from SLS v1.02, and I'm running kernel v .99 pl10 with NET-2. Should I get a new e2fsck, and if so, where should I get it from? Well, that's about it. Lots of questions and few answers... I'll try looking things up in some standard un*x references, but I don't think I'll find anything about extended partitions and e2fsck :). Thanks. -- Harvey Stein Department of Mathematics Hebrew University hjstein@math.huji.ac.il ------------------------------ From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) Subject: Re: Why use shadow? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 16:39:51 GMT In article , Yan Xiao wrote: >Previous posters seem to suggest that 8 letter password >can be cracked easily in reasonable time (even Apple-II >appears in the arena). Can someone tell me what >I have missed here? I thought dictionary check is >the only way to crack password, which obviously >can be dealt with with a 'good' password. What the poster said was that all 8 character passwords could be generated quickly by an Apple II. All possible passwords are not in the dictionary. You still need to encrypt the generated passwords and compare against the passwords in the password files. That's why shadow is important. If only the root can read the passwords then you must become root to get the password file. /etc/passwd must be world readable for the other info in it. Shadow moves the passwords out of /etc/passwd making it much more difficult to crack because now the cracker doesn't have the passwords to compare against. An Apple II is not the ultimate password cracking machine ;-) BAJ --- Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of... Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel! Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: freeman@eagle.sangamon.edu (Jay Freeman) Subject: ATI GU +, mouse is hiding Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 16:41:39 GMT Hello. I have *almost* got X running, but have to overcome one final snag. When I run startx (or openwin), I get the opening screen, if I click the left button, it places the xclock then another click places the bash window. As soon as I move the mouse however, the pointer hides down in the lower right corner of my screen, and won't come out. Pressing the left button shows the pop-up menu. The mouse just will not move. I would be greatly interested i hearing from anyone who has X working with their Graphics Ultra + using the ATI mouse. Mine is setup on the primary address, IRQ 5. I've checked and doublechecked and found no IRQ conflicts. I've tried setting different scan rates in Xconfig, and I've also tried different baud rates, though I don't think they really appertain to a bus mouse. BTW, /dev/mouse is symbolic linked to the logitech bus device. It's the only one that seems to work, and during bootup it says it detects a logitech bus mouse. I'll be happy to mail Xconfig to anyone who can help. Thanks a bunch, Jay -- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Jay Freeman, WT9S Packet: wt9s@w9yci.il.usa.noam + + internet: freeman@eagle.sangamon.edu + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------ From: mdw@TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.help,news.answers,comp.answers Subject: Linux HOWTO Index Date: 22 Aug 1993 15:02:48 -0400 Archive-name: linux/howto/index Last-modified: 20 August 1993 The Linux HOWTO Index Matt Welsh, ============================================================================= Last Modified 20 August 1993 This is an introduction and index to the Linux HOWTO documents. 0. What are Linux HOWTOs? Linux HOWTOs are short online documents which describe in detail a certain aspect of configuring or using the Linux system. For example, there is the Installation HOWTO, which gives instructions on installing Linux, and the Mail HOWTO, which describes how to set up and configure mail under Linux. Other examples include the NET-2-HOWTO (previously the NET-2-FAQ) and the Linux-vs-386BSD HOWTO. Information in HOWTOs is generally more detailed and in-depth than what can be squeezed into the Linux FAQ. For this reason, the Linux FAQ is being rewritten. A large amount of the information contained therein will be relegated to various HOWTO documents. The FAQ will be a shorter list of frequently asked questions about Linux, covering small specific topics. Most of the ``useful'' information in the FAQ will now be covered in the HOWTOs. HOWTOs are comprehensive docs---much like an FAQ but generally not in question-and-answer format. However, many HOWTOs contain an FAQ section at the end. For example, the NET-2-FAQ has been renamed to the NET-2-HOWTO, because it wasn't in question-and-answer format. However, you will see the NET-2-HOWTO named as the NET-2-FAQ in many places. The two docs are one and the same. 1. Where to get Linux HOWTOs HOWTOs can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from the following sites: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO tsx-112.mit.edu:/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO The Index, printed below, lists the currently available HOWTOs. HOWTOs are also posted regularly to the newsgroups comp.os.linux and comp.os.linux.announce. In addition, a number of the HOWTOs will be crossposted to news.answers. Therefore, you can find the Linux HOWTOs on the news.answers archive site rtfm.mit.edu. 2. HOWTO Index The following Linux HOWTOs are currently available. The list is small, because this is a relatively new project. * INSTALLATION HOWTO. How to obtain and install Linux. This is the first document which a Linux newcomer should read. It discusses how to obtain Linux, both from the Internet and via Snail-mail, and how to install it. Focuses primarily on the SLS distribution of Linux, which is the current de facto standard. * Linux INFO-SHEET. A general technical introduction to Linux, listing its features, supported hardware, and other general information. * Linux META-FAQ. A list of sources of information about Linux, such as documentation, newsgroups, FTP sites, and so on. * NET-2 HOWTO. Describes how to install and configure the Linux NET-2 TCP/IP code, in kernels 0.99.pl10 and above. (This has nothing to do with the so-called BSD NET-2 distribution.) Discusses various aspects of TCP/IP networking under Linux, including the use of SLIP. The complete instruction manual for TCP/IP under Linux. WANTED. I would be very happy if someone would write the following HOWTO documents, and submit them to me (see the instructions in the next section below). Most of these are modifications of existing FAQ documents, and should be easy to put into HOWTO format. Keep in mind that HOWTOs generally aren't in FAQ format, but can contain an FAQ section at the end. Some of these are under construction; however, if you're interested in working on one of them, please let me know. * GCC/LIBRARY HOWTO. Discussing installation/upgrading of the GCC and shared libraries under Linux. How to build shared libraries. Most of the material would come from Mitchum DeSouza's GCC FAQ. * NEWS HOWTO. How to set up local Cnews, NNTP, and how to set up an NNTP-based newsreader if you don't want to run a news server locally. Most of this can come from Vince's UUCP/MAIL/NEWS FAQ. * MAIL HOWTO. How to setup and configure smail, and how to install a mailer such as elm or mailx. Information can come from the UUCP/MAIL/NEWS FAQ. * UUCP HOWTO. How to setup and configure UUCP under Linux, for mail, news, and uux file transfers. Some information can come from the UUCP/MAIL/NEWS FAQ. * KERNEL HOWTO. How to upgrade and compile the kernel. Basic kernel tweaking, including how to turn on debugging output. How to decrypt panic messages. Basic introduction to kernel structure and hacking. (Under constructions, mdw@tc.cornell.edu). * PRINTING HOWTO. How to install and use printing software such as lp/lpr on your system. How to configure /etc/printcap for various types of printers. Information can come from existing Printer and LPR FAQs. (Whoever writes the printing FAQ, please get in touch with me about this.) * SCSI HOWTO. All of the ins and outs about SCSI drivers for Linux. * SERIAL HOWTO. All of the ins and outs about serial communications under Linux, including use of getty for dialins. Perhaps a section on FAX software. * X WINDOWS HOWTO. How to install and configure XFree86 under Linux. Much of this is general, not Linux-specific, but the current XFree86 documentation consists mostly READMEs which most new users don't understand. What hardware is supported, tweaking the Xconfig file, getting xdm to work, and so on. (Under construction, mdw@tc.cornell.edu). 3. Writing and submitting a HOWTO If you would like to write a Linux HOWTO document, there are a few guidelines that you should follow. * Format the document neatly. HOWTOs must be available in plain ASCII format, but you are free to use a formatting tool (texinfo, LameTeX, nroff) to format the document. Try to use meaningful structure and organization, and write clearly. Remember that many of the people reading HOWTOs do not speak English as their first language. * Make sure that all of the information is correct. I can't stress this enough. When in doubt, speculate, but make it clear that you're only guessing. * Make sure that you are covering the most recent version of the available software. Also, be sure to include full instructions on where software can be downloaded from (FTP site name, full pathname). * Include an FAQ section at the end, if appropriate. Many HOWTO documents need an "FAQ" or "Common Problems" section to cover information which can't be covered in the regular text. * Use other HOWTOs as a model. It is nice to have a common look and feel to HOWTO documents--- this document being an example. The easier the HOWTO is to browse, the more useful it will be to readers. After you have written the HOWTO, mail it to me (Matt Welsh) at mdw@tc.cornell.edu. I am the HOWTO coordinator---I will look over the HOWTO, and make any editorial remarks. I will also take care of approving and posting the HOWTO to the various newsgroups and uploading the HOWTO to the FTP archive sites. Of course, all credit for the HOWTO will go to the author. It is important that you go through me when submitting a HOWTO. I maintain the HOWTO archives and need to keep track of what HOWTOs are being written and who is doing what. If you don't submit a HOWTO to me, I can't include it in the archive or add it to the HOWTO INDEX. I can also help to reformat the HOWTO if needed to make it look nicer. :) Once I have approved the HOWTO, I will post it and upload it to the FTP sites. I will also send you (the author) the "final" version of the HOWTO with any changes. All you have to do is send me periodic updates (every month or so, as needed) and I will take care of posting the HOWTO regularly. 3. Miscellaneous and Legalese If you have questions, please feel free to mail mdw@tc.cornell.edu. The Linux FAQ rewrite is being coordinated by Ian Jackson, ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu, with help from others. Linux HOWTOs are copyrighted by their authors. You are free to distribute verbatim copies of HOWTOs in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and authorship remains intact. -- Matt Welsh, mdw@tc.cornell.edu "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is: Internet: Linux-Admin-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.admin) via: Internet: Linux-Admin@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Admin Digest ******************************