From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 12:14:23 EST Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #181 Linux-Admin Digest #181, Volume #1 Mon, 22 Nov 93 12:14:23 EST Contents: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time (Zhuo Er Lin) Re: "Talk" problems on 0.99.13 and > (uri@watson.ibm.com) Re: Determine Passwords (sjh@unixuser.chi.il.us) Re: Linux on a Gateway P5-60 (Thomas Brown) Re: Watcher... (Tom Webster) Re: Watcher... (Mr. Bassman) Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time (Stephen Russell Warren) Re: Berkeley Fast Filesystem (Joachim Hoenig) Latest TeX? (Phil Perucci) Re: How to reach network? (Kai Petzke) Re: Quickie security script? (Fergus Henderson) Any LINUX installations in real life environments? (Michael Luebbeke) Re: GIF compression (was: Getting Net Stats) (Kai Petzke) Re: Latest TeX? (Kai Petzke) Watcher... (Kenneth Walsh) Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time File System Corruption Lessons Learned (long) (Andrew J. Piziali) Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time (Mika Ilmaranta) Re: /dev/mouse: Device or resource busy ... help! (Ralf G. R. Bergs) Re: /dev/mouse: Device or resource busy ... help! (Ralf G. R. Bergs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: umlin000@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Zhuo Er Lin) Subject: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 00:20:16 GMT I just reinstall slackware 1.1 from scratch. But now it fsck checks the file system every boot time. Although I reboot by 'sync;reboot'. How to solve it? -- ======================================================================== | Eric Lin Voice: (204) 783-2884 | | Computer Engineering FAX Modem: (204) 783-2884 | | University of Manitoba Internet: Umlin000@cc.Umanitoba.CA | ------------------------------ From: uri@watson.ibm.com Subject: Re: "Talk" problems on 0.99.13 and > Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 00:42:34 GMT Reply-To: uri@watson.ibm.com From article <2coedt$6m9@cegt201.bradley.edu>, by magnus@cegt201.bradley.edu (Mohan Kokal): > I cured the problem :). Well, not quite (:-). > The 0.99.13 kernel has a signal.h that doesnt quite support SIG_DFL > (its supposed to be a bug, as per the man pages). > So, what i did was, i downloaded a copy of talk from sunsite.unc.edu > (ie the source code), and then added the line -D__USE_BSD_SIGNAL in > the Makefile's CFLAGS line. > And, now.... voila..it works! ;) > PS: if you still notice any bugs lemme know.. so that i can look into > these and see what to do...:P "talk" seems to work (yeah, right :-), but "ytalk" doesn't! Ytalk complains that /home/who/src/talkd # ytalk root@angmar Cannot read from YTalk daemon!: Connection refused Any help, please? Thanks! -- Regards, Uri. uri@watson.ibm.com scifi!angmar!uri ============ ------------------------------ From: sjh@unixuser.chi.il.us Subject: Re: Determine Passwords Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 03:47:16 GMT In <2cmtn0$80s@apollo.west.oic.com> news@apollo.west.oic.com (INN NEWS) writes: >In article <2cm8i0$b0p@cs1.bradley.edu> mojo@cs1.bradley.edu (Tony Bailey) writes: >:I have a user on my linux system that lost his password. How as root can >:I find out what his pw is w/out changing it? Is there a util to do this? >: >:-- >: /\ >: Tony Bailey / \ mojo@cs1.bradley.edu > No, as root you should simply set a new password for your user, tell it > to him, and let him pick another one for himself. > -Matt Or, more to the point, it needs to be pointed out that the encryption is essentially one way - there isn't any way to find out what the passsword was once it has been encryted (short of brute force methods). All the OS does is to encrypt your password when you log in and see if the encrypted words match. So yes, you have to reset the users password. ------------------------------ From: twb0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Thomas Brown) Subject: Re: Linux on a Gateway P5-60 Date: 22 Nov 93 03:05:12 GMT Christopher Lindley (clindley@axion.bt.co.uk) wrote: : I don't think this machine was on sale the last time an Hardware : Compatibility list came by, so, can anybody tell me if they have : had any experience of trying to get Linux to compile/run on the : Gateway 2000, P5-60 (Pentium with PCI-bus) I'm not sure about the P5, but the 486-66E (EISA 66 MHz) system wouldn't support Novell UNIXware or Linux; UNIXware went into panic on the first install disk, and Linux barely started to install. Gateway claimed it was probably a BIOS problem, and Novell claimed that they had only been able to get UNIXware to run on their 33 MHz systems. -Tom -- --=-- Thomas Brown, KA2UGQ Internet: twb0@lehigh.edu ...../|_ Lehigh Univ. UC Box 855 UUCP: ..!uunet!lehigh.edu!twb0 __:o ~--// Bethlehem, PA 18015-3041 AX.25: ka2ugq@ka2ugq.nj.usa.na ~~~~~~V~~~~~~~\\ ------------------------------ From: webster@kaiwan.com (Tom Webster) Subject: Re: Watcher... Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 07:31:44 GMT Steven M. Gallo (smgallo@cs.buffalo.edu) wrote: : In article ken@symphony.mp.ucc.ie (Kenneth Walsh) writes: : > Does anyone know of a program to Watch terminals(tty's) on a linux machine? : What do you mean by 'watch' ? The program getty will watch a tty for a login : or a modem. getty_ps_2.07b is the newest release of this program. I think what Kenneth is looking for is what we used to refer to as watch on the (choke) AIX (gag) system at school (Cal Poly SLO). It was a terminal watcher, the user provided it with a list of user ID's to watch, and would be notified when the 'watched' users logged on and off the system. Was useful when trying to get a hold of other users while doing 'real work'. I don't know what mechanism was used, but I do know that the first method was scrapped due to the bandwidth it ate. Keeping track of users on a single Linux box, rather than 10 pc's running AIX should be a little easier..... Tom -- +--------------------------------+------------------------------+ | Tom Webster | "Funny, I've never seen it | | webster@kaiwan.com (home) | do THAT before...." | | webster@ssdgwy.mdc.com (work) | - Any user support person | ------------------------------ From: bassman@isoit034.bbn.hp.com (Mr. Bassman) Subject: Re: Watcher... Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 09:03:51 GMT In article , ken@symphony.mp.ucc.ie (Kenneth Walsh) writes: |> Does anyone know of a program to Watch terminals(tty's) on a linux machine? If you mean watch for login/outs on any or all terminals, then that's built into tcsh. It even will watch for specific usernames too. Mr. Bassman Platform Services (UNIX) Hewlett-Packard, Boeblingen, Germany bassman@hpbbi30.bbn.hp.com Speed kills - use Windoze.. ------------------------------ From: srw1@doc.ic.ac.uk (Stephen Russell Warren) Subject: Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time Date: 22 Nov 1993 09:29:16 -0000 I assume you are using bootutils... If so, make sure you /etc/brc file contains a line like... umount -a To make sure your root partition is unmounted (and therefore marked clean) so no fsck is required. -- ============================================================================ Stephen Warren 1st year, Software Engineering srw1@doc.ic.ac.uk Technical editor "Wizzy Wig" ------------------------------ From: hoenig@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Joachim Hoenig) Subject: Re: Berkeley Fast Filesystem Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 11:12:03 GMT joel@rac2.wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) writes: >How do the FFS and ext2 compare with respect to stability after a >crash? FFS has been omega-tested by hundred thousands of primates all around the world. If you do not take into account hardware failures or accidental deletion, I do not know anyone who has, in the last few years, lost a file from our 6 GB FFS diskspace. Sometimes, after a crash, a file makes its way into lost+found, but nobody seemed to care. Nor do I remember trashed filesystems. On ext2fs I once had a (not so) funny directory loop in lost+found. Maybe this bug has been fixed. Joachim ------------------------------ From: philp@universe.digex.net (Phil Perucci) Subject: Latest TeX? Date: 22 Nov 1993 07:04:48 -0500 What is the best TeX distribution to use for Slackware 1.1.0? The SLS distribution seems to be getting quite old now, and I can't make heads or tails out of the /pub/linux/packages/TeX distribution on tsx-11... -- ============================================================================== Phil Perucci | "All postings are my own opinion - all comments Systems Programmer | are intended for research/educational purposes" ============================================================================== ------------------------------ From: wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke) Subject: Re: How to reach network? Date: 22 Nov 1993 12:20:15 GMT In <1993Nov20.061127.6526@super.org> becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker) writes: >> >>Maxim Matveev (mmatveev@boi.hp.com) wrote: >>: I try to configure NET-2 stuff and any time then I try to >>: run route or smth other I get "SIOCADDRT: Network unreacheble". >>: I run SLS-1.03 with kernel 0.99pl13. Ethernet card - WD8003EP. >No, no, no. "Network is unreachable" is a _software_routing_message, and has >little to do with the hardware. You are probably missing an /etc/networks >file. When installing a small network (linux box + X terminal) for a friend, I had to do something like: /etc/route add eth0 /etc/route add default gw to make "Network is unreachable" go away. It was with a plain 99pl13 kernel, and a net-2 distribution. Under 99pl12, the following seemed to be sufficient: /etc/route add eth0 In both cases, was the network IP number, something like 220.21.22.0. -- Kai wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de Advertisement by Microsoft in a well-known German magazine: If you don't like our programmes, than make your own ones. However, they expect you to use Microsoft products for this -:) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: Quickie security script? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 11:32:25 GMT philp@universe.digex.net (Phil Perucci) writes: >Does anyone out there know a quick & dirty (or clean) way to provide >additional security beyond /etc/passwd for logins? Ideally, I would >like /etc/profile to start a task to kill the login in 30 seconds if >a "magic command" is not entered. What makes you think that this would improve security? >Any existing scripts/programs to do this would be greatly appreciated! >...or any alternative approaches >...or, just a way for a script started from /etc/profile to know the > PID or user-id of the person logging in (I can handle the rest). Probably the best way to do this is to set the shell of the users in question (or all users) to a program which does some additional checking, and then if successful invokes a real shell such as /bin/sh. -- Fergus Henderson fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU ------------------------------ From: fam-edv@zew.zew-mannheim.de (Michael Luebbeke) Subject: Any LINUX installations in real life environments? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 13:45:09 Hi LINUX Sys Admins, does anyone use LINUX in an "commercial" environment, that means on a system, that provides services in a multiuser environment for "normal" users, as well in companies as in non-commercial organisations? Or is LINUX still just an experimental system, which normal useres should better not get in touch with? I am supposed to install a small UNIX system as an INTERNET-Services machine, to hold ftp-, telnet-, gopher-servers etc.. I wonder if LINUX can do htis for me in a relative stable manner. Con anyone recommend LINUX for this. I do experiment with LINUX for about 3/4 year and I am very fond of it, but I am afraid, that real life environments are still too rough for this filigran plant. Any suggestions? or experiances? Michael Luebbeke fam-edv@zew.zew-mannheim.de <><><><><><><><><><><> ZEW Zentrum fuer Europaeische Wirtschaftsforschung Center of European Economic Research Mannheim, Germany =================================================== ------------------------------ From: wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help Subject: Re: GIF compression (was: Getting Net Stats) Date: 22 Nov 1993 14:19:40 GMT In <2ce2eg$eqe@meaddata.meaddata.com> sdw@meaddata.com (Stephen Williams) writes: >Not true, unless you turn off both V.42 and V.42bis. >Those can get you up to 1680cps or so even on compressed stuff. They >do this by compressing the start/stop bits (effectively...) by >converting async to block sync. It's smart enough not to try real >compression if it can't do better also. >I got this speed ftping over a sliplink to CA with a Zyxel on my side >and a 'compress'ed datafile. Uncompressed text should do 3.1K. >Often, as when plain Sun's are used on the other side, the other side >is limiting you to port speed (19200 for instance). Files compress'ed via compress do still contain some redundancy, so they are compressible using gzip. As far as I know, gzip compression and that done by V42bis are similiar, so don't use compress'ed files for testing your modem speed - use gzip'ped ones! But it is true, that V42 needs just 8 bits per second to transmit a character per second, while asynchronous connections need one start and one stop bit per byte, giving you 1 cps for every 10 bps :-( You never will see the 14400/8 = 1800 cps speed though due to protocol overhead. -- Kai wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de Advertisement by Microsoft in a well-known German magazine: If you don't like our programmes, than make your own ones. However, they expect you to use Microsoft products for this -:) ------------------------------ From: wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke) Subject: Re: Latest TeX? Date: 22 Nov 1993 14:23:50 GMT In <2cq9t0$9so@universe.digex.net> philp@universe.digex.net (Phil Perucci) writes: >What is the best TeX distribution to use for Slackware 1.1.0? >The SLS distribution seems to be getting quite old now, and >I can't make heads or tails out of the /pub/linux/packages/TeX >distribution on tsx-11... Well, TeX is one of the packages which finally reached majority. The author, stopped working on it, except for bug fixes. The name TeX however is copyrighted by him. You may modify the TeX source, but then, you must not distribute it under the name TeX. In other words: stay with whatever TeX distribution you get. You won't have to update, except for small pieces like xdvi, the dvi previewer, if a new major X release comes out, etc. Therefore, /pub/linux/packages/TeX is only a collection of these add-ons. -- Kai wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de Advertisement by Microsoft in a well-known German magazine: If you don't like our programmes, than make your own ones. However, they expect you to use Microsoft products for this -:) ------------------------------ From: ken@symphony.mp.ucc.ie (Kenneth Walsh) Subject: Watcher... Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 14:46:26 GMT What I'm looking for is a program that will grab all output to a users screen and display this on my screen aswell as on the users screen... If user guest logs in and I type 'watch guest' it will show me exactly what guest sees on his screen... Where could I get such a program? thanks Ken ------------------------------ From: of@myhost.subdomain.domain () Subject: Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time Date: 22 Nov 1993 15:50:55 GMT Stephen Russell Warren (srw1@doc.ic.ac.uk) wrote: : I assume you are using bootutils... : If so, make sure you /etc/brc file contains a line like... : umount -a : To make sure your root partition is unmounted (and therefore marked clean) so : no fsck is required. My /etc/brc contains the line umount -a but still the system run fsck. Why is that ? I'm currently running Slackware 1.1.0 -Oeyvind (of@nla.no) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: andy@piziali.lonestar.org (Andrew J. Piziali) Subject: File System Corruption Lessons Learned (long) Reply-To: andy@piziali.lonestar.org (Andrew J. Piziali) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 15:36:21 GMT After finally getting my Linux system back up and running after a week of unsuccessful attempts to restore the root (and only) file system, I feel obligated to share the experience with the Linux community in the hope of preventing others from going through the same experience. About a week ago I decided to upgrade my getty from getty_ps 2.0.6, distributed with SLS 1.03, to 2.0.7. After installing the new getty and verifying its proper behavior I foolishly rearranged the /etc/inittab (SysVinit variety) run levels and inadvertently spawned a getty on the same tty the X server was using. This locked up the system, preventing any keyboard or mouse input from having any effect. After waiting for about a minute for /etc/update to synchronize the disk a couple of times (I noted the HDD light flash every 30 seconds or so) I hit the RESET button. Upon reboot e2fsck was unable to completely clean the file system so I brought the system down to single user, remounted the file system read-only, and ran e2fsck a second time. It still left many errors intact. Soon it was apparent my only recourse was a full restore from a recent tar backup. This should have been a no brainer, but it wasn't. I booted the system from my maintenance disk, the SLS 1.03 a1.5 floppy, created a clean file system (mke2fs /dev/sda2 229376) on the Linux partition, mounted the fresh partition on /mnt (mount -t ext2 /dev/sda2 /mnt), and attempted to restore it (cd /mnt; tar xvfbp /dev/rmt0 4096) from the most recent QIC-250 tape (using a Wangtek 5150ES). After restoring about ten files tar displayed the message "Skipping to next file header ..." and hung. After several days of attempting to read this tape and each of my older backup tapes, during which I was able to read the tape on a Sun QIC-250 drive using Sun's tar but was not able to read even using Linux dd(1), I finally discovered the problem. The SLS 1.03 a1.5 floppy was created with the 0.99pl9 Linux kernel. The tapes were all written using 0.99pl12. After copying the 0.99pl12 kernel to the maintenance floppy I was able to read the tape but I wasn't out of the woods yet. After completing the full restore I discovered all the files which should have been owned by me (user name "andy") were owned by root. Not until I updated the maintenance disk's /etc/passwd and /etc/group files with the user names and groups created since the system was installed was I able to coax tar into restoring all files with their original user and group owners. These are the lessons learned from this whole experience: 1) don't idly tinker with your /etc/inittab unless you are completely cogniscent of the consequences, 2) don't reset or power off your system without synchronizing the disks unless absolutely necessary, 3) don't postpone upgrading your filesystem and filesystem maintenance utilities when know bugs have been fixed (the ext2 filesystem has been updated from 0.3a, which I am using, to at least 0.4 by now), 4) keep a current maintenance floppy which uses the same kernel binary (/zImage) as your hard disk, 5) keep the maintenance floppy's /etc/passwd and /etc/group files up-to-date with the hard disk, 6) read the documentation carefully (I mistakenly used the tar "-m" switch several times because I misread the info file thinking the switch preserved the original file modification times when, in fact, it does the exact opposite). Happy computing! -- Andy Piziali | ________------+------________ Andy@Piziali.lonestar.org / \ *---* ------------------------------ From: ilmis@nullnet.fi (Mika Ilmaranta) Subject: Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:42:32 GMT umlin000@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Zhuo Er Lin) writes: >I just reinstall slackware 1.1 from scratch. But now it fsck checks >the file system every boot time. Although I reboot by 'sync;reboot'. >How to solve it? I had the same trouble. It was caused by kernel/lilo not mounting the root filesystem read-only. I got rid of that with 'rdev -R /zImage 1'. >-- >======================================================================== >| Eric Lin Voice: (204) 783-2884 | >| Computer Engineering FAX Modem: (204) 783-2884 | >| University of Manitoba Internet: Umlin000@cc.Umanitoba.CA | -- ====================================================================== Mika Ilmaranta ilmis@nullnet.fi postmaster@nullnet.fi ------------------------------ From: rabe@akela.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Ralf G. R. Bergs) Subject: Re: /dev/mouse: Device or resource busy ... help! Date: 22 Nov 1993 16:13:23 GMT tom@ksr.com (Tom Varga) writes: >I've been trying to get X windows up and running when for some unknown reason, >my mouse driver seems to have gotten wedged. Trying to run startx or >test-mouse results in a complaint which looks like : >/dev/mouse: Device or resource busy Kill the /etc/selection process (and/or remove it from your rc/rc.local script). :) Ralf -- Ralf G. R. Bergs, Aachen University of Technology EE (comp. eng.) student snail: H"uckeswagener Str. 42, D-51647 Gummersbach, Fed. Rep. of Germany phone/fax: +49 2261 21968 email: rabe@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ------------------------------ From: rabe@akela.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Ralf G. R. Bergs) Subject: Re: /dev/mouse: Device or resource busy ... help! Date: 22 Nov 1993 16:16:07 GMT ylam@acs.ryerson.ca (York Lam - ACPS/F93) writes: [...] > If you have a bus-mouse and selection is running, then you will need to kill >selection first. selection won't release a bus-mouse. It does for serial >ones though. Ooops, I didn't notice that someone has already given the answer. (BTW, your answer is partly false, at least for me. I have a Logi Pilot mouse hooked to /dev/ttyS0, and selection DOES block my mouse.) Ralf -- Ralf G. R. Bergs, Aachen University of Technology EE (comp. eng.) student snail: H"uckeswagener Str. 42, D-51647 Gummersbach, Fed. Rep. of Germany phone/fax: +49 2261 21968 email: rabe@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************