From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 04:23:04 EST Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #184 Linux-Admin Digest #184, Volume #1 Wed, 24 Nov 93 04:23:04 EST Contents: Re: adjtime() for Linux? (Steve Tinney) Questions concerning Passwords. (Eric J. Schwertfeger) Re: "reset" not working (Chris Hawley) [Q]: Is /etc/group supposed to have split lines? (Mark Buckaway) Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time (Shirman Yuri) Re: How to send commands to /dev/modem or /dev/cua1 ? (David A. Schleef) Re: Linux on a Gateway P5-60 Re: XFLOW PROBLEM: HELP!!! ------SOLUTION FOUND! (Jeffrey A Stern) Howto name a network ? (Lim Chee Tuck) Shadow passwords? (Ron Watkins) Re: How to send commands to /dev/modem or /dev/cua1 ? (Philip Meidell) Re: Any LINUX installations in real life environments? (Ken Wilcox) Re: "New" directory structure... (Peter Mutsaers) Re: Any LINUX installations in real life environments? (Adrian L. E. Hungate) Re: How to reach network? (Adrian L. E. Hungate) ld.so 1.3 needed (Scott Wolfe) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sjt@enlil.museum.upenn.edu (Steve Tinney) Subject: Re: adjtime() for Linux? Date: 23 Nov 1993 20:53:37 GMT Steve Tinney (sjt@enlil.museum.upenn.edu) wrote: : I'd like to bring up nistime on my Linux box and ftp'd the source : but it requires adjtime(), which I have been unable to find : anywhere. Anyone done this already? : Steve Several people were kind enough to e-mail me and suggest that libc.4.4.4 and/or pl13s would supply adjtime(). I grabbed both, but cannot find any interface routine by that name, only the kernel internal routine sys_adjtimex. It's clear that this is set up to support adjtime, but I seem to be missing the point on the interface, unless it's really not in there yet. Any ideas? Steve, again ------------------------------ From: maniac@unlv.edu (Eric J. Schwertfeger) Subject: Questions concerning Passwords. Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 21:46:38 GMT I understand the basics of passwords, both shadow and regular, but I can't seem to solve a few minor problems. First, I only want a password on the root account. I don't need or want passwords for the regular users. How do I do this, short of eliminating shadow passwords? If I replace the appropriate binaries with non-shadow versions, what future ramifications do I need to worry about, and what binaries do I need to change? Also, I added a "shutdown" user, with UID ang GID of 0, with shutdown as it's shell, otherwise identical to the root line in passwd, but I can't log in as shutdown. What am I missing? Email please, and I'll sumarize unless I'm the only one who doesn't understand this. -- Eric J. Schwertfeger, maniac@cs.unlv.edu ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: ah654@freenet.carleton.ca (Chris Hawley) Subject: Re: "reset" not working Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 21:49:33 GMT ah654@freenet.carleton.ca (Chris Hawley) writes: > But recently I have noticed that "reset" clears the screen, > but then I am still stuck with garbage instead of letters. I Thanks to all the emailed replies, I have "reset" working fine now. For any others who might be experiencing the same problem, here are a couple of the various solutions that recently found their way into my mailbox: First, the problem is that the ^Ncharacter throws the vt100 terminal into line drawing mode... this is what happens when garbage or a binary flie zaps your "font". The ^O character brings it back to alphanumerics as usual. So what you need to do is send a ^O to the screen to fix things. This can be done in a few ways. The method I chose was to edit my /usr/bin/reset shell script, and at the end of the file, I added an "echo ^O". That's the control-char not a caret next to an O. The way one does this in "vi" (or clones) is to hit the ^V and then ^O. The control-V tells vi that the next character should be inserted into the file "verbatim", and not acted upon. You hit the ^V while you are IN the insert mode, too. So the keystrokes to make this mod are (from the beginning of a new line, in command mode): Iecho ^V^O[ESC] BTW, one of the email respondents to my post said he liked to execute this same sort of command from "more" (or less) by typing the ! command to send a command to the shell, as in !echo ^V^O . He said that this didn't clear the screen like reset does, which is true. So I also commented out the line in /usr/bin/reset that clears the screen. Thanks for that idea, too! The other way to get your chars back, if you don't want "reset" to stty all those things on your session, is to write a very simple C program that contains the line "putchar(15);". 15 is apparently the decimal code for ^O. Soaking your monitor in an HCI solution to remove deposits is NOT a good way to fix this problem! :) Thanks to all who responded! (Now all I need is someone to help me decipher the docs on setting Xconfig values) hehehe Chris -- Chris Hawley - ah654@freenet.carleton.ca - ak422@po.cwru.edu - Mr_Chris (IRC) I knew Everything when I was 19. Now I hang out with his brother, Jack Shit. =========>> Check out the NCF Linux SIG! ( GO LINUX ) <<=========== ------------------------------ From: mark@datasoft.com (Mark Buckaway) Subject: [Q]: Is /etc/group supposed to have split lines? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 03:18:17 GMT I have using the shadow password library that came with Linux. I updated it once but have no idea what the version number is. I have a UNIX question. If the /etc/group file suppose to have broken group lines? This is what I mean: group:*:user1,user2,user3,user4,....user100,\ user101,user102.... I have about 100 users or so on my system. The above has started to occur due to the way the shadow password library is written. The lines are broken as above. This is all fine and dandy, however, the shared libraries don't seem to be written to handle this in the same fashion. When the split lines occur, the group file is rendered useless and permissions become listed by ls as numbers. This causes ALL KINDS of other problems effectively not letting users on the system. For the moment, I am using the vi to join the lines back together. I would like to know if this is a bug in the shadow password library (which I can fix very easily) or a bug in the shared libraries that handle the group file. Anyone? Mark -- ============================================================================== Mark Buckaway | root@datasoft.com | DataSoft Communications DataSoft Communications | uunorth!datasoft!root | 62 Rock Fernway System Administrator | Voice: +1 416 756 4497 | Willowdale, ON M2J 4N5 ============================================================================== "UNIX and OS/2 are operating systems. Windows is a shell, and DOS is an boot virus" ============================================================================== ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Slackware: fsck always check at boot time From: yuri@silver.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il (Shirman Yuri) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:44:44 GMT In article <2cqn4v$o3g@due.uninett.no> of@myhost.subdomain.domain () writes: > 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) There are two solutions: 1) change your zImage with rdev ( with option -R, if I remember well, check your man on rdev ): rdev -R /zImage 1 2) add to your /etc/lilo/config string READ-ONLY after root= ... Run lilo again. Reboot. Reboot again ( of course with sync;reboot ); Yuri Shirman. ------------------------------ From: dschleef@bohr.physics.purdue.edu (David A. Schleef) Subject: Re: How to send commands to /dev/modem or /dev/cua1 ? Date: 23 Nov 93 18:11:22 GMT In article <1993Nov23.060642.4920@ttinews.tti.com> bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart) writes: >In article , umlin000@ccu.umanitoba.ca >(Zhuo Er Lin) writes: >> I wanted hang up the modem from the shell. But >> >> echo +++ath0 < /dev/modem > /dev/modem >> >> doesn't work. What is the right way to do it? > (good info deleted) > >SO: there are many ways to handle this, most of them ugly, and I don't >mean to suggest that the following is "the right way," but here's A way >that might work: > > sleep 1; echo +++ > /dev/modem; sleep 1; echo ATH0 > /dev/modem > pretty close... but echo sends a newline after the +++ character sequence. try this: sleep 1; printf +++ > /dev/modem; sleep 1; echo ATH0 > /dev/modem or, if echo worked correctly, which is doesn't (to the way *I'm* used to... not necessarily the way it should be...): sleep 1; echo '+++\c' > /dev/modem; sleep 1; echo ATH0 > /dev/modem dave... ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Linux on a Gateway P5-60 From: Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:25:29 EST Linux runs fine on a Gateway P5-60 (PCI) machine. Here is the hardware configuration that it runs on: Pentium CPU, 60MHz, PCI bus 1005 M SCSI HD 3.5" FD 250 M Colorado Jumbo Tape Drive Mitsumi CD-ROM AE-2 Lantastic ethernet card Have not gotten a chance to test the tape drive and CD-ROM under Linux. The network works fine. Yuqun ------------------------------ From: jstern@eclectic.ss.uci.edu (Jeffrey A Stern) Subject: Re: XFLOW PROBLEM: HELP!!! ------SOLUTION FOUND! Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,uci.linux Date: 24 Nov 93 00:21:01 GMT Hi, all! Remember my dire post on emacs swallowing up the ^S and ^Q characters when I was modemming into my school and telnetting into my Internet-connected Linux box via our school's terminal servers? I struggled with this for weeks. Well, I finally came to a solution, thanks to Charles Hedrick, who recognized this problem and went to great lengths to fix the many original coding errors which caused it. I'm including my notes on how to use his patches to recompile a new telnetd daemon so Emacs/Mg/others will work. Thanks to all those who responded, but especially those who recognized this as a legitimate bug, and not my general incompetence. Let me know your experiences. Believe me, I want to know if doing it this way does not work for you, so I can change the directions and save others time, too. My e-mail address is jstern@eclectic.ss.uci.edu. By the way, I only had this problem with CISCO terminal servers. Granted, the problem *was* with Linux, but telnetting into my Linux box from elsewhere did not create these problems. I played with the debugging reports for days, and even had some of our support staff here at UCI volunteer their time to look at it (thanks, Mike Richey! :) Since the original bugs had to do with telnet protocol negotiation and switching of flow control flags, it is highly likely that CISCO servers negotiate TELNET protocol slightly differently, and that this is what made the difference in my case. Which brings me to a lesson I picked up about human (or at least North American) behavior: This is what is called in statistics an 'interactional' problem: Linux works fine *most* of the time (which is why most of you haven't noticed this bug). The CISCO servers work fine *most* of the time, (which is why our support staff here at UCI had not heard of the problem). But when Linux and a CISCO terminal server interact, they do not successfully negotiate flow control. Interactional problems are inherently difficult to diagnose (some day I'll write a book, co-authored by Clifford Stoll: Cuckoo's Egg II). I think we as humans prefer single-cause problems. Please let me know if you had a similar experience. For reference, I was working with SLS 0.99pl12. Do all this as root, of course.. HOW TO REVIVE ^S/^Q IN EMACS/MG/ETC. WHEN TELNETTING INTO A LINUX BOX: ====================================================================== Basically, this fix involves applying the patches from Charles to the ancestral headers used to build telnetd, and then recompiling telnetd. ============ 1) Get these two distributions from tsx-11.mit.edu: a) /pub/linux/packages/net/net2/sources/telnet/telnet-552.tar.z (for the patches which fix this problem) b) /pub/linux/packages/net/new-net2/telnet-rlogin.tar.z (for telnetd source, if you do not have it in your /usr/src/net-src/telnet directory, or if, as in my case, it would not compile) Doesn't matter where you untar them, though in the end, the contents of the first ended up for me in /usr/src/net-src/telnet, and the second ended up in /usr/src/net-src/export. 2) Untar them with tar -xvf 3) Read the README file from Charles Hedrick in the export directory. Apply the patches with chr_drv.diff and termios.diff as he's said to. 3a) I'm not sure whether there are other programs (besides telnetd) which these header files (which the diff files apply to) affect, so I went ahead and recompiled my kernel, too (including the make clean command). You may have success without this step. I don't know enough about where these headers are used. 4) After applying the patches from telnet-rlogin.tar.z, then go to the telnet-552.tar.z source, and recompile telnetd (since it will be using the header files you've just patched.) I believe it expects to run from the termcap file, though I took out the -DTERMCAP flag in the Linux section of the Config.generic file, so as to run from terminfo, which I prefer. Your choice, here. (Warning, I believe telnetd will still compile if you take out this flag, but telnet will not. I didn't care. Telnet was not broken, so I didn't need a new one.) 5) cp /etc/telnetd /etc/telnetd.old 6) cp telnetd /etc/telnetd ^---the one you've just made. 7) PLAN A: Comment out your old telnet line in /etc/inetd.conf and replace with: telnet stream tcp nowait root /etc/telnetd telnetd PLAN B: (The above does, of course, bypass security lockouts via hosts.deny and hosts.allow via /usr/etc/tcpd, but I do not lock out specific machines anyway. If you wanted to keep your old tcpd format, you could probably use this line instead, but I haven't tried it: telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/etc/tcpd in.telnetd This is in fact the way that SLS is shipped, I believe. Just remember that if you keep it this way, use the in.telnetd that comes with SLS, don't use Charles': His in.telnetd *includes* telnetd in it, instead of *calling* another telnetd. This is, I believe, non-standard. Thus, if you used Charles' in.telnetd (the one from telnetd-rlogin.tar.z) what would happen is you would not end up calling the telnetd from Pete's distribution (telnet-552.tar.z) which you just compiled and copied over. I know, it's wierd, but Charles himself recommends that you not use his in.telnetd, to just apply the patches he gives you in steps 1) and 2) of the README, but to use Pete's telnetd, since it includes the newer telnetd features.) 8) ps -ax (look for the process number for inetd. Suppose you find out it's 35). 9) kill -HUP 35 (restarts inetd) 10) Log out, log back in. Should be done. -- =========================================================================== Jeff Stern "Timex Sinclair UNIX.. coming soon to a dealer near you." =========================================================================== ------------------------------ From: lim@ctuck.pl.my (Lim Chee Tuck) Subject: Howto name a network ? Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 02:50:24 GMT Hello, I was asking how to name a network like :- hello.glo.edu was the whole network which consist of a1.glo.edu, b2.glo.edu and c3.glo.edu. I wish that I could configurate so that if I finger I just type who@hello.glo.edu and it will automatically find if the user who is on a1, b2 or c3. Same applies the talk... so that people don't have to know where actually user who was (in a1, b2 or c3.) Also, I send email to who@hello.glo.edu and it will redirect it... (this can be simply solved by smail right ?) ------------------------------ From: ron@argus.lpl.Arizona.EDU (Ron Watkins) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help Subject: Shadow passwords? Date: 24 Nov 1993 01:39:35 GMT What are shadow passwords. I haven't run across them before. How do I know what in my Linux distribution is using them? Is it possible to avoid using them? I would rather have an old-fashon UNIX setup, small and simple. I don't want excess stuff in my directories. Please mail any info to ron@argus.lpl.arizona.edu. Ron -- Ron Watkins [ron@argus.lpl.arizona.edu] / /~~~~) / 931 Gould-Simpson / /____/ / University of Arizona / / / Tucson AZ. 85721 -- (602) 621-8606 (____ unar & / lanetary (____ ab. ------------------------------ From: philip@tii.com (Philip Meidell) Subject: Re: How to send commands to /dev/modem or /dev/cua1 ? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 20:20:35 GMT In article <1993Nov23.060642.4920@ttinews.tti.com> bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart) writes: >In article , umlin000@ccu.umanitoba.ca >(Zhuo Er Lin) writes: >> I wanted hang up the modem from the shell. But >> >> echo +++ath0 < /dev/modem > /dev/modem >> >> doesn't work. What is the right way to do it? > >Probably the reason this doesn't work is that you sent the "+++" and the >"ath0" with no delay in between. Hayes modems use the "+++" for an >attention signal, but part of the attention signaling mechanism is >"guard time," or silence, for some predetermined period both before and >after the "+++" (this technique of "guard time" as part of the attention >signal is patented by Hayes, I think). The length of the guard time is >often configurable by setting some S-register; consult your modem manual >if you want to fiddle with it. I think it's customarily on the order of >half a second or so--meaning, in order to kick the modem into command >mode, you'd need half a second of silence, then the "+++" sequence, then >ANOTHER half a second of silence, THEN the modem will enter command mode >and you can issue whatever command you need, like "ath0". If you send >the command before the second guard period has elapsed, the modem treats >the whole "+++ath0" sequence as ordinary data, not as an attention >sequence followed by a command. > >SO: there are many ways to handle this, most of them ugly, and I don't >mean to suggest that the following is "the right way," but here's A way >that might work: > > sleep 1; echo +++ > /dev/modem; sleep 1; echo ATH0 > /dev/modem > >Note that it's usually OK to have LONGER silence than the minimum >required guard time, which is why we can get away with sleeping for a >full second instead of only half a second. The sequence only gets >treated as ordinary data if the silent periods are too short. > >Depending on how you have your modem S-registers configured, your modem >might or might not issue an "OK" when it drops into command mode. In >that case, instead of the second "sleep 1" you might want to do >something that reads a single line of input from /dev/modem--this >ensures that you will wait the full guard time, and not proceed until >the modem acknowledges that it's in command mode. I agree with Bob throughout, but you forgot to include the -n switch when you echo +++. Without it, echo sends a \n, and you've already broken the trailing guard time. Philip Meidell philip@tii.com ------------------------------ From: wilcox@kpw104 (Ken Wilcox) Subject: Re: Any LINUX installations in real life environments? Date: 24 Nov 1993 02:00:13 GMT Michael Luebbeke (fam-edv@zew.zew-mannheim.de) wrote: : 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? I highly recommend that you do so. A few of us here at Penn State are running Linux and it is great. One individual is the "official" phish.net server for gopher, ftp, and some other services. I think the address is archive.phish.net or ftp.phish.net or gopher.phish.net. Try it. I think that you will see that it is pretty nice. -Ken Wilcox ------------------------------ From: muts@compi.hobby.nl (Peter Mutsaers) Subject: Re: "New" directory structure... Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 18:36:29 GMT >> On Sat, 20 Nov 1993 18:53:27 GMT, pjm9806@a112.usl.edu (Mejia Pablo J) said: MPJ> I believe sbin is used to store important executables that have been MPJ> statically linked. This is for emergency recovery purposes. Indeed, but for such emergency actions one might just as well have an emergency root/boot diskette. -- _______________________________________________________________ Peter Mutsaers, Bunnik (Ut), the Netherlands. ------------------------------ From: adrian@tlspu.demon.co.uk (Adrian L. E. Hungate) Subject: Re: Any LINUX installations in real life environments? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 22:38:13 GMT Michael Luebbeke (fam-edv@zew.zew-mannheim.de) wrote: > 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? Yes, aswell as the address this msg is posted from being 0.99pl13(G) I am the sysadmin of 0.99pl13 which is running as a news/mail gateway & ftp host for our MIS system at the college where I work. > 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 Not a problem, not a problem and not sure yet in that order > 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. If you require a 100% stable system for 'mission critical' application then I would advise you to go for a comercial package such as HP/UX or ULTRIX on the appropriate hardware. HOWEVER (Before you warm up your flame guns!) As I said above I run (and have for almost 12 months) linux on 2 machines, one at home and one at work and have found Linux to be stable, friendly, expandable and EASY TO ADMINISTRATE, a must when it comes to un*x clones. My other box is ULTRIX, and whilst reliable above and beyond the call of duty you need a PHd in perverse thinking to get it to do anything out of the ordinary. If you, or anyone would like any pointers then feel free to mail me at home or work:- (Work : adrian@wtcgate.demon.co.uk, Home:adrian@tlspu.demon.co.uk) Hope this helps... Adrian... -- *** adrian@tlspu.demon.co.uk *************************** * If it doesn't work then then call someone to fix it * * If it does work then look to see what you did wrong! * ******************************************************** ------------------------------ From: adrian@tlspu.demon.co.uk (Adrian L. E. Hungate) Subject: Re: How to reach network? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 22:59:58 GMT Kai Petzke (wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de) wrote: > In <1993Nov20.061127.6526@super.org> becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker) writes: > >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 I have found that under 99pl13 (Alpha).... The one with the drivers dir:-) route works o.k., but under 99pl12 patched to 13 the only way round SIOCADDRT is :- ifconfig eth0 up route add eth0 .. .. .. .. .. .. ifconfig eth0 broadcast up Hence I have changed to the Alpha release :-) P.S. Does anyone know where i can get a version of 'routed' that works? -- *** adrian@tlspu.demon.co.uk *************************** * If it doesn't work then then call someone to fix it * * If it does work then look to see what you did wrong! * ******************************************************** ------------------------------ From: scottw@eskimo.com (Scott Wolfe) Subject: ld.so 1.3 needed Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 18:09:27 GMT I need to have ld.so in order to run XFree86 2.0 (ver 1.3). Where can I get this? I am running pl13 and decieded to upgrade XFree86 this morning. Any help would be great. -Scott ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************