From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 13:13:36 EDT Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #70 Linux-Admin Digest #70, Volume #1 Wed, 22 Sep 93 13:13:36 EDT Contents: Re: Compiling the new Elm 2.4 (John Henders) Adding users under Slackware (Tejaswi Kasturi) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Scott Alfter) eth0 receiver overrun...please repost (or email me) the patch (Uppie) Re: 3.5 boot floppies. Not really Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing anymore (Wolfgang R. Mueller) crond output=>mail problem (rich@mulvey.com) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Byron A Jeff) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Byron A Jeff) Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root (Joachim Schnitter) Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root (Fergus James HENDERSON) Re: Problem with sysinstall (Sait Umar) Problem of ar corruption identified (Gordon Russell) Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root (Chris Seelig (2 weeks GKS maintenance from plp)) gdb and xxgdb (Bill McCune) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Re: Compiling the new Elm 2.4 Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 00:14:59 GMT ins407x@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Andrew J. Cosgriff) writes: >the one on ftp.uu.net is actually 2.4.22 I think. >(i either got mine from there or wuarchive) >the latest version of elm is just called elm-2.4.tar.Z (or something similar) > - the only mentioned of it being pl22 is if you look in one of the files >that mentions about patch levels (can't remember the exact name). >In any case, it works fine now... >What exactly went went wrong ? The one from uunet is indeed 2.4.22. What appears to go wrong is that you must change the ranlib line by using the shell escape at the end of configure, rather than editing the file when configure stops running. That's the only thing I did different when it worked, so that's my guess. Anyway, it all works fine now, so I can again use bash 1.13. As a side note, the recently released strn, the scoring version of trn compiles and runs fine with linux, using Vince's news pack 1.7 suggestions for trn 3.n. I suggest even people who aren't all that interested in the scoring features check it out, as it has a lot more online documentation than trn. -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ Segments are for Worms ------------------------------ From: kasturi@cco.caltech.edu (Tejaswi Kasturi) Subject: Adding users under Slackware Date: 22 Sep 1993 05:08:42 GMT HELP! I can't add users under slackware. I have it installed and connected to Internet okay, but I can only login as root, and I can't add users. Useradd seems to run okay, but when I try to change the passwd from the root account for the new user, or try to modify or delete it, it says 'user does not exist' or something to that effect. I'm sure I'm making some stupid mistake, but I can't find any info about it in the Install-howto or the FAQ's. I tried to install the user manually, as per the FAQ but it still didn't work. When I try to useradd the user again, without deleting its entry in passwd and shadow, it gives me that the identifier exists, but nothing else can find the user. Help extremely appreciated... Tejaswi Kastur -- Tejaswi Kasturi kasturi@cco.caltech.edu Electrical Engineering/Math Major The California Institute of Technology Happy user of OS/2 2.1b. ------------------------------ From: sknkwrks@sonny-boy.cs.unlv.edu (Scott Alfter) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: 22 Sep 1993 06:08:08 GMT In article <748617113snz@cmkrnl.demon.co.uk> gregh@cmkrnl.demon.co.uk (Greg Hennessy) writes: >What planet those thise statement come from ? I have just showed this to a >friend of mine who is a OEM/VAR and I had to pick him up off the floor >laughing, His figures state that less than one in one-hundred new machines >shipping today come with a 5.25 drive let alone come configured to boot off >one. Say what? With the possible exception of IBM, I don't think there's anybody here in the US that ships systems with only 3.5" floppy drives. In mixed-drive systems, the 5.25" drive is almost always configured as the boot drive. I have the October issue of Computer Shopper in front of me. On the cover, they show a Quantex 486DX2-66 system with dual drives; the 5.25" drive is the boot drive. This photo goes with their cover story...turn to that story (begins on page 222) and we see systems from Insight, HD Computer, and some unknown company...all are dual-drive systems with 5.25" drives mounted as boot drives (the Insight even has the 5.25" drive labeled as drive A:). Let's turn to some ads, now...we see 5.25" boot drives in systems from Ares (p. 37), Computer Sales Professional ("PC Professional") (p. 43), TC Computers (p. 50), Zeos (p. 163)...personally, I wouldn't buy a machine if it didn't have a 5.25" drive available as at least an option. _/_ Scott Alfter (sknkwrks@cs.unlv.edu) Ask me about SoftDAC--digital / v \ Call the Skunk Works BBS today! audio for your Apple IIe/IIc! (IIGS( (702) 894-9619 300-14400 V.32bis 1:209/263 Apple II, IBM, Trek, & more! \_^_/ --==## "Apple II Forever" is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. ##==-- ------------------------------ From: juphoff@uppieland.async.vt.edu (Uppie) Subject: eth0 receiver overrun...please repost (or email me) the patch Date: 22 Sep 1993 08:31:39 GMT The subject line pretty much sums it up...I'm trying to get Linux running on a department computer for the students, and I'm using an old WD ethernet card (can't offhand recall model). Every so often, I get the eth0 receiver overrun error, along with error messages about inability to allocate...I have to reboot to unlock the machine. Since I want this machine on the net, I obviously need to fix this problem. I read a post that there is a patch out for this (apparently the kernel is storing packets that aren't meant for it, as I understand things). I'm running 0.99pl11. (If you don't have the patch, but now how to fix this problem, I would certainly appreciate your help.) -- Jeff Uphoff -- "Uppie" | "The secret to good teaching is sincerity. As juphoff@astro.phys.vt.edu | As soon as you learn to fake that, you've got juphoff@uppieland.async.vt.edu | it made." ------------------------------ From: dvs@ze8.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de (Wolfgang R. Mueller) Subject: Re: 3.5 boot floppies. Not really Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing anymore Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:00:10 GMT In article jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) writes: > However, as a constructive (hopefully) suggestion, has anyone >considered that if someone has a 5 1/2 boot drive, installing lilo on it >could cause linux to load from the 3 1/2 drive? What about bootb.zip ? ( from ancient SLS times yet available at clio.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de:[/rz/ftp/]linux/sls102 ) Or is that no longer usable because of the double ramdisk copyings (the second one after the kernel configuration messages and so presumably not by bios calls) ? Wolfgang R. Mueller , Computing Centre, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany. ------------------------------ From: rich@mulvey.com Subject: crond output=>mail problem Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 12:55:53 GMT Hello: I've recently installed the full slackware 1.03 distribution. ( Which includes Vixie cron, smail, and elm. ) Normally, when cron runs, it should redirect all output to mail which is then posted to the owner of the crontab in question. However: In this case, whenever output is supposed to be mailed, cron spawns: /bin/mail -d root ( or the appropriate user ) which leaves an mbox.root file in /tmp. And never exits. So of course no mail gets sent. ( And root can run elm until the file gets deleted. ) Has anyone else encountered this partiular problem? Better yet, any solutions? :-) - Rich -- Rich Mulvey Amateur Radio: N2VDS Rochester, NY rich@mulvey.com "Ignorance should be painful." ------------------------------ From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 13:12:41 GMT In article <27nroa$jpd@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, Charles E Meier wrote: >In article <1993Sep21.135808.10018@cc.gatech.edu> byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A >Jeff) writes: > >>[ My rather long diatribe deleted] > >And if you do have a 3.5" but the 5.25" is the boot floppy, then open the >box, switch the cables, run the CMOS setup to switch the A and B drives, >and you may find that the 3.5" is now your boot disk. Worked on mine, >anyway. Standard disclaimers apply to yours. This is not necessary. That was Patrick's entire point of creating a 5.25 boot/root combo. Use it to boot off the 5.25 then load the distribution off the 3.5. In Slackware 1.01 there was no 5.25 boot/root combo and I had 2 machines with 5.25 boot drives and 3.5 secondary drives. On the first I did what you suggested. On the second I built my own 5.25 boot/root combo disk. I also asked Patrick to address the issue. He did. He just responsive like that ;-) Later, 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: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 13:17:09 GMT In article , Scott Alfter wrote: >In article <748617113snz@cmkrnl.demon.co.uk> gregh@cmkrnl.demon.co.uk (Greg Hennessy) writes: >>What planet those thise statement come from ? I have just showed this to a >>friend of mine who is a OEM/VAR and I had to pick him up off the floor >>laughing, His figures state that less than one in one-hundred new machines >>shipping today come with a 5.25 drive let alone come configured to boot off >>one. > >Say what? With the possible exception of IBM, I don't think there's >anybody here in the US that ships systems with only 3.5" floppy >drives. In mixed-drive systems, the 5.25" drive is almost always >configured as the boot drive. > >I have the October issue of Computer Shopper in front of me. >[ Machines with 5.25 boot disks descriptions deleted]. This is irrelavent in terms of the original argument (which this thread has strayed away from). What I got from Greg's post is that most new machine have a 1.44M 3.5" floppy. That's all you need to install Slackware. It doesn't matter if it's the boot floppy or not. Let's kick the question out again: How many new machines are sold without a 3.5" 1.44M floppy at all? 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: josch@pc.chemie.th-darmstadt.de (Joachim Schnitter) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root Date: 22 Sep 1993 13:24:30 GMT Valdis Kletnieks (valdis@black-ice.cc.vt.edu) wrote: : In article <27d35q$bol@agate.berkeley.edu> boss@soda.berkeley.edu (Brion Moss) writes: : >(The script was then setuid root, of course). This seemed to work pretty : >well. : A set-UID root shell script is equivalent to giving every user on : the system unrestricted root access. : I suggest you find a way to do it without set-UID shell scripts. : Valdis Kletnieks : Computer Systems Engineer : Virginia Tech Sorry to say that this seems to be real nonsense. A script is simply fed into a shell or another interpreter. It is the shell's permissions which counts - not the script's. Try it out and you will see that you cannot give someone root permissions with a setuid root script as long as you do not make the shell run setuid root (The latter is equivalent to "rm -rf /" as root :-). -Joachim -- ______________________________________________________________________ Joachim Schnitter Tel.: +49 (61 51) 16-53 97 Technische Hochschule Darmstadt Fax : +49 (61 51) 16-42 98 Physikalische Chemie I Petersenstr. 20 64287 Darmstadt Germany E-Mail: josch@pc.chemie.th-darmstadt.de ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON) Subject: Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 13:59:44 GMT valdis@black-ice.cc.vt.edu (Valdis Kletnieks) writes: >In article <27d35q$bol@agate.berkeley.edu> boss@soda.berkeley.edu (Brion Moss) writes: >>(The script was then setuid root, of course). This seemed to work pretty >>well. > >A set-UID root shell script is equivalent to giving every user on >the system unrestricted root access. That is true with some Unices, but not Linux. With standard Linux, the setuid bits are ignored for shell scripts. I do have a patch to Linux which provides _secure_ setuid shell scripts, so long as there aren't any security problems with the shell itself. Linux's standard shell (bash) has only one security problem ($ENV) for which I also have a patch. If you install both of these patches, then you can have completely secure setuid shell scripts. (Of course, as with any setuid program, you still need to be careful!) -- Fergus Henderson fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: umar@compsci.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Sait Umar) Subject: Re: Problem with sysinstall Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 13:37:42 GMT In article <1993Sep22.000915.25046@ifi.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>, armbr@azu.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Dieter Armbruster) writes: |> In article <27i052$sht@dopey.cc.utexas.edu> veena@dopey.cc.utexas.edu (veena gondhalekar) writes: |> > |> > |> >I need to reinstall my X11 part of the Linux system. I am using |> >the /dev/fd1 (3.5 floppy) and do |> > |> > sysinstall -instdev /dev/fd1 -series x |> > |> >I get something like |> > insert disk x1 in floppy drive or enter q to quit. |> > |> >I hit enter and I get the 'same' message again. |> >The script exits after repeating the above message thrice. |> > |> >I have the same problem using the "menu" install software option. |> > |> >If anyone has any pointers, please let me know. |> >Thanks. |> > |> >Rajesh |> > |> |> This sounds very much like you did NOT umount your /dev/fd1! |> Probably due to file buffer caching, any read() on the unmounted |> /dev/fd gets the old contents, i.e. any disk change is NOT detected. |> |> Umount /dev/fd1 - and off you (should) go. |> |> Hope that helps, |> |> D.Armbuster |> ++49712142346 |> |> Somebody a week ago put a solution to this problem. I forgot the exact detail but he edited the sysinstall script and changed the name of the MOUNT some place. It was a bug in sysinstall. -- ========================================================================= umar@compsci.cas.vanderbilt.edu Prof.A.S. Umar umarsa00@vuctrvax.bitnet Department of Physics & Astronomy Tel: (615) 322-2459 Vanderbilt University Fax: (615) 343-7263 Nashville, TN 37235 ========================================================================= ------------------------------ From: gor@cs.strath.ac.uk (Gordon Russell) Subject: Problem of ar corruption identified Date: 22 Sep 1993 17:08:48 +0100 I have found that .a files being corrupted occurs only when I am doing static linking. Dynamic linking works normally. Static linking works only with the processor cache disabled. Note that I updated the dynamic link libraries a few weeks ago, but I left the .a files alone. Is the code to flush cache lines been moved in the last few library releases? It wouldn't bother me, except that I can not compile with the -ggdb option without running into this compiler problem. Help Gordon +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Gordon Russell | EMAIL : gor@cs.strath.ac.uk | | L13.16, Livingstone Tower, | TELEPHONE : 041-552-4400 Ex 3635 | | University Of Strathclyde, | FAX : 041-552-0775 | | 26 Richmond Street, +-------------------------------------------+ | Glasgow, G1 1XH | Spelling mistakes within this document are| | Scotland, UK | caused by internet compaction algorithms. | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: cds@ironwoodinf.rl.ac.uk (Chris Seelig (2 weeks GKS maintenance from plp)) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root Date: 22 Sep 93 16:14:40 GMT In article <27pjmeINNlqf@rs18.hrz.th-darmstadt.de>, josch@pc.chemie.th-darmstadt.de (Joachim Schnitter) writes: |> Valdis Kletnieks (valdis@black-ice.cc.vt.edu) wrote: |> : In article <27d35q$bol@agate.berkeley.edu> boss@soda.berkeley.edu (Brion Moss) writes: |> : >(The script was then setuid root, of course). This seemed to work pretty |> : >well. |> |> : A set-UID root shell script is equivalent to giving every user on |> : the system unrestricted root access. |> |> : I suggest you find a way to do it without set-UID shell scripts. |> |> : Valdis Kletnieks |> : Computer Systems Engineer |> : Virginia Tech |> |> Sorry to say that this seems to be real nonsense. A script is simply fed |> into a shell or another interpreter. It is the shell's permissions which |> counts - not the script's. Sorry this is not true the setuid on a script is VERY meaningful, and is a very large security risk (though maybe not quite as bad Valdis Kletnieks implies) However some unices do have the option of ignoreing the setuid bit, and some do ignore it by default. |> |> Try it out and you will see that you cannot give someone root permissions |> with a setuid root script as long as you do not make the shell run setuid |> root (The latter is equivalent to "rm -rf /" as root :-). |> You try it you might be surprised! |> -Joachim |> -- |> ______________________________________________________________________ |> Joachim Schnitter Tel.: +49 (61 51) 16-53 97 |> Technische Hochschule Darmstadt Fax : +49 (61 51) 16-42 98 |> Physikalische Chemie I |> Petersenstr. 20 |> 64287 Darmstadt |> Germany E-Mail: josch@pc.chemie.th-darmstadt.de |> |> Chris ------------------------------ From: mccune@lutra.mcs.anl.gov (Bill McCune) Subject: gdb and xxgdb Reply-To: mccune@lutra.mcs.anl.gov (Bill McCune) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 16:37:08 GMT I have the following problem with gdb, both with the gdb 4.8 bin that comes with slackware and with gdb 4.10.pl1 that I compiled (GCC 2.4.5) myself. (The gdb 4.10.pl1 that I use on a SPARC does not have this problem.) When I interactively "call" one of my own functions to print out some data, the data is printed, but the function does not exit properly and I get the message writing register number 10(0): I/O error. Unable to restore previously selected frame. (This happens every time I call one of my own functions.) Then I cannot continue execution. Here is an example. Program received signal SIGINT (2), Interrupt 0x13f58 in map_rest (c=0x699f4, d=0x6afd4, s=0x6e8b4, trp=0xbffff8b8) at clause.c:789 789 d_lit = d_lit->next_lit; (gdb) call p_clause(c) 3 [] p(x) | p($f1(x)) | -q(y) | p(z) | -q($f2(u)) | -q(u) | -p(v) | q(w). writing register number 10(0): I/O error. Unable to restore previously selected frame. (gdb) bt #0 #1 0x699f4 in _end () #2 0x13f58 in map_rest (c=0x699f4, d=0x6afd4, s=0x6e8b4, trp=0xbffff8b8) at clause.c:789 #3 0x141bf in forward_subsume (d=0x6afd4) at clause.c:868 ... (gdb) ============ xxgdb - a separate problem (the bin that comes with slackware). Control-c does not interrupt the process. (It does on my SPARC.) BTW - when xxgdb uses gdb 4.10.pl1, we don't get the "not a typewriter" message like we do with 4.8. -- Bill mccune@mcs.anl.gov -- Bill McCune --------------------------------------------------------------------- | William W. McCune | e-mail: mccune@mcs.anl.gov | | MCS-221 | phone: (708) 252-3065 | | Argonne National Laboratory | FAX: (708) 252-5986 | | Argonne, IL 60439-4844 | | | U.S.A | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************