Nabble - Boston Linux/UNIX General Discussion List

Re: ISO to flash drive (bootable?)

2009-11-08T04:40:19Z

On 11/07/2009 07:03 PM, Chris O'Connell wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been working on a problem for a couple of hours and haven't seem to
> have made much progress.
>
> I have a netbook, an MSI Wind U100. I want to install Mint Linux on it (I
> already have Ubuntu and XP on my netbook). Obviously, my netbook doesn't
> have a CD-Rom drive, so I would like to "burn" the Mint Linux ISO file to a
> flash drive I have.
>
> I have successfully used this same flash drive to boot Moblin, so I know
> both the netbook and the flash drive should be capable of booting.
>
> I've tried using the DD command on both my Mac and on my Ubuntu
> installation. On my Mac I've done:
> diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
> sudo dd if=/Users/chrisoconnell/Downloads/LinuxMint-7.iso of=/dev/disk2
> bs=1024
> diskutil eject /dev/disk2
>
> I've tried similar on my Ubuntu installation. I've even tried bs=4096.
>
> Anyways, when I try to boot off from this flash drive I am redirected right
> to my grub boot loader on my hard drive. (I've manually selected the boot
> from flash by pressing F11 and selecting the boot device from the MSI bios
> menu).
>
> I can see the drive in my Linux installation and the files appear to be
> there. Any thoughts on this?
>
>

Did you try without specifying block size. I've seen a few complaints

about this and they suggest making a Mint Cd, then running Mint's USB
creator, but that is kind of a backwards thing to do. A possible hack is
to mount your ISO

mount -t iso9660 -r loop /Users/chrisoconnell/Downloads/LinuxMint-7.iso /tmp/mintlinux

Then run the USB creator from /tmp/mintlinux

In any case it may be worth a try.

--
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

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ISO to flash drive (bootable?)

2009-11-07T16:03:26Z

Hi everyone,

I've been working on a problem for a couple of hours and haven't seem to
have made much progress.

I have a netbook, an MSI Wind U100. I want to install Mint Linux on it (I
already have Ubuntu and XP on my netbook). Obviously, my netbook doesn't
have a CD-Rom drive, so I would like to "burn" the Mint Linux ISO file to a
flash drive I have.

I have successfully used this same flash drive to boot Moblin, so I know
both the netbook and the flash drive should be capable of booting.

I've tried using the DD command on both my Mac and on my Ubuntu
installation. On my Mac I've done:
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
sudo dd if=/Users/chrisoconnell/Downloads/LinuxMint-7.iso of=/dev/disk2
bs=1024
diskutil eject /dev/disk2

I've tried similar on my Ubuntu installation. I've even tried bs=4096.

Anyways, when I try to boot off from this flash drive I am redirected right
to my grub boot loader on my hard drive. (I've manually selected the boot
from flash by pressing F11 and selecting the boot device from the MSI bios
menu).

I can see the drive in my Linux installation and the files appear to be
there. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Chris
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Re: No Sound on Fedora 11 2.6.30 kernel (2.6.29 works fine) Solved

2009-11-07T06:29:56Z

Basically, I've been lazy and running on the 2.6.29 kernel although I
did run a compare.
Short of upgrading to fedora 12 beta, I decided to download and compile
the latest Alsa driver which solved the problem.

On 10/12/2009 02:26 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote:

> On 10/12/2009 11:53 AM, David Rosenstrauch wrote:
>
>> On 10/11/2009 07:53 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Sound works fine on my system with the 2.6.29 (specifically
>>> 2.6.29.6-217.2.16.fc11.x86_64) kernel, but when they updated to 2.6.30
>>> the sound stopped working. If I reboot back to the 2.6.29 kernel things
>>> work fine. I've googled a number of different places (including Fedora
>>> Forum http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=225660), but no
>>> luck. Looking at some of the issues it appears to be something between
>>> front and back speakers. My system only has 1 audio array . My sound
>>> card is nVidia Corporation MCP55 High Definition Audio (rev a2). I've
>>> looked through all the different settings and run various Pulse Audio as
>>> well as ALSA mixers. When I look at the Pulse Audio volume meter, in
>>> both 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 kernels, it does show the volume levels. So far,
>>> I don't see any clues at either boot time or in dmesg.
>>>
>>>
>>

--
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

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Nov 7 TODAY & Nov 22 - Join Global FreeSW GNU(Linux) HW Culture meeting via VOIP - BerkeleyTIP GlobalTIP - For Forwarding

2009-11-07T04:46:23Z

CONTENTS: Meeting days/times & Howto - Mark your calendar's dates;
Videos; Hot topics; Opportunities; Announcement Flyers; New webpages

=====
Come join in with the Global Free SW HW & Culture community at the
BerkeleyTIP/GlobalTIP meeting, via VOIP.

Two meetings this month:
Sat Nov 7, 12Noon - 3PM Pacific Time (=UTC-8)
Sun Nov 22, 12Noon - 3PM Pacific Time (=UTC-8)
Mark your calendars, 1st Sat, 3rd Sun every month.
{Note: 4th Sunday this November, to give 2 week spacing.}

Join online #berkeleytip on irc.freenode.net
& we'll help you get your voip HW & SW working:
http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/remote-attendance
Or come to the FreeSpeech Cafe at UC Berkeley in person meeting.

Join the global mailing list
http://groups.google.com/group/BerkTIPGlobal

I hope to see you there. :)

===== Talk Videos for November 2009:
Django Development - Richard Kiss, Eddy Mulyono, Glen Jarvis, Simeon
Franklin; BayPiggies
Python for scientific research, discussion with Guido van Rossum;
UCBSciPy
Netbooks - Michael Gorven, Dave Mackie, and Jonathan Carter; CLUG
Japan Linux Symposium Keynote, Linus Torvalds & Jim Zemlin; Linux
Foundation

http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/talk-videos
Download & watch them before the meetings, discuss at the meetings.

Thanks to all the Speakers, Videographers, & Groups! :)
[Record your local meeting! Put the video online, & email me for
inclusion for next month. :) ]

===== Hot topics: Ubuntu 9.10 - Problems? Fixes? Upgrade? Install?
Freeswitch VOIP server - setup for BTIP
Flyers & outreach to UCBerkeley.
Outreach to other UC campuses next semester.

===== Opportunities - Learn new, or increase your job skills, &/or
volunteer & help the community: Set up any of: a BTIP Mailing List, web
server/site, Freeswitch VOIP server, or Virtual Private Network & SSL

===== Announcement Flyers: Print & Post them in your community. 4/5
available - Freedom, Karmic Koala, Free Culture, SciPy, OLPC. See bottom
of page: http://groups.google.com/group/BerkTIPGlobal

===== New BTIP Webpages @ http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/
UC Campus local groups; Free Hardware; System Administration;
Announcement Flyers; Opportunities

For Forwarding - You are invited to forward this announcement wherever
it would be appreciated.
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I seem to only be able to do consumer electronics

2009-11-06T16:33:07Z

A couple of orders from monoprice.com later, I have my home theater
set up so that the cable box, the broadcast TV, and the DVD player are
all playing digital surround sound.

I have failed miserably at getting my computer to put anything out
through the digital output, either with Windows or Linux. I have
found several pages that describe someone's struggle that ended up
working, but doing the same things they do doesn't do it for me.

I don't actually care if my mythtv recordings play in stereo or
surround, but *somebody* must know how to make a current linux
distribution use SPDIF.

The actual computer that I care about is a 9.10 mythbuntu
installation, but the cable is currently on my desktop with 9.4
ubuntu. In both cases it's the onboard sound card; a Realtek in the
case of the downstairs computer and an Nvidia upstairs.

--
Laura (mailto:lconrad@...)
(617) 661-8097 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
http://www.laymusic.org/ http://www.serpentpublications.org

Part of the joy of falling in love -- for the intelligent, the
watchers, the judicious -- is the delicious license to set something
above thinking clearly, the pleasure of being driven, taken over,
overwhelmed.

A. S. Byatt _Still Life_
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TTX02 Electric Road Racing Programme

2009-11-06T13:54:56Z

from http://www.mavizen.com/Models_and_Kits/TTX02.html:

Core operating system is open source Linux

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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-06T11:15:57Z

On Nov 6, 2009, at 1:52 PM, markw@... wrote:
> Now, I currently have over 40 web sites hosted on the machine, all
> small
> little sites. I don't make much on them. With virtualization, I will
> be
> able to sell whole "machines" much like Amazon AWS.

A-hah! It's web *hosting*, not web *farm*. That's different, and
wasn't clear to me from the original posting. In a hosting
environment, where you "stack" non-identical servers, virtualization
can be a win.

--Rich P.

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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-06T10:52:36Z

> From: Richard Pieri <richard.pieri@...>
> Subject: Re: Linux "micro-cloud"
> To: "Boston Lunix User's Group" <discuss@...>
> Message-ID: <385FD15A-4E21-4A07-AA9F-7E1732AB5CDE@...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:54 AM, markw@... wrote:
>> which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and
>> service
>> hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
>> machine as well)
>
> Not a silly question: why? On the face of it this doesn't seem like
> virtualization is a good solution. If your database engine scales
> with cores then virtualizing that is a losing proposition, and web
> farms are usually better handled as 1U rack mounts than virtualized on
> large hardware.
>
> Just food for thought.
>
> --Rich P.

Actually, I held that opinion not so long ago, but I have re-evaluated
much of it.

For a database system, absolutely, as close as possible to the hardware is
the absolute for performance, I have no argument. Second, for merely
performance reasons, one should never choose a VM because it does, in
fact, add an amount of overhead to normal functionality.

My current system is slower than it should be. Not to say it is
overloaded, just some functions take to long because of raw CPU
bottleneck. So faster+more CPU is a better solution. Faster CPU for single
thread performance, more CPUs for multiple processors. Once upgraded I
will have CPU and RAM to spare.

Now, I currently have over 40 web sites hosted on the machine, all small
little sites. I don't make much on them. With virtualization, I will be
able to sell whole "machines" much like Amazon AWS.

I will be able to construct/deploy different "machines" "on the fly" for
various purposes. I will be able to map them to their own IP address,
their own config, their own OS. I could even run a Windows VM on my Linux
system if I needed a Windows only service!

The possibilities are very cool.
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-06T04:34:31Z

On 11/05/2009 11:17 PM, Bill Ricker wrote:

> we had to buy the ssh add-on to eXceed when we decommed rexec / rsh / rlogin.
> not sure if they've bundled it since.
>
> if the user needs Unix based X graphics app to appear on MSWindows
> desktop, eXceed with Ssh upgrade or Cygwin are the usual options. We
> used it for Xemacs and Mozilla to read local-filesystem html help
> files on AIX, and the occasional X-based installer/config program.
>
>
> This particularly savvy user you mention might appreciate Cygwin, but
> it's not for general population.
>
>

Actually, he is not too savvy. Basicaslly, just setting up putty icons

will work for him if he first runs exceed, which he can do at startup.
I'm sure exceed does not bundle the ssh extension. 2 people in my office
have Exceed 2007. In any case, when he returns from his conference
either today or Monday we'll see if the putty solution works for him. If
it doesn't, I'll look into Mocha or Xming to see which of the two meet
our needs.

On a technical basis, exceed works with rlogin, but with rexec we get a
dialog box "where are you". One of my coworkers encountered that a few
years ago, when we were running RHEL 4, and through some googling she
found the solution. I'd like to look for a solution just to file away,
but I will be removing thr RSH/REXEC/RLOGIN suite from the one server
shortly.

--
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T20:17:09Z

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
> Our IT guy in NY was able to log in to that system
> successfully from Exceed 2007, so it appears to be an older Exceed
> issue.

we had to buy the ssh add-on to eXceed when we decommed rexec / rsh / rlogin.
not sure if they've bundled it since.

if the user needs Unix based X graphics app to appear on MSWindows
desktop, eXceed with Ssh upgrade or Cygwin are the usual options. We
used it for Xemacs and Mozilla to read local-filesystem html help
files on AIX, and the occasional X-based installer/config program.

This particularly savvy user you mention might appreciate Cygwin, but
it's not for general population.

--
Bill
n1vux@... bill.n1vux@...
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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-05T10:28:23Z

On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:54 AM, markw@... wrote:
> which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and
> service
> hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
> machine as well)

Not a silly question: why? On the face of it this doesn't seem like
virtualization is a good solution. If your database engine scales
with cores then virtualizing that is a losing proposition, and web
farms are usually better handled as 1U rack mounts than virtualized on
large hardware.

Just food for thought.

--Rich P.

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T09:53:37Z

Essentially, I've known about problems with RSH/REXEC/RLOGIN for well
over 10 years which is why I only installed them on one system
temporarily. Our IT guy in NY was able to log in to that system
successfully from Exceed 2007, so it appears to be an older Exceed
issue. What I need to do is find out exactly what this guy wants to do
and determine the best way to accommodate him (either via Exceed or
Xming or Mocha). He's not in today, but I think what he wants to do is
to be able to load our product directly. So instead of loading a shell,
what he wants is an icon to our product. In any case he is out of the
office for a day or so.

On 11/05/2009 12:17 PM, M. Page-Lieberman wrote:

> /// I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who
> wants this feature is a PHD financial engineer who also likes to try
> to read and understand C++ and Python code. ///
>
> I work with C++ and Python too, but have known for years that rlogin
> is unsecure. It's basically been deprecated informally.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:27, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...
> <mailto:gaf@...>> wrote:
>
>> I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who wants this
>> feature is a PHD financial engineer who also likes to try to read and
>> understand C++ and Python code.

Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T09:17:07Z

/// I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who
wants this feature is a PHD financial engineer who also likes to try
to read and understand C++ and Python code. ///

I work with C++ and Python too, but have known for years that rlogin
is unsecure. It's basically been deprecated informally.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:27, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who wants
> this
> feature is a PHD financial engineer who also likes to try to read and
> understand C++ and Python code.
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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-05T09:15:13Z

One other suggestion I can add is to look into opensolaris with xVM (xen). you can manage xen how ever you like, including directly on the command line, or with add on tools. But a big advantage of solaris is ZFS and how incredibly easy it is to manage drive space and configuration from a command line. This includes features like disk quotas, iscsi volumes, data integrity checks and they are just introducing block level deduplication (not in production release yet), that should have a big impact on multi vps boxes.

Again I'm no expert but if you want to get your hands dirty and use a free and open solution, its seems quite promising.

------Original Message------
From: markw@...
Sender: discuss-bounces@...
To: BLU
Subject: Linux "micro-cloud"
Sent: Nov 5, 2009 9:54 AM

I have a couple servers in a cambridge colocation, they are rapidly
approaching 10 years old. Needless to say, its time to upgrade.

I currently have 2 dual PIII 800 MHZ each with a gig of ram. I am looking
to replace them with two quad-core AMD AthlonII with 8 gigs of ram. (Total
cost for both motherboads, memory and CPU is $600!!! unbelievable!)

I think I want to set it up a small cloud system. Rather than setup two
machines, one as a database server and the other as a mass-web host, (like
I currently have) I think I want to be more creative.

Keep one as a raw machine that runs the databases, as disk I/O is dog slow
on virtualized hardware, and on the other make it a host a host machine on
which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and service
hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
machine as well)

The the thing I want to discuss...

Are there any "good" vm tools out there that makes this easy. I'm using
VMPlayer and not sure I want to use it. I'd like a command line text
system as these will be remote servers and a GUI is painful remotely.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

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Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-05T08:22:52Z

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 9:54 AM, <markw@...> wrote:

> I have a couple servers in a cambridge colocation, they are rapidly
> approaching 10 years old. Needless to say, its time to upgrade.
>
> I currently have 2 dual PIII 800 MHZ each with a gig of ram. I am looking
> to replace them with two quad-core AMD AthlonII with 8 gigs of ram. (Total
> cost for both motherboads, memory and CPU is $600!!! unbelievable!)
>
> I think I want to set it up a small cloud system. Rather than setup two
> machines, one as a database server and the other as a mass-web host, (like
> I currently have) I think I want to be more creative.
>
> Keep one as a raw machine that runs the databases, as disk I/O is dog slow
> on virtualized hardware, and on the other make it a host a host machine on
> which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and service
> hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
> machine as well)
>
> The the thing I want to discuss...
>
> Are there any "good" vm tools out there that makes this easy. I'm using
> VMPlayer and not sure I want to use it. I'd like a command line text
> system as these will be remote servers and a GUI is painful remotely.
>
> Any ideas? Suggestions?
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@...
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>

Recently I was looking to replace an aging VMWare Infrastructure 2 cluster
(20 servers) with something new. I checked out all the different products
out there. New VMWare products are too high priced. Their products are
great, but I couldn't justify the extremely high cost.

If you're looking at Xen or KVM, check out Enomaly/Enomalism (
http://enomalism.com/) and Open Symbolic (http://www.opensymbolic.org/).
They look like great products, they have great demos, but I had a tough time
getting them to actually work and control my Xen systems. The Enomaly
maillist has tons of people who have successfully installed it, but there
are more people that complain that they can't get it working. The Open
Symbolic system seems great because it also ties together Cobbler
(provisioning), Puppet (config management) and func all together, but even
when I offer to buy a support contract from them it took about 3 weeks for
them to get back to me, and even with them logged into my test environment
they couldn't get their own product to work.

So I opted to look at Citirix XenSource. If you're looking for live
balancing of VM's across your cluster you can buy their commercial version
(Essential Tools), or if you just want to manage a number of individuals Xen
boxes they have the free XenServer and XenCenter. If you have a backend SAN,
NFS, iSCSI you can use that across all your boxes and do live migrations, it
just won't auto balance the load unless you buy the commercial package.

-matt
http://www.sysadminvalley.com
http://www.beantownhost.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattboston
Mike Ditka <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html> -
"If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
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Re: Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-05T07:32:26Z

One thing to keep in mind is that the athlon has no L3 cache, which could impact vm preformance. I was recently considering similar hardware, but in the end ended up going with a single quad core xeon x3430 (the new "i5 xeon") as opposed to the athlons. Along with a supermicro board and 8gig of ecc for around 600. Also the pheonom II X4 is the athlon II X4 with 6mb of L3, but at a $50 permium.

I'm thinking in your application more processors will be more valuable, due to the large number of vms. My use was half a dozen desktop and general servers. But you'll want to consult some one with more expertise on vps hosting and database cache use.

------Original Message------
From: markw@...
Sender: discuss-bounces@...
To: BLU
Subject: Linux "micro-cloud"
Sent: Nov 5, 2009 9:54 AM

I have a couple servers in a cambridge colocation, they are rapidly
approaching 10 years old. Needless to say, its time to upgrade.

I currently have 2 dual PIII 800 MHZ each with a gig of ram. I am looking
to replace them with two quad-core AMD AthlonII with 8 gigs of ram. (Total
cost for both motherboads, memory and CPU is $600!!! unbelievable!)

I think I want to set it up a small cloud system. Rather than setup two
machines, one as a database server and the other as a mass-web host, (like
I currently have) I think I want to be more creative.

Keep one as a raw machine that runs the databases, as disk I/O is dog slow
on virtualized hardware, and on the other make it a host a host machine on
which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and service
hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
machine as well)

The the thing I want to discuss...

Are there any "good" vm tools out there that makes this easy. I'm using
VMPlayer and not sure I want to use it. I'd like a command line text
system as these will be remote servers and a GUI is painful remotely.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

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Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

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RE: Linux "micro-cloud" > Eucalyptus

2009-11-05T07:19:03Z

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 9:54 AM, <markw@...> wrote:

This doesn't answer your question about VM's, but if your looking to build a
cloud, you might want to checkout Eucalyptus;
http://www.eucalyptus.com/
I believe support for Eucalyptus comes built-in with Ubuntu Karmic:
http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/private
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC

I have never used it but it looks promising. Anyone out there had any
experience with Eucalyptus?
-Chris
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T06:58:48Z

On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who wants this
> As I mentioned, the reason I was having trouble is that rsh/rexec/
> rlogin
> were not installed. I did install them on one server. Now, when I run

Yep. Most recent Linux distributions do not include the telnet and
rsh servers as part of their standard installations. If you need them
(and you should ask yourself if you really do need them) then you have
to install them manually.

--Rich P.

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Linux "micro-cloud"

2009-11-05T06:54:46Z

I have a couple servers in a cambridge colocation, they are rapidly
approaching 10 years old. Needless to say, its time to upgrade.

I currently have 2 dual PIII 800 MHZ each with a gig of ram. I am looking
to replace them with two quad-core AMD AthlonII with 8 gigs of ram. (Total
cost for both motherboads, memory and CPU is $600!!! unbelievable!)

I think I want to set it up a small cloud system. Rather than setup two
machines, one as a database server and the other as a mass-web host, (like
I currently have) I think I want to be more creative.

Keep one as a raw machine that runs the databases, as disk I/O is dog slow
on virtualized hardware, and on the other make it a host a host machine on
which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and service
hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
machine as well)

The the thing I want to discuss...

Are there any "good" vm tools out there that makes this easy. I'm using
VMPlayer and not sure I want to use it. I'd like a command line text
system as these will be remote servers and a GUI is painful remotely.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T06:54:39Z

I will install Mocha on my laptop and see how that works. Since we all
have admin privs on our laptops, if mocha appears to be a viable
alternative, I can get Andrew to install it on his, or possibly have IT
install it.

On 11/04/2009 06:33 PM, John Abreau wrote:

> This is trivially easy with putty and Mocha X11. Configure Mocha to
> start on login. Configure a session in putty and save it with an
> appropriate name. Create a shortcut to putty on the desktop, and
> edit its properties to launch the named session when double-clicked.
>
> In the shortcut properties:
>
> "C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load "named session"
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
>
>> On 11/04/2009 03:13 PM, David Hummel wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
>>>> Exceed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Would it be a stretch to suggest to your users to use Cygwin/X
>>> instead? There should be no issues with ssh connectivity there...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> They currently use putty to connect via ssh, and exceed provides the X
>> services. The issue is very specific, the user wants to set up an icon
>> on his desktop so he can click it and log in directly through Exceed.
>> Additionally, IT installs software on most of the laptops.
>>
>>
>
>
>

Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T06:27:35Z

I would agree with you. To put this into context, the guy who wants this
feature is a PHD financial engineer who also likes to try to read and
understand C++ and Python code.

As I mentioned, the reason I was having trouble is that rsh/rexec/rlogin
were not installed. I did install them on one server. Now, when I run
exceed (eg xstart) it pops up a dialog box with "Where are you".
Note that I do have these configured into xinetd on that system.
Basically, what I want to do now is twofold:
First, get this working just as an exercise before I deinstall them.
Secondly find out if I can get the SSH upgrade installed on his system
(I have to contact our IT guys in NY, but if they have it, they will
install it).

It is also a political problem since we have a lab up in Toronto where
they have both Solaris and Linux set up with rsh, rlogin, rexec. But,
for anyone to get access to those systems they have to connect through
Citrix. Here, anyone who can sneak into our office or into the computer
room can access our VPN. So, I have to convince them that rsh is a bad
thing.

On 11/05/2009 08:16 AM, Bill Ricker wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...
> <mailto:gaf@...>> wrote:
>
> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
> Exceed. I'm not overly concerned about security since we are
> locked down
> under a VPN. I need Exceed to be able to use ssh, but it looks
> like the
> options are to use either rsh or rexec.
>
>
> Ssh is an add-on option from eXceed. Worked nice for us back when, but
> I'm mostly using PuTTY at $dayjob these days, don't need much X based
> apps.
>
> rsh and rexec must die. rsh and rexec should be scary even if THESE
> users are VPN tunneled, as then you have to be very careful to prevent
> rsh+ from accepting connxns from non-VPN. ever. easiest is uninstall ...
>

Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-05T05:16:09Z

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
> Exceed. I'm not overly concerned about security since we are locked down
> under a VPN. I need Exceed to be able to use ssh, but it looks like the
> options are to use either rsh or rexec.
>

Ssh is an add-on option from eXceed. Worked nice for us back when, but I'm
mostly using PuTTY at $dayjob these days, don't need much X based apps.

rsh and rexec must die. rsh and rexec should be scary even if THESE users
are VPN tunneled, as then you have to be very careful to prevent rsh+ from
accepting connxns from non-VPN. ever. easiest is uninstall ...

--
Bill
n1vux@... bill.n1vux@...
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T15:33:19Z

This is trivially easy with putty and Mocha X11. Configure Mocha to
start on login. Configure a session in putty and save it with an
appropriate name. Create a shortcut to putty on the desktop, and
edit its properties to launch the named session when double-clicked.

In the shortcut properties:

"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load "named session"

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> On 11/04/2009 03:13 PM, David Hummel wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
>>
>>> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
>>> Exceed.
>>>
>> Would it be a stretch to suggest to your users to use Cygwin/X
>> instead? There should be no issues with ssh connectivity there...
>>
>>
> They currently use putty to connect via ssh, and exceed provides the X
> services. The issue is very specific, the user wants to set up an icon
> on his desktop so he can click it and log in directly through Exceed.
> Additionally, IT installs software on most of the laptops.
>
> --
> Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
> Boston Linux and Unix
> PGP key id: 537C5846
> PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@...
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

--
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
AIM abreauj / JABBER jabr@... / YAHOO abreauj / SKYPE zusa_it_mgr
Email jabr@... / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question even stupider answer

2009-11-04T14:21:42Z

Install the f--ing software, I didn't have the software installed, duh! :-)

On 11/04/2009 04:28 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote:

> Basically, let me be more specific. As I mentioned in my previous post,
> Putty works fine for our purposes, and our IT department either in New
> York or Toronto provision the laptops. If it were my decision, I would
> have Linux on the laptops. The issue is simple:
> The user wants to be able to set up an icon on the desktop and use
> exceed to connect using one of its protocols. Since we are in a
> reasonably secure VPN environment, what would work best is if I were to
> enable either an rlogin, rsh, or rexec daemon on one or some of our RHEL
> 5.2 servers. We set it up once on one of our servers, but I think it was
> running RHEL 4 at the time. (It also might be that I didn't install
> those daemons when I installed RHEL5.2, but I have not checked the media
> yet).
>
> On 11/04/2009 03:15 PM, John Abreau wrote:
>
>> When I provision laptops for my coworkers, I include both PuTTY
>> and Mocha X11.
>>
>> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
>>
>> http://www.mochasoft.org/freeware/x11.htm
>>
>> Mocha X11 runs in the system tray on XP, and provides a rootless
>> X11 server, so X clients act like regular Win32 windows. PuTTY
>> is an ssh client, and if you enable its X11 settings, it finds and uses
>> the Mocha X11 server transparently.
>>
>> I haven't checked if it supports fancy features like XDMCP, so maybe
>> there are features that Exceed provides that Mocha and PuTTY don't.
>>
>> But I'd suggest trying Mocha first, before fighting to make Exceed use
>> ssh. Last time I tried to get Excheed working with ssh, it was a major
>> pain in the posterior. Although that was almost 10 years ago...
>>
>>

Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T13:30:28Z

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> On 11/04/2009 03:13 PM, David Hummel wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
> >
> >> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
> >> Exceed.
> >>
> > Would it be a stretch to suggest to your users to use Cygwin/X
> > instead? There should be no issues with ssh connectivity there...
> >
> >
> They currently use putty to connect via ssh, and exceed provides the X
> services. The issue is very specific, the user wants to set up an icon
> on his desktop so he can click it and log in directly through Exceed.
> Additionally, IT installs software on most of the laptops.
>
> I think you can do that with Xstart and use the Xsession executable to

launch the script. The ssh protocol might be an extra cost add-in for
Exceed.

--Mark
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T13:28:20Z

Basically, let me be more specific. As I mentioned in my previous post,
Putty works fine for our purposes, and our IT department either in New
York or Toronto provision the laptops. If it were my decision, I would
have Linux on the laptops. The issue is simple:
The user wants to be able to set up an icon on the desktop and use
exceed to connect using one of its protocols. Since we are in a
reasonably secure VPN environment, what would work best is if I were to
enable either an rlogin, rsh, or rexec daemon on one or some of our RHEL
5.2 servers. We set it up once on one of our servers, but I think it was
running RHEL 4 at the time. (It also might be that I didn't install
those daemons when I installed RHEL5.2, but I have not checked the media
yet).

On 11/04/2009 03:15 PM, John Abreau wrote:

> When I provision laptops for my coworkers, I include both PuTTY
> and Mocha X11.
>
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
>
> http://www.mochasoft.org/freeware/x11.htm
>
> Mocha X11 runs in the system tray on XP, and provides a rootless
> X11 server, so X clients act like regular Win32 windows. PuTTY
> is an ssh client, and if you enable its X11 settings, it finds and uses
> the Mocha X11 server transparently.
>
> I haven't checked if it supports fancy features like XDMCP, so maybe
> there are features that Exceed provides that Mocha and PuTTY don't.
>
> But I'd suggest trying Mocha first, before fighting to make Exceed use
> ssh. Last time I tried to get Excheed working with ssh, it was a major
> pain in the posterior. Although that was almost 10 years ago...
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
>
>> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
>> Exceed. I'm not overly concerned about security since we are locked down
>> under a VPN. I need Exceed to be able to use ssh, but it looks like the
>> options are to use either rsh or rexec. Our servers are all using RHEL 5.2.
>> I am not concerned about any security issues that would arise.
>> (IMHO - hate exceed but but this is for some coworkers).
>>
>>
>
>
>

Re: SVN Access Help

2009-11-04T13:26:01Z

Thanks Matt,

That solved it! Take care,

- Jared

________________________________
From: Matthew Gillen <me@...>
To: discuss@...
Sent: Wed, November 4, 2009 9:43:59 AM
Subject: Re: SVN Access Help

On 11/04/2009 09:39 AM, Jared Carlson wrote:
> Morning,
>
> I'm seeing a strange error for a user trying to access a SVN repos over Tortoise. So the user is running Windows, with Tortoise and trying to check out, and eventually check in. The repository is hosted on a linux server so they're svn+ssh:// etc.. When they attempt to check out the database they get:
>
> Berkeley DB error while opening environment for filesystem ...
> Permission denied
>
> I thought at first the issue might be user access to SVN so I looked at the svnserve.conf but that has auth-access: write, anom-access: read
> and as I'm learning it seems like it might be the conflict between the local repository and the server on the machine as Tortoise needs to talk to the SVN server...

Check that the unix-user that the windows user is using for login credentials
to the svn server has r/w permissions to the svn repo.

Matt
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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T13:23:03Z

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
> They currently use putty to connect via ssh, and exceed provides the X
> services. The issue is very specific, the user wants to set up an icon
> on his desktop so he can click it and log in directly through Exceed.
> Additionally, IT installs software on most of the laptops.

Are you talking about having Exceed display a window manager, or are
you talking about having Exceed running rootless and having, for
example, xterm windows as top-level Windows windows?

Gordon
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Re: Sendmail Question

2009-11-04T13:20:15Z

On Nov 4, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Dave Peters wrote:
> Sendmail queue's default setting is 1 hour on /etc/sysconfig/sendmail/
> Our mailq in our mail server is around 2000 messages.
> I have added 6 mqueue g1 - g6 in /var/spool/mqueue and modify
> sendmail.cf
> My question is do I need to modify the queue setting to 30m instead
> of 1 hour?

Need? No. Want? It depends. You've just multiplied your outgoing
mail load by a factor of 6. I suggest leaving the run interval alone
for now and watching the queue run times for a few weeks. Then set
your run interval to avoid too many overlapping queue runs.

--Rich P.

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T13:19:55Z

On 11/04/2009 03:13 PM, David Hummel wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
>
>> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
>> Exceed.
>>
> Would it be a stretch to suggest to your users to use Cygwin/X
> instead? There should be no issues with ssh connectivity there...
>
>
They currently use putty to connect via ssh, and exceed provides the X
services. The issue is very specific, the user wants to set up an icon
on his desktop so he can click it and log in directly through Exceed.
Additionally, IT installs software on most of the laptops.

--
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T12:15:59Z

When I provision laptops for my coworkers, I include both PuTTY
and Mocha X11.

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

http://www.mochasoft.org/freeware/x11.htm

Mocha X11 runs in the system tray on XP, and provides a rootless
X11 server, so X clients act like regular Win32 windows. PuTTY
is an ssh client, and if you enable its X11 settings, it finds and uses
the Mocha X11 server transparently.

I haven't checked if it supports fancy features like XDMCP, so maybe
there are features that Exceed provides that Mocha and PuTTY don't.

But I'd suggest trying Mocha first, before fighting to make Exceed use
ssh. Last time I tried to get Excheed working with ssh, it was a major
pain in the posterior. Although that was almost 10 years ago...

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:

> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
> Exceed. I'm not overly concerned about security since we are locked down
> under a VPN. I need Exceed to be able to use ssh, but it looks like the
> options are to use either rsh or rexec. Our servers are all using RHEL 5.2.
> I am not concerned about any security issues that would arise.
> (IMHO - hate exceed but but this is for some coworkers).
>
> --
> Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
> Boston Linux and Unix
> PGP key id: 537C5846
> PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@...
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

--
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
GnuPG KeyID: 0xD5C7B5D9 / Email: abreauj@...
GnuPG FP: 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99

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Re: Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T12:13:55Z

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf@...> wrote:
> Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
> Exceed.

Would it be a stretch to suggest to your users to use Cygwin/X
instead? There should be no issues with ssh connectivity there...
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Stupid sysadmin question

2009-11-04T12:01:02Z

Some of my users want to be able to access our servers directly from
Exceed. I'm not overly concerned about security since we are locked down
under a VPN. I need Exceed to be able to use ssh, but it looks like the
options are to use either rsh or rexec. Our servers are all using RHEL 5.2.
I am not concerned about any security issues that would arise.
(IMHO - hate exceed but but this is for some coworkers).

--
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

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Re: SVN Access Help

2009-11-04T06:46:19Z

On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 06:39:34AM -0800, Jared Carlson wrote:

> Morning,
>
> I'm seeing a strange error for a user trying to access a SVN repos over Tortoise. So the user is running Windows, with Tortoise and trying to check out, and eventually check in. The repository is hosted on a linux server so they're svn+ssh:// etc.. When they attempt to check out the database they get:
>
> Berkeley DB error while opening environment for filesystem ...
> Permission denied
>
> I thought at first the issue might be user access to SVN so I looked at the svnserve.conf but that has auth-access: write, anom-access: read
> and as I'm learning it seems like it might be the conflict between the local repository and the server on the machine as Tortoise needs to talk to the SVN server...
>

svn+ssh doesn't use the svn server as such. Make sure the user's
account is a member of the right group (svnusers, maybe?
Whatever you use on your machine) and that the svn directory
structure has the right group permissions as well.

Also make sure basic SSH works for this guy...

-dsr-

--
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You can't defend freedom by getting rid of it.
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Re: SVN Access Help

2009-11-04T06:43:59Z

On 11/04/2009 09:39 AM, Jared Carlson wrote:
> Morning,
>
> I'm seeing a strange error for a user trying to access a SVN repos over Tortoise. So the user is running Windows, with Tortoise and trying to check out, and eventually check in. The repository is hosted on a linux server so they're svn+ssh:// etc.. When they attempt to check out the database they get:
>
> Berkeley DB error while opening environment for filesystem ...
> Permission denied
>
> I thought at first the issue might be user access to SVN so I looked at the svnserve.conf but that has auth-access: write, anom-access: read
> and as I'm learning it seems like it might be the conflict between the local repository and the server on the machine as Tortoise needs to talk to the SVN server...

Check that the unix-user that the windows user is using for login credentials
to the svn server has r/w permissions to the svn repo.

Matt
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