January 2008 - KCLUG

Conversations on my remote user/site problem
by Oren Beck 26 Jan '08

26 Jan '08

Several folks have shared some truly worthy possible fixes. I am planning to sort them by my limited grasp of which are practical for me. There seems to be a depth of comprehension above average in our group, which is quite above mine. So, I am asking permission from those who have contacted me off list to post all the collected work. There seems a possibility of refining the best of all these workarounds into dare I propose a new distro? An assembly of all the tool kits and scripts plus a stand alone minimalist distro such as DSL or Puppy. The killer incarnation to me at least might be a package loaded from a website or sent as a mail attach. With a fallback to CD or USB media if connection is an issue. Under a doctrine of "if you have USB/CD access, permission is presumed - passwords etc can be simplified Thus we refine one path to -nsert media-reboot- automagic configures-and connects -then somehow it grands me remote KVM. An idea I had was a script to capture the IP of the remote livedistro,-have it Email that to me and then telnet etc in -- Oren Beck 816.729.3645

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Linux Support Needed
by Jonathan Hutchins 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

Anybody currently doing linux/windows office support in the mid-KC area? There's a law office that I support, and they need occasional file restore and such. Toughest part of the deal is that they have an ancient Gentoo server on the 2.4 kernel that won't do emerge updates any more because the whole layout of Gentoo has changed. When it was originally built, they had to use Gentoo Unstable because they needed components that weren't in stable yet. If somebody's interested in taking this on, drop me a line and I'll give you more gory details.

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Three low-cost Linux PCs
by Julie 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

>From C/Net's Week in Photos: "Three manufacturers are preloading Linux onto PCs that cost less than $200--and retailers can't keep them in stock." http://www.news.com/2300-1044_3-6227401.html?tag=nl.e434 Hope you enjoy the peek and comments that Cnet makes. :D BTW: I've been reading with great interest the thread about that "Cube" utility function in Ubuntu. I simply don't know how to REPLY to a particular post in the news letter or I would be in there asking questions...like, "What are the exact steps to get this to work for me...the n00bee trying to migrate from Winblowz XP?" ...And I laughed my arse off at that URL which led to the "story" about 'Window Shades'!!! I just about had peppermint tea come through my nose when I read about that demo to those Best Buy employees!!! They consider themselves "techies"???? LMAO!!!! ] : ) Julie @};- --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

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SVN - Apache - Microsoft Active Directory
by Lee Brandt 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

Anyone have any experience with this? I am currently setting this up at my work. I have set up the SVN server and Apache 2.2.3 on CentOS. SVN Serves fines just using basic authentication. Now I am trying to hook into our MS Active Directory and have been very successful at finding configurations that don't seem to work. As far as I can tell, I am not even contacting the AD server. There is no outbound traffic and notthing in the apache error logs. below is my config. <Location /subversion> # Load SVN Dav DAV svn # set the path to the repo SVNPath /var/svn/repo AuthBasicProvider ldap AuthType Basic AuthzLDAPAuthoritative off AuthName "My Subversion Server" AuthLDAPURL ldap://ldapserver.company.com:389/DC=company,DC=com>sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=*) AuthLDAPBindDN "CN=binduser,CN=usergroup,DC=company,DC=com" AuthLDAPBindPassword bindpassword require valid-user </Location> I haven't made any changes to the httpd.conf (other than making sure mod_authnz_ldap is installed and loaded). This is completely out of my league. Thanks in advance for any help. ~Lee

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Next Meeting in Room 310
by Michael Morgan 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

To All, KCLUG will meet in room 310 instead of room 312 at the Kansas City Public Library two times in 2008. The next meeting scheduled for, Wednesday, February 2nd, will be in room 310, and so will the meeting on Tuesday April 15th, 2008 (see below). Room 310 is the glassed in room near the stair case. All other meetings during 2008 are scheduled for room 312. 2/6/2008 Wed 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM KC Linux Users Group Install Fest Central Library Meeting Room 310 Confirmed 4/15/2008 Tue 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM KC Linux Users Group Demo Day Central Library Meeting Room 310 Confirmed Michael Mogan librarian(a)kclug.org

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JOBOP: Network Engineer/Windows Systems Administrator
by Campbell, Jeremy 24 Jan '08

24 Jan '08

Immediate need for a Network Engineer with good Windows Systems Administration experience. Involves heavy use of F/OSS management tools and systems (Cacti, Nagios/Zenoss, Snort, Syslog-NG, pfSense, MySQL, Apache) Follow link for details: http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?job_did=J8D6 TT72R3D4R4CQ6XW Thanks, Jeremy Campbell Network Engineer Avila University * IT Services 816-501-3639

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Yanking the Window Shade
by Luke -Jr 24 Jan '08

24 Jan '08

http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/423-Yanking-the-Window-Shad…

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Re: Remote access partition and install Linux. With a Near, Zero skilled operator at the remote site.
by Earle Beason 24 Jan '08

24 Jan '08

I'll help if I am able, I have a local test subject, um if you replace "local" with upstairs, and "test subject," with wife. She can turn on a computer, follow basic instructions and is total cool with a linux platform

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[shawncp@kcnet.com: Re: Remote access partition and install Linux. With a Near Zero skilled operator at the remote site.]
by Ed Allen 23 Jan '08

23 Jan '08

----- Forwarded message from "Shawn C. Powell" <shawncp(a)kcnet.com> ----- > From: "Shawn C. Powell" <shawncp(a)kcnet.com> > To: kclug(a)kclug.org > Subject: Re: Remote access partition and install Linux. With a Near Zero > skilled operator at the remote site. > Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:35:09 -0600 > > It seems like the hurdle is bootstrapping, in as simple a manner as possible, > some kind of connectivity so you can proceed with the work. > > What about setting up a VPN server on your end and let them connect to you? > PoPToP on your end for Windows --- I'm not sure what kind of built-in/easy > VPN clients Knoppix provides. > ----- End forwarded message ----- CSR is (Customer Support Representative). We set up logins on an otherwise little used web server and then put this into a script named 'access' on the client machines... #!/bin/bash # this script lets DSI access this computer via ssh # ========================================================= # ssh -R 2500:localhost:22 rescue@newweb # # then ssh to newweb (internal name for csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com) and... # # /usr/bin/ssh -C -X -p2500 rescue@localhost 2>/dev/null # # will present a login prompt from the customer machine behind a linksys router # # 'rescue@' is an account pre-created on client machine # for just this script. # # rescue01 through rescue10 are newweb logins which all share # login dir and /etc/passwd user id number. # ========================================================= localhost=127.0.0.1 EXPECT=$(type -p expect|sed 's/.* //') ============== generate key ==================== # Generate new key files... /bin/rm -fr /home/rescue/.ssh mkdir /home/rescue/.ssh chmod 700 /home/rescue/.ssh touch /home/rescue/.ssh/id_dsa $EXPECT <<KEY_GEN set timeout -1 match_max 100000 spawn ssh-keygen -f /home/rescue/.ssh/id_dsa -t dsa expect "Overwrite (y/n)? " send "yes\r" expect "empty for no passphrase): " send -- "\r" expect "Enter same passphrase again: " send -- "\r" expect eof KEY_GEN ============== end generate key ================ # tell the user what's going on echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo 'This program will exit when you strike the "Control-C" key.' echo '' echo '' echo 'If a command prompt returns before you strike "Control-C" please notify' echo 'the CSR working with you.' echo '' echo '' echo '' echo '' set=$(stty -g) # reset intr setting if ^c typed trap "stty $set ; echo ' done'; exit 0" 2 3 # Signal 2 is ^C stty intr ^c # Create a passwordless login for us $EXPECT 2>/dev/null <<PUT_KEY set timeout -1 match_max 100000 spawn /bin/sh -c "cat .ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh rescue01(a)csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com 'cat >>.ssh/authorized_keys'" expect "continue connecting (yes/no)? " send "yes\r" expect "ssword: " send -- "LOGIN_PASSWORD\r" expect eof PUT_KEY # Use new server at csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com lst="$(ssh rescue01(a)csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com 'netstat -an |grep 127.0.0.1:91..'|sort)" n='' [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9110) -eq 0 ] && n=01 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9111) -eq 0 ] && n=02 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9112) -eq 0 ] && n=03 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9113) -eq 0 ] && n=04 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9114) -eq 0 ] && n=05 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9115) -eq 0 ] && n=06 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9116) -eq 0 ] && n=07 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9117) -eq 0 ] && n=08 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9118) -eq 0 ] && n=09 [ -z "$n" -a $(echo "$lst"|grep -c 9119) -eq 0 ] && n=10 port=$(( 9109 + 10#$n )) /bin/echo -n connected to... rescue${n}(a)csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com port $port'...' ssh -X -C -t -R ${port}:${localhost}:22 rescue${n}(a)csr.LOGIN-MACHINE.com \ 'sleep 28800;exit 2>/dev/null' stty $set # reset intr if timed out exit 0 fi ============================= end access script ================ This logs in to our server, uploads the client public key, looks for open port (01 through 10), and then types which was chosen to client screen so I can know which port to ssh to. Rereading the comments alerts me they are out of date. Of course you should change "LOGIN_PASSWORD\r" to whatever you use followed by \r (expect for <ENTER> key). This does not, as I am typing, include generating the id_dsa.pub but... I just put that part in from another script. I include -X and Compression so running a GUI is possible even across slow links. Sometimes we start... vncviewer -bgr233 -noraiseonbeep -nocursorshape -quality 0 \ -encodings "copyrect tight hextile zlib corre rre raw" \ -compresslevel 9 localhost:0 To 'peek over the shoulder' of our clients. I don't advise that unless you are on the phone with them at that moment because they freak when mouse moves and screen gets typed to without them. Diverting messages from expect so your novice users will be less intimidated I leave for the readers because I have spent too much time on this already.

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Remote access partition and install Linux. With a Near Zero skilled operator at the remote site.
by Oren Beck 23 Jan '08

23 Jan '08

The reasons for this situation are several at more than one location. The overview is to remotely install Linux on computers owned by non tool users, zero skills presumed of them. What I am seeking is several methods for making the process just plain work. Initial customer is my mother in Berkeley, and her social groups may join in. The minimal cold start scene will be a Knoppix or Damn small tested computer and net connection. The defined factors are: DSL or cable modem set up as DHCP. Hardware approx 2000 or newer. Working OS of XP or installed Knoppix or both.in most cases. Very Few sites with no OS. Internal HD swaps are a non starter as most of these folks are non tool using mundanes. The rest of the story is they almost all are politically or socially desiring to use Linux.by choice! With a few skeptics that "want to be shown"-more about the net than Linux as they still use TYPEWRITERS! And they often have little to no computer skills to unlearn. Short of my doing some major frequent flier miles tripping,KCLUG may be their salvation. "Someone is going to do it- why not us?" -- Oren Beck 816.729.3645

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