June 2008 - KCLUG - kclug.org

Congrats to Julie...
by Greg Brooks 21 Jun '08

21 Jun '08

Who picked up her free laptop today. Many thanks to all who inquired - in the end, there were enough compelling responses that I just threw names into a hat and had my wife draw one at random. Current giveway: 19" (might be 17", but I think it's 19") Dell CRT monitor. Several years old, but works fine. Like the server I ditched, it would make a fine anchor for a large battleship. Yours for the taking.

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NUI-Kansas City Meeting with Fujitsu Biometric - Tuesday June 24th 12-1:30pm
by Alex Monteiro 17 Jun '08

17 Jun '08

As usual - KCLUG members are invited to our monthly NUI (Novell Users Intl) meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summer is here and it's time for another NUI-Kansas City meeting. This month's meeting is being sponsored by the folks at Fujitsu and 123ID, who have a USB biometric device that connects with eDirectory and IDM (Active Directory in a later release). Their team is out in KC through Thursday, so if you're interested in booking an on-site demo on Wednesday or Thursday, please let me know. Join us for some Arthur Bryants BBQ and good conversation. We hope to see you there. When: Tuesday, June 24th. 12:00 noon to 1:30pm Where: Metropolitan Community College Facility Services Building - 1601 Prospect Ave. Kansas City, MO. 64127 Why: NUI Kansas City meeting RSVP: alexm(a)kiscc.com - we need a headcount for lunch. **Agenda - Fujitsu & 123ID Biometric device presentation - What do we want to see in next month's meeting with Novell's technical ZENWorks team? - Vendor sponsors for upcoming meetings - Summer event. Should we have one? - Roundtable -- Alex Monteiro Business Development Manager KIS Computer Center - Kansas City o. 816-373-9900 (vmail ext. 7554) f. 816-373-9912 m. 650-279-1909 www.kiscc.com - alexm(a)kiscc.com

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Another free laptop
by Greg Brooks 15 Jun '08

15 Jun '08

As part of Greg Apparantly Gives Everyone A ComputerT Summer, I've got another one to give away. This time, it's a laptop. This is a Toshiba Satellite, with a 74GB HD and 512mb of RAM, expandable to 1GB, I believe. P4 mobile processor @ 3.2 ghz. Legal copy of XP installed, although with this crowd I suspect that doesn't matter. :) Boots/runs fine. Fan is *very* loud as is the drive. The deal: . Everyone except Nathan (who got the last computer I got rid of) is eligible. . If you want it you have to come get it (Plattsburg, 35 miles north of downtown KC) . If you're interested, shoot me an email off-list telling me the hostname you'll assign to the machine. Most interesting hostname (or most compelling beg) gets the laptop. Greg

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Networking question - perhaps OpenWrt might be the right tool?
by Oren Beck 15 Jun '08

15 Jun '08

This has me sort of hung. I have to get wifi coverage to the campground as there is a demand for it. My DSL interface is a Westell 327W in the store back room. See map for detail. listed later. The issue is when connecting access points to the ethernet ports of that Westell the AP does not seem configurable with DHCP and auto DNS pass thru. Any suggestions will be possibly rewarded with free camping etc if they work! Here's some more in The 2 main questions I lack answers for are- how to take an ethernet connection from that 327w and remote it to an AP which then would serve DHCP with DNS to both that AP itself and any repeaters. I own 3 DWL-900AP+ and 2 DWL-800AP+ repeaters. The desired layout is to have local cloud around the store on the Westell 327w, One of the 900's aimed as a spot beam to sites 1-5,also being visible to the snack bar. thence an ethernet bridged device to feed another 900 around the pool in omni with 2 of the 800's as repeaters to fil in the rest of the sewer sites See the map at our site to show geographical site details: http://campdownunder.com/map.php -- Oren Beck 816.729.3645

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Telnet to Web Server?
by Greg Lawson 13 Jun '08

13 Jun '08

Is it necessarily considered poor web server configuration to be able to telnet into a webserver and pull off the server info? For example, if you telnet to this site (and many others I've tested too): www.missouriwestern.edu (port 80) --then do a "get /" you will get the server info and the html from the website. So is that good, bad, neither, unavoidable? Greg Lawson Rolling Hills Consolidated Library 1912 N. Belt Highway St. Joseph, MO 64506

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The joy of resolving resolv.conf
by Jared Smith 13 Jun '08

13 Jun '08

This small message is simply to express the joy of figuring out the hosts file, hosts.conf, resolv.conf, resolvconf, WireShark, nameservers, and the basic structure, purpose, and method of TCP/IP in a tangible fashion. Previously I comprehended all this on faith alone. Now, the 3-5 second latency in traffic through the Debian server is gone, and I am happy, knowing a little more about what is happening under the hood. Happy? Nah, Joyful. -Jared ________________________________________________ This mail was sent by UebiMiau 2.5

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My PCLOS
by Julie 12 Jun '08

12 Jun '08

June 11, Christopher and others, I didn't post details because the mere words are a bit moot _without_ the pix to go with them. That is why I have a "Draft" saved (as previously stated) to send anyone who may be interested. But here is the TEXT anyway, since you asked for it: --->OK, this is what lead to what you see in those pix: I tried to turn on my Screen Saver again. I had turned it off for the meeting the other night. I got pic #1. SO, I went into Synaptic, searched for "Screen Saver" (minus the " marks, of course), updated the ones that had gold star (see pic #2 for error I got during that operation) and reinstalled the "kdeartwork" file (see pic #3. for error I got during that operation). Then I rebooted and got an error about the Desktop that I could not save cuz it popped up half way through loading the OS. Notice the 2nd Floppy Drive Icon added to the Desktop. I did NOT put it there myself but did add the 2 for ID purposes. Also notice my System Tray at the bottom of the screen. It's missing my FOUR desktop options as well as the Clipboard and Volume controls. In addition, I can not get these tiny windows to move or expand and if I have two up at the same time like I did earlier at the writing of the main part of this explanation with Firefox open and my Error msgs Folder open the windows will not exchange being on top so I can close the folder. (I'm presently on my Windhozed machine.) I must click File and then Exit to get out of Firefox and then the same with the Folder window. Also, my Mahjongg and Shisen-Sho games open small and are unplayable. I haven't tested any other apps. I feel lucky to be able to have done what I have so far. AND... when I shut the thing off the screen goes weird looking and Verbose mode looks like so much snow with a few colored dashes thrown in. $64,000 QUESTION: Is all of this fixable?...or do I have to start all over again with a fresh install of the OS??????????????????????????????????? Thank you in advance for any help you can try to give me. Julie >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> --->UPDATE: Billy answered with this: "pic 1 shows a missing library. Have you recently "yum remove"' d something or removed something with the pagkage manager? Add it back, and stay out of the package manager. It's a dangerous place. pic 2 does not show an error. redhat package manager recognises when you have already configured something. If you already have, but a package update provides a config file with the same name as one you the user have touched, it keeps yours in place so that your settings don't change. The 'new' config file that rpm installs will be named <file>.rpmnew. pic 3 shows the result of a package maintainer including a message to be displayed with the install of their package, but not filling anything in. This error is nothing to worry about. It's just some PCLinuxOS developer who wasn't watching what he was doing, and another package maintainer that missed the error. firefox FUBAR does not show any problem with firefox. What 'looks FUBAR' is the absence of a window decorator. Firefox does not have a border of its own. (Because I can tell it is firefox, it is hardly beyond all recognition.) It does not have a title bar, or the close/minimize/maximize buttons on its own. These graphical elements are called "window decorations" and are provided by the window decorator. In your case, the window decorator and window manager are one program, called kwin, which is a core element of KDE. You don't explicitly say, but I'm willing to bet no other windows at the time had their decorations either. It's hard to say why the window decorator died. It may have been because of the library from pic1 being missing. It may be because of propriatery plugins, like Yahoo's. You can easily get your window decorator back by logging out and back in. If the problem persists, before reinstallign the system, try logging in as root, removing your normal username, deleting the /home/username directory, and making a new user. Once rebooted does not appear to show any error. Please clarify what's wrong in this picture." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NOW: What Billy said about pic 1 _*I*_ did not do. THAT is what prompted me to try fixing this on my own..... However, there where some of the guys who worked on this computer at the meeting the other night and I have no idea what may have happened then as they were all using command line stuff. (You guys know who you are and maybe you can shed some light on what you tried and why?) What Billy said about Firefox is inexplicable to me since I have absolutely no way to resize the window when it opens nor can I move it by any means. All other windows appear and act the exact same way. Yahoo has nothing to do with it. I installed the Yahoo stuff on there a long time ago with _*NO*_ resulting problems. As a matter of fact, I've been using the laptop exclusively for internet browsing and e-mail for a couple of months now until this current problem showed up. The "Once rebooted" jpeg shows my desktop. It shows an EXTRA "Floppy" icon that just showed up there all by itself. I guess Billy forgot my explanation of that when he responded to me on that issue. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NEXT: When I tried to do what Billy suggested I found that I could NOT do it. Somewhere a while back I mistakenly set a 'log box' to come up when I go into "Root". NOW that 'log box' hides where I need to navigate, appears as a BLANK box containing NOTHING, and hides the place to manually exit the Root window that is open. Because of this, I made the mistake of trying to boot into SAFE MODE. I'd didn't know it was yet another place where nothing but command line is allowed. In order to get out of it I had to MANUALLY shut off the computer by pressing the Power Button. NOW the computer will NOT even turn on!!! Every once in a while it makes a noise so my guess is that it is in a sort of 'sleep mode' or something. I have it UNplugged and am waiting for the battery to run out if this is the case. Otherwise I'll try to reboot the thing again tomarrow to see what happens then. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> SO: Now you have all the sordid details that I can give at this point. Remember, Christopher ASKED for me to "try posting a more detail description of the issues" I'm having. Again, THANK YOU all in advance for any help you may be able to try to give me. Julie

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PCLOS Problems
by Julie 12 Jun '08

12 Jun '08

First I want to thank _*all*_ who have [in earnest] tried to help me. Now for answers to all who posted in Kclug Digest, Vol 47, Issue 9: --->Luke wrote: On Wednesday 11 June 2008, Julie wrote: > $64,000 QUESTION Do we really get $64,000 for answering?! ***Luke, here's a tiny little "clue" for you: Everyone likes a little @zz once in a while, but no one *really* likes a wize @zz. Capisce? --->Then Bradley wrote: Yes, in monopoly money. ***Thank you, Bradley, for the quick pick up on that! LOL! :)) :)) :)) --->Jeffery added his $.02 worth [and then some] with a good natured "lecture" on the fact that I need to learn the command line and why. ***...Nothing I didn't already realize on my own, though. ;) Gave me some much needed CLI information which I am _quite_ thankful for. He then asked if anyone knew 'of a good book or web tutorial for' me. GOOD IDEA, Jeffery! :D ***I had a friend of mine buy me Linux for Dummies last year. But it came with an _installation *ONLY*_ CD of Fedora 8 and is geared specifically to it. I still have it around because it does have SOME CLI in it. But I wonder if it applies to PCLOS ...or even *ubuntu??? Unfortunately, a free web tutorial is the only thing I can afford at this moment in time. :( --->Ron chimed in with: Unlike almost every other operating system, the command line in Unix is extremely useful and powerful. Command line in DOS/Windows is usually a much faster way to get things done. I still jump into it for a variety of OS things. MS got the message (pros prefer prompts) and improved their 'shell' via Windows PowerShell. ***Guys, I don't even know anything about WINDOZE CLI. :( ... ... ..."msconfig" and "regedit" is about it. :| --->Jeffery then answered Ron with: Yes, but the default shell SUCKS DONKEY NUTS. .....etc., etc., etc. ..... *** I must look up the term 'cmd.exe' and learn about THAT! ;) --->Christofer also answered Ron with: The irony here is that Microsoft's next server release is slated to include a GUI-less installation option. I can't imagine managing a Windows server without a GUI (I don't know, however, it it provides one when using Remote Desktop Client). ***I agree with Christofer about GUIs. But, then again, of COURSE I would because that's all I know right now. ] : ) --->Brian then informed us of our ISPs censorship practices in the fact that Time Warner, etc. are all going to cease allowing access to Usenet newsgroups. ***Thank you, Brian, for the heads up on that handy little tidbit of info! That's good to know... ;) But has it cleared snopes? LOL! ] : ) --->Then Bradley answered Jeffery's "lecture" to me with some GREAT info about a website where I can start TRYING to learn CLI. ***THANK YOU, once again, Bradley! I can't wait to wade into that site and see what I can do with it! :D >>>>>>>>> Now, before I could manage to get this sent off I get Kclug Digest, Vol 47, Issue 10. It contains this from David: The MS-DOS 2.0 (which could multitask a little: it could background printing, itt might have been able to do pipe chains) reference guide had an introductory section discussing command line file redirection operator semantics, in which MSDOS was described as a UNIX. I wish I still had that book around, I would like to scan the page and post it for reference by link at moments such as now ***MEEEE TWO! I shudder to think about the books I donated to charity when Larry died that I NEED now! I simply didn't know what they were and that I DID in fact need to keep them. <BLUSHING beet red!> >>>>>>>> Now, about my computer: Would ya'll like for me to just bring it to the next meeting so you can actually EYEBALL the thing to SEE what it's *doing*? Or should I just go ahead and *TRY* to do an OS re-install (by myself) so I can try to actually *USE* the thing to start learning from the web site Bradley provided. Right now that OS is all but completely FUBAR (to me anyway). Even though it'll boot up, I can't use it for anything at all. !!!!!THANK YOU all, once again, for all the help and suggestions you've given me. Sincerely, Julie P.S.: If this post looks weird, it's either Yahell acting up or something is going on with this Windoze machine of mine. I made the colossal mistake of trying Firefox on it. grrr!!!

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H - E - L - P ? ? ?
by Julie 10 Jun '08

10 Jun '08

My PCLOS is hosed. I have a l.o..o...o....n.....g description and a zip file full of JPEGs to send anyone who feels like trying to help me with it to see what is going on. If it looks too bad I'll just bring the thing to the meeting on the 17th for ya'll to see. Thanks in advance. L8rz, Julie

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Dueling rsync scripts?
by Greg Brooks 08 Jun '08

08 Jun '08

Hi all, quick question. Given an FTP server and directory tree on local machine X and an FTP server on remote machine Y, I understand that a cron'd rsync script might be the best way to keep changes on X mirrored up to Y. My questions: * Can I mirror the script in reverse so that changes on machine Y propagate back to X? (Perhaps running each script every other hour.) * Every now and then, an extraordinary number of files need to be transferred, so a script running once an hour (or whatever) could conceivably bump into another instance of itself running. Issues? For the curious, this is a temporary, partial workaround to my earlier bandwidth issues. By keeping a directory of local files updated remotely, we have the option of working on the files here [fast for us, miserable slow for outsiders who may want to get at them and work on them] or having freelancers work on them remotely [with faster access from our ISP-hosted FTP site]. Since work on the files is binary -- either a freelancer will work on them or we will, but not both -- having mirrored file trees seemed the way to go. Many thanks, Greg P.S. -- Congratulations to list member Nathan, who came and picked up the giant retro server yesterday. Nathan, thanks for freeing up approx. 100 square feet in my living room!

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