Ok, this is longer than what was intended, but gives up a clean slate to chop and add too when considering a new "How Do I Ask For Help" FAQ.
It is open for suggestions and comments. :-) ############ start of FAQ ################################## Q. If I want help troubleshooting a connectivity failure with my LEAF router, what information you you need from me? A. The exact information needed will vary by what trouble needs shooting. As a general matter, exact quoting of error messages, log entries, command output, and such, is better than your trying to paraphrase or summarize them. 1.0 Introduction As always in life, especially when you have just pulled your last hair out, there are several things to check and do before asking that might save you a post that is archived on the web for the rest of your life that hasn't jumped out at you yet. Or you simply are not familiar with the LEAF/Linux system yet and need some more information to help you realize exactly what to check and understand. I highly suggest following some, if not all, of the preliminary self-help steps before posting. Do a Google search on "Guitarlynn" some time, and within the first 5 hits of the search I can guarentee a very embarassing thread on a mailing list that happened many years ago. I would like to see everyone get a working system without any embarassing side-effects like that! In fact, it will most likely get you a correct answer to your problem in a much faster time frame by helping us help you in this manner. The instructions in this document apply to SourceForge support requests, and troubleshooting questions asked on the leaf-user mailing list. 1.1 Acknowledgements We thank the following people for their corrections and suggestions: Ray Olszewski, Charles Steinkuehler, Jeff Newmiller, Gary Shea, Michelle Konzack, Wayne Fool, Jonathan French, Michael Leone, Dave Emmons, Bill Pierce, Chris Hill, and Paul Batozech. 1.2 Distribution Policy A copy of the license is available at: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=1812&group_id=13751 2. Things to do Before Posting Read all available documentation on the site where you obtained the LEAF disk image, or files you are using. Check the FAQs at: http://sourceforge.net/docman/?group_id=13751 Fix all known bugs - see FAQs Section 05: Fixes for Known Bugs Subscribe to the LEAF mailing list at: http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/leaf-user This is not necessary, but it is the polite thing to do. Optional: Search the LEAF mailing list archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net/ This may take some time and effort. If you're not familiar with search engines, you may find this difficult. However, in most cases it's faster than asking list members for help. 3.0 Preparing a Post When preparing a post, keep in mind that you're asking for free technical support from people. They have no vested interest in helping you. So, it is to your advantage to make it as easy as possible for them to help, by including all appropriate diagnostic information. Also, be aware that other people's machines are not the same as yours. If your post is formatted correctly, some of the most knowledgeable people (UNIX gurus) will be able to read it. The following is a list of things to keep in mind: Keep your lines under 80 characters, and under 72 if possible. Sometimes it is necessary to include lines longer than 80 characters. You can accomplish this by using " \" to continue a line. Example: averylongcommandthatyouwanttosplit \ intomultiplelinesforpostingtothelist \ sothatotherpeoplecandiagnoseyourproblem Use plain ASCII text. Not all email clients can properly view styled or HTML text. Some will simply strip out the codes used for style/HTML text, while others will display the codes in the message and leave the recipient with a messy email message. In extreme cases (e.g. pine), the recipient will see nothing at all. - see http://www.expita.com/nomime.html for instructions The post should have an informative Subject line, with the important information near the beginning. Include all information in the body of the post. It is inappropriate to send attachments to the list. Please don't edit the diagnostic information in an attempt to conceal your IP address, netmask, nameserver address, domain name, etc... These things aren't secret. If someone wants to do something bad to you, they can get this information in no time. When you post files that include passwords, you should replace all password characters with the letter "x". 3.1 How to Get Your Diagnostic Information Into a Post When asking for general help with routing or firewalling questions, you should ALWAYS include this information: the exact name of the LEAF distribution and version you are running. the exact kernel version you are running. the complete, exact output of "ip addr show". the complete, exact output of "netstat -nr". the exact wording of any "ping" failure responses. Depending on the specific problem, you may want to include some or all of the following: the exact output of "lsmod" [typically for NIC-related problems]. the exact output of "ipchains -nvL" [typically for firewall-related problems]. any messages from dhclient in your logs [typically for setup of DHCP-dynamic external connections]. any messages from ppp or pppoe in your logs [typically for setup of PPPoE-dynamic external connections]. This is not an exhaustive list; we've tried here to cover only the most common sorts of troubleshooting problems that arise. If you have a less common problem, or if you use an ISP that does something unusual, you may need to provide other specifics to get good help. Several of the LEAF FAQ's will be invaluable to finding other needed information, commands, and interpreting the commands. Some of these FAQ's would be: LEAF Command FAQ Diagnostic Commands Explained -Soon to be posted! 3.9 Copying Diagnostic Information to a Floppy Now, you're to a point where you have tried to figure the problem out yourself, done some very good reading, and found some very useful information about your system. Assuming this hasn't provided you with a working system, you would probably like to know a way of getting this information in a properly formatted email so that someone may be able to help you find an answer to your problem. Writing all that information down with a pencil and paper, then typing these notes into an email sounds like an even more frustrating step to follow. Relax and a few basic steps can help you do this with a standard blank floppy disk and bypass most note making that you will need to do. 1.Format a spare 1440K MSDOS floppy as you normally would under DOS, Windows, or Linux. (your floppies are probably already formatted this way). 2.Remove the LEAF disk and insert the new floppy in its place. 3.Mount the floppy by running this command: # mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt (If you try to re-use extra space on your LEAF floppy for this, be sure to use the appropriate device name... e.g. /dev/fd0u1680 for a 1680KB floppy.) 4.Then use the appropriate command(s) from section 3.1 to copy information to a text file on the floppy. Examples: # cp /var/log/messages /mnt/messages.txt # ip addr show > /mnt/address.txt # ipchains -nvL > /mnt/filter.txt 5.IMPORTANT! Don't forget to umount the floppy before removing it from the LEAF box, or attempting to use the backup option. Command: # umount /mnt You should be able to take the files you have just put on your floppy and cut-and-paste them into a mailing-list email as described in Section 3.0. If your using a Windows computer to send the email with, you can open the floppy files in an editor such as Notepad and clean the end-of-line truncations by pressing the Enter key at each of the "black boxes" that you will see. We hope this helps you find a fast solution to your problem getting LEAF working. We also appreciate you following this guide, so we can provide you the best possible answers in a minimal amount of time. Thank-you! ############# end of FAQ ################################## -- ~Lynn Avants aka Guitarlynn guitarlynn at users.sourceforge.net http://leaf.sourceforge.net If linux isn't the answer, you've probably got the wrong question! _______________________________________________ Leaf-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel
