Re: [FOLLOW-UP] Re: Having scanned set of installation DVDs...

[songbird]

Richard Owlett wrote:
...
> Didn't get to it as soon as expected.
> Just copying /etc/apt/sources.list and /var/lib/apt/lists is not enough.
> Using either synaptic or apt-get I get an error message telling me to run 
> apt-cdrom so the cdrom can be recognized.
> The information about what package is on which CD is present as it reports 
> which 
> CD it is looking for.

  years ago i copied from dvds to a subdirectory
on an external USB drive.  it worked ok, but i did
have to tell in the apt sources list that i was 
using a file and not a dvd.

  i am pretty sure i used a "cp -r" to do it too...

  fwiw,  :)


  songbird

Re: Question about wifi web service with debian

[Doug]

On 02/11/2017 11:02 PM, Billy O wrote:

hello my name is William O'Brien

I have been using and researching debian for alittle while now and 
have been trying to access wifi I have tried several different ways 
and researched many tutorials and help sections with very little 
success and was wondering if you might be able to assist me with my 
problem.


so currently the computer I am trying to gain access with is a dell 1521
with Broadcom 4311

the debian os works fine. however the few ways I have tried don't seem 
to give me any closer to accessing wifi and may end up re installing 
the os


but am wondering if theres any expert advice you might be able to give 
on this subject.


--
William O'Brien
The Broadcom wifi boards are notorious! Windows has drivers for them, 
and in my experience Mint 7 KDE 64-bit LTE also does. (Both work "out of 
the box.") PCLinuxOS does not, and it is a
bitch to get it to work under PCLOS, altho possible. It may be more 
difficult now, because I believe that Broadcom has been bought out by 
another outfit. There is a large batch of comments
on the PCLINUXOS FORUMS, dating back to 2014, and some from 2015 and 
2016, many involving me. (dougmack)


Seeing that you are using Deb, you might find it easier to switch to 
Mint, which also uses the deb install system, and is filewise compatible 
with Ubuntu, which as you probably know, was

a spinoff from Debian.

To some extent at least, Google is your friend. Put in Linux and 
Broadcom 4311 and you may find some help there. I'm sure you can access 
the PCLOS Forum without registering or signing
in, altho you can't post unless you do register. It is a pretty friendly 
user interface, with a search feature, so you should be able to find 
most of the Broadcom correspondence there.


Good luck! You're going to need it!

--doug

PS: If you can find a wifi board that's directly supported by Debian, it 
may be worth your while to buy one and plug it in. I think they're all 
pretty interchangeable. That would save you
hours of grief. I almost did that, but finally got it to work before I 
went to that extreme.


--
Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both 
sides.--A.M.Greeley

Question about wifi web service with debian

[Billy O]

hello my name is William O'Brien

I have been using and researching debian for alittle while now and have
been trying to access wifi I have tried several different ways and
researched many tutorials and help sections with very little success and
was wondering if you might be able to assist me with my problem.

so currently the computer I am trying to gain access with is a dell 1521
with Broadcom 4311

the debian os works fine. however the few ways I have tried don't seem to
give me any closer to accessing wifi and may end up re installing the os

but am wondering if theres any expert advice you might be able to give on
this subject.

-- 
William O'Brien

Re: DNS hits

[Glenn English]

Sorry, Andy. Here's another try, but to the list...


On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 8:40 PM, Glenn English  wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 6:33 PM, Andy Smith  wrote:
>
> If your nameserver offered recursion then it was most likely scanned
>> and added to a list of such servers, and is now being used to take
>> part in distributed denial of service attacks.
>>
>
> I think I was wrong earlier. I did try from an external IP, but I used the
> wrong one.
>
> I tested again from a known alien IP, and I checked with a
> RecursiveNameserverTest on the 'Net. Both tests said I wasn't recursive.
> BIND's config is apparently doing what it said it was doing.
>
>
>> If the really large amount of traffic that is appearing to come
>> from relatively few sources at any given time,
>
>
> No. It's not a small number of sources. There are 650 or so /15s and /16s
> at AWS, all of which are blocked, and several thousand around the world.
> (most in the US, though) A lot of those look like single hosts with just a
> few hits, so I tend to leave them alone, but others are several hosts on
> the same network. Those make it to the packet filter. I don't like Facebook
> and Microsofy anyway :-)
>
> But they just keep coming. And 'most anybody has a bigger pipe than I do.
> I think I may just be experiencing my first DDoS attack. Getting through
> the Cisco router configuration language was a lot easier and a lot more
> fun.
>
> As best I can tell from the replies I've received today, I've done things
> about as right as can be done in my situation. Just wait until they get
> tired of whacking an old T1, I guess...
>
> Thanks much, all.
>
> --
> Glenn English
>
>

Re: HELP! Re: How to fix I/O errors? (SOLVED)

[Marc Shapiro]

On 02/11/2017 05:22 PM, Marc Auslander wrote:

You didn't ask for advice so take it or ignore it.

IMHO, in this day and age, there is no reason not to run raid 1.  Two
disks, identially partitioned, each parition set up as a raid 1
partition with two copies.

When a disk dies, you remove it from all the raid partitions, pop in a
new disk, partition it,  add the new partitions back into the raid
partitions and raid rebuilds the copies.

Except for taking the system down to replace the disk (assuming you
don't have a third installed as a spare) you just keep running as if
nothing has happened.

I had been considering using raid 1 and I have not yet ruled it out 
entirely.  I have never used raid and have been reading up on it over 
the past couple of weeks.  AIUI you can use LVM over raid.  Is there any 
actual advantage to this?  I was trying to determine the advantages of 
using straight raid, straight LVM, or LVM over raid.  If I decide, 
later, to use raid, how dificult is it to add to a currently running 
system (with, or without LVM)?



Marc

Re: Before I install Debian

[John Culleton]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 14:13:20 -0700
Bob Holtzman  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 03:54:34PM -0500, Doug wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > On 02/10/2017 03:45 PM, Sven Hartge wrote:  
> > >John Culleton  wrote:
> > >  
> > >>All I need from Debian is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Is this available
> > >>with Debian?  
> > >No.
> > >
> > >Grüße,
> > >Sven.
> > >  
> > Have you looked at Master PDF Editor 4?  
> 
> It's better than Adobe in that they have a current version for linux.
> They are, however, closed source.
> 


I think the main point is being missed. I have Okular and xpdf. The
company's software would only work with Adobe. As for the edition 7
web site I don't remember where I found it. I can look
again if it is neededful.
-- 
John Culleton
Wexfordpress
Book design and indexing.

Re: [FOLLOW-UP] Re: Having scanned set of installation DVDs...

[David Wright]

On Sat 11 Feb 2017 at 16:25:50 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 01/29/2017 01:18 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> >On 01/29/2017 10:26 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> >
> >>On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 09:17:34AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
> >>>I'm tracking down some problems related to chosen install options.
> >>>I expect to be making _multiple_ clean installs.
> >>>Besides /etc/apt/sources.list, where is information stored after
> >>>having scanned the complete set of DVDs.
> >>>
> >>>I wish to store it to a safe location for use after doing EACH clean
> >>>install.
> >>>TIA
> >>
> >>Perhaps there are more places, but the package lists are at least in
> >>/var/lib/apt/lists one file for each source (or mirror). I haven't
> >>packages from CDROM, but I'd assume that they might end up there
> >>as well.
> >
> >It looks to have everything. I'll discover whether or not it IS everything I
> >need later this week.
> 
> Didn't get to it as soon as expected.
> Just copying /etc/apt/sources.list and /var/lib/apt/lists is not enough.

No, but ...

> Using either synaptic or apt-get I get an error message telling me
> to run apt-cdrom so the cdrom can be recognized.
> The information about what package is on which CD is present as it
> reports which CD it is looking for.
> 
> I've not yet read 
> https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_debian_package_management_internals
> .
> 
> Don't know when I'll be able to follow-up further.
> Thanks again.
> 
> 
> >
> >>
> >>Moreover there's a list in /var/lib/apt/cdroms.list containing
> >>references to the CDROMs themselves (what exactly is in there
> >>I can't say, but I'd expect the gory details over there:

... did you copy this too? (Example of contents attached.)

> >>
> >>
> >>https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_debian_package_management_internals
> >>
> >
> >I think it will be worthwhile to read the whole chapter. Only had a chance to
> >browse its table of contents.
> >
> >Thank you.

Cheers,
David.
CD::92992b192b1db5aa8ea1f957b90a485d-2 "Debian GNU/Linux 6.0.0 _Squeeze_ - 
Official i386 CD Binary-1 20110205-17:27";
CD::92992b192b1db5aa8ea1f957b90a485d-2::Label "Debian GNU/Linux 6.0.0 _Squeeze_ 
- Official i386 CD Binary-1 20110205-17:27";
CD::e1ec6fcc84c6cc777fa638b8f6d5403e-2 "Debian GNU/Linux testing _Jessie_ - 
Official Snapshot i386 NETINST Binary-1 20150126-04:46";
CD::e1ec6fcc84c6cc777fa638b8f6d5403e-2::Label "Debian GNU/Linux testing 
_Jessie_ - Official Snapshot i386 NETINST Binary-1 20150126-04:46";

Re: HELP! Re: How to fix I/O errors? (SOLVED)

[Felix Miata]

Marc Auslander composed on 2017-02-11 20:22 (UTC-0500):


IMHO, in this day and age, there is no reason not to run raid 1.

Are you sure? Laptops have been outselling desktops for years.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: DNS hits

[Andy Smith]

Hi Glenn,

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 04:11:13PM -0700, Glenn English wrote:
> Does your DNS answer recursive queries?
> >
> 
> Oh, my lord. I didn't think it did -- I tried to configure BIND to do
> recursion only from my net. I just tried it from an external IP, and sure
> enough, it gave me an address for www.abc.com. But I just saw another
> config option that turns recursion off completely.

If your nameserver offered recursion then it was most likely scanned
and added to a list of such servers, and is now being used to take
part in distributed denial of service attacks.

If the really large amount of traffic that is appearing to come
from relatively few sources at any given time, then you may
actually be taking part in attack on those apparent sources. The
attackers forge a victim's source address and make a DNS query to an
open resolver for a large record, then the resolver sends that
answer back to the forged source. This inflicts a large amount of
traffic on a third party, as there will be potentially many
thousands of open resolvers doing this all at once.

If on the other hand the really large amount of traffic is coming
from hundreds or thousands of different hosts at once then it is
more likely that you are the victim and they are the open resolvers.

If you're facilitating the DDoS then closing your open resolver
should fix it though not immediately, as they won't know that it
stopped working for a while.

Some more information about the denial of service attacks which use
open recursive nameservers:

http://www.securiteam.com/securityreviews/5GP0L00I0W.html

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: archive.debian.org returning 403 Forbidden

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 11:23:00PM +, GiaThnYgeia wrote:
> Andy Smith:
> > Took a stab at reporting it to ftpmas...@debian.org for now.

[…]

> ohh ... wait it just came back UP again
> http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-amd64/
> It is all there now!

ftpmaster redirected me to debian-mirrors, who I emailed just now.
So maybe it was that or maybe it was just coincidence.

Cheers,
Andy

Re: HELP! Re: How to fix I/O errors? (SOLVED)

[Marc Auslander]

You didn't ask for advice so take it or ignore it.

IMHO, in this day and age, there is no reason not to run raid 1.  Two
disks, identially partitioned, each parition set up as a raid 1
partition with two copies.

When a disk dies, you remove it from all the raid partitions, pop in a
new disk, partition it,  add the new partitions back into the raid
partitions and raid rebuilds the copies.

Except for taking the system down to replace the disk (assuming you
don't have a third installed as a spare) you just keep running as if
nothing has happened.

Re: DNS hits

[Igor Cicimov]

On 12 Feb 2017 4:59 am, "Glenn English"  wrote:

Is anyone else getting thousands of hits on DNS?

I am, largely from Amazon's AWS. I've emailed Amazon's abuse (from whois),
Amazon's customer support, and added all the IP nets to my packet filter.

But AWS isn't the whole problem -- just the worst offender. And my little
T1 has been, sometimes, DoS'ed by the hits. They are coming from IPs all
over the world, from different sources every day, so I can't ask my ISP to
block them in their big pipe.

Does anybody have any idea how to stop them?

-- 
Glenn English



Your best option is to configure the server as authoritative only and allow
recursion from your private network only (if you haven't done so already)

Re: archive.debian.org returning 403 Forbidden

[GiaThnYgeia]

Andy Smith:
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 01:18:31PM +, Andy Smith wrote:
>> Is this intentional?
>>
>> If not, who should the problem be reported to?
> 
> Took a stab at reporting it to ftpmas...@debian.org for now.
> 
> Cheers,
> Andy

it seems that the only think reachable on that server is amd64-surge
or maybe they are in the proecess of restoring the server and only this
one part had become available

ohh ... wait it just came back UP again
http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-amd64/
It is all there now!


-- 
 "The most violent element in society is ignorance" rEG

Re: DNS hits

[Glenn English]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Henning Follmann  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 10:58:54AM -0700, Glenn English wrote:
>
> Nothing about Debian.
>

No, but I've been a Debian user for several years, and the place I know to
ask to get to competent advice and such, is this list. And the server in
question is running Debian, FWIW.


> > Is anyone else getting thousands of hits on DNS?
>
> Hits how?.
>

There's a rate limiter on DNS in my iptables packet filter. The hits I'm
talking about show up in logwatch as log entries from my packet filter --
all of which have exceeded the rate limit. Often vastly.


> Do you run a DNS server with openly available zones?
>

Not sure what an 'open zone' is.


> Not enough information.
> Install dnstop and check what these requests are.
> And then there are so many questions.
>

Very sorry about that, and in retrospect I see what you mean.

But in another post, Henning Follmann suggested what I think will solve my
problem: move my DNS server to my ISP.

Does your DNS answer recursive queries?
>

Oh, my lord. I didn't think it did -- I tried to configure BIND to do
recursion only from my net. I just tried it from an external IP, and sure
enough, it gave me an address for www.abc.com. But I just saw another
config option that turns recursion off completely.
...
I turned it off, and as expected, there's no recursion -- from my net or
anywhere else. Bears a little more looking into. Surely there's a way to
get BIND to do this little trick. Hopefully without going to that
public/private mess. BIND is a mixed blessing.


> How big are your zones?


40 or so lines in the zone files. Not very big.


> Do you have zones?
>

Sure. I own 3 domains and do a few virtuals.


> Do you allow zone transfers?
>

That I'm pretty sure I don't.  (I saw 'pretty sure' because I was positive
I had recursion turned off for aliens.)


> Do you have multiple DNS servers running? Is your secondary seeing the same
> spike of traffic?
>

No, just one (setting up my servers in a new location). The plan is to hide
that one behind some firewalling (with recursion for the locals) and use
that nameserver from RIPE (that doesn't even know how to do recursion) as
slaves on the 'Net facing servers.

Or maybe get rid of the nameserver. But I do like the ability to go in and
modify things by myself and have it happen right now.

And it's not a spike -- it's (almost) continuous. I looked at the blinking
lights on the router just now, and it's pretty quiet. The script kiddies
must be taking a nap...

-- 
Glenn English

[FOLLOW-UP] Re: Having scanned set of installation DVDs...

[Richard Owlett]

On 01/29/2017 01:18 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:

On 01/29/2017 10:26 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:


On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 09:17:34AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

I'm tracking down some problems related to chosen install options.
I expect to be making _multiple_ clean installs.
Besides /etc/apt/sources.list, where is information stored after
having scanned the complete set of DVDs.

I wish to store it to a safe location for use after doing EACH clean
install.
TIA


Perhaps there are more places, but the package lists are at least in
/var/lib/apt/lists one file for each source (or mirror). I haven't
packages from CDROM, but I'd assume that they might end up there
as well.


It looks to have everything. I'll discover whether or not it IS everything I
need later this week.


Didn't get to it as soon as expected.
Just copying /etc/apt/sources.list and /var/lib/apt/lists is not enough.
Using either synaptic or apt-get I get an error message telling me to run 
apt-cdrom so the cdrom can be recognized.
The information about what package is on which CD is present as it reports which 
CD it is looking for.


I've not yet read 
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_debian_package_management_internals 
.


Don't know when I'll be able to follow-up further.
Thanks again.






Moreover there's a list in /var/lib/apt/cdroms.list containing
references to the CDROMs themselves (what exactly is in there
I can't say, but I'd expect the gory details over there:


https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_debian_package_management_internals



I think it will be worthwhile to read the whole chapter. Only had a chance to
browse its table of contents.

Thank you.

Re: HELP! Re: How to fix I/O errors? (SOLVED)

[David Christensen]

On 02/10/17 23:39, Marc Shapiro wrote:

On 02/08/2017 05:32 PM, David Christensen wrote:

On 02/08/17 15:59, Marc Shapiro wrote:

So how do I lay down a low level format on [the new 1 TB] drive?

I would use the SeaTools bootable CD to fill the drive with zeroes:
On 02/03/17 23:13, David Christensen wrote:

Sometimes you get lucky and the tool is a live CD:

www.seagate.com/files/www-content/support-content/downloads/seatools/_shared/downloads/SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO

I didn't feel like burning a CD and it has been a long time since I had
a box with a 3.5" floppy (although i do have one or two drives in a box
somewhere and quite a few of the folppies, themselves, as well)


3.5" floppy?  The link above is for a live CD.


 so I just used dd to write zeros to the disk. It took a while, but it 

> did the job.

For a HDD, the effect should be the same.



I partitioned the new disk with 3 physical partitions of 2GB each for
root/boot partitions.  ...
The 4th partition was set up for LVM and was set as a Physical Volume
(PV) to be added to the volume group along with my old drive.


The problem with putting everything on one big disk is that it becomes 
impractical to clone the system image.  I'm still climbing the disk 
imaging learning curve, but it's a useful technique that has saved me 
countless hours.




In the end, I picked yet another method for moving to the new disk. ...


Congratulations on your success battling through it all, especially LVM.


David

Re: Fwd: Re: Advice / recommendations on Inexpensive Managed Ethernet Switches

[Stefan Monnier]

> Basically anything that can run Debian and has two suitable
> ethernet ports will do. An old laptop? One of the shiny little
> Raspberry-Pi style devices? (Probably not the Pi itself; it only
> has one ethernet port.)

I use a BananaPi for that.  It has 3 network interfaces:
- the ethernet one, which I use on the DSL side.
- the wifi (I used an external USB dongle for that, for various reasons).
- the USB-OTG which I use to connect my main desktop (effective
  bandwidth on this one is a bit more than 10MB/s, so slower than
  a gigabit ethernet but plenty for my needs).
The reason why I like those critters:
- supports SATA.
- very low power consumption (e.g. I measured 5W at the "mains",
  including a 2TB HDD spinning).
- runs stock Debian, including stock kernel, so I don't have to worry
  about lack of security fixes down the road.
So I use them (one at home, on at the office) as router-plus-NAS,
running things like OpenVPN, Squid, OwnCloud, MusicPD, ...
Having a full Debian system means that I can trivially install pretty
much anything that I might need, using the same old tools I already know
and love.


Stefan

Re: Before I install Debian

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

On 11/02/17 10:09, Floris wrote:

but the default pdf-reader in Debian is Evince


Perhaps for Gnome, but not for all desktops supported in Debian. I use 
qpdfview under XFCE.


Kind regards,

--
Ben Caradoc-Davies 
Director
Transient Software Limited 
New Zealand

Re: Before I install Debian

[deloptes]

Patrick Bartek wrote:

> And no guarantee it will work 100% with
> today's PDF generated files.

It works

Re: Before I install Debian

[Bob Holtzman]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 03:54:34PM -0500, Doug wrote:
> 
> 
> On 02/10/2017 03:45 PM, Sven Hartge wrote:
> >John Culleton  wrote:
> >
> >>All I need from Debian is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Is this available with
> >>Debian?
> >No.
> >
> >Grüße,
> >Sven.
> >
> Have you looked at Master PDF Editor 4?

It's better than Adobe in that they have a current version for linux.
They are, however, closed source.

-- 
Bob  Holtzman

"Bother", said Pooh, as he chambered another round...

Re: DNS hits

[Henning Follmann]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 10:58:54AM -0700, Glenn English wrote:

Nothing about Debian.

Anyway...

> Is anyone else getting thousands of hits on DNS?

Hits how?.
Do you run a DNS server with openly available zones?

> 
> I am, largely from Amazon's AWS. I've emailed Amazon's abuse (from whois),
> Amazon's customer support, and added all the IP nets to my packet filter.
> 
> But AWS isn't the whole problem -- just the worst offender. And my little
> T1 has been, sometimes, DoS'ed by the hits. They are coming from IPs all
> over the world, from different sources every day, so I can't ask my ISP to
> block them in their big pipe.
> 
> Does anybody have any idea how to stop them?
> 

Not enough information.
Install dnstop and check what these requests are.
And then there are so many questions.

Does your DNS answer recursive queries?
How big are your zones? Do you have zones?
Do you allow zone transfers?

Do you have multiple DNS servers running? Is your secondary seeing the same
spike of traffic?


-H


-- 
Henning Follmann   | hfollm...@itcfollmann.com

Re: Before I install Debian

[Brian]

On Sat 11 Feb 2017 at 14:27:20 -0500, John Culleton wrote:

> The culprit in this case is the online company who does my taxes.
> They send them direct to the Feds and the State of Maryland but offer
> me the opportunity to view them on line and print them out for my files.

A good service.

> But these functions  on their system are inoperable unless my web
> browser can use Adobe Acrobat Reader. I finally found a free copy of
> AAR 7 that was in source form which I compiled and somehow Firefox
> could employ. The problem was solved. They absolutely would not just

The source code for AAR is available? URL, please.

> send me the pdf files. Security was their rationale. The Cups system

Security doesn't bother them when they email an invoice to you?

-- 
Brian.

Re: Before I install Debian

[John Culleton]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 11:32:45 +1100
Keith Bainbridge  wrote:

> Have I missed something here?
> 
> .pdf files are portable,  right?
> 
> 
> How can I as a creator specify that you as the reader MUST use a
> specific program to read them?
> 
> Keith Bainbridge
> 
> 0447667468
> 
> keithrbaugro...@gmail.com
> 
> Sent from my APad
> 
> On 11 Feb 2017 07:40, "John Culleton"  wrote:
> 
> > All I need from Debian is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Is this available
> > with Debian?
> >
> > --
> > John Culleton
> > Wexfordpress
> > Book design and indexing.
> >
> >
> >  

The culprit in this case is the online company who does my taxes.
They send them direct to the Feds and the State of Maryland but offer
me the opportunity to view them on line and print them out for my files.
But these functions  on their system are inoperable unless my web
browser can use Adobe Acrobat Reader. I finally found a free copy of
AAR 7 that was in source form which I compiled and somehow Firefox
could employ. The problem was solved. They absolutely would not just
send me the pdf files. Security was their rationale. The Cups system
that comes with Slack 14.1 won't work with my printer
(though it will print test pages, go figure) so I booted 
Knoppix 7.6 and printed the pages one at a time. But that is another
story. Cups works for others and prior versions (like on Knoppix) work
for me..

My taxes are filed and I have paper copies. Next year I may just get the
paper forms and fill them out manually.
-- 
John Culleton
Wexfordpress
Book design and indexing.

Re: DNS hits

[Steve Kemp]

On Sat Feb 11, 2017 at 10:58:54 -0700, Glenn English wrote:

>Is anyone else getting thousands of hits on DNS?

  Yes, but that's because I host DNS for popular domains.

>But AWS isn't the whole problem -- just the worst offender. And my little
>T1 has been, sometimes, DoS'ed by the hits. They are coming from IPs all
>over the world, from different sources every day, so I can't ask my ISP to
>block them in their big pipe.

  It sounds like you're running your own DNS server on your instance.
 If that is the case, you might consider moving it to Amazon's route53
 infrastructure.  That would mean that your DNS wouldn't rely upon your
 personal machine, and you're already using AWS ..

  Failing that it might be that remote IPs are trying to exploit your
 server.  Have you tested you're not running an open-resolver, by
 accident?  You should (probably) be running DNS for only your chosen
 domains.

  But sadly, without more information, the best we can do is guess
 that you're being spidered and hammered for fun.  Reporting the abuse
 will likely make no difference, even though it should.

>Does anybody have any idea how to stop them?

  Stop hosting DNS on the machine, by moving it elsewhere.  Also
 sanity-check your configuration.  If this works, you'll have
 trouble, for example:

dig -t a example.com @your.ip.add.ress

Steve
-- 
# Git-based DNS host
https://dns-api.com/

DNS hits

[Glenn English]

Is anyone else getting thousands of hits on DNS?

I am, largely from Amazon's AWS. I've emailed Amazon's abuse (from whois),
Amazon's customer support, and added all the IP nets to my packet filter.

But AWS isn't the whole problem -- just the worst offender. And my little
T1 has been, sometimes, DoS'ed by the hits. They are coming from IPs all
over the world, from different sources every day, so I can't ask my ISP to
block them in their big pipe.

Does anybody have any idea how to stop them?

-- 
Glenn English

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Richard Owlett]

On 02/11/2017 08:21 AM, Liam O'Toole wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Curt  wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:


[...]


I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places,
and System as submenus. I wish to return to the original
configuration. How?


Reinstall for the umpteenth time.



Overkill.

I would try mozo, the menu editor for MATE.



Didn't address my problem (since resolved, see reply to songbird).
However, it gives me a inkling of an attack for an unrelated issue.
Thank you.

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Richard Owlett]

On 02/11/2017 09:47 AM, Curt wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Liam O'Toole  wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Curt  wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:


[...]


I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places,
and System as submenus. I wish to return to the original
configuration. How?


Reinstall for the umpteenth time.



Overkill.


I was just pulling his leg.


*ROFL*
Just because I've had occasion to do 5 or 6 full installs from same DVD's on a 
single day ... ;)


Seriously though, I think I've learned things that I would have never even 
investigated but for experimenting.


P.S. My leg gets pulled so much on and off line that it has acquired an 
auto-retract function.





I would try mozo, the menu editor for MATE.

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[GiaThnYgeia]

thank you very much

David Wright:
> On Sat 11 Feb 2017 at 12:35:00 (+), GiaThnYgeia wrote:
>> Jimmy Johnson:
>>> On 02/10/2017 05:49 PM, David Wright wrote:
 On Fri 10 Feb 2017 at 16:00:13 (-0800), Jimmy Johnson wrote:
> Hello,
> Take a look at Synaptic Menu you can select a package and then go to
> Package > Force Version, you can only force one package at a time
> but, yes you can downgrade. I can down grade a couple hundred
> packages without much problem, depends on the user.

 Oh, that's heartening! Does Synaptic use a different method
 from dpkg? The man page for the latter says (and the warnings
 look very pretty in red):
   Warning: At present dpkg does not do any dependency checking  on
   downgrades  and  therefore  will  not  warn you if the downgrade
   breaks the dependency of some other package. This can have seri‐
   ous  side  effects,  downgrading essential system components can
   even make your whole system unusable. Use with care.
 Cheers,
 David.
>>>
>>> Hi David, Synaptic will not let you install a broken package.  If you
>>> are running sid/testing sometimes a package version will become obsolete
>>> and need a change or a video driver version is not working and needs a
>>> change, etc. If you're running in a GUI Synaptic is handy to have
>>> installed.  And yes, it's using "dpkg".
>>
>> One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a way
>> to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know where
>> such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.
> 
> I use aptitude rather than synaptic so you'll have to compensate for
> that in what follows. There are three logs that I use.
> 
> The first is /var/log/aptitude.log which is rotated for only six
> months. (I don't think I've changed any log rotation parameters.)
> This only shows what you told aptitude itself to do, and only your
> intentions, not the results (which might have been unsuccessful).
> It also doesn't bother about versions, only package names.
> 
> The second was mentioned and is /var/log/apt/history.log which is
> rotated for twelve months. This includes changes made with both
> aptitude and apt-get, and it includes the previous and new version
> numbers. That makes it messy to parse as you have to deal with
> two levels of commas: ... pkga (ver1, ver2), pkgb (ver3, ver4), ...
> 
> The third is /var/log/apt/term.log (also twelve months) which logs
> all the results of apt's work, but lacks any of your input. So you
> need to look at the other logs to find out why apt did what it did.
> It's very long-winded because it even includes the "progress bars".
> 
>> I understand it all relates to what depends on what and who is breaking
>> whom.  If it is a package that depends on other "stuff" but nothing
>> depends on it you can install something from debian1 in its beta version
>> and all else is fine.  But if you go one version back of one little
>> thing that 100 things depend on, you may get 90 things not working.
>> This is my simplistic understanding. Out of my panic experimentation I
>> have run into situations that it becomes a great puzzle of why the
>> system is still working.  Like creating a mess and breaking the system
>> then reinstalling an earlier version of the distribution ON TOP of the
>> mesh, same root and user names and passwords,
>> then try to locate all the things that had been installed and upgraded
>> that are not on the dpkg list and if not recovered they will remain
>> unupdated.  And it works!  Like magic!  I think all synaptic does is
>> simplifying and remembering all the correct syntax of dpkg commands and
>> executing them for you.
> 
> Well, I'd be interested to see the term.log from a session where
> someone downgrades "a couple hundred packages without much problem"
> as reported above. According to your experience, their statement of
> "depends on the user" is untrue. Synaptic just sorts it all out for
> you, though that's surprising in view of your last sentence.
> 
> I have little experience of downgrading, but have read plenty of
> postings here about how difficult it can be. I would want a solid
> backup system in place at the time, particularly if I were paying
> bills with the work. In the past I always depended on having duplicate
> systems and some bash scripts to get from the debian-installer to a
> working system in short order.
> 
> Cheers,
> David.
> 

-- 
 "The most violent element in society is ignorance" rEG

Re: RESOLVED - was [Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel]

[songbird]

Richard Owlett wrote:
> songbird wrote:
...
>>
>>   click on the panel
>>
>>   then add to panel.
>>
>>   both the main menu and the menu bar are
>> there in the list.
>
> Yes, but with a "gotcha" ;)
> The description of "Main Menu" is "The main MATE menu".
> The description of "Menu Bar" is "A custom menu bar".
> The first's description is fine, the second's is misleading.

  yeah, i noticed that too, but tried it anyways.
i guess i'm used to some fuzzyness when it comes
to these things.  :)

  because the one is included in the other i remove
the one that takes up all that room in the panel so
i have space for other ones i use more frequently.


> I just completed another web search finding
> http://www.subdude-site.com/WebPages_Local/RefInfo/Computer/Linux/MATEinfo/recoveringTheTopPanel_ofTheMATEdesktop_forLinuxMintMATEusers.htm
>  
> .
> The lack of clarity is illustrated in an image at top right of page.
>
> Thank you.

  y.w.


  songbird

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[GiaThnYgeia]

Joe:
> On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 12:35:00 +
> GiaThnYgeia  wrote:
> 
>> One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a
>> way to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know
>> where such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.
> 
> Try File -> History.

Most valuable piece of advice in ages.
A gift from the snail heavens, sometimes you can only find something if
you already know the lingo of what it is called. A log of the history is
kept there and synaptic reads it and reports it as history.
At /var/log/apt/history there is a log of the month and individual
archives of the logs of previous months.

Here is the juicy part of what I was looking for:

(Debian Bible/Manual)
2.2.9. Package activity logs
You can check package activity history in the log files.

Table 2.12. The log files for package activities
filecontent
/var/log/dpkg.log   Log of dpkg level activity for all package activities
/var/log/apt/term.log   Log of generic APT activity
/var/log/aptitude   Log of aptitude command activity


-- 
 "The most violent element in society is ignorance" rEG

RESOLVED - was [Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel]

[Richard Owlett]

On 02/11/2017 08:10 AM, songbird wrote:

Richard Owlett wrote:

After a default installation of Mate under Jessie there had been one icon and
three text labels on the left end of the top panel.
The icon was the same icon associated with "Main Menu" in "Add to Panel".
The three text labels were Applications, Places, and System.

I had a flaky mouse that generated random click events while moving. SOMETHING
was accidentally triggered.

I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places, and System as
submenus. I wish to return to the original configuration. How?

The "Help" system is very un-helpful. All I could find was a description of the
original configuration with nothing about restoring it if changed.


  click on the panel

  then add to panel.

  both the main menu and the menu bar are
there in the list.



Yes, but with a "gotcha" ;)
The description of "Main Menu" is "The main MATE menu".
The description of "Menu Bar" is "A custom menu bar".
The first's description is fine, the second's is misleading.

I just completed another web search finding
http://www.subdude-site.com/WebPages_Local/RefInfo/Computer/Linux/MATEinfo/recoveringTheTopPanel_ofTheMATEdesktop_forLinuxMintMATEusers.htm 
.

The lack of clarity is illustrated in an image at top right of page.

Thank you.

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Curt]

On 2017-02-11, Liam O'Toole  wrote:
> On 2017-02-11, Curt  wrote:
>> On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places,
>>> and System as submenus. I wish to return to the original
>>> configuration. How?
>>
>> Reinstall for the umpteenth time.
>>
>
> Overkill.

I was just pulling his leg.

> I would try mozo, the menu editor for MATE.
>


-- 
“It is enough that the arrows fit exactly in the wounds that they have made.”
Franz Kafka

Re: Before I install Debian

[rhkramer]

Thanks for accepting that in the good (I hope, or at I tried) humor that was 
intended!

regards,
Randy Kramer

On Saturday, February 11, 2017 08:52:49 AM Michael Lange wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 08:00:08 -0500
> 
> rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I should resist, but the chance to make two (or three?) smart ass
> > comments to one post is tough to resist--no offense intended to
> > anybody.  Sorry!
> > 
> > On Saturday, February 11, 2017 07:32:44 AM Michael Lange wrote:
> > > On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:27:12 -0500
> > > 
> > > Doug  wrote:
> > > > I hope that you never send me anything, because I guarantee I won't
> > > > read it! This sounds like the worst possible advertising scheme!
> > > 
> > > Seems like you confuse something here: I am *not* the CEO of Adobe,
> > > just wanted to hint at what they are doing.
> > 
> > Perhaps he was promoting you, or offering you the promotion ;-)  (If
> > so, you should take it, and change their business model (or, go over to
> > the dark side yourself ;-)
> 
> Haha, good one :-)
> 
> > > A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even
> > > his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.
> > > 
> > >   -- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown
> > 
> > See, this is the problem I have with incomplete attributions--without a
> > specified stardate it smacks of something made up--i.e., fiction. How
> > are we to know what to believe? ;-)
> 
> This one, too :-)
> 
> Regards
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> .-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.
> 
> A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing.
>   -- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[Joe]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 12:35:00 +
GiaThnYgeia  wrote:

> Jimmy Johnson:
> > On 02/10/2017 05:49 PM, David Wright wrote:  
> >> On Fri 10 Feb 2017 at 16:00:13 (-0800), Jimmy Johnson wrote:  
> >>> Hello,
> >>> Take a look at Synaptic Menu you can select a package and then go
> >>> to Package > Force Version, you can only force one package at a
> >>> time but, yes you can downgrade. I can down grade a couple hundred
> >>> packages without much problem, depends on the user.  
> >>
> >> Oh, that's heartening! Does Synaptic use a different method
> >> from dpkg? The man page for the latter says (and the warnings
> >> look very pretty in red):
> >>   Warning: At present dpkg does not do any dependency checking  on
> >>   downgrades  and  therefore  will  not  warn you if the downgrade
> >>   breaks the dependency of some other package. This can have seri‐
> >>   ous  side  effects,  downgrading essential system components can
> >>   even make your whole system unusable. Use with care.
> >> Cheers,
> >> David.  
> > 
> > Hi David, Synaptic will not let you install a broken package.  If
> > you are running sid/testing sometimes a package version will become
> > obsolete and need a change or a video driver version is not working
> > and needs a change, etc. If you're running in a GUI Synaptic is
> > handy to have installed.  And yes, it's using "dpkg".  
> 
> One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a
> way to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know
> where such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.

Try File -> History.


> 
> I understand it all relates to what depends on what and who is
> breaking whom.  If it is a package that depends on other "stuff" but
> nothing depends on it you can install something from debian1 in its
> beta version and all else is fine.  But if you go one version back of
> one little thing that 100 things depend on, you may get 90 things not
> working. This is my simplistic understanding. Out of my panic
> experimentation I have run into situations that it becomes a great
> puzzle of why the system is still working.  Like creating a mess and
> breaking the system then reinstalling an earlier version of the
> distribution ON TOP of the mesh, same root and user names and
> passwords, then try to locate all the things that had been installed
> and upgraded that are not on the dpkg list and if not recovered they
> will remain unupdated.  And it works!  Like magic!  I think all
> synaptic does is simplifying and remembering all the correct syntax
> of dpkg commands and executing them for you.

The only real and safe way of going back is with backups. If you were
going to make a serious attempt to do that, probably enabling LVM
snapshots (with adequate spare storage) would be the way to go. There's
no equivalent for Windows' Restore Points, but then again, there is no
version of Windows which operates as a continuously viable rolling
release, as do sid and pre-freeze testing.

I use sid on workstations, with no valuable local data, and keep backups
of /etc and --get-selections. That way, if complete disaster strikes, I
can reinstall with minimum trouble. I've done it three or four times in
about ten years, most recently after an attempt to move to systemd.

-- 
Joe

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[David Wright]

On Sat 11 Feb 2017 at 12:35:00 (+), GiaThnYgeia wrote:
> Jimmy Johnson:
> > On 02/10/2017 05:49 PM, David Wright wrote:
> >> On Fri 10 Feb 2017 at 16:00:13 (-0800), Jimmy Johnson wrote:
> >>> Hello,
> >>> Take a look at Synaptic Menu you can select a package and then go to
> >>> Package > Force Version, you can only force one package at a time
> >>> but, yes you can downgrade. I can down grade a couple hundred
> >>> packages without much problem, depends on the user.
> >>
> >> Oh, that's heartening! Does Synaptic use a different method
> >> from dpkg? The man page for the latter says (and the warnings
> >> look very pretty in red):
> >>   Warning: At present dpkg does not do any dependency checking  on
> >>   downgrades  and  therefore  will  not  warn you if the downgrade
> >>   breaks the dependency of some other package. This can have seri‐
> >>   ous  side  effects,  downgrading essential system components can
> >>   even make your whole system unusable. Use with care.
> >> Cheers,
> >> David.
> > 
> > Hi David, Synaptic will not let you install a broken package.  If you
> > are running sid/testing sometimes a package version will become obsolete
> > and need a change or a video driver version is not working and needs a
> > change, etc. If you're running in a GUI Synaptic is handy to have
> > installed.  And yes, it's using "dpkg".
> 
> One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a way
> to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know where
> such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.

I use aptitude rather than synaptic so you'll have to compensate for
that in what follows. There are three logs that I use.

The first is /var/log/aptitude.log which is rotated for only six
months. (I don't think I've changed any log rotation parameters.)
This only shows what you told aptitude itself to do, and only your
intentions, not the results (which might have been unsuccessful).
It also doesn't bother about versions, only package names.

The second was mentioned and is /var/log/apt/history.log which is
rotated for twelve months. This includes changes made with both
aptitude and apt-get, and it includes the previous and new version
numbers. That makes it messy to parse as you have to deal with
two levels of commas: ... pkga (ver1, ver2), pkgb (ver3, ver4), ...

The third is /var/log/apt/term.log (also twelve months) which logs
all the results of apt's work, but lacks any of your input. So you
need to look at the other logs to find out why apt did what it did.
It's very long-winded because it even includes the "progress bars".

> I understand it all relates to what depends on what and who is breaking
> whom.  If it is a package that depends on other "stuff" but nothing
> depends on it you can install something from debian1 in its beta version
> and all else is fine.  But if you go one version back of one little
> thing that 100 things depend on, you may get 90 things not working.
> This is my simplistic understanding. Out of my panic experimentation I
> have run into situations that it becomes a great puzzle of why the
> system is still working.  Like creating a mess and breaking the system
> then reinstalling an earlier version of the distribution ON TOP of the
> mesh, same root and user names and passwords,
> then try to locate all the things that had been installed and upgraded
> that are not on the dpkg list and if not recovered they will remain
> unupdated.  And it works!  Like magic!  I think all synaptic does is
> simplifying and remembering all the correct syntax of dpkg commands and
> executing them for you.

Well, I'd be interested to see the term.log from a session where
someone downgrades "a couple hundred packages without much problem"
as reported above. According to your experience, their statement of
"depends on the user" is untrue. Synaptic just sorts it all out for
you, though that's surprising in view of your last sentence.

I have little experience of downgrading, but have read plenty of
postings here about how difficult it can be. I would want a solid
backup system in place at the time, particularly if I were paying
bills with the work. In the past I always depended on having duplicate
systems and some bash scripts to get from the debian-installer to a
working system in short order.

Cheers,
David.

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Richard Owlett]

On 02/11/2017 07:44 AM, Curt wrote:

On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:

After a default installation of Mate under Jessie there had been one icon and
three text labels on the left end of the top panel.
The icon was the same icon associated with "Main Menu" in "Add to Panel".
The three text labels were Applications, Places, and System.

I had a flaky mouse that generated random click events while moving. SOMETHING
was accidentally triggered.


Fix or replace.


Quoting myself "I had a flaky mouse..."
  ^^^  ;/




I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places, and System as
submenus. I wish to return to the original configuration. How?


Reinstall for the umpteenth time.


Scorched earth is not always appropriate.
Each of my previous installs had a specific purpose - understanding a particular 
feature.


A reinstall would have no upside and two downsides:
  1. Failure to learn more of Mate's panels.
  2. Effort to recreate preferred configuration.

Side note: This is not the hardware previously used for my previous experimental 
installs. Its CPU failed after fan seized. This machine is my machine for 
routine use.


Thanks.






The "Help" system is very un-helpful. All I could find was a description of the
original configuration with nothing about restoring it if changed.

TIA

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Liam O'Toole]

On 2017-02-11, Curt  wrote:
> On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:

[...]

>> I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places,
>> and System as submenus. I wish to return to the original
>> configuration. How?
>
> Reinstall for the umpteenth time.
>

Overkill.

I would try mozo, the menu editor for MATE.

-- 

Liam

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[songbird]

Richard Owlett wrote:
> After a default installation of Mate under Jessie there had been one icon and 
> three text labels on the left end of the top panel.
> The icon was the same icon associated with "Main Menu" in "Add to Panel".
> The three text labels were Applications, Places, and System.
>
> I had a flaky mouse that generated random click events while moving. 
> SOMETHING 
> was accidentally triggered.
>
> I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places, and System 
> as 
> submenus. I wish to return to the original configuration. How?
>
> The "Help" system is very un-helpful. All I could find was a description of 
> the 
> original configuration with nothing about restoring it if changed.

  click on the panel 

  then add to panel.

  both the main menu and the menu bar are
there in the list.


  songbird

Re: Before I install Debian

[Michael Lange]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 08:00:08 -0500
rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:

> I should resist, but the chance to make two (or three?) smart ass
> comments to one post is tough to resist--no offense intended to
> anybody.  Sorry!
> 
> On Saturday, February 11, 2017 07:32:44 AM Michael Lange wrote:
> > On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:27:12 -0500
> > Doug  wrote:
> > > I hope that you never send me anything, because I guarantee I won't
> > > read it! This sounds like the worst possible advertising scheme!
> > 
> > Seems like you confuse something here: I am *not* the CEO of Adobe,
> > just wanted to hint at what they are doing.
> 
> Perhaps he was promoting you, or offering you the promotion ;-)  (If
> so, you should take it, and change their business model (or, go over to
> the dark side yourself ;-)
> 

Haha, good one :-)

> > A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even
> > his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.
> > -- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown
> 
> See, this is the problem I have with incomplete attributions--without a 
> specified stardate it smacks of something made up--i.e., fiction. How
> are we to know what to believe? ;-)

This one, too :-)

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing.
-- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4

Re: Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Curt]

On 2017-02-11, Richard Owlett  wrote:
> After a default installation of Mate under Jessie there had been one icon and 
> three text labels on the left end of the top panel.
> The icon was the same icon associated with "Main Menu" in "Add to Panel".
> The three text labels were Applications, Places, and System.
>
> I had a flaky mouse that generated random click events while moving. 
> SOMETHING 
> was accidentally triggered.

Fix or replace.

> I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places, and System 
> as 
> submenus. I wish to return to the original configuration. How?

Reinstall for the umpteenth time.

> The "Help" system is very un-helpful. All I could find was a description of 
> the 
> original configuration with nothing about restoring it if changed.
>
> TIA
>
>


-- 
“It is enough that the arrows fit exactly in the wounds that they have made.”
Franz Kafka

Re: archive.debian.org returning 403 Forbidden

[Andy Smith]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 01:18:31PM +, Andy Smith wrote:
> Is this intentional?
> 
> If not, who should the problem be reported to?

Took a stab at reporting it to ftpmas...@debian.org for now.

Cheers,
Andy

archive.debian.org returning 403 Forbidden

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

Some time in the last 24 hours, archive.debian.org started returning
403 Forbidden when used as an APT repository:

$ sudo apt-get update
Ign http://archive.debian.org squeeze Release.gpg
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/contrib Translation-en_GB
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main Translation-en
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main Translation-en_GB
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/non-free Translation-en
Ign http://archive.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/non-free Translation-en_GB
Ign http://archive.debian.org squeeze Release
Ign http://archive.debian.org squeeze/main i386 Packages
Ign http://archive.debian.org squeeze/contrib i386 Packages
Ign http://archive.debian.org squeeze/non-free i386 Packages
Err http://archive.debian.org squeeze/main i386 Packages
  403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]
Err http://archive.debian.org squeeze/contrib i386 Packages
  403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]
Err http://archive.debian.org squeeze/non-free i386 Packages
  403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]
W: Failed to fetch 
http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz  
403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]

W: Failed to fetch 
http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/contrib/binary-i386/Packages.gz  
403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]

W: Failed to fetch 
http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/non-free/binary-i386/Packages.gz 
 403  Forbidden [IP: 2001:630:206:4000:1a1a:0:c13e:ca1c 80]

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones 
used instead.


According to:

http://archive.debian.org/README

"The following releases are archived on this site:

Archive  Releases  Directory
Debian   buzz, rex, bo, hamm,
 slink, potato, woody,
 sarge, etch, lenny,
 squeeze   debian/"

however, I am seeing this with lenny and squeeze¹.

Is this intentional?

If not, who should the problem be reported to?

Cheers,
Andy

¹ Yes, these ancient machines should be upgraded. The people that own
  them refuse to and I don't have authority to carry out that work
  at this time.

Re: Before I install Debian

[rhkramer]

I should resist, but the chance to make two (or three?) smart ass comments to 
one post is tough to resist--no offense intended to anybody.  Sorry!

On Saturday, February 11, 2017 07:32:44 AM Michael Lange wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:27:12 -0500
> Doug  wrote:
> > I hope that you never send me anything, because I guarantee I won't
> > read it! This sounds like the worst possible advertising scheme!
> 
> Seems like you confuse something here: I am *not* the CEO of Adobe, just
> wanted to hint at what they are doing.

Perhaps he was promoting you, or offering you the promotion ;-)  (If so, you 
should take it, and change their business model (or, go over to the dark side 
yourself ;-)

> A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even
> his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.
>   -- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown

See, this is the problem I have with incomplete attributions--without a 
specified stardate it smacks of something made up--i.e., fiction. How are we to 
know what to believe? ;-)

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 12:35:00 +
GiaThnYgeia  wrote:

(...)
> One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a way
> to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know where
> such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.

/var/log/apt/history.log might be what you are loking for.

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

The face of war has never changed.  Surely it is more logical to heal
than to kill.
-- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5

help needed with openssl please

[Bhasker C V]

Hi,

 I have some of my documents encrypted with openssl bf-cbc for
confidentiality. I however see that after a dist-upgrade my new system is
refusing to decrypting the data whereas my old systems are still decrypting
the docs fine.

on my new system:

$ cat a.enc  | openssl bf-cbc -d > /tmp/a
enter bf-cbc decryption password:
bad decrypt
4146137408:error:06065064:digital envelope routines:EVP_DecryptFinal_ex:bad
decrypt:crypto/evp/evp_enc.c:529:
$ openssl
OpenSSL> version
OpenSSL 1.1.0c  10 Nov 2016
OpenSSL>
 9.0 streetch


whereas the "same" file in old system
bcv@nas:/tmp$ cat a.enc  | openssl  bf-cbc  -d > a
enter bf-cbc decryption password:
bcv@nas:/tmp$ openssl
OpenSSL> version
OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013
OpenSSL>
7.9 wheezy

Obviously I infer that there is no problem with the encrypted file as-it-is
but has any defaults changed which I must now include in my command line
parameters ?

Problem with Mate's Top Panel

[Richard Owlett]

After a default installation of Mate under Jessie there had been one icon and 
three text labels on the left end of the top panel.

The icon was the same icon associated with "Main Menu" in "Add to Panel".
The three text labels were Applications, Places, and System.

I had a flaky mouse that generated random click events while moving. SOMETHING 
was accidentally triggered.


I now have only the "Main Menu" icon. It has Applications, Places, and System as 
submenus. I wish to return to the original configuration. How?


The "Help" system is very un-helpful. All I could find was a description of the 
original configuration with nothing about restoring it if changed.


TIA

Re: Before I install Debian

[Michael Lange]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:27:12 -0500
Doug  wrote:

> 
> 
> On 02/10/2017 08:11 PM, Michael Lange wrote:
> > On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 11:32:45 +1100
> > Keith Bainbridge  wrote:
> >
> >> Have I missed something here?
> >>
> >> .pdf files are portable,  right?
> >>
> >>
> >> How can I as a creator specify that you as the reader MUST use a
> >> specific program to read them?
> > Maybe by adding a "feature" that is supported by your reader software
> > exclusively?
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Michael
> >
> I hope that you never send me anything, because I guarantee I won't
> read it! This sounds like the worst possible advertising scheme!

Seems like you confuse something here: I am *not* the CEO of Adobe, just
wanted to hint at what they are doing.

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even
his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.
-- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown

Re: Stretch stable and jessie testing - repositories listed

[GiaThnYgeia]

Jimmy Johnson:
> On 02/10/2017 05:49 PM, David Wright wrote:
>> On Fri 10 Feb 2017 at 16:00:13 (-0800), Jimmy Johnson wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> Take a look at Synaptic Menu you can select a package and then go to
>>> Package > Force Version, you can only force one package at a time
>>> but, yes you can downgrade. I can down grade a couple hundred
>>> packages without much problem, depends on the user.
>>
>> Oh, that's heartening! Does Synaptic use a different method
>> from dpkg? The man page for the latter says (and the warnings
>> look very pretty in red):
>>   Warning: At present dpkg does not do any dependency checking  on
>>   downgrades  and  therefore  will  not  warn you if the downgrade
>>   breaks the dependency of some other package. This can have seri‐
>>   ous  side  effects,  downgrading essential system components can
>>   even make your whole system unusable. Use with care.
>> Cheers,
>> David.
> 
> Hi David, Synaptic will not let you install a broken package.  If you
> are running sid/testing sometimes a package version will become obsolete
> and need a change or a video driver version is not working and needs a
> change, etc. If you're running in a GUI Synaptic is handy to have
> installed.  And yes, it's using "dpkg".

One thing I have not been able to find in synaptic or elsewhere is a way
to keep track of what has been installed and when.  If you know where
such a log habitates or can be created let me/us know.

I understand it all relates to what depends on what and who is breaking
whom.  If it is a package that depends on other "stuff" but nothing
depends on it you can install something from debian1 in its beta version
and all else is fine.  But if you go one version back of one little
thing that 100 things depend on, you may get 90 things not working.
This is my simplistic understanding. Out of my panic experimentation I
have run into situations that it becomes a great puzzle of why the
system is still working.  Like creating a mess and breaking the system
then reinstalling an earlier version of the distribution ON TOP of the
mesh, same root and user names and passwords,
then try to locate all the things that had been installed and upgraded
that are not on the dpkg list and if not recovered they will remain
unupdated.  And it works!  Like magic!  I think all synaptic does is
simplifying and remembering all the correct syntax of dpkg commands and
executing them for you.


-- 
 "The most violent element in society is ignorance" rEG

Re: Before I install Debian

[Joe]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 02:10:00 +
GiaThnYgeia  wrote:


> 
> I have yet to find a single pdf document (and for many languages) that
> can not be handled for reading by the document-viewer (evince) open
> and free.

I received one from my accountant last week. Having confirmed none of
my Linux software would see it (a multi-page government form, with the
text on all pages after the first completely garbled) I had to fire up
the Windows laptop and use Adobe Reader.

In the past, I've had loads of documents that stopped evince dead, many
created by open-source software (gEDA, libreCAD). I think it's better
now.

>  There are also libre and other plugins that handle
> importing a pdf in other formats, but even as pdf pictures some
> open-free ocr may read them with small percentage of loss and need
> for editing/correcting. If you can see it on the screen then it is at
> least a digital picture.
> 
But you would not expect a PHP 5.0 script to run on version 3.0 of PHP.
If it was a simple script it might, with minor errors, but anything
which used major new features would not have a chance.

> Yes, this would be a huge task for a huge amount of documents.  And
> then there is wine and vm of running other systems' software.

Which requires a licence to run the other system, which you may not
have. Pretty much only the retail professional versions of Windows are
licenced for use in a VM, neither home nor OEM versions can (generally)
do so legally. This may not worry some people.

>  The
> very logic of adobe's foundation is very much in clash with the linux
> logic and philosophy, at least that is why I am here and not there.

Adobe is a commercial business. Its revenue comes from selling software.

> And I know very little about how things work.  I did much research on
> which system to choose and it was the debian manifesto that sold me,
> not the technical details.  If debian fails so does the need for
> computing, for me at least.  I can go back to planting seeds the
> analog way.  If the adobes prevail we are in deeper trouble than we
> may think.  And it is not always about winning, but fighting an
> honorable battle that matters.

It is not a battle which can be won. Always, to solve a problem with a
computer you:

a) define the task
b) find the application which will complete the task
c) find the operating system which will run the application
d) find the physical hardware which can support OS and application

There may be a bit of iteration, there may be alternatives, and the task
may have to be redefined a bit. But there is little scope for relaxing
the requirements of a task which says 'display/print this document
file'.

d) is pretty much always a modern PC, but c) may still vary. But there
will always be some tasks which require Windows, sometimes in order to
run other completely proprietary software. Many people can structure
their lives so as not to need to carry out any of these tasks, but not
all of us can.

-- 
Joe

Re: Before I install Debian

[Curt]

On 2017-02-10, John Culleton  wrote:
>
> My tax company insists on Adobe. I hve spend three days fighting
> this problem. Installed Windoze 7 but it couldn't get on line.
> Anyone have a linux Adobe Acrobat Reader. I had it once but the computer
> died.
>

I have the Adobe Reader because I need it to fill out a tax-related form that
cannot be filled out with any other pdf software.

-- 
“It is enough that the arrows fit exactly in the wounds that they have made.”
Franz Kafka

Re: Before I install Debian

[Joe]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 11:32:45 +1100
Keith Bainbridge  wrote:

> Have I missed something here?
> 
> .pdf files are portable,  right?
> 

PDF is a container format, using a Post-Script-like language. PS was
originally developed as a page description language for use with laser
printers, and PDF evolved from that.

> 
> How can I as a creator specify that you as the reader MUST use a
> specific program to read them?
> 
You can define new program extensions. You can't stop other writers
from reverse engineering them, but the process is inevitably one of
catch-up.

-- 
Joe

Re: Software collections in Debian?

[Curt]

On 2017-02-10, Jeremy Voorhis  wrote:
>
> I've used Software Collections for deployment of server software, and I can
> say they do a lot less than tools like flatpak or snap. Besides being


Less or more? Or is less more, more or less?

> agnostic to desktop sessions, they try to address the problem of outdated
> versions of CentOS/RHEL packages which are difficult to replace (like
> Python), and work by hooking the environment to make additional binaries
> and runtimes available, typically installed under /opt/rh.
>


-- 
“It is enough that the arrows fit exactly in the wounds that they have made.”
Franz Kafka

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