Re: [PLUG] Remember WordPerfect?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I don't think you needed a printer driver for WP for DOS only WP for Windows.

For the DOS version you just needed an HP printer and select Laserjet Plus or 
whatever on a parallel port from the DOS version.

If you are running it under 16 bit compatibility mode in W2K, just install the 
generic printer driver, tie it to any modern HP printer (they all support even 
back to PCL 1.0) via USB or whatever, and then do a net command in the CMD line 
to tie LPT1 to the generic printer driver queue and you are off and running.

Note you should have no problems running WP for DOS under the dosbox emulator 
under win10.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Dick Steffens
Sent: Saturday, July 6, 2024 3:53 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Remember WordPerfect?

On 7/6/24 14:34, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I started using Satellite Software's WordPerfect, CalcPerfect, and 
> Draw in
> 1984 and visited their Orem, UT campus in 1985. Used and taugh others 
> to use these products and used the linux version until 2000 when it 
> died.
>
> The author of WordPerfect, Bruce Bastien, just died 
> .
>
>
> While the company made fatal business mistakes the quality of the 
> software set a very high standard, far above Microsoft.
>
> Rich

WP was the best word processor. I loved the feature that showed "reveal codes". 
I still have a copy on my Win 2K virtual machine, but I don't have a printer 
driver for it.

--
Regards,

Dick Steffens

Re: [PLUG] Li-Po power station as ups

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

eboots when it 
> > switches to battery. That's really not ideal and can be a problem 
> > for these "Power Stations." I did buy the Anker SOLIX Home Power 
> > Panel which is an automatic transfer switch and have yet to install 
> > that which might improve the situation but I wanted to mention the 
> > issue since it is a common one.
> >
> > Bryan
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 01:21:25PM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > > Spendy buggers!
> > >
> > > I suspect a "power station" is just a renamed UPS with $300 added 
> > > to the
> > price!
> > >
> > > Ted
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Tomas 
> > > Kuchta
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:45 PM
> > > To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
> > > Subject: [PLUG] Li-Po power station as ups
> > >
> > > Bunch of times we discussed not lead acid UPS options.
> > >
> > > I came across this test site looking at the topic and testing some 
> > > of
> > the power stations as UPS.
> > >
> > >
> > https://www.storagereview.com/review/portable-power-stations-actuall
> > y-work-pretty-well-as-a-ups
> > >
> > > This looks like a real option when my lead acid batteries go south.
> > >
> > > Hope it is useful,
> > > Tomas
> > >
> >

Re: [PLUG] Li-Po power station as ups

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Spendy buggers!

I suspect a "power station" is just a renamed UPS with $300 added to the price!

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Tomas Kuchta
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:45 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Li-Po power station as ups

Bunch of times we discussed not lead acid UPS options.

I came across this test site looking at the topic and testing some of the power 
stations as UPS.

https://www.storagereview.com/review/portable-power-stations-actually-work-pretty-well-as-a-ups

This looks like a real option when my lead acid batteries go south.

Hope it is useful,
Tomas

Re: [PLUG] Schools using macbook air computers

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

That wouldn't be a good gift for a low income child since the child's family
does NOT have the money to keep Apple supplied with cash.  It's like giving
a new Mercedes to a poor person who needs a car, they can't even afford the
clothes needed to be allowed to step on the Mercedes dealership property let
alone pay for an oil change.

As for a school, if you can find one with a fleet of 2020 Macbook Airs, the
gift would be great, but as an admin of a large fleet of machines in a
non-profit, I can tell you that anything anyone gives us that does NOT
exactly match our existing fleet models goes straight to the garbage.  It
costs us more to process an outlier machine in labor than replacing it.  And
we buy off-lease.

If you can find some very small private school they might like it.  But then
you are donating to the wealthy.

Unfortunately the widow's desires are pretty standard from someone who knows
nothing about how the computer industry functions.  A 2020 Mac Air was
designed as an accessory for a young hipster with more money than sense.  It
has no real functionality other than to be used as a brag device and once
it's older than a year, it's usefulness for that task is over.

If the widow really wants to donate to an underprivileged child her best bet
is to sell the thing on Ebay to a hipster-wanna-be and take the money and
buy a brand new low-cost laptop running windows 11 Home that is in S mode
and give it to the low income child.   Win 11 Home S mode is about the most
useless operating system on the planet but it is supported up the wazoo and
will run a web browser that will display everything, which is really what
the low income child needs (said child may have zero interest in computing
tech, BTW)

Fortunately for the window's moral sensibilities, there's enough low income
kids out there smart enough to take the gift and immediately flip it so the
machine itself won't collect dust.  Of course, they probably will just buy a
new phone with the money but the widow will feel better about "helping the
poor" or whatever.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:34 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Schools using macbook air computers

many people said:
> I would love to use a 2020 Macbook Air.  

Before this goes too far ... the macbook was found by the widow of a friend
who died two weeks ago.  It is HER goal to find a school for it, or a
low-income child for whom it could make a big difference in life. 

Helping a child would entail other obligations, hence a school is better for
*ME*, or a school with volunteers who can help a low-income child with
maintenance and sysadmin.

We have time to make arrangements; another urgent task just got pushed on
the stack, long story to tell later.  I may be offline for a day or ten.

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] Web browser recommendations

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Any browser based on the Chromium engine can only display a max of 6 stream 
windows and most modern security cameras are outputting in H.264 mpeg video 
format of which Chromium does not have an encoder built in.  However, there are 
builds of Chromium out there that have that codec added and will have no 
problems with the security cam output.

Microsoft has an H.264 codec available for 99 cents that will go into Windows 
and the browsers will offload to it if it's present. 

Ted 

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Chuck Hast
Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2024 7:43 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Web browser recommendations

I have been using a browser called Vivaldi of late. I have a batch of IP 
cameras that I monitor. Chrome was giving me fits with some of them, Firefox 
others, somehow or another I tripped over Vivaldi. Read the info on it pulled 
it down and gave it a try. I use it for presentations regarding the Amateur 
radio network called AREDN. Vivaldi lets me jump from live screen to live 
screen with no issues. I have some cameras that Chrome does not want to 
display, Vivaldi displays them all and it appears to be quite fast.


On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 3:28 AM MC_Sequoia  wrote:

> "I find Google to be quite intrusive and I'm at an age where I value 
> the privacies we used to have and try to retain as much of them as possible.
>
> That's my main concern."
>
> I take privacy & security pretty seriously and I'm also very 
> anti-corporate. One of things I actually like about Google is that in 
> my Google account settings I can disable all of the tracking, history 
> as well as see what 2rd party apps/sites are allowed to connect to my 
> Google account.
>
> There's a high degree of control and transparency, in my very 
> non-security/privacy professional opinion. Last summer I was locked 
> out of my Google account that I had 2 factor auth setup on for over a 
> week after I lost my phone. I  had to go through a quite involved 
> security process to recover my account even with them having my name, phone 
> number and address.
>
> One common privacy recommendation for any browser is to use a few well 
> known & well reviewed browser extensions such as Cookie Autodelete, 
> uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere.
>
> More info here -
> https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/online-privacy-change-
> these-browser-settings-asap/
>
> Lastly, I don't know if this was mentioned but you can also set the 
> Brave search engine as your default search engine. More info here - 
> https://search.brave.com/default
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Web browser recommendations

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Rich, you are a candidate for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium

https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

Compile it yourself and you are off to the races.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2024 7:54 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Web browser recommendations

On Sat, 1 Jun 2024, MC_Sequoia wrote:

> I'm curious to know what exactly you're trying to about Google? Is it 
> their browser?, their search engine or both?

Mike,

I find Google to be quite intrusive and I'm at an age where I value the
privacies we used to have and try to retain as much of them as possible.

That's my main concern.

Regards,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

So does Lady Gaga:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LadyGaga/comments/16gu3q5/13_years_ago_today_lady_gaga_wore_a_meat_dress_to/

That there's malWEARlol

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Jake Bottero
Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2024 10:25 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated

Well, they *do* know something about malwear.

On Sat, Jun 1, 2024, 10:14 John Bartley  wrote:

> Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated.
> https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/kvrt-for-linux/51375/
>
> 73 & best regards de K7AAY CN85oj
>

Re: [PLUG] Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

This is what I get:

Generated directory is 
=
compver: 24.0.4.0 x86-64 (Apr 12 2024 12:32:49)
Product folder 
qt.qpa.screen: QXcbConnection: Could not connect t
Could not connect to any X display.

Hell with that shit.  If they can't run from the command line then screw 'em.  
This is a fucking server, Kaspersky asshats.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of John Bartley
Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2024 10:15 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated

Your thoughts on this tool would be appreciated.
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/kvrt-for-linux/51375/

73 & best regards de K7AAY CN85oj

Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I emailed it to you directly.  Let me know if it came through.

According to Excel there was no password on it.   I have noticed lately that
with Excel (I think this started after a patch was pushed out by Microsoft
and it affects versions of Excel as far back as 2016) that by default all
documents are set to "editing disabled"   Excel puts a button on the top you
can click that enables editing and once you click that you can do a save-as
on a document and make changes.

It's not just setting the read-only flag on the file and I think there are
other rules involved such as Excel looking at the "owner" name of the
document (where Excel gets that name from I am not sure) and if the person
opening the document has a different "owner name" then it makes the document
editing disabled.

Obviously, Libre Office doesn't know exactly how to deal with this structure
in the Excel file and so it's claiming it's password-protected when in
reality the document is NOT password protected.

I would encourage you to file a bug on this.  Since the spreadsheet is
publicly accessible and you can duplicate the bug with LO, it should be easy
enough for the LO developers to duplicate

Ted

-Original Message-----
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:45 AM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

Hmm looks like the list does not permit attachments?

Ted

-Original Message-----
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:44 AM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

Is this what you are after?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:36 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

On Sat, 4 May 2024, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Open it in excel and do a file save as an OpenDoc spreadsheet.  
> (*.ods)

Ted,

That's what I've tried to do.

> If this is a publicly accessible spreadsheet with no private data in 
> it just email me the URL and I'll send it back.

Okay.

<https://www.oregon.gov/deq/wq/tmdls/Pages/default.aspx>

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Hmm looks like the list does not permit attachments?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:44 AM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

Is this what you are after?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:36 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

On Sat, 4 May 2024, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Open it in excel and do a file save as an OpenDoc spreadsheet.  
> (*.ods)

Ted,

That's what I've tried to do.

> If this is a publicly accessible spreadsheet with no private data in 
> it just email me the URL and I'll send it back.

Okay.

<https://www.oregon.gov/deq/wq/tmdls/Pages/default.aspx>

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Is this what you are after?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:36 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

On Sat, 4 May 2024, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Open it in excel and do a file save as an OpenDoc spreadsheet.  
> (*.ods)

Ted,

That's what I've tried to do.

> If this is a publicly accessible spreadsheet with no private data in 
> it just email me the URL and I'll send it back.

Okay.

<https://www.oregon.gov/deq/wq/tmdls/Pages/default.aspx>

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Which entry there's a lot of links on that page

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 9:36 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

On Sat, 4 May 2024, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Open it in excel and do a file save as an OpenDoc spreadsheet.  
> (*.ods)

Ted,

That's what I've tried to do.

> If this is a publicly accessible spreadsheet with no private data in 
> it just email me the URL and I'll send it back.

Okay.

<https://www.oregon.gov/deq/wq/tmdls/Pages/default.aspx>

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Open it in excel and do a file save as an OpenDoc spreadsheet.  (*.ods)

If this is a publicly accessible spreadsheet with no private data in it just
email me the URL and I'll send it back.

There might also be online xls to ods converters as well

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 8:26 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Password protected .xlsx; cannot save as .ods

A state agency provides a Microsoft .xlsx spreadsheet on a web site page.
It's available to the public. When I tried to save it as a LO Calc
spreadsheet (.ods) it told me it was password protected; a dialog box asks
me to re-enter my (non-existent) password. It also will not allow me to
export it as an .xls file.

This is the first password-protected spreadsheet I've encountered. I don't
understand why it's protected but the data should be in a database, not a
spreadsheet, but this is another very common example of "if the only tool
you have is Excel, everything looks like a spreadsheet."

Any ideas on how to proceed?

TIA,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Well they use Whitworth bolts and drive on the wrong side of the road so that 
tracks...

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Dick Steffens
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2024 10:23 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released

On 4/28/24 22:14, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Well it seems that they are eschewing spellcheck:
>
> Ubuntu 24.04 LTS also enables frame pointers by default on all 64-bit 
> architectures so that performance engineers have ready access to 
> accurate and complete >flame< graphs as they profile their systems for 
> troubleshooting and _optimisation_.

I'm guessing that's the British English spelling of optimization.

--
Regards,

Dick Steffens

Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Well it seems that they are eschewing spellcheck:

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS also enables frame pointers by default on all 64-bit
architectures so that performance engineers have ready access to accurate
and complete >flame< graphs as they profile their systems for
troubleshooting and _optimisation_.

Although, I suppose "flame" graphs are correct..  

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Paul Heinlein
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2024 3:01 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released

https://u35970666.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.6Dgli3a5-2FDN4jL9NBXBO-2
FeY63o04ugA-2BNPqlSv8Hnmly5wtPRp6gbCKMVLtoTl5wiRZpEOB55PtCXnlk8YiaDJGIlNU9ZL
L9llPzW7EA-2Bms-3DL5QU_iXqIkgBxBxb26PG-2Fm1NQLP1zi48-2FfNafwEuvhX2aMn7Qvk5-2
Bp4zRRGLJHCuDpBVULvhK-2B51GzXofYdnzIGVYCXDV6-2FEtrpNcrR08CP50hIfvZ19ifAtckuN
D8F2YQcn2EiBS7zICvW5kaBIA9or5HoDlmj6CdS4g0v1nkt4C-2Bs4Tmc2gOFkxqW6hlHCE9V6Un
X-2FREeY0Ot5Ja3nudjkdnQ-3D-3D

I have done no testing yet, so this is merely passing on the announcement.

--
Paul Heinlein
heinl...@madboa.com
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W

Re: [PLUG] Voyager 1 ... END of Radio silence (was: Radio silence since Apr 16)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

That's cool but dammit, I'm still waiting for my Jetson's flying car.lol

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2024 4:57 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Voyager 1 ... END of Radio silence (was: Radio silence since
Apr 16)

> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Radio silence since Apr 16 On 4/23/24 10:02, Paul 
> Heinlein wrote:
> >Is this list dead? Neither my inbox nor the online archives show any 
> >traffic since April 16.


On the subject of "no traffic":

This isn't PLUG or Linux, and it might belong in plug-talk, but it IS the
most audacious, humongous, glorious, ULTRA-long distance debug session and
clever code hack:

Restoring NASA's Voyager 1 to operability.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-en
gineering-updates-to-earth/

Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometers from Earth, 160 times farther from the
Sun than Earth is, three times farther than Pluto.  

Voyager 2 is still doing well, but Voyager 1 went radio 
silent on November 14, 2023.   "No Traffic".

Using early 1970s technology, custom CMOS chips and 7400 series Texas
Instruments TTL, the three Voyager 1 computers and their 32K bytes of shared
memory are a space-grade distant cousin to the first computer I wired for
myself with equally primitive chips.  JPL did a much better job, of course.

The Problem: a memory interface chip in Voyager 1's Flight Data Subsystem
failed, so some code and data memory became unavailable.  The remaining
memory kept Voyager 1 oriented and taking data and listening to Earth, but
aphasic, unable to format and transmit data to distant receivers on Earth. 

The JPL team fault-treed their way to the defect, designed new software with
workarounds, and uploaded it.  The team is still tweaking and upgrading the
code, but Voyager 1 is talking to Earth again.  Therapy continues.

NASA announced their success on Monday April 22; I just heard about it.

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] Quantum fiber WhatsApp latency issue

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Wow, I have a static IP subnet at home and I thought I was being screwed over 
with the money but even I cannot afford TWO ISP's at home!!  Why don't you dump 
the one you are having problems with and save a bundle!

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2024 8:14 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Quantum fiber WhatsApp latency issue

I would agree with you except that when I switch over to my other WiFi (I have 
2 different ISPs here) WhatsApp has no latency. Also no other app (signal gv 
etc) have latency on either ISP. It's only WhatsApp when using quantum fiber. 
Also it's not consistent; sometimes it's immediate for half day while sometimes 
it's 2-10 min latency for half day.

But you are correct, no latency ever on either ISP for WhatsApp calls. It is 
only for messages. Overall, your push notifications explanation makes sense. & 
I can live with this latency too; idc, nothing anyone sends or shares is worth 
the immediacy humans think they merit. 

But what conspiracy theories? I am ok being Meta's product in exchange for this 
free service. All these ppl running around complaining about that but still 
using all this social media crap are humorous hypocrisy at best.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 23:47 Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:

> This is because of a fundamental misunderstanding of how cell phone 
> apps like whazzupapp work.
>
> I would bet money you are NOT seeing this "latency" when you make a 
> phone call from your whatsapp to another whatsapp on some other cell 
> phone.  It's only when you are sending instant messages.
>
> Let me explain what's likely going on here.
>
> The whatsapp app likely uses push notification.  What that means is 
> when your phone is on your cellular data network the app registers 
> into the cell tower.  Then goes to sleep.  When a text comes to you, 
> the tower sends out a push notification that wakes up the whatsapp app 
> on your phone and you get the text.
>
> This allows minimal battery usage on your phone.
>
> Here's a dumbed-down explanation of push
>
> https://www.airship.com/resources/explainer/push-notifications-explain
> ed/
>
> Anyway, the whatsapp almost certainly has push turned OFF when the 
> phone is on a wifi data network because they have to pay the mobile 
> carriers for push access.  In that case the app is polling the server 
> over the internet.  Likely once every 10 minutes.  Otherwise their 
> server would melt down if it polled every second.
>
> There have been complaints on "latency" on this app for over a decade.
> Here's a typical one:
>
>
> https://xdaforums.com/t/whatsapp-messages-delayed-only-on-my-home-wifi
> .1941623/
>
> There ain't nuthin wrong with anything here.  The app is working as 
> it's designed to work.
>
> If you live in the US of A, a free country with privacy rights then 
> set aside your conspiracy theories and toss whatsapp in the garbage.
>
> If you live in China, my condolences you are stuck with this behavior.
> But at least the men in black won't be breaking down your door in the 
> middle of the night.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
> Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2024 10:43 PM
> To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
> Subject: [PLUG] Quantum fiber WhatsApp latency issue
>
> Hi. I've Quantum fiber. It has latency issues with WhatsApp. Any idea 
> why & how to resolve this?
>
> I've no other issues with them. Using the WiFi. All other sites apps 
> etc have no noticeable latency. WhatsApp takes minutes to send a 
> message & receives messages minutes after someone sends. However if I 
> turn of WiFi & switch to cellular data (TMO) it immediately sends & 
> receives the backlogged messages. The latency can be up to 10 min sometimes.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Quantum fiber WhatsApp latency issue

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

This is because of a fundamental misunderstanding of how cell phone apps like 
whazzupapp work.

I would bet money you are NOT seeing this "latency" when you make a phone call 
from your whatsapp to another whatsapp on some other cell phone.  It's only 
when you are sending instant messages.

Let me explain what's likely going on here.

The whatsapp app likely uses push notification.  What that means is when your 
phone is on your cellular data network the app registers into the cell tower.  
Then goes to sleep.  When a text comes to you, the tower sends out a push 
notification that wakes up the whatsapp app on your phone and you get the text.

This allows minimal battery usage on your phone.

Here's a dumbed-down explanation of push

https://www.airship.com/resources/explainer/push-notifications-explained/

Anyway, the whatsapp almost certainly has push turned OFF when the phone is on 
a wifi data network because they have to pay the mobile carriers for push 
access.  In that case the app is polling the server over the internet.  Likely 
once every 10 minutes.  Otherwise their server would melt down if it polled 
every second.

There have been complaints on "latency" on this app for over a decade.  Here's 
a typical one:

https://xdaforums.com/t/whatsapp-messages-delayed-only-on-my-home-wifi.1941623/

There ain't nuthin wrong with anything here.  The app is working as it's 
designed to work.

If you live in the US of A, a free country with privacy rights then set aside 
your conspiracy theories and toss whatsapp in the garbage.

If you live in China, my condolences you are stuck with this behavior.  But at 
least the men in black won't be breaking down your door in the middle of the 
night.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2024 10:43 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Quantum fiber WhatsApp latency issue

Hi. I've Quantum fiber. It has latency issues with WhatsApp. Any idea why & how 
to resolve this?

I've no other issues with them. Using the WiFi. All other sites apps etc have 
no noticeable latency. WhatsApp takes minutes to send a message & receives 
messages minutes after someone sends. However if I turn of WiFi & switch to 
cellular data (TMO) it immediately sends & receives the backlogged messages. 
The latency can be up to 10 min sometimes.

Thoughts?

Re: [PLUG] - attack on sshd via xz => More XZ Libs malware info

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Ah but I suspect in all of your supervision of employees you never had an 
employee who was under contract from the Russian military, and probably being 
paid millions of rubles or whatever they are using there, at the same time you 
were supervising them, who's job was to pwn the project for his actual 
employers needs instead of your needs.

Such an employee would have been the perfect one to supervise, and he would 
have also insured that the process was working perfectly as well.  The very 
last thing he would want is for you to get involved to fix something.

FOSS operates because it's NOT crapped up by 6 committee meetings and a dozen 
code reviews which your typical programmer hates with a passion.  The process 
works or Linux wouldn't be good enough today to run mission critical stuff.   
In this case it was one PERSON operating in that working environment who's job 
was to subvert it.  Letting him into the party to play with the toys was not 
done properly, or as a bad actor he would have been screened out.  It's not 
process - it's absolutely the supervision.

A commercial org with Agile development and code review and process up the 
wazoo ...well that's Microsoft.  And their process doesn't deliver any better 
code as witnessed by all the problems with the March security update

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2024 5:28 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] - attack on sshd via xz => More XZ Libs malware info

"The most troubling aspect is that there's too little supervision of changes in 
projects."

Nope! It's far less about supervision and far more about process. Especially in 
the FOSS world, which relies heavily on peer review & the user community to 
ferret out bad code as happened in this cause by someone doing database 
benchmark tests and noticed the SSH logins were taking much longer than normal.

If you've ever found yourself supervising a bad process, you'd know this beyond 
a shadow of a doubt. 

I can't tell you the number of jobs, where as a technical person, I did way 
more work fixing bad & broken processes than I did fixing bad & broken workers, 
with the exception of the occasional incompetent, lazy or bad worker who 
doesn't want to follow process or is unable to. In which case, you set them 
free to find another job! =)

Re: [PLUG] - attack on sshd via xz => More XZ Libs malware info

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I also appreciate the heads-up on this as I literally do have better things to 
do than spend an hour every day reviewing security exploit mailing lists. 

Coming from a FreeBSD background this is why I have never liked the "yum 
install" and apt-get" things that the Linux userbase take for granted.  Under 
FreeBSD you have ports and you install Unix software the way God intended Unix 
software to be installed, "make install"
Then you actually get CHOICES on how to build.  Why does xz need to run the 
test sets anyway during building?  How stupid!  90% of what it's being built on 
ix s86 it's going to result in the same binary.

Note that this has happened before:

https://lwn.net/Articles/853717/

The most troubling aspect is that there's too little supervision of changes in 
projects.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2024 3:21 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] - attack on sshd via xz => More XZ Libs malware info

Firstly, thank you for making me aware of this! 

"It also helps that it really only made it to the public through Debian 
unstable and testing."

According to this article, 
https://thenewstack.io/malicious-code-in-linux-xz-libraries-endangers-ssh/, xz 
is a "core Linux compression utility". I wasn't aware. 

So any unstable/testing distro is vulnerable. "Red Hat was first to break the 
news of the boobytrap."

Here's the pkg & version info for those who want to do a quick system check.

Package: xz-utils
Version: 5.6.1+really5.4.5-1

Refer to full Debian bug report => 
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1068024_source=the+new+stack_medium=referral_content=inline-mention_campaign=tns+platform

The most troubling aspect of this malware is this: 

"I count a minimum of 750 commits or contributions to xz by Jia Tan, who 
backdoored it.

This includes all 700 commits made after they merged a pull request in Jan 
2023, at which point they appear to have already had direct push access, which 
would have also let them push commits with forged authors. Probably a number of 
other commits before that point as well."

So there might be more malware lurking and there might be more security 
fallout. 

[PLUG] Question about mdadm warning

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Hi All,

 

Here's one for the disk experts:

 

I've got a server that I built a few years ago from Ubuntu 16.04

 

The server has 4 physical disks in it.  It has one of those "software RAID"
cards in it so when I built it, I only installed 4 drives and put the 2
pairs into mirrors using the raid BIOS on the card.

The idea was that since the BIOS allows booting from the first "raid" pair
I'd just keep it this way.

 

I always regard that sort of thing as an emergency Hail Mary so that if a
hard drive fails you have enough time left to take your time backing up the
server and building a new one.

 

Anyway, during the install Ubuntu recognized this "fakeraid mirror" and set
it up with mdadm, and set the first mirrored pair bootable.  Here was the
output I got at the time:

 

root@websrv03:~# cat /proc/mdstat

Personalities : [raid1] [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
[raid10]

md124 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sdc[1] sdd[0]

  244195328 blocks super external:/md127/0 [2/2] [UU]

 

md125 : active raid1 sda[1] sdb[0]

  312568832 blocks super external:/md126/0 [2/2] [UU]

  [==>..]  resync = 71.8% (224615680/312568832)
finish=25.1min speed=58291K/sec

 

md126 : inactive sdb[1](S) sda[0](S)

  4784 blocks super external:imsm

 

md127 : inactive sdc[1](S) sdd[0](S)

  6306 blocks super external:imsm

 

 

root@websrv03:~# mdadm --misc --detail -s

ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 metadata=imsm UUID=dc62d339:4a0008fb:b956ff39:717f8cff

ARRAY /dev/md/imsm1 metadata=imsm UUID=500c57be:176b8eb9:7ffef6cd:e7b36496

 

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume0 container=/dev/md/imsm1 member=0
UUID=599ec753:9ca24317:5c764774:ca201652

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume1 container=/dev/md/imsm0 member=0
UUID=f24b3ea7:9f0667dc:9f423e37:63a16043

 

Anyway for a number of years all was well.  But then last night I ran
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade and I noticed the following message:

 

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-210-generic

W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/imsm1 with UUID
396b0e3e:127927a6:eb0755df:b541c26f

W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if

W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE!

W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare

W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes.

W: mdadm: the array /dev/md/Volume0_0 with UUID
0897f79a:e4d45ded:924e832c:f42a1dbd

W: mdadm: is currently active, but it is not listed in mdadm.conf. if

W: mdadm: it is needed for boot, then YOUR SYSTEM IS NOW UNBOOTABLE!

W: mdadm: please inspect the output of /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf, compare

W: mdadm: it to /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, and make the necessary changes.

Setting up base-files (9.4ubuntu4.14) ...

 

I'm now wondering what happened, why upgrade did this and what to do about
it.

 

Here's the existing mdadm.conf, it is showing all the prior  UUID's from
years earlier: 

 

root@websrv03:~# cat /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

# mdadm.conf

#

# Please refer to mdadm.conf(5) for information about this file.

#

 

# by default (built-in), scan all partitions (/proc/partitions) and all

# containers for MD superblocks. alternatively, specify devices to scan,
using

# wildcards if desired.

#DEVICE partitions containers

 

# auto-create devices with Debian standard permissions

CREATE owner=root group=disk mode=0660 auto=yes

 

# automatically tag new arrays as belonging to the local system

HOMEHOST 

 

# instruct the monitoring daemon where to send mail alerts

MAILADDR root

 

# definitions of existing MD arrays

ARRAY metadata=imsm UUID=500c57be:176b8eb9:7ffef6cd:e7b36496

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume0 container=500c57be:176b8eb9:7ffef6cd:e7b36496 member=0
UUID=599ec753:9ca24317:5c764774:ca201652

ARRAY metadata=imsm UUID=dc62d339:4a0008fb:b956ff39:717f8cff

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume1 container=dc62d339:4a0008fb:b956ff39:717f8cff member=0
UUID=f24b3ea7:9f0667dc:9f423e37:63a16043

 

# This file was auto-generated on Fri, 30 Aug 2019 02:03:37 -0700

# by mkconf $Id$

root@websrv03:~#

 

 

But now, today, if I run mkconf, or I run mdadm --misc --detail -s  or I DO
NOT get the same output.  Instead THIS is what I get:

 

root@websrv03:~# mdadm --misc --detail -s

ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 metadata=imsm UUID=dc62d339:4a0008fb:b956ff39:717f8cff

ARRAY /dev/md/imsm1 metadata=imsm UUID=396b0e3e:127927a6:eb0755df:b541c26f

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume0_0 container=/dev/md/imsm1 member=0
UUID=0897f79a:e4d45ded:924e832c:f42a1dbd

ARRAY /dev/md/Volume1 container=/dev/md/imsm0 member=0
UUID=f24b3ea7:9f0667dc:9f423e37:63a16043

root@websrv03:~#

 

As you see, 2 of these UUIDs are NOT like the ones from 4 years ago.

 

root@websrv03:~# /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf

# mdadm.conf

#

# Please refer to mdadm.conf(5) for information about this file.

#

 

# by default (built-in), scan all partitions (/proc/partitions) and all

# containers for MD superblocks. alternatively, specify devices to scan,
using

# wildcards if 

Re: [PLUG] Celebration time, COME ON Apple SHUT THE F UP!!!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

" corporate power over government regulatory action to protect consumers rights"

Ah well NOW yer getting nasty!  I was being NICE.  And incidentally they are 
both - greedy dictator wannabes who are also whining pansies.

Probably should continue this on plug-talk, BTW.

Sorry but BOTH groups have no interest in consumer's rights.  If government did 
then I wouldn't have lost a TIRE on my
Wife's car last week when she drove through a pothole so large it popped the 
tire.  And this tire was 5 months old.

No, government is more interested in taking our road tax money and wasting it 
on Better Nato, Road Diets and Bicycle Lanes than actually fixing potholes.  
It's all about pet projects for special interest groups.

The only reason that any right to repair legislation got passed at all was 
because of a small minority of cell phone repair businesses got together, 
pooled some money, and started waving it around some politicians.  Don't delude 
yourself that the politicians gave a rat's ass about "consumers"

The RtR legislation was very carefully tooled to exclude a LOT of electronics.  
Pretty much it was crafted to allow small shops to continue repairing cracked 
iPhone screens.  Total First World Problem since the Iphone is the most 
expensive cell phone out there.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2024 12:18 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Celebration time, COME ON Apple SHUT THE F UP!!!

"I notice Google and Android are not out there whining like pansies."

Quoted from the article.
"A cell phone industry trade group and various other electronics organizations 
and companies opposed the legislation."

The aforementioned trade groups and organizations are unnamed and the companies 
they're comprised of are unnamed. 

Also, calling things what the really are, corporate power over government 
regulatory action to protect consumers rights verses "whining pansies" goes a 
lot farther in better informing & educating folks on what is really going on  

[PLUG] Celebration time, COME ON Apple SHUT THE F UP!!!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/03/oregon-passes-expansive-ri
ght-to-repair-law-defying-tech-industry-concerns.html

 

I notice Google and Android are not out there whining like pansies.

 

I think this needs to be on the docket as a speakers topic once the bill is
signed.   Do we know anyone in the Right to Repair movement?

 

Ted

Re: [PLUG] Linux Software for Data Center Monitoring

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

MC the problem I'm seeing that Ben has is NOT solvable by most of the advice 
he's gotten.

He has a team of programmers overseas who have a very specific customized 
environment that they created that they have a process of applying to the 
vanilla Ubuntu installs he's putting on hardware.

I can guess the very last thing they want is interference from a mere "card 
swapper" overseas in the US.

If this was virtualized solutions, that would be one thing.  Ben would be in 
charge of the hypervisor and they would be doing their crap in VMs, docker 
images or whatever the hell VM solution they choose.  They wouldn't give a crap 
about what he was doing in hardware, he wouldn't give a crap about what they 
are doing in the images.

But they aren't doing that.  I don't know what their customers are doing - 
cryptocurrency mining, cracking encryptions or searching for ET's using the 
Chinese radio telescope that replaced the collapsed Arecebo one - but whatever 
it is, it needs the power available to bare metal, containerized solutions like 
VM's ain't gonna do it.

The are NOT going to want him crapping that up with agents from Ansible or 
Puppet, or telling them how to build "their" software images.

What he's got going well that's what Intel AMT was designed to solve, it's what 
HP's ILO was designed to solve.  But, his managers took the El-Cheapo way out 
of it and instead of buying all the same thing, high end servers, that has all 
that hardware, they got whatever was on sale at Costco.

Not a single thing anyone has posted here regarding nodes, agents, etc. is 
going to do squat to read the temperature of a GPU.  Or the temperature of a 
CPU on one of his motherboards.  Or tell you whether a cooling fan has failed.  
For all you know his cheap-assed GPU cards don't even HAVE cooling fans with 
the 3rd tachometer wire nor a header on the card to even pay attention to that. 
 MAYBE you might get S.M.A.R.T data - if he's using spinning mag media - but 
predictive failure is a bit different on SSDs

He gave you guys a hint when he said he got the overseas people to at least 
give him the PCI id.  That's where he's trying to operate at - at the hardware 
level.

But all his hardware is DIFFERENT.   That's why the past of this company has 
been littered with burned out system admins who quit.

The company is an example of the tail wagging the dog.  The app developers - 
the overseas programmers - are running the show.  Corporate management probably 
figured "well those app developers in India are the geese laying the golden 
eggs" and in true corporate idiocy, put them in charge.  And created a 
nightmare, the same way that happens when you put specialist bean counters in 
the accounting department in charge of a company.

Now I can just see you all saying "horrors" and slapping all these pretty 
graphs down from Nagios and other stuff showing alleged GPU temps to prove me 
wrong.  Go ahead.  But dig down under the surface and you will find all the 
pretty gingerbread is pulling it's data from stuff like the Linux IMPI driver 
which may give you that data on some hardware, may not give it on other 
hardware.

Ben needs a crash course in the nitty gritty groveling that has to be done for 
getting this data.  If he's got all different motherboards then that means once 
he's done loading the vanilla Ubuntu image - he's gonna have to customize it 
for that board.  Then make the app developers overseas scared of undoing his 
customizations under pain of death when they do THEIR customizations to get 
their number-crunching online.

He's got some painful fighting with management and the app developers overseas 
ahead of him, since those people don't understand any of this stuff.  If he 
positions this as a money-saver by demonstrating that well hey, I can tell you 
this server is gonna crash in the next week so move your crap elsewhere so I 
can preemptively swap it out, instead of you wasting time picking up the pieces 
and figuring out how far your app got on the rainbow table and or the 
polynomial and getting back to there, he might be able to get management on his 
side.  But the overseas people are still going to be irked that he's operating 
in "their" space, at least until they understand what he's up to

And going forward he's gonna have to pick a standardized hardware profile and 
force them to buy it instead of them saying "gee willikers that other 
motherboard is $10 cheaper let's buy it as a replacement" ignoring that it is 
cheaper since it is missing critical monitoring bits and is only gonna be "on 
sale" for a month.  In reality, how they have been managing stuff now is super 
expensive.  They just haven't had a system admin in the past who understood 
this they have just had "card swappers" who were burned out until they quit.  
In short, it's an example of "you can go broke saving money"

It's a mindset shift he's going to have to push them into.  They got 800 
servers by guess and by gosh, by 

Re: [PLUG] Linux Software for Data Center Monitoring

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Owww!

If they were all name brand like HP or something then there's tools from the 
manufacturer that you could buy to manage them.

Otherwise at most if they are all the same CPU depending on the hardware you 
might be able to use something from Intel.

Otherwise, all you got is in-band management.  SNMP does exist for the OS and 
you can get some stats such as disk space, etc. from it.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2024 2:30 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Linux Software for Data Center Monitoring

On Saturday, March 2nd, 2024 at 10:50 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt 
 wrote:

> Are these 800 servers virtual or physical? 

Physical. 

> Are the physical servers home-built or commercial from a major brand (HP 
> Proliant, etc.)

Home-built... but often with parts from major brands. Or copy cat brands

> Are the servers all the same brand and model or are they a mismash of pieces 
> from different makers?

Uhh.. Ever seen a graphics card with a Gigabyte logo and EVGA silkscreened onto 
the PCB?

> Are the servers yours or owned by customers? That is, if they are virtual 
> servers owned by remote customers do you have any responsibility to monitor 
> them?> 

We own them. And the racks, cabinets, PDUs. 

> For "emergency notifications" the go-to for FOSS is "Big Sister" 
> https://bigsister.ch/ Set that up to ping the server interface and if it 
> trips a breaker and goes offline then have Big Sister email a text-to-SMS 
> gateway for your cell phone number
> 
> For monitoring power consumption you have to configure the PDUs for that. 
> I've yet to see one of these that supports current monitoring but does not 
> support SNMP, so once you get that going you can monitor power consumption 
> with mrtg or, if you want to get fancy, https://www.cacti.net/ Cacti is based 
> on RRDtool with is the successor to MRTG https://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/
> 

The PDUs have SNMP so I may have to take a look at those. 

I've used RT in the past and it's a bit on the excessive side. IIRC it uses 
perl and I know next to nothing about perl. As of right now, it basically is a 
one man show, I am the only one regularly on side for the physical hardware. 
That said, they want to hire a second person which is where these tools will 
start to come in handy. Creating a custom tool to manage all this stuff is not 
outside the realm of possibility, but that might end up meaning that I spend 
all my time maintaining said tool. 

My instinct is to start setting up some sort of relational database and build 
it up piece by piece simply because there is literally NOTHING used to manage 
this stuff. Especially since the servers are already installed and running. But 
like anything else the first step is to list all options and make my list of 
pros and cons. ;)

Re: [PLUG] Linux Software for Data Center Monitoring

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Are these 800 servers virtual or physical?

Are the physical servers home-built or commercial from a major brand (HP 
Proliant, etc.)

Are the servers all the same brand and model or are they a mismash of pieces 
from different makers?

Are the servers yours or owned by customers?  That is, if they are virtual 
servers owned by remote customers do you have any responsibility to monitor 
them?

For "emergency notifications" the go-to for FOSS is "Big Sister"   
https://bigsister.ch/  Set that up to ping the server interface and if it trips 
a breaker and goes offline then have Big Sister email a text-to-SMS gateway for 
your cell phone number

For monitoring power consumption you have to configure the PDUs for that.  I've 
yet to see one of these that supports current monitoring but does not support 
SNMP, so once you get that going you can monitor power consumption with mrtg 
or, if you want to get fancy, https://www.cacti.net/   Cacti is based on 
RRDtool with is the successor to MRTG  https://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/

For monitoring piles of parts, you need a ticketing system.  The largest and 
oldest FOSS one with a large user community is Request Tracker, RT  you can 
download here

https://bestpractical.com/download-page

You will want to read the wiki for it:

https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/Main_Page

One thing I found very annoying with it (earlier versions) is that it "hides" 
menu items that the user isn't authorized for so quite often you will run 
across advice saying "click X to do Y" on the forums yet X does not exist in 
your menu causing a deep dive and drill down to find out that X is only 
available to users in some admin group you haven't yet created, etc.  So 
basically you need to read all the documentation on it before you ever start 
installing it.

Note that if you are going to go the Django route, there's a ticketing system 
already out there written in Django  https://django-todo.org/

One last piece of advice for you and I know you are likely NOT going to take it 
now, but you will eventually,

This isn't a one-man show if you are the top dog admin you need to be managing 
the tech under you and the vendors, NOT doing a deep dive into writing some 
Real Cool program.  With all due respect to Rich Shepard, you need to be 
writing ONLY the SOP manual he was talking about - and stay far far away from 
the scripting/coding like Django.  At best, push the techs under you to install 
and familiarize themselves with apps like Cacti and RT, do NOT do it yourself.  
That will give them "skin in the game" as it were you can't have them come 
running to you the minute something breaks in the management software (which it 
will)  Alternatively if that's beyond their capabilities - farm it out to 
someone like Software Technology Group, Inc. - have them come in for a hit job, 
grab one of the techs, and make them sit through the install and setup and 
configuration.

Set the policies and procedures and leave the how of doing it to the people 
under you, you can give them suggestions like RT but if they find something 
they like better, back off and let them run with it.

If you AREN'T the top dog admin and were just hired to "maintain the hardware" 
then no problem - outsource outsource outsource.  Go into your boss's office 
and tell them "if you aren't gonna give me your application developers time or 
let me hire people then I'm gonna spend money on vendors"

Your job is to be responsible, the outsourcers can flake out as-will, they are 
outsourcers specifically because they don’t WANT to be responsible.

You have a setup that could go South very very quickly and unless you have 
support behind you, you will drown.  If you don't have peeps on site you can 
have vendors.  If your superiors don't understand this, then you are just the 
latest in a series of revolving admins and won't last.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Friday, March 1, 2024 9:37 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Linux Software for Data Center Monitoring

Hey all,

I have a somewhat strange (or maybe not so strange) question regarding 
datacenter management at the hardware and software level. For some context: I 
have recently found myself in charge of on-site maintenance for a datacenter 
with 800+ servers. While the job itself is pretty simple as far as the RAID 
arrays and general hardware configuration is concerned there has been some 
drama regarding past technicians who weren't actually keeping track of 
anything. So I have piles of parts that may or may not be good, servers that 
are completely undocumented, and a grotesque mismatch of labeling schemes for 
the various ethernet/fiber cables and server types.

Does anyone here who works with SMB scale datacenter environments have any tips 
or industry standard strategies for wrangling this type of setup? Are there any 
good FOSS software tools to help organize and monitor a mess like this? We have 
a 

Re: [PLUG] Backup Solutions

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Admin:   Backup of critical files only for no more than a year and less than
that if large data amounts over a TB

User:  "why can't you restore my file from 1976 I needd it!"

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Paul Heinlein
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 1:44 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Backup Solutions

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024, Charles Sliger wrote:

> Looking for recommendations for Linux backups.
> Anyone use theirs for actual restoring of files or disks?

Yes.

At work, we use Bacula and an actual in-operation tape library. We've never
had trouble with restoring data, but we don't image or restore whole block
devices. We maintain a few petabytes of data on tape.

We also use a product that I believe now goes by the name MSB Backup. 
We have a licensed version, but there's a free version for desktop machines.
We use that product to back files up to Amazon S3/Glacier; we do test
restorations at least once a year, and we've not yet had any problems.

But, really, first things first:

Are you concerned with hardware failure (e.g., failed disk), human failure
(e.g, mistakenly deleted file), or both?

Human failure can largely be mitigated with some sort of copy-on-write file
snapshotting system, which can be provided by ZFS, LVM, and related
technologies.

If hardware failure, what is the scope of failure against which you want to
protect? Failed hard drive? Stolen computer? Burned-down domicile? Cascadia
under water? Your answer will tall you a lot about where to store your
files: a second hard drive, a removable hard drive kept in a secure
location, a local off-site venue, an out-of-region venue.

What is the timeframe of failure you want to guard against? A day? A week?
Month? Year? Longer?

Do you need your backups stored in multiple locations?

--
Paul Heinlein
heinl...@madboa.com
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W

Re: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious activity

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Yes.  Major email providers like gmail.com and Microsoft generally look at
the number of authentications per hour for email sent from "foreign
networks" so if you were relaying outbound mail via live.com or gmail.com or
whatever, unless you were relaying hundreds to thousands of emails an hour,
they wouldn't assume you were spamming.

But Comcast, well they try.  They are definitely better than many other
ISP's when it comes to email, but the reality is that ISP's first and
foremost are connectivity companies and to them, email is a cost center.
The main reason they even offer it is because of historical reasons, "back
in the day" when ISP's were dialup, they regarded the u...@myispdomain.com
email address as a way of convincing customers to not shift to another
dialup provider.

Most young people getting online these days use a gmail or whatever email
address and eschew the ISP email address, because they are accessing email
via cell phones mostly.  Some of them don't even have an Internet connection
they tether to their phones on an unlimited data cell plan.  And the free
email providers use marketing data gathered from scanning emails that flow
through their mailservers to generate revenue to pay for the servers, and
the ISP's like comcast/Verizon/etc don't have enough customers to make that
worthwhile.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of
markcasi...@comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2024 8:22 PM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious
activity

Yep, Ted. Your translations are  on the mark. It's working now, just a blip
when it wasn't.  It mostly works, except when it doesn't.

I live on the Coast and have Spectrum as my ISP but I still use my comcast
email thru Thunderbird. And so my Thunderbird is configured to contact the
comcast server even when I am on the Internet via Spectrum. So it is most
likely your first translation, I think?

-Mark


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 11:15 AM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' ; p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious
activity

Mark,

If you sent this message using markcasi...@comcast.net from your Thunderbird
account then your T-bird is likely configured to login to Comcast and make
an auth-SMTP connection to it.

So in that case the error message would be coming from Comcast's mailserver,
it is essentially saying "Hey man you aren't using an IP that Comcast handed
out to one of it's customers, so your a cracker who stole one of our
customer's email address credentials and are using it to relay spam through
our mailserver.  So go eff off"

Now if you were sending using something like markcasimer857...@spectrum.net,
then you would have been relaying mail through Spectrum's mailserver and the
error message would be coming from Spectrum.  In which case the translation
of the error message is as follows:

"Hey man you are attempting to send an email from a spectrum.net email
address through a spectrum.net mailserver but unfortunately the
administrators of the spectrum mailserver were too busy smoking dope to
bother to put the list of spectrum IP addresses that they hand out to their
customers into their own mailserver, so the mailserver thinks EVERYONE on
the Internet - including it's own customers - are spammers.   Here's a
ChatGPT bot that you can play with to make yourself feel good while our
admins smoke another bowl before getting around to fixing this"

Hope that explains it.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of
markcasi...@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 5:55 PM
To: p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious activity

Does anyone know what this means?

 

I am using Thunderbird on Ubuntu LTS.

 

I got this message:


Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The
server responded: impout008.msg.chrl.nc.charter.net cmsmtp https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/understanding-email-error-codes>
https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/understanding-email-error-codes
for more information. AUP#Out-1020.


The referenced site describes AUP#Out-1020 as


This email account has limited access to send emails based on suspicious
activity. Blocks will expire based on the nature of the activity. If you're
a Spectrum customer,  <https://www.spectrum.net/contact-us> contact us to
remove the block.


What is that "suspicious activity"? Is there anything I can do to find out
what it is? Do I need to be worried about this?

The "contact us" is just the Spectrum chat, which is unhelpful. If I talk to
an agent, she says that they cannot help me and that I must contact
Spamhaus. Spamhaus tells me on their site that if I do not have my own mail
server (I do not), my ISP (Spectrum) must provide a request 

Re: [PLUG] Router Vulnerability

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Actually the big problem isn't tech vendors of SOHO routers doing this.  They 
have actually already been doing this for years.  The WAY they have been doing 
it in the past has not in general been much of a problem either.

For example most of the Linksys Exxx routers auto-update themselves to the 
latest firmware when connected to the Internet.  The latest firmware will not 
allow 3rd party firmware to be flashed to the router - "taking ownership" you 
might say.  However, during boot there's a 500 ms period where the bootloader 
listens for incoming TFTP to the LAN side.  If it gets a file via incoming TFTP 
at that time - it overwrites the router firmware with it.  Linksys has known 
about this since the router was released and has continued to include this 
feature in later routers.  So all they have effectively done is make it 
impossible to flash the router for a regular user.  Anyone who takes the time 
to learn about the device won't have a problem.

The BIG problem is the tech vendors of routers abandoning support of older 
devices.   That is, the router vendors release a device, support it for 5-10 
years, then decide it's not worth the effort to keep releasing patches for it.

Someone buys an old router out of support from a fea market, uses it as is, and 
then now you have a security hole and potential pest on the Internet that can 
be pwned and used to hose down other sites with attacks.

And this isn't limited to SOHO routers.  For example take the Cisco Firepower 
firewall.  This is a high end very expensive device.  Cisco has Done The Right 
Thing, you might say, by making the device license locked to Cisco.  If someone 
stops paying a service contract on it, thus stops getting security updates to 
it, the device will go into read-only mode and not allow configuration changes.

However the loophole is you can factory reset the device, then completely 
configure it before you plug it into the Internet, and then plug it in and 
start using it.  The device will then continue to operate on obsolete Cisco 
code - forever. (as long as you don't need to make changes)

Now, you can buy old Cisco ASA5512's  5515's and boot Linux and run the latest 
OpenSense on them.  In fact people have even reported doing this with an 
Ironport C170.  All of these are devices that had vendor-locked firmware to 
lock the device into being owned by the vendor.  My guess is you can also do 
this with a Cisco Firepower but I have not dug into it.  THAT sort of thing 
ISN'T the problem because the owner is running current pfsense or whatever code 
on it.

It's when the owner does NOT do that and just runs the device forever and ever 
and ever, never updating it.  Even devices that are - as recommended by the 
CISA - "claimed ownership of their customer's security outcomes".  You see, 
it's not possible for a commercial entity to consider someone a "customer" who 
buys something of theirs then uses it forever, never paying them a cent - 
unless possibly the device breaks and they buy a new one.

I don't trust vendors either but one thing you can depend on is that a vendor 
is only interested in their product for a short time.  Even the vendors of 
large very expensive products - like automobiles.

For example Ford Motor Company manufactured the Super High Output V8 from 
1996-1999.  It worked really well until it became known that Ford had used a 
weird attachment design for the cam sprockets that over time would allow them 
to slip, causing the engine to destroy itself when the valves then hit the 
pistons on the interference engine.  But by the time this was well publicized, 
Ford has stopped producing the engine.  The aftermarket fix is to weld the 
sprockets to the cams.  But Ford issued a lame TSB saying to glue (locktite) 
the sprockets to the cams.

This is very typical of any commercial vendor.  Once the product is 
sufficiently far back in their rear view mirror they don't give a tinker's damn 
who does what to it, who flashes what to it, etc.  And they don't give a crap 
if the owner just keeps running it forever, using antique holey code that every 
cracker on the Internet is exploiting.

Pushing the vendors to "take over" products like the CISA is saying to do is 
going to work about as well as pushing Ford to take responsibility for the SHO 
v8 flaw.

It just ain't gonna happen, folks.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Saturday, February 3, 2024 6:18 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Router Vulnerability

> "Russell" == Russell Senior  writes:

> "Dick" == Dick Steffens  writes:
Dick> There was a news item recently that talked about a number of
Dick> home routers susceptible to a hacking attack.

Russell> Do you have a link to the news item?

I'm guessing it was this basic story (repeated across many outlets):

  https://thehackernews.com/2024/02/us-feds-shut-down-china-linked-kv.html



One thing I find not particularly 

Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> The tailscale client is open source

Wrong.  From the tailscale website:

https://tailscale.com/opensource

" The client, which runs on each of a user’s devices, is mostly open source"

" A closed source coordination server."

If you dig around on Headscale, which is the open source version of the 
tailscale server, you can read between the lines and find out the truth.

The truth is only the Linux "desktop" clients are fully open source.  The GUI 
clients for MacOS and Windows are not.

Basically what is going on is that since the Mac and Windows clients outnumber 
the Linux clients 10,00 to 1, the company is using marketing data collected 
from the ignorant users running Windows and MacOS who couldn't read a bash 
script if their lives depended on it, to fund the servers.   They then throw a 
bone to the Linux people to let them use their directory server and trumpet the 
"open sourceness" of the Linux solution.

Then the Linux users run around evangelizing this - like what you are doing 
here - and maybe a few handful of other Linux users pick it up - and then 100's 
of gullible MacOS and Windows users who want in on it, download the Windows 
client and think "that was easy" and then add their marketing data to the Borg 
collective.

It really isn't that difficult to setup dynamic DNS and your own VPN server, 
whether you want to use OpenSSH or Wireguard or any other VPN protocol, running 
on your own gear, and running with 100% Open Source, even for the ignorant 
users MacOS and Windows clients.

But each to their own.  Have fun feeling superior pretending you are OSS 
friendly while your remote access is being funded by hundreds of thousands of 
Windows users who are being spied on by tailscale.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Bill Barry
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 12:29 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 2:12 PM Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:
>
> No, because you are running tailscale software ON a PC, at administrative 
> level, which gives it total access to your PC and to the network that PC is 
> on.  It can pull logs for your browsing and everything else, it has all 
> control.
>
> If I run an OpenVPN server on a router connected to the Internet - I just 
> need to know it's public IP which I can get from a free dns provider, and 
> then when I access it via the community vpn client - well I have all the code 
> used in both the server and the client.  None of that code is calling home to 
> mama.
>
> Ted
>

The tailscale client is open source. I have not checked it for vulnerabilities 
and I installed it from the binary.  I am glad you have analyzed the openvpn 
code.

Bill

Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

No, because you are running tailscale software ON a PC, at administrative 
level, which gives it total access to your PC and to the network that PC is on. 
 It can pull logs for your browsing and everything else, it has all control.

If I run an OpenVPN server on a router connected to the Internet - I just need 
to know it's public IP which I can get from a free dns provider, and then when 
I access it via the community vpn client - well I have all the code used in 
both the server and the client.  None of that code is calling home to mama.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Bill Barry
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 11:34 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 1:04 PM Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:
>
> I used a free dynamic DNS provider for my customers who were not 
> running their own mailserver and too small to want to spend the money 
> on a static IP, and then they could just use the community openvpn 
> client to remote into their network, instead of crapping up their 
> computers with additional spyware from companies like tailscale that 
> monitors where they go on the web (that's how tailscale, and gmail and 
> the rest of that crowd pay for their servers)
>
> There's always an angle for the commercial providers who are offering "free"  
>   Always.
>
> Ted
>
>
If you are using Tailscale then you are only going to places inside your own 
private network. There is no idea of going outside that network so there would 
be nothing for them to monitor or "spy" on.
They in fact do charge if you have a large enough network or want commercial 
support. I think you are confusing them with some type of other VPN provider.

BIll

Re: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious activity

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Mark,

If you sent this message using markcasi...@comcast.net from your Thunderbird
account then your T-bird is likely configured to login to Comcast and make
an auth-SMTP connection to it.

So in that case the error message would be coming from Comcast's mailserver,
it is essentially saying "Hey man you aren't using an IP that Comcast handed
out to one of it's customers, so your a cracker who stole one of our
customer's email address credentials and are using it to relay spam through
our mailserver.  So go eff off"

Now if you were sending using something like markcasimer857...@spectrum.net,
then you would have been relaying mail through Spectrum's mailserver and the
error message would be coming from Spectrum.  In which case the translation
of the error message is as follows:

"Hey man you are attempting to send an email from a spectrum.net email
address through a spectrum.net mailserver but unfortunately the
administrators of the spectrum mailserver were too busy smoking dope to
bother to put the list of spectrum IP addresses that they hand out to their
customers into their own mailserver, so the mailserver thinks EVERYONE on
the Internet - including it's own customers - are spammers.   Here's a
ChatGPT bot that you can play with to make yourself feel good while our
admins smoke another bowl before getting around to fixing this"

Hope that explains it.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of
markcasi...@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 5:55 PM
To: p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] limited access to send emails based on suspicious activity

Does anyone know what this means?

 

I am using Thunderbird on Ubuntu LTS.

 

I got this message:


Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The
server responded: impout008.msg.chrl.nc.charter.net cmsmtp https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/understanding-email-error-codes>
https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/understanding-email-error-codes
for more information. AUP#Out-1020.


The referenced site describes AUP#Out-1020 as


This email account has limited access to send emails based on suspicious
activity. Blocks will expire based on the nature of the activity. If you're
a Spectrum customer,   contact us to
remove the block.


What is that "suspicious activity"? Is there anything I can do to find out
what it is? Do I need to be worried about this?

The "contact us" is just the Spectrum chat, which is unhelpful. If I talk to
an agent, she says that they cannot help me and that I must contact
Spamhaus. Spamhaus tells me on their site that if I do not have my own mail
server (I do not), my ISP (Spectrum) must provide a request to unblock.
Spectrum says they cannot help and I must follow Spamhaus directions (which
are to contact my ISP). It appears that I am stuck in circular logic here.

What's curious here though is that the IP address listed in the error
message is my personal DHCP address provided by Spectrum, not the IP address
of the Spectrum server. That seems strange because I do not run a mail
server. My email should appear to come from the IP address of the Spectrum
mail server.

I once had a Spectrum engineer tell me that "all residential IPs are dynamic
which are automatically listed on some blacklists. It is completely normal
and would only cause issues if you are trying to host your own mail server,
not just sending email through IMAP and it would definitely not stop
anything from being sent through webmail. This would impact all of our
residential customers if it were the case."

Spectrum tells me they cannot change my IP address. But it is DHCP? Why
can't they just terminate my DHCP lease and renew it with a different
address? If I locally kill my DHCP lease, and renew it, I just get the very
same IP address again, not a new one.

 

-Mark

 

Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I used a free dynamic DNS provider for my customers who were not running their 
own mailserver and too small to want to spend the money on a static IP, and 
then they could just use the community openvpn client to remote into their 
network, instead of crapping up their computers with additional spyware from 
companies like tailscale that monitors where they go on the web (that's how 
tailscale, and gmail and the rest of that crowd pay for their servers)

There's always an angle for the commercial providers who are offering "free"
Always.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Bill Barry
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 9:03 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Thanks! Re: Ziply fiber - fixed IP address?

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 10:43 PM Mark Casimer  wrote:
>
> Keith,
>
> Did you make the transition to Ziply? How did it work out for you?
> Spectrum charges (here on the Coast) about $135/month for a static IP, 
> which is nearly double that for residential DHCP. Spectrum also 
> requires that I rent their modem for a business account. I can use my 
> own modem for a residential DHCP account.
>

Do you need the static IP for a public facing purpose? If it is just for 
private restricted access then a Tailscale network is very handy.

Bill

Re: [PLUG] February PLUG?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Well it's a hack and a half and I'm sure if I show it I'll be sent to Linux 
hell, but I could do a presentation on  "Bandwidth monitoring OpenWRT and 
DD-WRT routers with MRTG"

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Michael Dexter
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 3:25 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] February PLUG?

Hey.

I had to slay some dragons in December and early January.

The Center is available Thursday if we want it.

I am happy to talk about managing/containing Windows on something other than 
Windows, but I also all ears for what you want to talk about.

Perhaps a show and tell session?

I'll check this mail. I swear.

Michael Dexter
Kinda Sorta PLUG and Stuff

Re: [PLUG] Cable tester

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

It depends on what you are needing to do.

If you are installing new cabling then the cheap $50 from Ebay will work:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/145198295238

If you are working with old existing work then you need a TDR.  The reason is 
because IF the cable you are trying to find with a toner is shorted anywhere on 
it's length, then the tone generated from the toner will fall off very rapidly 
in intensity the further you get from the tone source.  So you will need to 
check for a short first.  Toners only work well for tracing wire if the end of 
the wire is not connected to anything.

I've used the cheapie to find wires buried in walls behind drywall.  The wire 
was not shorted.

The worst would be finding a wire in a wall that had had a nail driven into it. 
 Unless you have a wiring layout for the building, where the wires were run, a 
TDR will only tell you how far away the nail is, it won't tell you what 
direction.  You just have to get lucky and hope that 1 or 2 conductors are left 
in the wire that are not shorted.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 9:21 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Cable tester

Hi. I need to buy a cat5 cable tester aka tone detector. There are so many!
How should I choose one? What features, brands, etc do you recommend?

My bldg has up to 100' of cat5e I think. I'd like one I keep for future use 
with different wiring (RJ11, cat6 7, etc). Idk what other features to look for 
in such an item. I want to test for cable quality, connectivity, speed, etc as 
well as locating which cable terminates where (if all that's possible). 

Re: [PLUG] Cable tester

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Yeah, unless you are going to go the route of having the tool calibrated every 
6 months, the best you are ever going to get out of any electronic measuring 
device is "good enough for government work"  Don't fall for the "super 
accurate" snow job from the salesguys at Fluke.  The only difference the extra 
money buys you is that the Fluke CAN be calibrated.  At least I assume it can.  
For sure their expensive stuff can be, don't know about the "cheaper" field 
stuff.

All of the measuring devices on the market that measure the more advanced stuff 
also show the simpler stuff.  The Pentascanner does the same.

It's important to know that you can only measure a miswire if you have plugged 
the termination device into the other end of the cable, this is true for all of 
the models on the market

Another consideration I have also had when working on this stuff for customers 
is having the expensive stuff get stolen.  I've had toolbags stolen several 
times and more importantly I've accidentally forgotten tools at a job then 
remembered later and gone back for them only to find they had disappeared.  I 
learned only to carry the absolute cheapest crap tools that will barely work.  
(that's an old trick from a lot of tradespeople)  That's why I never carried 
the Pentascanner unless it was on a special job.  The Pentascanner when it was 
new, decades ago, was in the multi-thousand dollar range.  They still fetch a 
lot on Ebay maybe I should sell mine

Ted

Obviously if you have a large wiring

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 10:40 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Cable tester

The fluke ms2 also shows miswiring, whether you are plugged into a transceiver, 
or your remote, etc. We've been happy with it. I am sure you can find non-fluke 
for less, but when you are measuring things, it is nice, and an inferential leg 
up, to know you are probably measuring them correctly.

On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 10:34 AM Ted Mittelstaedt 
wrote:

> The problem with a TDR is it's only good if you shorted or opened a 
> cable.  My problem has always been pair reversals on building cables 
> and a TDR is useless for that.  I have a Pentascanner that I used to 
> use for this kind of thing and the only use I got out of it was 
> discovering a split pair one time at a customer site that was left 
> over from years earlier when someone had run voice on that cable.  But 
> keeping the battery packs working on the thing was a nuisance so I 
> switched over to the $20 chinese pair scanner thing years ago.
>
> It's also worth noting you can buy a TDR for $100 off Ebay.  Chinese 
> made of course.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell 
> Senior
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 10:16 AM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Cable tester
>
> For years, we got away with a cheapo $20 continuity tester for 
> checking Ethernet cables. The problem with them was that, yeah, sure, 
> they would tell you if you had shorts or opens, but they did not tell 
> you where. Cable itself tends to be pretty reliably connected end to 
> end, but when you have crimped both ends and you find a short or open 
> with a continuity tester, you have almost no idea which end you 
> screwed up. You look very closely at the crimped ends, decide which 
> one looks sketchier, cut it off and try again more carefully, then rinse and 
> repeat.
>
> A few years ago, after suffering this problem for over a decade, we 
> finally invested in a fluke microscanner2. It does time domain 
> reflectometry, and can tell you, pair-by-pair, whether it has 
> continuity and crucially, if it does not, how far down the wire the fault 
> occurs.
> Suddenly, we know which end has the fault! If we stabbed the cable to 
> death with hoop staples and there is a mid span fault, we know that. 
> It cost us $500. It wasn't their fanciest model, but it has been such 
> an improvement in reliability and visibility.
>
> --
> Russell Senior
> russ...@personaltelco.net
>
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 09:21 mo  wrote:
>
> > Hi. I need to buy a cat5 cable tester aka tone detector. There are 
> > so
> many!
> > How should I choose one? What features, brands, etc do you recommend?
> >
> > My bldg has up to 100' of cat5e I think. I'd like one I keep for 
> > future use with different wiring (RJ11, cat6 7, etc). Idk what other 
> > features to look for in such an item. I want to test for cable 
> > quality, connectivity, speed, etc as well as locating which cable 
> > terminates where (if all that's possible). 
> >
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Cable tester

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The problem with a TDR is it's only good if you shorted or opened a cable.  My 
problem has always been pair reversals on building cables and a TDR is useless 
for that.  I have a Pentascanner that I used to use for this kind of thing and 
the only use I got out of it was discovering a split pair one time at a 
customer site that was left over from years earlier when someone had run voice 
on that cable.  But keeping the battery packs working on the thing was a 
nuisance so I switched over to the $20 chinese pair scanner thing years ago.

It's also worth noting you can buy a TDR for $100 off Ebay.  Chinese made of 
course.  

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 10:16 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Cable tester

For years, we got away with a cheapo $20 continuity tester for checking 
Ethernet cables. The problem with them was that, yeah, sure, they would tell 
you if you had shorts or opens, but they did not tell you where. Cable itself 
tends to be pretty reliably connected end to end, but when you have crimped 
both ends and you find a short or open with a continuity tester, you have 
almost no idea which end you screwed up. You look very closely at the crimped 
ends, decide which one looks sketchier, cut it off and try again more 
carefully, then rinse and repeat.

A few years ago, after suffering this problem for over a decade, we finally 
invested in a fluke microscanner2. It does time domain reflectometry, and can 
tell you, pair-by-pair, whether it has continuity and crucially, if it does 
not, how far down the wire the fault occurs. Suddenly, we know which end has 
the fault! If we stabbed the cable to death with hoop staples and there is a 
mid span fault, we know that. It cost us $500. It wasn't their fanciest model, 
but it has been such an improvement in reliability and visibility.

--
Russell Senior
russ...@personaltelco.net

On Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 09:21 mo  wrote:

> Hi. I need to buy a cat5 cable tester aka tone detector. There are so many!
> How should I choose one? What features, brands, etc do you recommend?
>
> My bldg has up to 100' of cat5e I think. I'd like one I keep for 
> future use with different wiring (RJ11, cat6 7, etc). Idk what other 
> features to look for in such an item. I want to test for cable 
> quality, connectivity, speed, etc as well as locating which cable 
> terminates where (if all that's possible). 
>

Re: [PLUG] what is the best way to check an UPS unit for real battery capacity?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Just reboot the system and hit the Pause key during POST.  The system will sit 
frozen at the BIOS screen drawing power and then you can pull A/C power out of 
the wall.  It the UPS dies no problem.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of American Citizen
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2024 12:40 PM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: [PLUG] what is the best way to check an UPS unit for real battery 
capacity?

Hello

Is there any way to check for battery capacity of the UPS unit without having 
to switch off the AC power input? Just curious if anyway while the UPS stays 
online can be done? Once I got caught with practically useless battery capacity 
(lead-acid cells) on an APC unit, because I had neglected to check the 
batteries capacity about once a year or so.

I get a bit nervous when killing the AC power on a live system, although that's 
what the UPS is supposed to protect from.

Is the best way to check done by killing the AC power?

Randall

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Note that when Office 365 is first installed on a PC it creates a directory for 
itself in Program Files.

A remote attacker who gets non-admin access to a PC can read the creation date 
of that directory to see when it was installed.

For example on my laptop in Add Remove programs it shows MS Office Pro 2016 
install date of 1/13/2024 - which is the last date that a patch
Was installed.

But, c:\program files\microsoft office 15  folder date is 8/23 which was the 
actual install date.

The attacker can theorize that office 365 was installed when it was bought - 
and since Microsoft does yearly billing on the anniversary of purchase - 
there's a good chance your billing anniversary is around the date of first 
install.  So they can customize phishing for this.

Another way is of course guessing a password then using it to access your email

Since so many people are running Office 365 with email in the cloud if they get 
your email password they can access your emailbox and search for past billings 
from Microsoft.  Good places to look are Deleted Items since a lot of people 
don't empty theirs

This is why Microsoft made Multifactor Authentication on by default for new 365 
setups a rew years ago and they buried the configuration switch to turn it off 
deep into the Azure control panel so you have to be really persistent to dig it 
out and turn it off

But 365 resellers like GoDaddy who "stupid-down" the Azure interface all 
prominently put MFA on/off in their stupid-downed control panels and guess what 
the most commonly requested thing to turn off in 365 is?

Keep in mind since you are using 365 Microsoft does allow people to shoot 
themselves in the foot with security.

I would bet your attacker discovered your 365 subscription anniversary date 
months ago from some leakage and had it all planned.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 11:40 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

Unfortunately it passed all gsuite filters bc it's a real vendor we use & it 
had something we were awaiting (sign renewal docs).

On Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 11:36 MC_Sequoia  wrote:

> "1 of my vendors had their email compromised recently.  the attacker 
> the sent out emails with docs to sign for renewals via ms office/outlook 
> links."
>
> Also, whatever your mail server situation is, whether it's a hosted 
> provider or in-house, I'd suggest looking into some kind of email 
> malware/spam scanner/filter such as Spam Assassin as well as other 
> doing everything you reasonable can to secure/harden your email server.
>
> It has been over a decade since I've done any of that, but it seems to 
> me that a lot of good work has been done in that area and this email 
> probably shouldn't have gotten through a current secured/hardened 
> email server blacklists, bayesian filters, domain keys, etc, etc.
>

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

It's obvious you are not a criminal.

That is old-school theft thinking.  Old-school theft is you go where the money 
is and you smash and grab the biggest amount you can all at once from one 
person or institution then run off.  Most criminals today that do that get 
caught and serve long sentences and have to pay the money back, and the 
criminal justice system is totally setup to catch them.

New-school theft thinking is you steal very little - maybe a dollar - from 
every victim - and you just do it from as many victims as you can.

A smaller who steals $25 from 10,000 people makes a quarter million dollars.  
And you are never gonna find a prosecutor anywhere who is going to file theft 
charges against someone for $25.

My mother got a $25 charge on her credit card from an online gaming company for 
some stupid thing like more points or some such.  She's 82 and has never played 
an online game in her life.  She filed a dispute with the bank.  The online 
game company responded claiming there was no way their system would allow an 
invalid charge.  The chargeback was then denied.  She's probably spent an hour 
on the phone by now trying to get the charge removed.  I told her just cancel 
your credit card and get a new one she does not want to do that because the 
card number is setup in a dozen places for automatic payments.  So she will end 
up giving up on the charge back, and the thief - who we know and the bank knows 
- will get $25   See how this works?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 11:43 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

Agreed on all this except Linux users are smart = smart ppl usually earn more = 
accessing their financial authorizations is more valuable. But if it's a 
numbers game then no.

On Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 11:16 Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:

> I think just about all those phishing emails that are trying to 
> distribute phishing viruses are distributing viruses written for 
> windows, because Windows is written so poorly that you have to be 
> administrator on a windows system to do even basic user tasks like connecting 
> to a printer.
>
> They know that unless they get opened on a corporate network where the 
> Microsoft user security is enforced, they have carte-blanc to do 
> whatever the heck they want to the computer.
>
> This is just a numbers game.  The number of Linux user desktops out 
> there is vastly smaller even than MacOS desktops, and the number of MacOS
> desktops is a pittance compared to windows desktops.   And almost all
> windows desktops NOT connected to a domain the user has admin rights, 
> and probably half the windows desktops connected to a domain the user 
> also has admin rights.
>
> Assume only .01 of users fall for a virus, well .01 of 100 million 
> windows desktops is a lot bigger number than .01 of 1 million linux 
> desktops.  You write for the bigger number.
>
> Hell, we can't even get Microsoft to port Office to Linux desktops 
> even though the majority of their revenue is coming from O365 and they 
> have forced every maker of desktops out there to buy windows licenses 
> from them
> - all those linux desktops you have, also paid a Microsoft tax.  So 
> there's zero downside to making O365 available for Linux desktops 
> other than developer cost to port and support, it won't negatively 
> impact their windows os revenue at all.  And O365 is EXPENSIVE and 
> it's an ongoing cost.  Plus they make O365 available for MacOS and 
> they are the greediest pigs of all the installed software vendors and 
> routinely throw millions into dog products like Microsoft Bob that 
> everyone can see will be money losers.
>
> Yet they can't even find a way to make money on linux desktops so if 
> THEY can't justify it for O365 which is a cash cow, how in the world 
> could a virus writer writing viruses to make actual real money (well, 
> steal real
> money) justify writing a linux desktop virus?
>
> Just about all the linux escalation security cracks are written to 
> target linux SERVER products.  If your Linux desktops are not offering 
> services to the public Internet, there is very little to worry about.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
> Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 11:01 AM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods
>
> Such a great group to learn so many things from! Yayus!
>
> I've aptitude auto updating. None of the systems have a LAN aka all 
> WFH situations. The individual users do not have root access, but I 
> install 1 other user which does so that I can ssh in as that user & 
> sudo when needed; root itself has no ssh or login access directly. Idk 
> if I use all the Linux defaults; I have a setup

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I think just about all those phishing emails that are trying to distribute 
phishing viruses are distributing viruses written for windows, because
Windows is written so poorly that you have to be administrator on a windows 
system to do even basic user tasks like connecting to a printer.

They know that unless they get opened on a corporate network where the 
Microsoft user security is enforced, they have carte-blanc to do whatever the 
heck they want to the computer.

This is just a numbers game.  The number of Linux user desktops out there is 
vastly smaller even than MacOS desktops, and the number of MacOS desktops is a 
pittance compared to windows desktops.   And almost all windows desktops NOT 
connected to a domain the user has admin rights, and probably half the windows 
desktops connected to a domain the user also has admin rights.

Assume only .01 of users fall for a virus, well .01 of 100 million windows 
desktops is a lot bigger number than .01 of 1 million linux desktops.  You 
write for the bigger number.

Hell, we can't even get Microsoft to port Office to Linux desktops even though 
the majority of their revenue is coming from O365 and they have forced every 
maker of desktops out there to buy windows licenses from them - all those linux 
desktops you have, also paid a Microsoft tax.  So there's zero downside to 
making O365 available for Linux desktops other than developer cost to port and 
support, it won't negatively impact their windows os revenue at all.  And O365 
is EXPENSIVE and it's an ongoing cost.  Plus they make O365 available for MacOS 
and they are the greediest pigs of all the installed software vendors and 
routinely throw millions into dog products like Microsoft Bob that everyone can 
see will be money losers.

Yet they can't even find a way to make money on linux desktops so if THEY can't 
justify it for O365 which is a cash cow, how in the world could a virus writer 
writing viruses to make actual real money (well, steal real money) justify 
writing a linux desktop virus?

Just about all the linux escalation security cracks are written to target linux 
SERVER products.  If your Linux desktops are not offering services to the 
public Internet, there is very little to worry about.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 11:01 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

Such a great group to learn so many things from! Yayus!

I've aptitude auto updating. None of the systems have a LAN aka all WFH 
situations. The individual users do not have root access, but I install 1 other 
user which does so that I can ssh in as that user & sudo when needed; root 
itself has no ssh or login access directly. Idk if I use all the Linux 
defaults; I have a setup script I run on each host after install to configure 
everything which probably changes some defaults.

Idk if Siduction/Debian has any 0days. I haven't had time to process all the 
other links & info you guys shared yet but all very appreciated. 

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Well the OP can check for a zero exploit easily, just google his OS for 
discussion of one.

As for not patched CVE's if the OP has disabled the automatic updating then of 
course all bets are off.

Finding a network vulnerability on the LAN isn't hacking that workstation you 
are on

A non-root user can start a process allowing remote access but the remote will 
still only be at that user's permission level

Linux (at least ubuntu) does not have a usable root password unless root 
changes it

Etc. etc.  means nothing

In other words - if he just installed Linux, using defaults, did not turn off 
updating, did not give his users root access, and in other words, did 
everything you are supposed to do - he has nothing to worry about.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Tomas Kuchta
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 8:23 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

On Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 02:41 Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:

> How in the world is a regular non-root user going to install a rootkit 
> on a Linux workstation?.
>

Not patched CVEs, zero day exploits, establishing network connection to LAN and 
finding vulnerability, starting/establishing user process allowing remote 
access, password scans, etc., etc.

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

How in the world is a regular non-root user going to install a rootkit on a 
Linux workstation?

Just askin!

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2024 10:34 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

"what do you recommend I should do to make sure none of us are compromised, 
have trojans, etc?

As a long time Debian user and former Sys-Admin, I'd suggest starting with 
ClamAV and a root kit scanner.

Here's a link to some good info on how to install and use both, 
https://upcloud.com/resources/tutorials/scan-debian-server-malware

ClamAV can also be setup to run like any desktop AV app on Windows.

Rootkits are an entirely different beast and I never had to deal with them. 

Here's some more malware and security tools that I found that I'm not familiar 
with, so I'd suggest doing a bit of research. 
https://linuxsecurity.com/features/the-three-best-tools-you-need-to-scan-your-linux-system-for-malware

Lastly, If you're not familiar with hardening a Debian system and/or you don't 
know if it has been done, I'd highly recommend getting educated on it ASAP. 
Here's a good place to start, 
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/automatic-harden.en.html

I'm stoked to actually know someone who knows what Siduction is and runs it! I 
ran Sidux as my production desktop for a few years and just loved it. I've been 
running Bunsen-Labs since they lost the right to use the name and went to 
Aptosid. Blech, I vomit in my mouth a lil' whenever I even think of it...

Re: [PLUG] virus check methods

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Does anyone even write Linux viruses anymore?

I thought the days of the Morris Internet Worm were long gone.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of mo
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2024 3:05 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] virus check methods

1 of my vendors had their email compromised recently.  the attacker then sent 
out emails with docs to sign for renewals via ms office/outlook links.  we were 
up for renewal at the same time, so I & my team all clicked on it.  ugh!  damn!

we all use linux (siduction = debian testing).  what do you recommend I should 
do to make sure none of us are compromised, have trojans, etc?  I can ssh into 
their boxes & sudo to enter any commands, install any software, etc. We have 
never had someone succeed like this so I'm not sure what to do.  all of our 
stuff is saved in gdrive/cloud/etc so we don't care about losing anything on 
the systems, but we do financial transactions, bank access, etc, so I need to 
make sure we are not compromised.  I prefer not to reinstall the systems if 
possible.

I won't share the links the vendor emailed us; I don't want any of you 
accidentally clicking them!

thank you in advance!

Re: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

That isn't a measured power draw.  It's what the device tells the host that it 
needs.  The actual power usage is likely much lower.

You could probably test this pretty easily with your keyboard.  Each keyboard 
indicator light draws between 10-30ma, so run
Lsusb on your keyboard with all 3 lights off, then turn on scroll lock, numlock 
etc. and run it again and see if the power "usage"
Has increased.  I'm betting it won't.

It's also not at all logical a mouse would draw 5 times the power when it only 
has 1 led in it while a KB has 3.

Per USB specs any USB port must supply at minimum 100ma and any device drawing 
more than that must command the host
During enumeration to supply more power.  Most likely the chip in the mouse 
just sends 500 since that's the amount that every
USB port ever manufactured all the way down to USB 1.0 is able to support.  
Obviously higher versions can supply more power if
Requested.

A USB power meter is only $4 off Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Current-Voltage-Multimeter-Digital-Detector/dp/B09Z6PQZRS

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 5:25 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

The USB descriptors reported by lsusb -v will also report the MaxPower value of 
a given device.

e.g. my Logitech keyboard is currently reporting a MaxPower usage of 98mA while 
my Roccat mouse is reporting 500mA

# lsusb -vd 046d:c53d |grep MaxPower
MaxPower   98mA
# lsusb -vd 1e7d:2dcd |grep MaxPower
MaxPower  500mA


This might be useful if you need to identify at what point USB power draw 
becomes a problem.
-Ben


On Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024 at 10:10 AM, Tomas Kuchta 
 wrote:

> This article may tell you more about what you need
> 
> https://www.baeldung.com/linux/control-usb-power-supply
> 
> -T
> 
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 12:35 Tomas Kuchta tomas.kuchta.li...@gmail.com
> 
> wrote:
> 
> > echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind
> > 
> > Will bind it again. The side effect of unbind+bind is usb bus/device 
> > reset, depending on whether you are addressing bus or device
> > 
> > The number(s) being echoed means:
> > usbBusNo usbPort usbDevice
> > Check the bus/device format in /sys or dmsg or 
> > 
> > There is old article from GKH about how this worked in 2.6 kernels 
> > ages ago. It has changed somewhat and improved - see usb kernel 
> > sub-system documentation or google for more details.
> > 
> > https://lwn.net/Articles/143397/
> > 
> > I am typing this on my cell, using google and memory - I was not 
> > able to verify current format on my system at home and I use remote 
> > multi-user centOS at work (cannot mess with that)
> > 
> > Good luck, -T
> > 
> > On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 11:24 Vince Winter thine.technoc...@gmail.com
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > It is also about the power draw on the processor power and the 
> > > system power from having a USB controller working. Having any USB 
> > > plugged adds noticeable amount of power.
> > > 
> > > I am hoping that telling the kernel, as per the suggestions here, 
> > > to unpower it that the controller goes back to "sleep mode". Also 
> > > it would be convenient if can I bring the device backup with out 
> > > unplugging it.
> > > 
> > > When I have a moment at work, I will get some empirical data if 
> > > this works or not.
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 5:51 AM Tomas Kuchta 
> > > tomas.kuchta.li...@gmail.com
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 01:00 Ted Mittelstaedt 
> > > > t...@portlandia-it.com
> > > > wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > I've messed with this before trying to troubleshoot USB cams.
> > > > > 
> > > > > It's highly dependent on the USB hardware. Not all USB devices 
> > > > > implement "low power" mode.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Your best shot is to get a good USB 4 port hub - not a crappy 
> > > > > one - a good one and the good ones Implement power control and 
> > > > > can cut power to a USB device if you command them to.
> > > > > .
> > > > 
> > > > This is not about how the USB devices (mis)behave. They would 
> > > > not be trying to control the devices, but the USB host(s) in the 
> > > > PC/laptop, I presume.
> > > > 
> > > > USB host can, and will cut power to the bus when directed.
> > > > 
> > > > While I am as guilty as any man - the world really sucks when 
> > > > people who think they understand stuff speak with undoubted authority 
> > > > about stuff.
> > > > 
> > > > Hole it helps, -T

Re: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I'm perfectly aware the USB host can cut power to the bus and to an individual 
device on the bus.  That's why I even
got involved with it in the first place.  I had multiple USB devices that would 
STOP WORKING for no flipping reason and
my hope was I could duplicate a removal/insertion with a script without having 
to actually unplug and plug in stuff.

I'm also perfectly aware due to actually spending time using these commands - 
unlike you, apparently - 
That when you turn the bus or attempt to turn the device back on after cutting 
power to it - that many times
The device WILL NOT come back on until it's unplugged and plugged back in.

Do I know why it works with some hardware and not others?  And some 
combinations and not others?
And some PC's and not others?  Why, yes.  Yes I do.  It's because it's crap.

USB is easily the WORST engineered interface ever invented with computers.  
They only finally got the hardware connection right after something like 5 
different tries with a connector ultimately produced USB-C and the standard 
still sucks with grey areas in it.

As I said USB put the BS into computer cabling.

The world really sucks when people who think they understand stuff DUE TO BOOK 
LARNIN speak with undoubted authority about stuff THAT THEY HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY 
ATTEMPTED IN PRACTICE.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Tomas Kuchta
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 5:51 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 01:00 Ted Mittelstaedt  wrote:

> I've messed with this before trying to troubleshoot USB cams.
>
> It's highly dependent on the USB hardware.  Not all USB devices 
> implement "low power" mode.
>
> Your best shot is to get a good USB 4 port hub - not a crappy one - a 
> good one and the good ones Implement power control and can cut power 
> to a USB device if you command them to.
> .


This is not about how the USB devices (mis)behave. They would not be trying to 
control the devices, but the USB host(s) in the PC/laptop, I presume.

USB host can, and will cut power to the bus when directed.

While I am as guilty as any man - the world really sucks when people who think 
they understand stuff speak with undoubted authority about stuff.

Hole it helps, -T

>

Re: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I've messed with this before trying to troubleshoot USB cams.

It's highly dependent on the USB hardware.  Not all USB devices implement "low 
power" mode.

Your best shot is to get a good USB 4 port hub - not a crappy one - a good one 
and the good ones
Implement power control and can cut power to a USB device if you command them 
to.

I went through several different USB hubs experimenting with this and 
ultimately gave it up as a waste of time.

Depending on the hardware there can be side effects.  Such as the entire USB 
bus freezing up and it won't even
Come back with a warm boot of the computer.

USB put the BS in peripheral interconnections.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Vince Winter
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2024 1:58 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] How to script USB device detection

I will need to test but this may work.

On Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 12:50 PM Tomas Kuchta 
wrote:

> Correction: recent kernels > 2.6 do not have /power/level --> use 
> .../power/control
>
> Or something like:
> echo 1.4 /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
>
> -T
>
> On Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 15:42 Tomas Kuchta 
> 
> wrote:
>
> > While not answering your question - this may solve your problem...
> >
> > You can cut power to usb device by something like this:
> >
> > echo suspend > /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb1/power/level
> >
> > That way, you could just make sure that nothing draws power 
> > regardless of plugged in or not. It could save you from unplugging 
> > stuff manually based on some message.
> >
> > Hope it helps,
> > Tomas
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 15:12 Vince Winter 
> > 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> We are running power testing and we need to make sure their isn't 
> >> USB device plugged in it adds to the total system power by having 
> >> the USB
> port
> >> activate.
> >>
> >> I am trying to do a automated is USB plugged.
> >>
> >> We are using multiple generations of systems that are regularly 
> >> reinstalled.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 9:42 AM Russell Senior 
> >>  >
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > I don't quite understand. You are looking for a specific device? 
> >> > How
> do
> >> you
> >> > identify the device?
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 9:35 AM Vince Winter <
> >> thine.technoc...@gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > I need if USB device is plugged to not to continue the rest of 
> >> > > the
> >> script
> >> > > across multiple devices. I can't change every device and I am 
> >> > > trying
> >> to
> >> > > eliminate humans looking at which devices are plugged in.
> >> > >
> >> > > I do conceded that many laptop cameras are USB and Bluetooth
> generally
> >> > runs
> >> > > on the USB bus.
> >> > >
> >> > > I have yet to find a good answer to this myself.
> >> > >
> >> > > On Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 3:54 PM Russell Senior <
> >> russ...@personaltelco.net>
> >> > > wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > Two things I will mention: lsusb and udev rules.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > I have a set of udev rules that match ttyusb devices by path 
> >> > > > (they
> >> > don't
> >> > > > implement serial numbers, which would be better) and give 
> >> > > > them a consistently named symlink. I use /dev/ttyRn, where n 
> >> > > > is a whole
> >> > number.
> >> > > > That means no matter what order they are enumerated in, I can 
> >> > > > find
> >> the
> >> > > > device.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > I don't know if that helps with your problem or not, but I 
> >> > > > have
> >> found
> >> > > them
> >> > > > to be useful in adjacent problems.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > --
> >> > > > Russell
> >> > > >
> >> > > > On Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 15:17 Vince Winter <
> >> thine.technoc...@gmail.com>
> >> > > > wrote:
> >> > > >
> >> > > > > Hello,
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > I am trying to write a bash script to detect if USB device 
> >> > > > > is
> >> plugged
> >> > > > into
> >> > > > > a device and post a message with a device name that is 
> >> > > > > plugged
> to
> >> > > stdout.
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > Complications are USB webcams, USB controllers, and this is
> going
> >> to
> >> > be
> >> > > > > used on large number of systems, so I can't customize to 
> >> > > > > each
> >> system.
> >> > > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > >
> >> >
> >>
> >
>

Re: [PLUG] 'Linux devices are under attack by a never-before-seen worm' - ArsTechnica

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

One of the problems of having up to date backups wis the prevalence of online 
backup solutions out there.

The problem, Russell, is that if an organization has online backups, and a 
cyber criminal gets a ransomeware injected, the modern ransomeware can reach 
out over the Internet and destroy the backups.  I've seen this happen.  It is 
also SOP for ransomeware to destroy local backups so if an org has a "junkebox 
tape changer" or NAS or disk array, that's the very first thing targeted.

Only air-gapped, local backups are secure from a ransomeware attack IMHO and 
too many orgs think local backups are passe, or they use NASes that have a 
jumbo just a bunch of dumb disks online, or USB attached disks, etc.

Remember, if the backup media is not physically disconnected from the network 
it can be targeted and destroyed.  It it can be turned off by software it can 
be turned back on by software.

The author of the original Star Wars movie was right - where Ben Kenobi had to 
go to the actual tractor beam transfer switches and physically put them out of 
commission, so that the controllers in the Death Star sitting at a console 
couldn't just switch back on the tractor beam.  It's funny to me how such 
obvious knowledge in computers dating from 47 years ago that it went into a 
popular movie, is lost on the modern IT manager.  But no doubt they are assured 
they are secure by some AI-bot, a-la Microsoft Bob. LOL

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2024 12:40 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] 'Linux devices are under attack by a never-before-seen 
worm' - ArsTechnica

It is a pet peeve of mine the kind of vulnerability journalism that seems to 
predominate today, which is all about the DANGER and not about modality or 
mitigation. You have to read far into the article (if it is there at
all) to get any idea of what the vulnerability actually is and whether you are 
actually vulnerable, how to tell, and what you should do about it.

Another good example is journalism around ransomware. To me, no story about 
ransomware should omit the kind-of-obvious mitigation of having up-to-date 
backups, and yet I NEVER see that mentioned.

Just yesterday, I heard a story about cybersecurity that cited the huge number 
of "attacks" happening daily on the Internet. Probably (WAG) 95% by volume are 
brute force password guessing against ssh services. I see them a lot in my own 
logs of public facing machines, but at the rate passwords are being tried, my 
math suggests it will take many centuries to guess a decent password. Answer: 
have a decent password.

--
Russell Senior
russ...@personaltelco.net

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 12:29 PM Russell Senior 
wrote:

> TL;DR, this is using password guessing. Solution: use better passwords 
> or turn off passwords altogether and use ssh authorized_keys.
>
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 12:13 PM MC_Sequoia 
> wrote:
>
>> "For the past year, previously unknown self-replicating malware has 
>> been compromising Linux devices around the world and installing 
>> cryptomining malware that takes unusual steps to conceal its inner 
>> workings, researchers said.
>>
>> The worm is a customized version of Mirai, the botnet malware that 
>> infects Linux-based servers, routers, web cameras, and other 
>> so-called Internet of Things devices. Mirai came to light in 2016 
>> when it was used to deliver [record-setting distributed 
>> denial-of-service attacks](
>> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/why-the-silenc
>> ing-of-krebsonsecurity-opens-a-troubling-chapter-for-the-net/)
>> that [paralyzed](
>> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/inside-the-mac
>> hine-uprising-how-cameras-dvrs-took-down-parts-of-the-internet/)
>> key parts of the Internet that year. The creators soon released the 
>> underlying source code, a move that allowed a wide array of crime 
>> groups from around the world to incorporate Mirai into their own attack 
>> campaigns.
>> Once taking hold of a Linux device, Mirai uses it as a platform to 
>> infect other vulnerable devices, a design that makes it a worm, 
>> meaning it self-replicates."
>>
>> Article link -
>> https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/a-previously-unknown-worm-ha
>> s-been-stealthily-targeting-linux-devices-for-a-year/
>>
>> Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/) secure email.
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Password guessing with a microphone

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

He first one is a known issue which is why professional image modifiers will
run their modded images through an analog stage (take a picture of the
screen with a film camera then scan the developed picture)

The second one is pure bullcrap.  That story is a modification of a story
from the spy vs spy genera.  That story is that some spy in the german
office who was a secretary learned how to type in morse code patterns, so
they would type out german secret documents for the german high command and
while they were typing the noise of their typing was transmitting morse code
of those documents to an off hook phone that was on a call to an accomplice.

That story was a modification of the actual reality, documented here:

 https://people.duke.edu/~ng46/collections/crypto-underwood.htm

I guess the AI proponents are so desperate for people to believe that AI is
the greatest thing since sliced bread they will invent anything.

AI in computing is just another Microsoft Bob.  In 5 years it will have some
solid niche applications but everyone will be laughing at the current ideas
of AI putting us all out of work and most of the AI dumped into the next
version of Windows will have been deprecated as being worthless.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2024 2:52 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Password guessing with a microphone

This shades towards plug-talk, except that it specifically involves how we
configure and use our Linux computers.



I use keyboards with clicky keys, sometimes in the same room as devices with
microphones. 

I read the mostly excellent "A History of Fake Things on the Internet" by
Walter Scheirer, 2024 Stanford University Press, reminding me that
everything we do leaks information.

The book points out that every pixel on a specific digital camera imager has
a different offset and gain - when you post two photos, the pixel field can
be analyzed to show they come from the same imager, even if cropped or
modified in GIMP.  The techniques can easily detect image tinkering.

I was surprised to discover that the citation trail leads to a paper I wrote
for an integrated circuit conference, decades ago (with a zillion cites,
I've earned tenure of I want it). 

All your web photos are belong to us.

---

Anyway, physical keyboard keys will also have these small variances, but
mostly, so does your individual typing style.
A computer microphone hearing me type this would notice a lot of backspaces;
I type somewhat spastically.

After listening to a large enough corpus of typing, and RECORDING ALL OF IT,
and ANALYZING THE HELL OUT OF IT, a smart-enough AI-like program could make
some accurate guesses of what specific keys I am typing. 

Also what keys I ALREADY typed in past sound recordings, perhaps YEARS ago,
with a long-enough audio recording file.

Including the SPECIFIC key sequences that I type entering passwords.  Some
websites and apps require that frequently.
MANY training opportunities for a clever program hooked up to a microphone,
perhaps a parabolic dish microphone blocks away, pointed at the outside
window of my office.

I just added some sound damping to that window. 

Yes, I've changed my passwords, but not the brain that remembers them and
the hands that type them; my mind and muscles follow patterns that can
vastly narrow down the brute force search space for a password that works.  

The passwords may be machine-generated random strings; my small hesitancies
and mistakes while typing a random string will also show up in an audio
record.  Bracketed by my grumbles: "type my password AGAIN???"

Typical phone conversations are less than 10 kilobits per second compressed
(with pauses); for a 2000 hour work-year, 10% typing time, that is less than
a gigabyte per year.  With SSDs costing $30 per terabyte recently, that is 3
cents a year per target.  Stored forever.

The surveillance microphone will cost a lot more, but mass-produced
electronics can be cheap as well. 
If the "microphone" is a hack on your smart phone, perhaps government
sponsored ...

... well, time to respond with "can't happen here" or "why would they target
me" or "xkcd/538 Security pipe wrench", but then, that's what THEY want you
to think.

It is amusing that some prefer that we waste our paranoia on the poor and
the foreign and the sexually different.
Or on the agro-Americans who suffer those sad paranoias.
But then, that's what THEY want you to think.

Sweet dreams!

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] email issues

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

This is standard a lot of spam filters just automatically blacklist blocks of 
dynamically assigned IP addresses.  Charter uses specific
IP subnets for DHCP and Spamhaus ZEN likely knows about those subnets.  Charter 
might have even reported them to Spamhaus.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of 
markcasi...@comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, January 4, 2024 10:13 PM
To: 'Portland Linux/Unix Group' 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] email issues

I put my charter IP address into http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx and 
received info that my IP address was blacklisted ... on the Spamhaus ZEN 
blacklist. I have no idea what that means. I assure you no one in this 
household is doing bad stuff on the internet. 

Charter support told me to contact my router manufacturer (Why, I wonder?). 

The quote I got from Charter was
"There is no way to assign this issue as it does not involve accessibility of 
services. And would not be able to further escalate the issue."
I see it as involving accessibility of services ... my charter email does not 
work, but I have had no success explaining that.

Have I lost Charter as my cable provider? Does anyone have advice on what I can 
do?

 -mark

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Tuesday, January 2, 2024 1:02 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] email issues

On Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 at 12:10 PM, markcasi...@comcast.net 
 wrote:

> I am unable to send charter ==> comcast
> 
> But I can send
> charter ==> IEEE, which is auto forwarded ==> comcast.
> 

That makes it look like comcast is having an issue specifically with charter. I 
would be curious to know if you can receive mail from other charter accounts. 
Is there anyone else you know on that service who can send you a test?

What's also odd is that you are not having issues with forwarded emails or the 
PLUG mailing list. PLUG sends emails on behalf of the sender which can cause 
some email services to silently reject the message. I have a similar issue on 
this proton account when other proton users post to PLUG. 

It is possible that comcast is refusing to accept that the issue is on their 
end because something they expect to see is missing from your charter message 
headers. The trick is getting past their T1 support team and getting someone 
who will actually diagnose the issue. Failing that, your only other option is 
to lawyer up.
-Ben

Re: [PLUG] Dell BIOS update when I have Linux

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Find a spare SSD, download the win10 install USB ISO, temporarily swap out the 
hard disk with the SSD, install windows, update bios, replace old disk and wipe 
the SSD for some other use

The BIOS update almost certainly does nothing to the machine that helps you 
with Mint on it.  Most of the BIOS updates seem to be released when the CPU 
makers release updates to their microcode, so all that happens after a BIOS 
update is the CPU gets updated microcode loaded during POST instead of during 
the Linux kernel boot.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of VY
Sent: Monday, January 1, 2024 4:51 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Dell BIOS update when I have Linux

So sorry to hear.

Have you try this page?

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000131486/update-the-dell-bios-in-a-linux-or-ubuntu-environment

I am tempted but also worry it may causes unexpected damages



On Mon, Jan 1, 2024, 4:20 PM Chuck Hast  wrote:

> I am in the same bucket. I have a Dell that I want to update the BIOS, 
> and it is the same thing. I followed the "create a dos bootable USB" 
> as that was offered as a solution with the comment that this may not 
> work on USB3 machines... Well guess what?? So I am in the same boat. 
> Kind of like selling you a car and telling you that you can only burn 
> Shell gas in it.
> Microsoft has wreaked more damage on this planet than folks realize. 
> My wake up was in Spain at a glass container plant, dealing with 
> something called Conficker on the plant backend network. To say that I 
> came to hate MS is being nice.
>
> On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 5:57 PM VY  wrote:
>
> > Dear All:
> >
> > I bought a refurbished Dell laptop last year.  It has been working 
> > well
> so
> > far.
> > I just visited Dell.com support and they said I have a new BIOS I 
> > can update.
> > However, their update "executable" is a Windows EXE and I am running
> Linux
> > Mint and I am not going to move to Windows.
> >
> > Is there a way I can update my BIOS on my Dell laptop while running
> Linux?
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > -v
> >
>

Re: [PLUG] email issues

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Free Geek is not what it was.

They used to have all these programs to grant computers to low income
individuals and school kids and those were all shut down during COVID

Their programs to grant to non-profits are also closed.

The only thing they have left is the online ebay store and if you are a
non-profit that needs more than 10 computers you can contact them for a bulk
buy of used computers.  However, they mainly are dealing in Dell.

To understand what's going on with them you have to understand that at least
80% of their computers pushed out the door with Linux on them were
immediately reformatted with Windows.  The reason this worked well for them
is that the non-profit organizations that were doing this would then be
unable to go back to Free Geek and obtain any kind of technical support
other than hardware replacement.  So they people crowding into their support
programs for support were a small minority of recipients of computers they
sent out the door.

The problem today is win11's demands.  The only used computers nowadays that
can run it are coming from off-lease programs, such programs are heavily
used by Fortune 1000 and above, the majority of which are congregated on the
East Coast.

Nowadays I'm doing a LOT of buying of used win11-capable machines and ALL of
them are coming out of the East Coast.  On occasion I'll see win11 capable
machines on the used market by ones and twos but not available in large
lots.  FreeGeek cannot support my purchasing needs so they are clearly not
tapped into the off-lease market on the West Coast, what little of it there
is.  Also, Dell is mostly sold direct and most direct buys of computers are
to small businesses.  Large orgs tend to buy from dealers and HP, Lenovo and
so on are favored by those because they are sold through distribution while
Dell is not.

As a result most of what FG is flooded with are computers that are donated
yet have no commercial value at all.  My guess is they are not making a lot
of money off their sale programs, and won't for another 3-4 years.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of
markcasi...@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, January 1, 2024 11:48 AM
To: p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] email issues

 

It seems I only post to this forum when I have an issue. I do read the
postings and if could contribute to the solutions I would. But I do
appreciate being able to ask questions of a group of experts.

 

In my younger days I used to attend meetings at Free Geek. Does it still
exist? I even saw names on the PLUG list that I remember.  Some of you may
even be older than I am. I remember a guy named Keith that solved a lot of
my problems.

 

Here is my issue. I have put in a lot of time trying to solve this, but have
made zip progress. I even posted on the Xfinity forum but have received no
replies (lots of views though)

My Comcast/Charter email is unreliable

When I talk with Comcast Support, they tell me it is Charter's problem. When
I talk with Charter Support, they tell me it is Comcast's problem. I've done
a number of tests (described below). I think (although I am far from
certain) that it is a Comcast issue.

 

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Can anyone suggest why I am
experiencing it?

 

Sorry for the length of this post. I've been doing tests for days. I've
summarized those tests that I think contribute to characterizing the
problem.

 

Background

I have two ISPs, Comcast and Charter. I have Comcast in Portland and Charter
in Cannon Beach.   I have mail accounts with Comcast. I have mail accounts
with Charter.

 

Here is the problem.

When I send mail from my Charter account to my Comcast account, it does not
arrive. Comcast receives mail from all other sources. Comcast does not
receive mail from Charter.

 

Before Testing

I changed the passwords on all my Comcast accounts (they had that data
breach, you know). I changed the passwords on all my Charter accounts. I
cleared the cache and cookies from my browser and then I log onto the
servers. My issue is not dependent on my browser and OS. I see the same
problem with Edge on win10, Edge on win11, Firefox on Ubuntu, Safari on IOS.

 

Here is how I tested.

I send/receive mail directly on the Comcast and Charter websites.  I am not
using an email client (although when I do, I see the same issue). So there
is no 3rd party application involved. (Even when I tell Comcast and Charter
support I am not using an email client, they reply that they cannot help me
because they do not support 3rd party applications.) My primary charter
account is .

 

Mail from charter to comcast does not arrive at comcast

Mail from comcast to charter does arrive at charter

Mail from charter to Gmail does arrive at Gmail

Mail from Gmail to charter does arrive at charter

 

Mail from charter to comcast does not arrive at comcast

I log into   www.charter.net as .

I send mail to . I do not get an error message.
Really no error message!

I 

Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Interesting I have a smaller 5000k Generac, gasoline powered also.  But it's 
old-school with the generator output directly feeding single phase 240 power.
It runs at 3600rpm and the armature is a 2 pole so the formula yields 60Hz

Small generator power is actually -very- clean far cleaner than utility power 
as long as the load is constant.  When the load changes the frequency 
fluctuates and that induces spikes and sags.

Modern "home house" generators seem to run at a slower speed with little 
regulation and are double-conversion, the fluctuating AC output is rectified to 
DC then that feeds a sinewave power inverter.  The rpm is considerably lower 
because an engine running at 3600 rpm puts out a lot of noise.

Triplite Isobar power strips are the "gold standard" in power cleanup, 
supposedly.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Dick Steffens
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2023 5:03 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

On 12/30/23 16:00, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> The problem with generators is that the frequency is dependent on how 
> fast the rotor spins and the second you put an electrical load on A generator 
> you increase the magnetic field resistance to the armature and the generator 
> slows down.
>
> When the generator is the size of a barn at Bonneville Dam and the 
> armature weighs 10 tons and you turn on your coffee pot the massive 
> inertia in the generator armature will not slow measurably
>
> When it's your Champion generator the armature slows measurably and the 
> frequency then gets lower until the engine's governor gives it more fuel to 
> compensate then the frequency returns to normal.
>

That makes sense. The generator I used to have (I think it was a
Generac) was gasoline powered. I got it when I worked for EC Company. It was 
stolen a number of years ago. I got the Champion because of the dual fuel 
feature. I never had a problem with using the UPS boxes with the Generac.

It's not a big deal, since I don't have to have my computers running during 
power outages anymore. But if there is something I can use between the wall and 
the UPS that would clean up the generator's power, that would be useful.

Thanks.

--
Regards,

Dick Steffens

Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping (pure sine ...)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Wrap about 20-30 turns of wire around one leg of the AC power line and
connect both sides to a scope and you have an inductive powerline
oscilloscope.  Much safer than resistors and capacitors.

Also:

$32.00 off Amazon:

MINIWARE Pocket Oscilloscope DS211, Portable Oscilloscope Mini Size
Handheld, Built-in Rechargeable Battery, 1 Channel, 200Khz Bandwidth, Entry
Level Oscilloscope for Beginner

And it even comes with a probe


Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2023 5:52 PM
To: Chuck Hast 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping (pure sine ...)

Many laptops have some sort of stereo audio input jack.
I can imagine a resistor+capacitor kludge that attenuates the "hot" and
"neutral" legs of a power cord down to the stereo input levels.  

A program on the laptop captures hot and neutral voltage waveforms,
differences them, and (somehow) uses the digitized audio signal to
characterize the voltage waveform quality produced by the device the cord is
plugged into.  Perhaps logging the waveforms to disk on the laptop, for long
term monitoring.  Sub-sampling at 600 samples per second and 16 bit
resolution, that is 40 gigabytes per year, more than enough to capture "rare
but too-interesting" power glitches over time.

If someone wants to write the program to do the differencing and logging, I
can put together a few cord-and-resistor-and-stereo-plug kludges, and trade
hardware for software.  The result would be a portable setup for evaluating
the waveforms produced by a UPS in service, or a candidate UPS in the store.

Besides evaluating UPS waveforms and behavior, it might also be interesting
to look for time correlations in power waveforms between different locations
around the Portland area.  An office in an industrial area might see
subsecond line voltage sags when a nearby factory is arc welding.
I can imagine those driving some computer power supplies and UPS units
batty.

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The problem with generators is that the frequency is dependent on how fast the 
rotor spins and the second you put an electrical load on
A generator you increase the magnetic field resistance to the armature and the 
generator slows down.

When the generator is the size of a barn at Bonneville Dam and the armature 
weighs 10 tons and you turn on your coffee pot the massive inertia in the 
generator armature will not slow measurably

When it's your Champion generator the armature slows measurably and the 
frequency then gets lower until the engine's governor gives it more fuel to 
compensate then the frequency returns to normal.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Dick Steffens
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2023 11:39 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

On 12/30/23 09:30, Chuck Hast wrote:
> Google 24v inverter there are boat loads of them for 24v PV systems.
> Ranging from 300W on up.
> https://www.amazon.com/24-volt-pure-sine-wave-inverter/s?k=24+volt+pur
> e+sine+wave+inverter If you are planning on running computers and 
> whatnot get a sine wave inverter, many switched PSU's do not like 
> modified sine wave (weasel words actually modified SQUARE WAVE) they 
> will put up with it but shortens life. The prices have dropped 
> considerably on them, same for the pure sine wave UPS.

How well do those units deal with poor quality power from an emergency 
generator? I have a Champi8on 100296 dual fuel generator. When I'm running it, 
my UPS boxes won't run. They reject the power from the generator. I'm guessing 
it's because it's not 60 HZ, but something close enough that it's good for all 
the rest of the appliances, but not the UPS boxes.

--
Regards,

Dick Steffens

Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

APC BackUPS are modified sine wave and there is no issue with them and your 
garden variety Dell or HP desktop, but of course you are taking your chances 
with anything high quality on them.

APC SmartUPSes are pure sine wave.  They are more expensive.

APC makes all of this very clear in their documentation. Select BackUPS and you 
get trash cheap UPS select SmartUPS and you get the real deal.  The BioMed 
folks were blowing smoke up your ass, APC doesn't substitute one UPS for the 
other, the BioMed people were just skimming more $ off the top.

 As to why they sell modified sine wave in the first place, the reason is that 
most UPS buyers are dumb as a box of rocks and just want The Cheapest Thing and 
many of them are so dumb they can't even change a battery, I've had customers 
in the past that when a UPS stated beeping they would toss it and buy a new one 
from Office Depot.  The UPS market got flooded with crappy UPSes it was not 
that long ago that ALL CyberPower UPSes were modified sine not true sine.  APC 
was getting undercut so they responded to the flooding by crap UPSes with their 
own crap UPSes at the same price point

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Chuck Hast
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2023 3:30 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping

I am not sure you would have to check on each manufacturer, the best ones are 
on line double conversion the power goes through the UPS, it is rectified, the 
battery floats on it and the DC feeds an inverter so that the load never sees 
mains power. The rest of them are some form of standby/offline UPS which 
switches to the battery backed inverter if there is a failure or sag of some 
sort on the power line. The better ones will have line filtering to clean up 
the trash that is sometimes called utility power, again your mileage may vary 
Google is you friend on this one.

Most of the better "pure sine wave" units do quite well, Triplite was used 
heavily on the glass container inspection machines I worked on, some plants had 
their own gen stations and the power was "up and down"
line wiese (voltage and frequency) those never seemed to go offline they just 
did their job.  In the hospital labs we have been using Cyber Power, these UPS 
also appear to do the job, everywhere we have  put equipment behind them we 
have had no more issues with DOA PSU's and logic modules.  There is APC which 
is all over the place, my issue with them was mainly that was the go to by the 
BioMed folks and APC kept on selling them modified sine wave vice pure sine 
wave and we would continue to have issues.
Why APC would sell them modified sine wave when we had told them that they 
needed pure sine wave I do not not but kind of left a bad note in my mind about 
APC.
I have a lab that put in APC pure sine wave and they have had no issues with 
power since. So I think that as long as you do a bit of due diligence you are 
probably in good shape.


On Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 1:39 PM Dick Steffens  wrote:

> On 12/30/23 09:30, Chuck Hast wrote:
> > Google 24v inverter there are boat loads of them for 24v PV systems.
> > Ranging from 300W on up.
> >
> https://www.amazon.com/24-volt-pure-sine-wave-inverter/s?k=24+volt+pur
> e+sine+wave+inverter
> > If you are planning on running computers and whatnot get a sine wave 
> > inverter, many switched PSU's do not like modified sine wave (weasel 
> > words actually modified SQUARE WAVE) they will put up with it but 
> > shortens life. The prices have dropped considerably on them, same 
> > for the pure sine wave UPS.
>
> How well do those units deal with poor quality power from an emergency 
> generator? I have a Champi8on 100296 dual fuel generator. When I'm 
> running it, my UPS boxes won't run. They reject the power from the 
> generator. I'm guessing it's because it's not 60 HZ, but something 
> close enough that it's good for all the rest of the appliances, but 
> not the UPS boxes.
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>

Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping - attention suspend?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

No they won't since like most things there is still a need - it's just a
need by professionals who know what the hell they are doing.

So yeah, the El-Crapo BackUPSes that look like a messed up power strip with
micro-sized batteries and no management ports that keep
The PC up long enough for the user to realize "oh crap there's a power
failure I better click shutdown" will disappear.  Those shouldn't have ever
Been on the market in the first place because the plain fact is that PCs
today with users sitting behind them are nothing more than glorified
Internet terminals and have no need for fancy caching filesystems that trash
when they lose power unexpectedly.

But the professional quality UPSes that have large enough batteries to
actually hold the equipment up for a reasonable amount of time for an
orderly shutdown - like 30 minutes or so - to take place, yes THOSE will
still be around.

They will be more expensive of course - but the cheap UPSes were pointless
anyway since the real total cost of a UPS isn't the equipment it's the
batteries you buy for it over the years.

Ted 

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:15 AM
To: Russell Senior 
Cc: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] UPS shopping - attention suspend?

On Fri, Dec 29, 2023 at 02:36:00AM -0800, Russell Senior wrote:

... UPS ...

> Does anyone have recent experience, either positive or negative, 
> and/or any advice on replacements. I'd consider a used older model.

Since computation equals dodopaddle (er "smart phone") for most of My Fellow
Americans, I suspect desktops with UPS
support will eventually become hard to find.   



I bought my most recent UPS from a Craigslist seller ...
and replaced the batteries with SLAs from Interstate All Battery Center.  A
Craigslist purchase trip is a chance to visit neighborhoods I haven't seen
before.

One of my long term goals is to play with a Tesla Powerwall.
I hope the batteries in those are better tended and last longer than the
batteries in a UPS.  Perhaps they will all fail after Musk absconds to Mars
with our warranty money.



A nearer term goal is to replace all the hard drives in the house with
Samsung terabyte SSDs.  My test machines suspend to SSD in less than two
seconds, and reboot in ten.  

I can imagine a multicore CPU and a Linux kernel that continuously copies
checkpoint RAM images to SSD, so that after power resumes, the machine
"comes back" to a state resembling what I was working on when the lights
went out.

In a well-designed suspend environment, I can "suspend my thoughts" until
the power comes back - and I am reminded by my computer of what I was doing
before the power glitch.
I would like a similar reminder process for other interrupts - doorbell,
phone calls, potty breaks, and commands from She Who Must Be Obeyed.
Indeed, I would like Linux tools that facilitate "timeouts" for exercise,
meditation, ordering my desk, whatever keeps me at maximum productivity and
happiness.

"Human interrupt and resume" is just another neglected aspect of larger
processes that are only partly addressed by a UPS.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

You missed the point.

As an adult responsible for kids shooting off model rockets would I take all 
precautions?

Obviously.  Not only because it's the duty of the older to set an example for 
the younger but because our litigious society would take my house away if I 
didn't.

But would I draw conclusions from observing others taking these precautions 
that model rocketry is so dangerous that no way on Earth should anyone do it 
without taking precautions?

Ah, no.

You can't bubble-wrap the world and people need to understand what risk is all 
about.  Risk should never be used to frighten people away from taking risks.

Electric ignitors today are safer than the old-school way of setting off 
rockets which was to insert a fuse into the butt end of the rocket and light it 
off.

But only marginally.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Robert Citek
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2023 4:46 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

Thanks, Ted, for some wonderful examples of survivorship bias.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Not every kid survives to adulthood.  And not every kid who does survive does 
so without losing or damaging some parts. Any EMT, Paramedic, or ER staff can 
tell you countless tales from the other side of that probability curve.

But those are best shared in-person over some frosty beverages, not on this 
list.

Regards,
- Robert


On Mon, Dec 25, 2023 at 21:58 Ted Mittelstaedt 
wrote:

> Yeah although I'll provide the perspective opposite from the "Nanny State"
> perspective which is:
>
> "AFAIK it's still just a toy model rocket"
>
> As kids we used to do all kinds of fun and games with these that would 
> fall into The Christmas Story classification of "You'll put your eye 
> out"
>
> I saw a kid once stick a lit match up the ass of one of these to set 
> it off because he had run out of ignitors and sure enough it Did 
> ignite and blast off.  Other than a lot of "holy shit's" from the rest 
> of us nobody suffered any ill effects - there is in fact enough Time 
> to quickly yank your hand away when you hear the rocket engine ignite, 
> it is after all very small.
>
> We also specialized in launching these at less than a perfect 90 
> degree angle aiming at targets, as well as loading them With a variety 
> of payloads OTHER than the recommended plastic parachute and wadded 
> tissue paper.  Hezbollah would have been proud of us.
>
> Despite our "model rocketry" picadilloes, all of us grew up with all 
> fingers intact and nobody's house burnt down.
>
> Chances are no matter how Rube Goldberg it is, there's no way it will 
> be as bad as some of the stuff we did and the rocket will most likely 
> launch with no ill effects.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Michael 
> Barnes
> Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2023 7:28 PM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice
>
> Doesn't matter how much security you build in. There is no way on 
> earth you should be launching rockets with anything other than a 
> safety/lockout key equipped hard wired system. Do all you want with 
> fancy clocks, timers, horns, etc for the public's viewing pleasure and 
> show, but the actual launch circuit powering the igniter should only 
> be hardwired under manual control with appropriate safeties in place. 
> Anything else is a disaster waiting to happen and potential for injury and 
> lawsuits.
>
> Been doing model rockets since 1963.
>
>
> Michael
>
> On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 3:23 PM MC_Sequoia 
> wrote:
>
> > "I want to set up some sort of secure connection between the cell 
> > phone and the web site running on the Pi."
> >
> > This should be doable via a vpn client/server. A quick google search 
> > on "raspberry pi cell phone vpn" returned this:
> >
> > "If you're going to be connecting to Pi VPN on a mobile device, I 
> > recommend OpenVPN Connect, the official client. It's completely free 
> > and integrates really well with iOS and Android. The first step is 
> > to open the App Store or Play Store, depending on your device. In 
> > either case, search for OpenVPN Connect"
> >
> > You should be able to easily find step-by-step instructions to do 
> > get this setup and working.
> >
> > That'll solve the secure connection between the cell ph and the Rpi 
> > hosted website, but that doesn't your "main concern is an attacker 
> > connecting to the web site and igniting the rocket while the user is 
> > connecting thew wires to the igniter."
> >
> > I'm go

Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Yeah although I'll provide the perspective opposite from the "Nanny State" 
perspective which is:

"AFAIK it's still just a toy model rocket"

As kids we used to do all kinds of fun and games with these that would fall 
into The Christmas Story classification of
"You'll put your eye out"

I saw a kid once stick a lit match up the ass of one of these to set it off 
because he had run out of ignitors and sure enough it
Did ignite and blast off.  Other than a lot of "holy shit's" from the rest of 
us nobody suffered any ill effects - there is in fact enough
Time to quickly yank your hand away when you hear the rocket engine ignite, it 
is after all very small.

We also specialized in launching these at less than a perfect 90 degree angle 
aiming at targets, as well as loading them
With a variety of payloads OTHER than the recommended plastic parachute and 
wadded tissue paper.  Hezbollah would have been proud of us.

Despite our "model rocketry" picadilloes, all of us grew up with all fingers 
intact and nobody's house burnt down.

Chances are no matter how Rube Goldberg it is, there's no way it will be as bad 
as some of the stuff we did and
the rocket will most likely launch with no ill effects.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Michael Barnes
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2023 7:28 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

Doesn't matter how much security you build in. There is no way on earth you 
should be launching rockets with anything other than a safety/lockout key 
equipped hard wired system. Do all you want with fancy clocks, timers, horns, 
etc for the public's viewing pleasure and show, but the actual launch circuit 
powering the igniter should only be hardwired under manual control with 
appropriate safeties in place. Anything else is a disaster waiting to happen 
and potential for injury and lawsuits.

Been doing model rockets since 1963.


Michael

On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 3:23 PM MC_Sequoia  wrote:

> "I want to set up some sort of secure connection between the cell 
> phone and the web site running on the Pi."
>
> This should be doable via a vpn client/server. A quick google search 
> on "raspberry pi cell phone vpn" returned this:
>
> "If you're going to be connecting to Pi VPN on a mobile device, I 
> recommend OpenVPN Connect, the official client. It's completely free 
> and integrates really well with iOS and Android. The first step is to 
> open the App Store or Play Store, depending on your device. In either 
> case, search for OpenVPN Connect"
>
> You should be able to easily find step-by-step instructions to do get 
> this setup and working.
>
> That'll solve the secure connection between the cell ph and the Rpi 
> hosted website, but that doesn't your "main concern is an attacker 
> connecting to the web site and igniting the rocket while the user is 
> connecting thew wires to the igniter."
>
> I'm going to suggest the probability of this happening is your best 
> security.
>
> However, I'm not the adult that's responsible for children's safety.
>
> The big question here is whether the Rpi hosted website is accessible 
> from the internet?
>
> My suspicion is that it would have a non-internet routable private not 
> pubic ip addr in the following ip addr ranges:
> 10.0. 0.0 to 10.255. 255.255.
> 172.16. 0.0 to 172.31. 255.255.
> 192.168. 0.0 to 192.168. 255.255.
>
> If the Rpi website is accessible via the public internet than there's 
> 2 other other options.
>
> 1. Learn about securing/hardening a Rpi.
> https://www.chrisapproved.com/blog/raspberry-pi-hardening.html
>
> 2. Change all the passwords and codes on launch day.
>
> I hope that's somewhat helpful.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> Yes: using a website to launch the rocket.

I know, really!  They are supposed to use a Habitrrail that releases a rodent 
that runs through a maze and triggers a button as a food reward  Website?  
How simple!

(clearly you are under the impression model rocketry is all about launching 
rockets.  It isn't.  It's about building them and planning out the launch.  15 
seconds after launch the rocket has drifted off course and falls into a tree or 
someone's roof.)

Ted 

Re: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I built a number of these things in my youth, timer based and so on.   Th 
wireless and pi are of course unnecessary, as was the digital countdown display 
I used in my youth.

The big thing that kills these attempts is the power to the ignitor.  Ignitors 
need a lot more power than just 2-4a.  While that will do it - eventually - it 
takes time for the wire to heat up enough to ignight the ground up match heads 
or whatever they coat it with.  SO you have this elaborate countdown - in your 
case run by the pi - it gets to zero - then nothing happens for 15 seconds 
while the ignitor heats up and eventually ignites.  Quite a letdown.

What I found worked was running very thick short cables from a car battery next 
to the rocket to alligator clips on the ignitor and a massive relay.  You want 
the ability to dump 100A into the ignitor for that 300-500 ms so that there's 
no heatup period.  In fact, we got it to where we could just use plain old thin 
bent copper wire, forget the ignitor completely the wire would glow cherry red 
and ignite the engine.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Mark Phillips
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2023 11:59 AM
To: Portland Linux Users Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Looking for some WiFi AP Security Advice

I am working on a project and need some security advice.

The project is a wireless model rocket launcher. It consists of a Raspberry Pi 
2 W (Debian Buster) connected to a daughter board with circuitry to control the 
current to ignite the igniter, a TP-Link Wifi AP, and a cell phone. There is a 
web site (apache and flask) running on the Pi that allows the user to control 
the circuits on the daughter board to launch the rocket.

The typical location for launching the rockets is in a large field far from any 
buildings or trees. Typically, there is no WiFi Internet connectivity and cell 
service is problematical. There are quite a few people attending the launch. 
There are also times when this launcher will be used in a more urban 
environment (like a high school field), so there may be WiFi and cell access to 
the Internet. I want to make the system "unattractive" to the high school 
students or anyone else who thinks it would be cool to hack the launcher during 
a launch.

I want to set up some sort of secure connection between the cell phone and the 
web site running on the Pi. My main concern is an attacker connecting to the 
web site and igniting the rocket while the user is connecting the wires to the 
igniter. Model rocket motors generate an exhaust gas with a temperature of 
~3,000 F. Also, the igniter needs 2-4 A dc for 300 - 500 msec to ignite the 
rocket motor.

I have put these security layers in place.
1. 16 character password to access the WiFi AP network 2. MAC address filtering 
on the WiFi AP 3. Self signed SSL cert for the web site 4. 16 character 
password to access the web site 5. Standard flask cookie security for CSRF 6. 8 
character code to enable the launcher (the equivalent to a physical launch key) 
7. A physical switch on the launcher that disables the ignition circuit - for 
use when attaching the igniter leads to the rocket engine. However, there is no 
guarantee that the user will use this switch everytime he/she loads a new 
rocket on the launcher. There is a timer attached to the switch so that when 
the switch is put in the "on" position, the igniter circuit will not be enabled 
for another 10 seconds...enough time to run like h*ll away from the 
launcher;)

I am not a security guru, so I am not really sure what my options are. Do you 
have any other suggestions on how I can make this system more secure?
Am I doing anything that is unnecessary?

Thanks!

Mark

Re: [PLUG] anybody have any 9-track tapes that need reading?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

You might be interested in this - the useful stuff starts at 8:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh3OA3WMJng

For these, you have to bake the old tapes in an oven to read them, then run 
them through a cleaning machine.

There's a busy community that works at preserving the data from these.  Pretty 
incredible that they are still readable after 50 years.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2023 5:12 AM
To: p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] anybody have any 9-track tapes that need reading?

Hi all,

For the last couple decades, I have had a Fujitsu M2444 9-track tape drive 
sitting (rather heavily) on a shelf. Until, well, yesterday, I didn't have a 
convenient way of connecting to that tape drive to read/write tapes. Then came 
yesterday, and now I do:

https://github.com/RussellSenior/Pertec-Interface-Tape-Controller
(forked from another guy, and debugged over this last week)

Now, I have a tape drive, a tape controller, but ... uh, slightly embarrassed 
to say that I don't have any tapes that particularly need reading. Does anyone 
have any old 1/2-inch 9-track tapes that they need read? Even just for fun. Let 
me know, lol.


--
Russell Senior
russ...@pdxlinux.org

Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ ... Toner

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I have to wonder where they get the cartridges to drill?  Tonerbuyer.com
doesn't pay anything for the 98A cartridge and won't pay for you to ship it
to them, and Office depot makes you buy $10 in purchase per month in order
to qualify for $2 back in rewards for every ink or toner cartridge you
recycle, so in order to make it worthwhile you have to pile up 10 used toner
cartridges and take them into Office Depot, to basically get a buck a
cartridge back - in store credit - which will pay for maybe an overpriced
flash drive, lol.

The HP 4+ cartridge is old school and is actually held together by real
screws.  No drilling necessary, it can be disassembled, cleaned and
reassembled like a normal part.

I did ONE of those, once.  Discovering then the importance of a toner
vacuum.  But it printed out fine for a while.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 4:16 PM
To: Michael Ewan 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group ; Portland Linux/Unix
Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ ... Toner

On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 11:15:01AM -0800, Michael Ewan wrote:
> It seems there are a lot of sources for the #48 toner, is "decent" the 
> problem?

Many of those are "drill-and-fill", without replacing seals and gaskets and
streaky drums.  After a second multihour strip-and-clean of my old HLPJ 4M,
I also (like Galen) gave my old machine to younger owner.

Besides toner, and slow processing speed, the 4M was a great machine - we
used to claim that it could print tee-shirts.  I currently use two HP4100N
printers with duplexers, with one spare, but face a similar "crappy toner"
risk. 

The risk is not as bad as my hp2605dn color laser printer, which has FOUR
toner cartridges that can leak, and a fan that can suck leaked toner into
the optical box.  That is a two hour teardown and rebuild, just to wipe a
bit of toner off the mirrors.  When it works, it makes BEYOOTIFUL color
images, unlike the Brother MFC-9440CN that I mostly use.  The Brother is
easy to fix and clean, but the images look like a child's crayon drawings.
Sigh.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ with duplexer free to good home

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I have 4 HP Laserjet 4+ printers myself.  One of them fell off the table it was 
on, on to some papers and the internals are a bit wedged and now it jams on 
every print, the other 3 have jamming problems as well and
Print reliably only off the manual feeder only.  I also have the duplexer and 
PostScript simms in them.

I also ended up buying a Canon for my wife, as she did not have the patience to 
feed in a page at a time.  I use the HP in the basement on my office down there.

With all printers even brand new ones the rollers wear at a rather predictable 
rate.  There's tons of new roller kits available for the 4+ but every time I 
think about buying a roller kit I end up finding another entire 4+ for free and
Use that instead.  That's why I have the other printers saved.  One of these 
days I'm going to run out of free 4+s and just have to buy the roller kit.

I'm very tempted to come pick up your printer Galen.  But if someone asked me 
"can I have all your 4+ and I'll take Galen's and put them all together to make 
a working
Printer" I'm sure my common sense would win out and I'd happily hand them all 
over!

I have also refilled the 98A toner cartridges, it is pretty easy to do and the 
toner bottles are extremely cheap.  You can usually get 2 or maybe 3 refills on 
a cartridge before the drum starts losing the photosensitive material.

The problem with the toner cartridges for these old printers is typical of 
parts for many older computers and electronic devices.  The same problem exists 
for batteries for older cell phone models and for auto parts for older cars.

What people don't realize is that there's a huge industry in China that 
specializes in making parts for electronic devices that are obsolete.   Apple 
for example has a vested interest in getting people to buy new cell phones so 
they price replacement screens and batteries for older phone models sky high.  
The 2005 movie "Robots" just highlights this problem.  Thus the Chinese 
industry has grown up.

They reverse engineer parts like toner cartridges, brake pads, lithium 
batteries and so on.  And because it's all being sold to people who don't have 
a lot of money and can't afford brand new devices, they engineer for least cost.

That toner cartridge printing grey was probably made in a factory in China 3 
months before you bought it.  The parts in it are all least cost, the 
photoconductive material is cheaper and thinner, the toner particles are 
uneven, etc.

It isn't failing much more quickly than "it should"It's failing more 
quickly because it's engineered to fail more quickly because it's least cost 
materials.

It's fairly easy to run the numbers and determine if buying those cartridges is 
worth it.   A 98A cartridge brand new was rated at 6,800 pages at 5%   MSRP was 
$165.  Actual retail when they were still available was around $100 as I recall 
about a penny and a half a page.   Today the market is flooded with 
counterfeits that are $30 per.

A brand new Cheap Chinese 98A cartridge is around $30.  But it's going to fail 
long before hitting 6,800 pages.  So, if it fails at 2000 pages, then guess 
what you have just achieved the very same 1.5 cents a page that the original 
manufacturer's cartridge was able to do.

If it fails at 1000 page then your cost per page is probably still 1.5 cents if 
you factor in the amortization cost of a brand new printer.

If it fails at 500 pages than it's cheaper to buy a new printer.  That's why 
the cheap Chinese industry engineers their 98A cartridges to fail at around 
1500 pages - that's the sweet spot - cheap enough that people will still buy 
them not so bad they will give up the printer because it's now costing them 
money.

These calculations are not hard to do, anyone can do them.  They can be done 
for any of the older electronic devices.   So there's no point at claiming the 
cheap Chinese cartridge is "supposed to last 6800 pages"  It's not.

Ted



-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Galen Seitz
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 12:00 PM
To: p...@pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ with duplexer free to good home

On 12/19/23 11:15, Michael Ewan wrote:
> It seems there are a lot of sources for the #48 toner, is "decent" the 
> problem?

Yes.  The past two or three cartridges I have purchased have worked well 
initially, but the print quality has degraded much more quickly than it should. 
 In September I contacted PrinterTechs.com about it.  They sell printer parts, 
so there is incentive for them to sell me parts for repair.  Despite that 
incentive, here's part of the response I received: 
"Remanufactured cartridges would be the way to go if you decide to keep the 
printer, but I'd recommend getting a newer printer. Age is starting to catch up 
with the 4 plus, we see power supplies failing more often in that model than we 
used to."

galen
--
Galen Seitz
gal...@seitzassoc.com

Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ with duplexer free to good home

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The HP Laserjet 4+ uses #98A cartridge not #48

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Michael Ewan
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 11:15 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] HP Laserjet 4M+ with duplexer free to good home

It seems there are a lot of sources for the #48 toner, is "decent" the problem?

On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 10:40 AM Galen Seitz  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> As it has become difficult to find decent toner cartridges, I have 
> decided to retire my HP Laserjet 4M+ and duplexer.  The printer also 
> has an Ethernet interface.  The printer still prints, but with the 
> current toner cartridge, the background of the print is grey.  It's 
> free to anyone that wants to come pick it up (close-in SE).  If 
> there's no interest, it's going to Free Geek on Thursday.
>
> FWIW, I replaced it with a Brother MFC-L2750DWB All-In-One from Costco 
> ($300).
>
> galen
> --
> Galen Seitz
> gal...@seitzassoc.com
>

Re: [PLUG] MATE terminal fonts, mediawiki progress

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Are you SURE that they changed it due to other language requirements?
H  a quick check on Google and I think this is the REAL reason:

"...Here's another horrifying example, an aspect of American culture,
the-the pussification, the continued. the continued pussification of the
American Unix user in the form of gigantic TellyTubbie WOKE screen fonts.
What the f*ck is going on here? Unix Terminal used to mean something. It
stood for Unix ASCII attitude; grimy outlaws in their sweaty mamas full of
beer and crank, rolling around on Sparcs, looking for a good time -
destroying property, raping teenagers, and killing policemen. all very
necessary activities by the way. But now? TellyTubbie WOKE screen fonts and
this soft shit obviously didn't come from hardcore Unix ASCII users; it came
from these weekend users, these fraudulent two-day-a-week motherf*ckers who
have their x86s trucked into Sturgis, South Dakota for the big rally and
then noodle around like they just came in off the road. Dentists and
bureaucrats and pussy-boy software designers getting up on a x86 cause they
think it makes them cool. Well hey skeezics, you ain't cool, you're f*cking
chilli and chilli ain't never been cool..."

RIP Carlin.  These last 15 years have been much less colorful without you.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2023 11:45 PM
To: PLUG 
Subject: [PLUG] MATE terminal fonts, mediawiki progress

Ending a long ramble on plug-talk, I kvetched:
-
It would be great to work with collaborators who can help me upgrade that
server to Debian Bookworm and the web pages to mediawiki. 
-

I got MATE Terminal and mediawiki working on the new
Bookworm machine.   

1) MATE Terminal spaced lines too far apart vertically.  
I've used 11 point Monospace Regular on Redhat derivatives for years, also
on Debian Bullseye.  The transition from Debian 11 Bullseye to Debian 12
Bookworm changed the line pitch for Monospace Regular from 17px to 22px, way
too much whitespace for me, displaying too few lines of text on my ancient
1024x1280 pixel displays.

The reason for the distro font change was that it allowed more room for
non-Roman characters and other languages.

The fix is changing to DejaVu Sans Mono Book 11; back to 17px line space,
with characters that look the same as Monospace Regular.



2) mediawiki install problems - that was caused by using a different
database/install directory than standard.
It works with /var/www/html/mediawiki, the html setup script failed for me
(near the end of setup) when I tried using a different path to a different
disk partition (mostly to simplify backups).  Fortunately, I can achieve the
same backup organization with symlinks.

2a) next step, wikifarm 

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: [PLUG] strange system behavior - inotify problem?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I suspect a clue to your issue is in your post, - see the following:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/639540/how-much-memory-can-a-32-bit-process-access-on-a-64-bit-operating-system

I suspect that somewhere in that mess you might have a program that's not 64 
bit clean.

Just for grins try defining an 8GB ramdrive as your swapfile and I'll bet the 
freezing disappears.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of American Citizen
Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 10:53 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] strange system behavior - inotify problem?

Hello:

I have a very interesting problem occurring my opensuse Leap 15.5 linux system.

I am crunching number theory modules, using magma to do descents on elliptic 
curves. I do open a new konsole screen and do a tail on the magma results, in 
real time. There are 6 magma programs executing in this way at the same time.

I also have 3 monitoring programs, but they are set up as a bash script file 
with a while [ 1 ] loop, but each has a sleep nnn seconds at the end of the 
loop.

I was getting occasionally the tail warning message, no files left for tail, 
using polling instead.

I installed the inotify-comment bash script from the stackexchange web page 
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/15509/whos-consuming-my-inotify-resources.
 
Running this script does not show anything unusual, I am only using 402 watches 
in 131 instances. I did up the values in the sysctl.conf file to large sizes, 
so I don't suspect that the problem is caused by this.

The system strangely halts the start of a new process, for up to 20 secs at a 
time, for example, I tried to open up a new Konsole screen and the window opens 
up, but then sits there for a period of time before completing the interior of 
the screen.

Another example, while typing this email, I made a mistake and had to back up, 
the moment I hit the backspace key, everything froze for about
10 secs or so, before resuming.

Third example, one of my monitoring screens suddenly went into uninterruptable 
mode, trying using control-C did not work, I had to terminate the Konsole 
screen and restart the bash script over again in a new window.

Right now I don't know quite what to do? This is slowing things way down for 
me, while the system seems fine, I am only using 4 gigs of the 32 gigs system 
RAM, so that should not be a problem.

Puzzled -

Randall

Re: [PLUG] Error reading files

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Yes, pretty much any 7200rpm drive with a decent warranty is what you want
for a desktop with a mag media drive.

The bottom of the barrel are the 5400rpm drives and the only place those
should have ever been used is in laptops.

I have bought them in the past for people with NASes that are inadequate
case sizes, and for use in external 3.5" hard drive
Cases but generally I tell people never to buy standalone NASes just
repurpose and old PC as a NAS

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2023 6:45 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Error reading files

On Tue, 28 Nov 2023, Rich Shepard wrote:

> I'll order a new disk today; the current one is about 4 years old.

Ted,

Tom's Hardware recommends the Seagate Firecuda 8TB drive; I assume the 4TB
is equally good and will order from Amazon.

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Error reading files

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

For sure on that!  197 pending reallocate and 5 allocated indicates the disk
has -probably- been making ECC corrections to a lot of other sectors (soft
fails) for a while now, but slowly the number of bad sectors has increased.

During manufacture they permanently lock out bad spots on the disk and those
aren't part of the bad sector map.  Those ones aren't of any concern.  It's
the "grown defects" that are the worry.  Usually those are caused by wear on
the spindles and arm pivot causing the head to move slightly out of
alignment from prior written tracks.  The more wear the less accurate the
head is and the more likely it will have to re-read the sector.

Heat is often considered the number 1 killer of hard disks but IMHO these
days, far far more important is quality of manufacturer.  I have servers
with enterprise drives in them still going strong that are a decade or older
that run 24x7.  With Seagate SATA that's the Exos line now, prior to Exos it
was the Constellation.  Exos comes in both SATA and SAS variants.  SMART
gives you drive temperature it might be useful to check that.  Articles
abound on the Internet for proper temperature, here's one for example:

https://www.akcp.com/blog/how-temperature-affects-it-data-storage/

Drives are manufactured in such large quantities these days that they can
get them down to almost an exact science on when the disk is going to fail -
a drive with a 2 year warranty is definetly more cheaply made than a 5 year
warranty drive.  But this is just a general rule of thumb as I've got 2 year
warranty desktop drives that are 8 years old still in daily use.  Outliers
abound.  4 years on a 2 year warranty drive isn't bad but it isn't good
either - you were unlucky with that drive.  Which is why RAID was invented.
I still see failing drives, failed drives, and drives that should have
failed years ago still chugging along in servers.

With SSD's  S.M.A.R.T. data the big thing is available spare and percentage
used.  Obviously if you can keep from writing to the SSD that helps a lot,
adding enough memory is crucial.  I don't go under 16GB on desktops these
days.

Here's a good article on what you might consider doing if you move to an
SSD:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/404096/with-an-ssd-do-i-need-to-change-my-sw
appiness-to-increase-ssd-life

Theres a LOT of argument over this because of course, situations are
different and what is good for one environment is bad for another, and
usually the most passionate sides of the "muck with it" vs "leave it alone"
argument groups never bother explaining their OWN environments.

And you definitely want to make sure if you do run an SSD on Linux that it
supports TRIM you can check it with

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep 'TRIM supported'

As for transferring data - boot the system with a LIVE USB stick and just dd
the contents of one drive to the other.  If you are lucky the system should
just boot up on the new disk once you change cables

Once running you can expand the last partition with growpart:

https://www.linuxscrew.com/linux-growpart-fill-disk

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2023 6:45 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Error reading files

On Tue, 28 Nov 2023, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Get your SMART status from the disk
> Smartctl -a /dev/sda

> Look for the pending sector count and reallocated sector count. On a 
> completely healthy disk they will be zero.

Ted,

Looks like I need to replace this disk:
# smartctl -a /dev/sdb
  ...
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED
RAW_VALUE
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 712
   5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0

I'll order a new disk today; the current one is about 4 years old.

This is my main drive; /dev/sdb holds /home, /opt, and /data1.

I need to learn how to transfer the data in those partitions to a new drive.

Thanks,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Error reading files

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Is it a single drive that's the destination or multiple drives in an array?

Single mag media drives that do that - what I do is assume they are bad -
backup all data on them - then if I am not trusting the software I dd zeros
over the entire drive, then run SMART to see what the drive reports.

SSD's I don't dd over the entire drive.  Instead, I run the manufacturer's
SSD utility.  Most decent M.2 SSD's have them.  Unfortunately, many are
windows-only.  As of yet I have not committed a production Linux or FreeBSD
system to SSD and I have little inclination to do so, since in general I use
those as servers where having it boot fast is pointless.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2023 7:39 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Error reading files

Last Wednesday I copied a large set of data files to a different partition
on this desktop host. Since then my dirvish backup reports show errors
reading the copied files; files in the original location are backed up just
fine. Here's one day's report:

Subject: ### ERR ### - Backup-salmo:/data1 (backupserver): Rsync: error Pre:
OK,
Post: OK

=
ERROR:   salmo:/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/tree/..
=

=
Status : Rsync: error Pre: OK, Post: OK
=
directory: /media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/tree/..
Summary (/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/tree/../summary):
=
SUM:  client: salmo
SUM:  tree: /data1
SUM:  rsh: ssh
SUM:  Server: salmo
SUM:  Bank: /media/bkup1
SUM:  vault: salmo-data1
SUM:  branch: default
SUM:  Image: 20231124-0030
SUM:  Reference: 20231122-0030
SUM:  Image-now: 2023-11-24 00:30:00
SUM:  Expire: +1 month == 2023-12-24 00:30:00
SUM:  Expire-rule: **   *   *   1-6 +1 month
SUM:  exclude:
SUM:- .kde/share/cache/*
SUM:- .mozilla/firefox/*.default/Cache/*
SUM:- *~
SUM:- *.bak
SUM:- *.lock
SUM:- lost+found
SUM:  SET permissions devices numeric-ids stats xdev SUM:  UNSET checksum
init sparse whole-file zxfer SUM: SUM: SUM:  ACTION: rsync -vrltH --delete
-x --numeric-ids -pgo -D --stats
--exclude-from=/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/exclude
--link-dest=/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231122-0030/tree /data1/
/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/tree
SUM:  Backup-begin: 2023-11-24 00:31:13

=
Rsync-Errors (/media/bkup1/salmo-data1/20231124-0030/tree/../rsync_error):
=
RSYNC_ERR: RSYNC_ERR: RSYNC_ERR:*** Execution cycle 0 ***
RSYNC_ERR: RSYNC_ERR:rsync: [sender] read errors mapping
"/data1/willamette-river/data/biota/2012_bass_baseline.csv": Input/output
error
(5)
RSYNC_ERR:WARNING:
willamette-river/data/biota/2012_bass_baseline.csv
failed verification -- update discarded (will try again).
RSYNC_ERR:rsync: [sender] read errors mapping
"/data1/willamette-river/data/biota/2012_pcbs.csv": Input/output error (5)
RSYNC_ERR:WARNING: willamette-river/data/biota/2012_pcbs.csv failed
verification -- update discarded (will try again).
RSYNC_ERR:rsync: [sender] read errors mapping
"/data1/willamette-river/data/biota/pdx-cyanobact.csv": Input/output error
(5)
RSYNC_ERR:WARNING: willamette-river/data/biota/pdx-cyanobact.csv
failed
verification -- update discarded (will try again).
RSYNC_ERR:rsync: [sender] read errors mapping
"/data1/willamette-river/data/geochem/pdx-chl-a.csv": Input/output error (5)
RSYNC_ERR:WARNING: willamette-river/data/geochem/pdx-chl-a.csv
failed
verification -- update discarded (will try again).
RSYNC_ERR:rsync: [sender] read errors mapping
"/data1/willamette-river/data/geochem/pdx-dom.csv": Input/output error (5)
...

There are no changes to these files other than their presence in the new
location. File sizes are the same in the source directories.

The destination partition has available 85% of its capacity.

How do I find why these errors occur?

TIA,

Rich

Re: [PLUG] "text2ps.c" - 34 years of recompiling

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I'd like a copy of your text2ps.c   There are multiple copies of it floating 
around as versions of it are included in the tcm utility/utilities and the hp 
filters that can be installed in Ubuntu.  The original program was just put out 
in the Public Domain and I suspect a lot of people have applied various 
licenses to it.

Text2ps was NOT a "linux" program by any means.  It was a C program written 
back in the days when the idea was to try to write C programs that could be 
compiled on any operating system.  It just so happened that back when it was 
written nobody was running C on anything over than Unix systems.

The author is still going, here's his Linkedin profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenfrede/?originalSubdomain=au

You ought to send him a note and tell him you are still using his program I'd 
bet he would get a kick out of it.

I never went down the Apple printer rathole "back in the day" so never had a 
Laserwriter or any other Apple printer that would ONLY print Postscript and NOT 
regular text.  But, I used that utility a few times to create test PostScript 
files which I would send to different printers to test if the Postscript they 
advertised really worked.  That was back in the days you had to buy Postscript 
chips off Ebay for your HP Laserjects and such.

It's also a quick and dirty precursor program for the ps2pdfwr  "wrapper" 
script around Ghostscipt used to create PDF files, sometimes used on websites 
that pipe Unix man pages through it for download as pdfs.

Just for fun I did the following to get the original source:

1) Go to https://www.dosbox.com/ and download and install DOSBox
2) Go to the archive site for the 1992 SImtel archive  
https://archive.org/details/Simtel20_Sept92
3) Download the simtel archive.  Rename the .CDR file to .ISO
4) Mount the Simtel ISO.  (I did this under Windows on drive D but you can do 
it on Linux obviouslt)
5) Mount the Simtel drive (drive D) as D drive on Dosbox
6) Mount some convenient directory as drive C on dosbox

In Dosbox:

a) copy pkunzip.exe c:
b) d:cd MSDOS\ARC_LBR
c) copy ARCE40G.ZIP to c:
d) cd ..   cd POSTSCPT
e) copy TEXT2PS.ARC c:
f) c:
g) pkunzip ARCE40G.IP
h) arce40g text2ps.arc

Volia - you get text2ps.exe, the C source, and you even get a man page that 
someone wrote for it.  No readme or other information on who compiled it, 
whether they modified the source to it or what they ran it through to compile 
it.

You can convert the man page/document into PostScript - under DOS- with the 
command

Text2ps text2ps.doc > text2ps.ps

I suspect they compiled it with the DJGPP compiler in the MSDOS directory of 
The Simtel archive.  That older version would have produced real real mode 
programs.  Up until Windows 7, that DOS version of text2ps would have worked 
under Windows command line.

The e2ps or a2ps  programs purport to do the same thing, incidentally.

At work (among lots of other things) I manage a whole mess of printers that 
churn out around 1.2 million prints a year for the enterprise.  I've been on a 
long term program to try to reduce printing as you might imagine.  What most 
people deal with every 4-5 years I see in some printers every few months.  The 
problem with laserprinters is it's like tires on your car - if you make a LOT 
of prints on the printer the rubber rollers wear out quickly, you can see the 
diameter get smaller.  If you make very few prints then the rubber rollers 
eventually age-harden and the paper starts slipping and you get a ton of jams 
on the printer

In the corporate arena we deal with the former and so use printer leasing 
companies who are constantly servicing the devices in the home area most home 
users deal with the latter.  The printer companies just laugh all the way to 
the bank.  There's no way you can run a printer without it wearing.  Paper 
fibers are abrasive, they actually used to sell paper that was used to polish 
the ends of fiberoptic fibers before gluing them into connectors until that was 
made obsolete with the invention of portable fusion splicers.

If you stick with buying printers that are designed as workgroup printers for 
use in the corporation you will be fine, your cost per page will not be 
significantly high.  It’s the printers designed for home users that are the 
expensive ones.  Micro-sized toner cartridges that run out after a ream, 
chipped so that you have to buy them from the manufacturer.  With bigger 
workgroup printers the aftermarket has solved that.  But ultimately the only 
solution is NOT to print.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom

Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2023 7:12 PM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] "text2ps.c" - 34 years of recompiling

Perhaps timewasting chatter, but the subject is a Unix/Linux program.  So there.

I've used Unix/Linux for almost 50 years now ... my first encounter was as a 
grad student at UC Berkeley, through a friend with "legitimate" access to the 

Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I was working at Central Point Software when it acquired Xtree in 1993.  I
flew down there to assist with the acquisition and returned with a Sparc and
Telebit TrailBlazer and a 9600bps dedicated dialup account to UUnet.
Somehow Xtree had wrangled that account from UUnet when they were doing
their Xtree for Unix  (the successor program is here, a fascinating
historical read  https://www.unixtree.org/  ) and that became CPS's first
"Internet" connection as I eventually setup the Microsoft SMTP Gateway
software for the original Microsoft Mail since I was the only one who knew
anything about The Internet.

In the meantime I had been doing UUCP dialup to Agora for several years.

I'll have to fire up unixtree and see what it's like, although I don't
generally use the GUI on Unixes...


Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2023 11:52 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

On Sun, 19 Nov 2023, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Interesting. In 1993 the emerging NSFnet was not permitted to be 
> connected to commercial entities. You must have had a special 
> dispensation. That happened in 1995 as I recall...

Ted,

Well, thinking about timing I'll acknowledge that you're correct. Between
1993 and 1997 I had a dial-up connection to Aracnet (which became SpiritOne
before is suddenly shut down), and they provided mail service. In 1997 I
defenestrated to Linux and set up my own mail server using postfix using
ADSL until I had to find a new ISP. That was Verizon -> Frontier
Communications -> Ziply Fiber. I don't recall when I had fiber installed,
probably when Frontier was the ISP.

Rich

Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Interesting.  In 1993 the emerging NSFnet was not permitted to be connected
to commercial entities.  You must have had a special dispensation.  That
happened in 1995 as I recall...

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2023 9:45 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

On Sat, 18 Nov 2023, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:


> Ziply has no restrictions on individuals at home getting business 
> accounts, Rich.

That's true. I've run my business from my house for 30 years and have had a
static IP address with all ISPs.

Rich

Re: [PLUG] Moving 15 GB ... in 1970

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Ooops

 For example the top of the line Netgear Nighthawk series only runs at 1

 s/gigabit/gigahertz/

 clock speed.   That kills throughput.

Ted

Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Ziply has no restrictions on individuals at home getting business accounts,
Rich.

Another option is get a cheap virtual server on AWS and instead of paying a
mail provider, setup a mailserver there.  Or on Rapidspace or any other
other cloud providers.

Or you can get a bit more creative.

I have a friend who has a Comcast Xfinity residential account with a
Microsoft Exchange server in their house (a leftover from a business they
used to own) that they keep going for a new home business they started.

They have it setup on a non-standard port for accepting incoming email and
outbound relaying of mail through me.  They have a free account setup with a
dynamic DNS provider and their router is DD-WRT and keeps the dynamic DNS
provider apprised of their current IP.

My mailserver accepts mail for their domain then routes it to their
mailserver's nonstandard port, their mailserver routes outbound mail to my
server which relays it out.  That way all the antispam stuff is setup and
happy and they get to run their own mailserver on a residential account.

You of all people Rich should know that there is no way to use technology to
block something that someone else can use technology to get around.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f4db8a43-0a38-423e-a9d1-aa1c5d989cf0

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2023 8:20 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

On Sat, 18 Nov 2023, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Or, you can do what I do and get a static IP and run your own mail server.

Ted,

FWIW, unless Ziply changed their policy only business domains can be
assigned a static IP address (for $10/month); they don't support static IP
addresses for personal domains.

Rich

Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Or, you can do what I do and get a static IP and run your own mail server.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Kevin Williams
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 6:56 PM
To: PLUG ; Galen Seitz ; plug 

Subject: Re: [PLUG] email services supporting IMAP

Correction:
$20/yr for Runbox, not $20/mo.

On Fri, Nov 17, 2023, at 17:32, Kevin Williams wrote:
> Hi Galen,
> 
> I myself have been on this journey to migrate my internet accounts registered 
> using my Gmail address to my own domain, and use multiple aliases in the form 
> of serv...@mydomain.tld.
> 
> Over the last year and a half, I have moved about 90 accounts from Gmail. 
> Some sites allow self-service email address change. Others require you submit 
> a ticket to their support staff. Others, such as Shopify, require you submit 
> a ticket to them to export your account history (if you want to keep it), 
> delete your account, create a new account, and re-import the history from 
> your old account if you don't want to start from scratch.
> 
> This means I'm keeping Gmail around until the process is complete. I also 
> export my email archive to mbox or maildir, likely using Google take-out.
> 
> I started out at Protonmail. Then I discovered they don't support IMAP unless 
> I installed their SMTP-to-IMAP bridge app on my local machine. It supports 
> Linux, but not OpenBSD, which I use more regularly these days.
> 
> So I switched to Fastmail. (But read further. I'm looking to switch 
> away from them too.)
> 
> If your friend is not sure it's worth it to register and maintain his own 
> domain name for email and setup the MX, DMARC, SPF and other DNS records at 
> the email provider (and doesn't care about his personal brand), consider that 
> using his own domain name makes moving from one paid email provider to the 
> next much easier.
> 
> Both Protonmail and Fastmail have very good instructions to point your DNS 
> records at their mail servers. Because I used my own domain name, I was able 
> to migrate form Protonmail to Fastmail, update all my DNS records, and import 
> all my previous Protonmail messages to Fastmail in less than an hour.
> 
> More importantly, I didn't have to update my emali address at any of the 
> sites I had already switched from Gmail.
> 
> And now for my recommendations.
> 
> Domain Registrars:
> 
> - https://dnsimple.com - Well-established registrar with a good 
> interface and only $6/mo domain hosting fee
> - https://porkbun.com - Up-and-coming registrar recommended by Jim Salter of 
> the 2.5 Admins podcast. I don't know their pricing.
> 
> Fastmail is good. But they only allow up to 600 email aliases, and charge 
> $5/mo for my first domain, and at least $3/mo for each additional domain (one 
> domain per sub-account). So I asked on the OpenBSD misc mailing list a few 
> months ago for suggested email hosting providers.
> 
> - https://migadu.com - Starting at $20/yr for unlimited aliases and unlimited 
> domains. You cannot register or host a domain with them (that makes moving 
> away from them easier). Plans are limited by storage space and messages in 
> and out per day. Bigger plans increase those limits. They have been in 
> business since 2014. The amounts are realistic for my use case. I plan to 
> switch my k9w.org domain from Fastmail to Migadu.
> 
> - https://purelymail.com - Flat $10/yr for unlimited aliases and unlimited 
> domains, again not registered or hosted domains with them. They are in public 
> Beta but have been going for at least the last few years. I already have 
> another domain with them and have been very happy with their tools, 
> documentation, and support staff.
> 
> - https://runbox.com - Norwegian-based offering plans starting at $20/mo for 
> unlimited aliases and one custom domain, registered/hosted with them or from 
> another provider. I might try them out with a test domain for the fun of it. 
> But I could easily us as many domains at either of the two providers above.
> 
> "But Kevin, why are you using two of them at $30/yr rather than just one 
> service at $10 or $20 per year?"
> 
> Because I want to experience both services over the long term. If I have any 
> less-technical friends and convince them to try email at their own domain 
> name, I could offer to save them the email hosting cost and add their domain 
> to one of the first two options above.
> 
> Realistically, I still have probably another 50 or so accounts to move away 
> from Gmail. New accounts are at my paid provider straight out of the gate.
> 
> It's a lot of work. But it's worth it to own my email, to pay for it with my 
> dollars, not pay for it with my personal data.
> 
> Galen, I hope this is helpful to your friend and anyone who searches the PLUG 
> archives for this question in the future.
> 
> Thanks,
> Kevin Williams
> 
> On Fri, Nov 17, 2023, at 16:14, Galen Seitz wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > A smart, but non-sysadmin, non-linux-using friend asks:
> > 
> > "Hey I’ve been 

Re: [PLUG] Using wget to download all files from a web site (2)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Keith Lofstrom
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 7:20 PM


>There may be ways to rate-limit your bulk data request, so it doesn't
trigger their rate-limits, and looks more like an obsessed human user.  >I
hypothesize; there are web provider process management experts reading this,
who know how incoming 15 GB requests are handled, >throttled, or thriftily
ignored.  Please educate us!

Yes.  You simply do your data-slurping late at night.   Top bandwidth usage
on the Internet is between 10am-4pm in any given time zone, so if you are
hitting sites in the USA then starting at 6am PST it gets busy (east coast
is why) and by noon the North American network is extremely busy.

If you are a doofus who decides to do your slurping at lunchtime then maybe
you can understand when the various ISPs take a dim view of your idiocy and
shut you down.

But after 11PM it's quiet.   From 3AM PST to 6AM PST you have a window where
activity is very low and you will only be competing with the likes of The
Internet Archive and it's Wayback machine, and the various corporate
"buffered cloud backup" schemes.

Of course, if you are hitting foreign sites then their networks will not
appreciate you but since their networks aren't owned by your ISP your ISP
doesn't give a tinker's damn.

Ted

Re: [PLUG] Moving 15 GB ... in 1970

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 8:57 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Moving 15 GB ... in 1970


>a) the bandwidth your plan claims does not factor in the speed at which the 
>rest of the internet will deliver bits to you (even assuming the >ISP isn't 
>exaggerating), my experience has been that it is *rare* (not impossible) for 
>actual real world services on the internet to actually >feed you at 
>significant fractions of gigabit speeds (often around 30Mbps) even on my 
>supposedly gigabit fiber service. About 5% of the >time I'm surprised by 
>something faster. Speed test sites are the exception. I suspect shenanigans 
>between the ISPs and the speed test sites.

Actually this isn’t true.  I have a gigabit service out on the Oregon Coast 
with Spectrum Cable and I can regularly get gigabit speeds to many sites on the 
internet.

There are, however, many problems most people have with getting gigabit speeds:

1) The ISP-supplied cable modems and routers are designed for reliability in 
harsh environments - people's garages, basements, closets that are overheated, 
etc.  Because of this they have no cooling fans, cooling is entirely by 
convection and because of that the clock speeds are typically greatly reduced.  
For example the top of the line Netgear Nighthawk series only runs at 1 gigabit 
clock speed.   That kills throughput.

2) The Linux networking stack is INCREDIBLY inefficient and virtually all of 
these devices - all enduser ISP routers, cablemodems, etc. - are built around 
modified versions of OpenWRT.  Basically the manufacturer takes the OpenWRT 
distribution, throws away the GUI and replaces it with their own, removes the 
chip drivers and substitutes their own, and shuts down telnet/ssh.  OpenWRT has 
a very slow networking stack.

3) Most users don't use their own router they use the ISP router.  If they used 
a high-end Enterprise router like a Cisco on their DSL or Cable modem and 
configured the modem into "bridged" mode then they would be able to get gigabit 
speeds.  Or if they used a FreeBSD based PC with 2 ethernet cards in it they 
would also get gigabit speeds.  But instead they take the cheap way out which 
is to use the ISP supplied "free modem"

4) Most home users nowadays are using wifi to connect to their DSL/Cablemodems 
and wifi radio standards don't allow for much more than 100Mbt in the typical 
home environment (and please spare me the histrionics about the "new" wifi 
standards that deliver gigabit speeds since that only happens when you are 6 
feet within the transmitter.  People are idiots when it comes to wifi)

Of all the manufacturers out there, Broadcom is the one who actually wrote a 
completely closed-source, proprietary address translation module that 
essentially replaces the Linux stack.  THAT module is lightning fast and you 
CAN get gigabit speeds with low CPU clock speeds.  But it is only for the 
Broadcom Northstar SoC based devices.

By the way, the EU is way, way ahead of the US with gigabit rolled out to the 
home.  Broadcom wrote their "hardware NAT module" (that's what they call it) to 
compete in that market.

Ted

Re: [PLUG] Restoring MS Backup QIC and BKF files via Samba?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

You can allegedly copy ntbackup.exe, ntmsapi.dll and vssapi.dll from some 
convenient Windows XP system to any later version of Windows and use that to 
open *.bkf files.  I've not tried it myself.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 12:02 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Restoring MS Backup QIC and BKF files via Samba?

I think I have mentioned, either here or certainly at PLUG social gatherings, 
that I'm currently working on organizing ancient backups. I restored a bunch of 
4mm DDS1 and DDS3 tapes and am currently working on DC600A tapes (QIC24 format, 
~60MB per cartridge). The latter date from
1992-1993 and straddle my adoption of Linux. So, the earlier tapes are written 
with a DOS program called SYTOS, and the later ones are tar archives. I am 
currently dealing with the very common problem with quarter-inch cartridge 
(QIC) tapes that the "tension bands" have stretched or broken in the 30 years 
since they were commonly in use. There are a slew of other potential problems 
as well, that I am not plagued with so far.

Among the files that I recovered from the 4mm tapes are Microsoft backups 
(*.qic from Windows 95 and *.bkf from Windows 2000). The backup scheme I was 
employing a the time in the early 2000s was to back up the Microsoft machines 
in the office to a Samba share and then backup those files from Linux on to 
tape. I am now interested in archiving the files contained within the qic and 
bkf files. Apparently, the only way to do that is it spin up an era-specific 
version (windows 95 or 98 for the qic files, and windows 2000 or xp for the bkf 
files) to use the Microsoft programs to restore the constituent files.

I can install the Microsoft OS and necessary tools in a virtual machine easily 
enough (still painful, but ... with enough anesthesia still possible), but the 
problem I'm confronted with is how to most easily get the backups and 
restorations in and out of the VM. The *.qic files alone amount to a few dozen 
gigabytes, which is at least doubled in the restoration. Support for guest 
tools for sharing space seem to be missing for these early windows systems, so 
that qemu can't easily share a folder with the guest. I *think* I am going to 
have to either give the guest OS a gigantic file system, inject the backps into 
that filesystem by mounting it from the host, and then fish out the 
extrications in a similar manner, OR I need to spin up some Samba server and 
mount a SMB share from the guest. I don't have an existing SMB server on the 
premises as our household is, in the vernacular, a Linux shop.

Has anyone done this and have advice on what's the most direct path here?

TIA,

--
Russell Senior
russ...@personaltelco.net

Re: [PLUG] Simultaneously horrifying and amazing!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Put a floppy controller controlled tape drive on there and Bobs your uncle! 

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Vince Winter
Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 10:56 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Simultaneously horrifying and amazing!

I have seen a SD card to floppy adapter before.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashPath

One of the most niche things I have seen in person.

On Wed, Nov 1, 2023, 8:37 AM Ted Mittelstaedt 
wrote:

> It's not QUITE this bad but it is pretty bad.
>
> I use USB external hard disk docs and disks for backup.  Once you get 
> a COMPATIBLE device then backup over USB is reliable.
>
> But there are many dock models out there that won't work with 
> different motherboards or will work a few times then stop working.
>
> And it's the same thing whether you are running Linux or Windows on 
> the systems.
>
> I have also tried using USB-to-serial dongles for industrial control 
> of PLCs and such, it did not work.  The dongles will drop characters and the
> market is full of counterfeit dongles anyway.   The rs232 port pcie cards
> generally work.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2023 12:46 PM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Simultaneously horrifying and amazing!
>
>
> --- Original Message ---
> On Friday, October 27th, 2023 at 10:20 AM, Bill Barry 
> 
> wrote:
>
>
> > On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 12:15 PM Russell Senior 
> > russ...@personaltelco.net
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > It wasn't the RS-232 that surprised me, it was the combination of
> > > RS-232 and PCI-E, when I expected that modern RS-232 interfaces to 
> > > just use a USB converter. It is kind of like finding someone 
> > > putting a Pratt and Whitney turbo fan on a Sopwith Camel.
> > >
> > > And here I was just about to reply and ask what would be the 
> > > advantage of
> >
> > a PCI-E card over the much cheaper USB converters :)
> >
> > Bill
>
> USB is designed as a user-friendly Plug 'n Play connection. There is a 
> lot of variety in how it is implemented and it tends to do weird 
> things when used for long term connectivity.
>
> I encountered this in the storage world. People who use USB for backup 
> storage typically leave the external HDD connected indefinitely, which 
> eventually causes problems. At some point the USB host controller will 
> reset the port. There are also issues with power management where host 
> controllers will put a port to "sleep" and issues with the amount of 
> power delivered to the port not being consistent.
>
> PCIe on the other hand, is a much more robust interface. Once you plug 
> it in and power it on, it stays that way until the rapture. Less 
> variance in how vendors implement it.
>
> In Linux, the USB host controller drivers include a system of "quirks"
> which are enabled/disabled based on the make/model of the chip. For 
> example, here's a bit of code from the latest stable kernel where they 
> describe enabling one of these quirks for Intel hosts.
>
> 
> /* Existing Intel xHCI controllers require a delay of 1 mS,
> * after setting the CMD_RESET bit, and before accessing any
> * HC registers. This allows the HC to complete the
> * reset operation and be ready for HC register access.
> * Without this delay, the subsequent HC register access,
> * may result in a system hang very rarely.
> */
> if (xhci->quirks & XHCI_INTEL_HOST)
> udelay(1000);
> 
>
> Note how this specifically calls out Intel. As if other vendors don't 
> implement this same 1ms delay?
> -Ben
>
>

Re: [PLUG] Simultaneously horrifying and amazing!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

It's not QUITE this bad but it is pretty bad.

I use USB external hard disk docs and disks for backup.  Once you get a 
COMPATIBLE device then backup over USB is reliable.

But there are many dock models out there that won't work with different 
motherboards or will work a few times then stop working.

And it's the same thing whether you are running Linux or Windows on the systems.

I have also tried using USB-to-serial dongles for industrial control of PLCs 
and such, it did not work.  The dongles will drop characters and the market is 
full of counterfeit dongles anyway.   The rs232 port pcie cards generally work.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2023 12:46 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Simultaneously horrifying and amazing!


--- Original Message ---
On Friday, October 27th, 2023 at 10:20 AM, Bill Barry  
wrote:


> On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 12:15 PM Russell Senior 
> russ...@personaltelco.net
> 
> wrote:
> 
> > It wasn't the RS-232 that surprised me, it was the combination of 
> > RS-232 and PCI-E, when I expected that modern RS-232 interfaces to 
> > just use a USB converter. It is kind of like finding someone putting 
> > a Pratt and Whitney turbo fan on a Sopwith Camel.
> > 
> > And here I was just about to reply and ask what would be the 
> > advantage of
> 
> a PCI-E card over the much cheaper USB converters :)
> 
> Bill

USB is designed as a user-friendly Plug 'n Play connection. There is a lot of 
variety in how it is implemented and it tends to do weird things when used for 
long term connectivity. 

I encountered this in the storage world. People who use USB for backup storage 
typically leave the external HDD connected indefinitely, which eventually 
causes problems. At some point the USB host controller will reset the port. 
There are also issues with power management where host controllers will put a 
port to "sleep" and issues with the amount of power delivered to the port not 
being consistent. 

PCIe on the other hand, is a much more robust interface. Once you plug it in 
and power it on, it stays that way until the rapture. Less variance in how 
vendors implement it. 

In Linux, the USB host controller drivers include a system of "quirks" which 
are enabled/disabled based on the make/model of the chip. For example, here's a 
bit of code from the latest stable kernel where they describe enabling one of 
these quirks for Intel hosts.


/* Existing Intel xHCI controllers require a delay of 1 mS,
* after setting the CMD_RESET bit, and before accessing any
* HC registers. This allows the HC to complete the
* reset operation and be ready for HC register access.
* Without this delay, the subsequent HC register access,
* may result in a system hang very rarely.
*/
if (xhci->quirks & XHCI_INTEL_HOST)
udelay(1000);


Note how this specifically calls out Intel. As if other vendors don't implement 
this same 1ms delay? 
-Ben

Re: [PLUG] Formatting confusion SOLVED

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

By Lattitude I take it you mean a Dell.  It seems the majority of machines 
these days ship with 250GB M.2 SSD "disks"  I have an HP Elitebook and it was 
the same.  I replaced the M.2 card with a larger sized one and it's really 
worth it.  I think Microsoft is pushing the OEM's to ship small hard disks 
because they want to push as many people to OneDrive as they can.

These days I steal stuff off Pandora quite a lot because just about all of it 
is music that I originally bought on -records- (remember those black things 
that scratched when you looked at them sideways) and I figure why not let 
someone else do the work converting them to mp3, then you also lose all the 
clicks and pops and scratches since they are working with better masters than I 
have LOL.  I always name the filenames the song and artist but put 000 in the 
front of the filename so they sort the way I want in the filemanager, to make a 
playlist I just replace the 0's with whatever number, and then copy the entire 
thing out over to a USB stick that the car deck takes.  Whoever does the 
ripping for Pandora seems to take care to put the correct names in the tags so 
that's even less work and the deck nicely scrolls the name when playing a track.

What's funny is my neighbor recently got herself a --record player-- and scours 
the thrift shops for those old disks.  I guess they are the "in" thing now 
among the artsy types.  I refrained from explaining the technology to her, as 
she's convinced the sound is better, LOL.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of John Jason Jordan
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2023 10:28 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Formatting confusion SOLVED

On Thu, 26 Oct 2023 06:00:48 -0700
"Ted Mittelstaedt"  dijo:

>As a result I never use anything other than FAT or exFAT on this media 
>since you never know when you are going to have to force a manual 
>ejection and override the OS.
>
>But the journaling thing did not occur to me at all.  That's even a 
>better reason not to use those filesystems on such media, wearing out 
>the media with excessive writes to a journal

I have thousands of mp3 files that I created myself by ripping and encoding my 
CD collection, which has about a thousand optical discs acquired over the 
years. I began doing this in 2005 when I started with Linux, and at that time I 
used whatever flavor of ext was extant.
(And note that the DMCA didn't exist back then.) Now, ext# has never had a 
problem with double quotes, colons and non-US-English characters in filenames, 
so they abound among my mp3s, e.g.: Voříšek: Symphony in D (Maazel). I use only 
'folder' music players (currently Audacious), never those designed to require 
playlists based on tags, because everything I need to know about the piece is 
contained in the filename, and I like them played in alphabetical order.

I could probably cut down the time required to edit all these filenames by 
using a GUI file manager that has bulk rename capability, but then you have to 
add the time required for to learn how to use the feature, and I have more 
interesting thing to do with my ever-shortening remaining lifespan. And I like 
the way they look now, So I might someday have a use for exFAT, but for now it 
remains unused on my computers. 

I would not bother with SD cards at all except for my small Latitude with 
removable screen, which came with only a 200GB drive. I could use a USB stick, 
but the Latitude will take a micro SD card that becomes invisible when 
inserted; one less device hanging on the side waiting for my clumsy hands to 
destroy it. 

Re: [PLUG] Formatting confusion SOLVED

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

SD cards and USB sticks are often used in things like cameras, stereos,
music players, TV,s etc. which have no mechanism (brought out to the user,
at any rate) for issuing an "eject" or "unmount" command (even should the
user actually want to do this which most of them don't, being completely
clueless about filesystems)

Additionally with Windows sometimes even right-clicking on the device and
telling it to eject results in the error "I'm still busy with this you can't
eject it right now you cretin"  (or something to this effect)

As a result I never use anything other than FAT or exFAT on this media since
you never know when you are going to have to force a manual ejection and
override the OS.

But the journaling thing did not occur to me at all.  That's even a better
reason not to use those filesystems on such media, wearing out the media
with excessive writes to a journal

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of John Jason Jordan
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 12:06 PM
To: PLUG 
Subject: [PLUG] Formatting confusion SOLVED

I have a brand new 1TB SD card. When I first inserted it into the computer
(SparkyLinux) it was automatically mounted and appeared to be working fine.
However, it was formatted exFAT, which I didn't really want, so I fired up
GParted and proceeded to remove the partition, recreate it, and format it as
ext4, with the label 1TB-SD. The operations completed without error, but it
could not be mounted, with the error 'missing codepage or helper program, or
other error.'

I closed GParted and ran Gnome Disk Utility, which offered 'check
filesystem,' 'repair filesystem,' and 'format,' among other options. I
started with 'check,' but it gave the same error message as above. 'Repair'
completed without error, but it still could not be mounted, giving the same
error message. Finally, still in Gnome Disk Utility, I reformatted it as
exFAT and reapplied the label. After that it could be mounted and functioned
normally.

Still not happy I decided to move to the command line. This is what happened
there

sudo mkfs.ext4 -L "1TB-SD" /dev/mmcblk0
mke2fs 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023)
Found a dos partition table in /dev/mmcblk0 Proceed anyway? (y,N) y
Discarding device blocks: done Creating filesystem with 262144000 4k blocks
and 65664000 inodes Filesystem UUID: 735301d6-e49f-4aa8-9222-8f621f57f7e1
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632,
2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 2048, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
10240, 214990848 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables:
done Creating journal (262144 blocks): done Writing superblocks and
filesystem accounting information: done

$ sudo mkdir /media/jjj/1TB-SD
$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0 /media/jjj/1TB-SD
mount: /media/jjj/1TB-SD:
wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mmcblk0, missing codepage
or helper program, or other error. dmesg(1) may have more information after
failed mount system call.

$sudo dmesg 
[442690.762650] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p1): ext4_find_extent:936:
inode #8: comm pool-udisksd: pblk 131104767 bad header/extent: invalid magic
- magic 0, entries 0, max 0(0), depth 0(0) [442690.764359] EXT4-fs
(mmcblk0p1): Remounting filesystem read-only [442690.764363]
jbd2_journal_init_inode: Cannot locate journal superblock [442690.764365]
EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p1): Could not load journal inode [445844.987215] EXT4-fs
error (device mmcblk0): ext4_find_extent:936:
inode #8: comm mount: pblk 131104767 bad header/extent: invalid magic -
magic 0, entries 0, max 0(0), depth 0(0) [445845.991577]
jbd2_journal_init_inode: Cannot locate journal superblock [445845.991592]
EXT4-fs (mmcblk0): Could not load journal inode [445897.081747] EXT4-fs
error (device mmcblk0): ext4_find_extent:936:
inode #8: comm pool-udisksd: pblk 131104767 bad header/extent: invalid magic
- magic 0, entries 0, max 0(0), depth 0(0) [445897.083607] EXT4-fs
(mmcblk0): Remounting filesystem read-only [445897.083627]
jbd2_journal_init_inode: Cannot locate journal superblock [445897.083633]
EXT4-fs (mmcblk0): Could not load journal inode

Is it possible that the device was somehow manufactured so that it can only
be formatted exFAT? I could use some clues. Maybe someone can figure out
what the dmesg results mean. :)

Edit: Because PLUG was plugged up I posted on Ubuntu forums, where I found
the answer. It appears that SD cards don't appreciate journaling, so my
command worked after some edits:

sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -O ^has_journal -L 1TB-SD /dev/mmcblk0

I'm don't know why mkfs.ext4 needed to change to mke2fs -t ext4, nor do I
understand the syntax of -O ^has_journal, but it worked, in spit

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>I suppose if Cisco switches to h.265 for video conferencing, this will be all 
>me a moot point.

They are a founding member of AOM and already use a software version of AV1 in 
Webex:

https://blog.webex.com/engineering/the-av1-video-codec-comes-to-webex/

If MPAA-LA had actually worked with them on a realistic patent license fee then 
they might have not funded AOM and be using H.265.  AV1 compresses more than 
H.265 so there is zero point to switch to it.  Cisco probably pays for the 
super powerful AV1 transcoding servers from the savings on reduced network 
infrastructure needed because the AV1 streams require less network bandwidth 
than H.265 streams would.

Webex like all of those apps use streams sent to the Cisco Webex server.  So 
for now, H.264 streams go from a Webex participant to the Webex server, and are 
likely transcoded to AV1 with super powerful servers, then sent back out to all 
participants.  If the Webex client is on a mobile phone with a CPU that has an 
AV1 encoder chip then Cisco encodes it to AV1 from the participant.

>https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html
>can be linked to vlc and ffmpeg, and anything linked to them.

Ffmpeg binaries are a patent violation and distributing them is a violation.  
It is small enough that MPAA-LA is not going after them.  But it makes it 
impossible to use ffmpeg with libxh265 in anything corporate.  MPAA-LA does not 
care about you viewing your security cam in your house, LOL.  In any case the 
corporate types use CPU's that have H.265 hardware codecs.  Reolink uses the 
Novatek NT98562 hardware encoder chip for example:

https://serhack.me/articles/introduction-firmware-analysis-ip-camera-reolink/

AV1 is designed to use a lot less CPU and power for decoding than encoding.  
You can use ffmpeg compiled with libdav1d and get all the fast AV1 decoding you 
want on any platform you want.  But to encode with ffmpeg needs libaom and it's 
an extraordinarily painful process.  We are talking hours for just a short few 
minute video.  Microsoft hands out an AV1 decoder for free as well.  Firefox 
also uses libdav1d and they also added support for hardware AV1 decoding 
recently. AV1 decoding is NOT the issue with ffmpeg or web browsers and with 
transcoding an incoming AV1 stream, so viewing AV1 in a browser is NOT the 
problem.  ENCODING is the problem and that will have to take hardware encoders 
and support for them.

The reason that cams like the Reolink cams use H.265 to encode is because right 
now the hardware AV1 encoders are way more expensive (Nvidia ADA Lovelace for 
example)   Even with Novatek having to pay the MPAA-LA patent their H.265 
hardware encoder chip is cheaper than a hardware AV1 encoder.  Now.   That will 
change in the future, though.

>https://www.libde265.org/blog/2014/02/22/gstreamer-4k-h265-hevc-plugin/
>Anything that uses gstreamer can play h.265 with this gst plugin and
>libde265 library..

None of this hodgepodge of programs is going to be able to keep up with 
encoding a video stream using
A low power CPU like the ARM A9 in a camera.  That's why they use hardware 
encoders.

>Whether a plugin/extension/HTML5/js/nodejs can be massaged so as to display in 
>a web browser is another exercise.

Once more it's pointless since Chrome supports the hardware decoders in Kaby 
Lake and later CPUs that have them.

>H.265 is a topic on the Zoneminder forums, so they are aware:
>https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?t=31787

Actually, everything on that above link is wrong.  The first post says:

"the issue is, once enabled, zoneminder no longer allows you to watch saved 
events or scrub multiple events."
 
Which is completely wrong since I'm staring at a Zoneminder saved event that is 
saved in H.265 right this second with no problems!

There's also a post in that thread about decoding H.265 in Javascript which is 
nuts because because Chrome/Edge on modern hardware can already display native 
H.265.  The whole javascript idea would only benefit Firefox, and Chrome 
running on older hardware.  It would be a lot less work to just write a patch 
for Firefox to use the hardware decoder.  Mozilla did this for the hardware AV1 
decoders already, they can do it for the hardware H.265 decoders easily.

I think the posters in that thread really were unclear on the issue.  Of 
course, that thread is older than the fix that Google made to Chrome to support 
hardware decoders.

>https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?p=129677=H.265#p129677   

This link is accurate.  ZM transcodes incoming H.265 or any other video codec a 
camera might use into H.264 for the live view.  The initial poster of that 
thread very likely had some other issue in his configuration.

>Unfortunately, I missed your Zoneminder talk. I have it running here with 2 
>cellphones [1] and just added a Reolink E1 >Pro [2]. Once I figured out that I 
>needed their windows app (WINE FTW!) to activate rtsp and ONVIF I was able to 
>find >the h264 

Re: [PLUG] REMINDER: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The date is tonight is that right?

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2023 11:53 AM
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] REMINDER: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown

Portland Linux/Unix Group General Meeting Announcement

Who: Russell Senior
What: Report on the (bumpy) PLUG hosting transition
Where: Portland Building, Room 216, 1120 SW 5th Avenue, Portland, OR 97204 
(main entrance is on 5th Avenue)
When: Thursday, March 2nd, 2023 at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm)
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom

This month, at Michael Dexter's invitation, Russell (me) has arranged to try 
out a venue in the City of Portland's Portland Building downtown. It is the 
building with the Portlandia statue over the door.

   https://goo.gl/maps/4vkLkHWRK26SrCPi7

Russell is going to talk about the hosting transition(s) that disrupted the 
PLUG community mailing lists during the first three weeks or so of February and 
how we've mostly fished ourselves out of the mess. And it's also a chance to 
check out this public venue, see what it's like and assess its viability going 
forward. There will be a discussion of that as well.

We have reserved the meeting room from 6:30-9:00 pm. The meeting will get 
started at 7pm. Russell is both host and speaker this month. There were some 
feelers out for other speakers, but for various reasons they haven't panned out.

IF YOU DON'T SEE ANYONE AT THE DOOR, I am informed you can call security at 
503-823- to let you in. Tell them you are here for the PLUG meeting in Room 
216. I may recruit a random attendee to do door duty for us.

Rules and Requests:

Please bring and properly fit a mask unless actively presenting

PLUG is open to everyone and does not tolerate abusive behavior on its mailing 
lists or at its meetings

Calagator Page:
http://calagator.org/events/1250480314

Google Maps Link:
https://goo.gl/maps/4vkLkHWRK26SrCPi7

PLUG Page with information about all PLUG events:http://pdxlinux.org/

--
Russell Senior
russ...@pdxlinux.org
PLUG Volunteer

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

- if you are running 
openSUSE on a Kaby Lake or later CPU  If it does not then the Chromium 
maintainer for openSUSE needs to be informed and a bug filed with their 
compilation.

The issue though is what the various derivative browser projects do when they 
are compiled and run on a NON-Kaby lake CPU.  As I have discovered with Ubuntu, 
Brave reports no support, Firefox reports no support (obviously) and Chromium 
only supports it if you build it with libx265 (the source for that is available 
that that URL I posted where the Chromium binaries are that have the software 
support)

I would say it's a bug if Brave, Opera and Chrome all open the video window and 
just stall out.  Instead they should be reporting "codec not available" or 
"H.265 hardware codec not present in system" some reasonable error message.  
That's what I get with Brave on Ubuntu, and that's what you SHOUD be getting on 
openSUSE.

On Ubuntu 20, the specific error message from Brave is  "The video could not be 
loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is 
not supported."  This is in fact a duplicate of the Firefox error message on 
ALL CPUs.

Ted
 

-Original Message-
From: American Citizen  
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 6:04 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group ; Ted Mittelstaedt 

Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

Ted

I am running openSuse Leap 15.4 latest and attempted to run the
https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265 video

Mozilla Firefox gets codec error and aborts

Brave, Opera, and Chrome all open the video window, then stall out.

I wonder if someone should contact the Packman people on this?? They seem to 
stay updated on all linux media things.

- Randall

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Try this:

Go to the following in Firefox:

https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265

Click Download  on the first one - you will get the codec error

If your CPU is Kaby Lake, try that on Chrome.

If not, do it from the Debian-compiled Chromium off the link I posted and it 
will work.

Youtube is probably looking at the browser header and transcoding the video on 
the fly to something other than H.265

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 4:40 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

"Like I said the only option for Firefox, apparently, is downloading the H.265 
video, transcoding it to H.264 via Ffmpeg, then viewing it in Firefox."

I'm running Linux debian 4.19.0-22-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.260-1 (2022-09-29) 
x86_64 GNU/Linux with Firefox 102.5.Oesr and I can play this HEVC H.265 Youtube 
test video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa2bL--exAM

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Just to add to this - the Brave web browser works exactly the same as the 
production Chrome browser works.  (I understand it uses the Chromium engine so 
maybe that is why)

It supports H.265 on a Kaby Lake and later CPU but not on a pre Kaby Lake CPU  
(at least, on Windows. I'll have to test on Ubuntu)

Firefox, OTOH, does NOT support H.265 on EITHER a pre or post Kaby Lake CPU

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 11:51 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

On Ubuntu, ffmpeg and it's libraries are not installed by default, and Firefox 
is installed.

However, even installing via apt install ffmpeg later, Firefox does not use 
those libraries, despite the fact that the installed ffmpeg is indeed compiled 
with --enable-libx265 and /usr/lib/libx265.so.199 is present in the system 
(after installing ffmpeg)

Note that Firefox COULD BE COMPILED to use a HARDWARE based H.265 
implementation if available on The platform it is running on.  In this case, 
there would be no royalty payment required to MPAA-LA from Mozilla

But as I said, this is a religious war.  Mozilla devs appear to be fighting 
every attempt to even include support That legally would not be requiring them 
to pay royalties.

I believe if you attempt to load a H.265  .mp4 in your Archlinux firefox you 
will find it won't play, either.

Like I said the only option for Firefox, apparently, is downloading the H.265 
video, transcoding it to H.264 via Ffmpeg, then viewing it in Firefox.  Which 
is pointless since you can just install VLC on Linux and view the
H.265 file directly.  Or compile Chromium with libx265.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of carl day
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 10:57 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

Maybe distros are different, using Archlinux Firefox depends on ffmpeg, ffmpeg 
depends on libx265 [can make Chrome/Chromium unGooGled]

On 2/27/23, MC_Sequoia  wrote:
> "Is it possible to get Firefox to display HEVC videos?  Everything I 
> have read indicates the Mozilla developers have some religious war 
> thing going on with MPEG-LA and refuse to put support into Firefox for it -"
>
> HEVC isn't supported in Firefox because it's no a license-free codec.
>
> Some people might color that as a "religious war", but those people 
> don't understand the foundational principles and underpinning values 
> and social contracts of Linux, Open Source and the Mozilla Foundation.
>

Re: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Paul Heinlein
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 12:06 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG 
Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )


>In this hypothetical exchange, a business owner who didn't realize that a 
>single PC would make or break a significant customer relationship would in all 
>likelihood not be in business for very long.

I have to disagree with this statement.  There are TONS of smaller businesses 
where they do indeed pass up significant customer relationships all the time 
and yet still remain in business.

It is just that doing this practically guarantees you will remain small.  As a 
business owner if you CHOOSE to do this I don't have a problem with it.  But 
you need to truly understand the risks.

A 1 person business can easily pivot, and pivoting is needed when dancing with 
elephants.  A 10 person company - not so much.  They need to grab every 
opportunity.  I've had a customer that size fail on me.  They expanded too fast 
and collapsed when an elephant stomped on them. (and it was the largest 
elephant out there - the US Government)  As a 10 person company they absolutely 
could not pivot.  They are now a 1 person company - and pivoting - under a 
different name.  Possibly diversifying might not have saved them given the 
industry they were in.  But it might have given them a rathole to flee into.  I 
dunno.

>It's not that I disagree with your assessment, but I don't back off my initial 
>opinion that most IT decisions are based on risk assessment, not technology 
>>assessement. The latter can inform but will rarely trump the former.

Buying an HP Elite or Pro notebook instead of their consumer grade stuff is not 
a technology assessment.  It's a risk assessment.

>Consider the business owner who is cash poor but relatively time rich. Keeping 
>cash on hand can justify the owner's need to spend extra time keeping a 
>>fragile set of systems working. I say "can," not "will" or "must," but I 
>think the point is reasonable.

I used to think this way and indeed it's what motivated me to get into FreeBSD 
and Minix prior to that and TekUX prior to that.  The idea was simple - as a 
poor young man I had lots of time and little cash, so why not spend the time 
learning this "free unix" stuff

But what I learned is there's a point at which that tradeoff fails.   I recall 
many years ago wanting to run the "screens" program on TekUX just because I 
wanted multiple screens on a dialup phone line to a box.  I must have spent a 
month carefully teasing out how to compile it under TekUX until I finally ended 
up with a running binary.

We don't use that program now because you can open multiple SSH or Telnet 
sessions to do the same thing.

And even during the Dark Ages, I could have simply driven into the computer lab 
where the TekUX was located and done exactly the same thing.

Of course, all of that was for my own amusement so you can argue it both ways.  
But, if I had been making money with that, I would have gone broke.

All of this is a lot more subjective than it seems on the surface.  It really 
isn't as simple as it looks and these assessments are more subjective than 
people want to believe.

--
Paul Heinlein
heinl...@madboa.com
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On Ubuntu, ffmpeg and it's libraries are not installed by default, and Firefox 
is installed.

However, even installing via apt install ffmpeg later, Firefox does not use 
those libraries, despite the fact
that the installed ffmpeg is indeed compiled with --enable-libx265 and 
/usr/lib/libx265.so.199 is
present in the system (after installing ffmpeg)

Note that Firefox COULD BE COMPILED to use a HARDWARE based H.265 
implementation if available on
The platform it is running on.  In this case, there would be no royalty payment 
required to MPAA-LA from
Mozilla

But as I said, this is a religious war.  Mozilla devs appear to be fighting 
every attempt to even include support
That legally would not be requiring them to pay royalties.

I believe if you attempt to load a H.265  .mp4 in your Archlinux firefox you 
will find it won't play, either.

Like I said the only option for Firefox, apparently, is downloading the H.265 
video, transcoding it to H.264 via
Ffmpeg, then viewing it in Firefox.  Which is pointless since you can just 
install VLC on Linux and view the
H.265 file directly.  Or compile Chromium with libx265.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of carl day
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 10:57 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

Maybe distros are different, using Archlinux Firefox depends on ffmpeg, ffmpeg 
depends on libx265 [can make Chrome/Chromium unGooGled]

On 2/27/23, MC_Sequoia  wrote:
> "Is it possible to get Firefox to display HEVC videos?  Everything I 
> have read indicates the Mozilla developers have some religious war 
> thing going on with MPEG-LA and refuse to put support into Firefox for it -"
>
> HEVC isn't supported in Firefox because it's no a license-free codec.
>
> Some people might color that as a "religious war", but those people 
> don't understand the foundational principles and underpinning values 
> and social contracts of Linux, Open Source and the Mozilla Foundation.
>

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I understand it but try explaining that to Reolink.

What it boils down to for many is either you lose $1000 on buying a new 
catalytic converter when the skanks cut yours off and run off with it, or you 
fork over $300 in cameras and cabling you do yourself, plus some hours on an 
older PC, to get video that allow the cops to catch the skanks

Since I want my own catcon left in peace I will help figure out how to support 
HEVC.  Foundational principles and underpinning values don't work on an empty 
stomach because you had to spend your grocery bill supporting some skank's drug 
habit by repeatedly buying new catcons for them to steal and sell.

Fortunately for us, the big boys like Intel and company understand this which 
is why they forked over the cash to develop AV1 and why they are coming out 
with CPUs with AV1 codecs.  They have had enough of MPA-LA just like Mozilla 
has, but unlike me they had the cash to do something about it.

But until then, me and Reolink are stuck with HEVC.

This is a game of elephants.  We are just trying to avoid being stepped on.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of MC_Sequoia
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 8:54 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Cc: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

"Is it possible to get Firefox to display HEVC videos?  Everything I have read 
indicates the Mozilla developers have some religious war thing going on with 
MPEG-LA and refuse to put support into Firefox for it -"

HEVC isn't supported in Firefox because it's no a license-free codec. 

Some people might color that as a "religious war", but those people don't 
understand the foundational principles and underpinning values and social 
contracts of Linux, Open Source and the Mozilla Foundation. 

Re: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The problem with that is that the assessment itself is biased.  If a business 
owner is doing the assessment they tend to bias against cost.

But, what happens if a customer calls at the very moment your receptionist's PC 
is crashed, and she says "sorry I can't help my computer is down"
And that customer says "no problem" hangs up, calls someone else, then over the 
next decade develops $200k of business with that vendor?

Lost opportunity cost.  It's not easy to quantify so the business owners doing 
the assessment on new gear tend to discount $downtimeRisk.  Which is why
So many small businesses remain small, to be perfectly frank.

Personally as a 1 man shop I'm OK with remaining small.  But if you are a small 
business owner who employs others, you have a responsibility to provide 
continued employment for them, and that means prioritizing $downtimeRisk.  At 
least, that's my take on it.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Paul Heinlein
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 8:39 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG 
Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )


>IT systems, like every other business asset, are assessed primarily from a 
>risk-management POV, not a technological one. And, frankly, this is 
>>appropriate. Business owners need justifications for expenses. 
>If spending ($cheapGear + ($serviceCall * 3) + $downtimeRisk) is lower than 
>($bestGear), then the argument for the best gear is dicey.

Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

TLDR

As I said, people leave bleeding...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJXYhdfR6Q

Ted



-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 7:42 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List 
Meltdown

OMG everyone needs to get over it. Two wrongs don't make a right. 

This obligatory XKCD reference applies to both side of the isle...
https://xkcd.com/169/

-Ben


--- Original Message ---
On Monday, February 27th, 2023 at 7:30 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt 
 wrote:


> I agree this should have been originally posted to plug-talk but it was not, 
> which is why my response was to plug and why this response is also to plug. I 
> am not going to accept a label of "covid denier" since I am not one, nor was 
> I advising people to take no precautions.
> 
> So I'm a "covid denier" eh? OK let's look at this particular logical game, 
> called "cancelling someone"
> 
> The CDC's rules are that that anyone who does not bother with getting 
> additional vaccines is going to get COVID and thus is a COVID denier.
> 
> Except, the CDC also stated that COVID was not in the US in 2019. I got sick 
> in 2019 around Thanksgiving.
> 
> So, if someone wanting to cancel me based on the CDC's rules asserts I had 
> COVID in 2019, and am denying I had it, then they are asserting the CDC was 
> lying. So if the CDC is lying about that, then it's lying about the basis for 
> me being a COVID denier - so they lose.
> 
> However, if that person accepts that I DID NOT have COVID in 2019, then since 
> I did NOT get it even while being exposed (before vaccines were available), 
> and because I have not taken the full course of vaccines, once more the CDC 
> is lying, and so it's also lying about the basis for me being a COVID denier. 
> So, once more - the person trying to cancel me loses the game.
> 
> I've had plenty of experience playing the cancel culture game and most 
> people who play it with me leave bleeding. LOL
> 
> Ted
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG plug-boun...@lists.pdxlinux.org On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
> 
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 11:28 PM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
> 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a 
> Mailing List Meltdown
> 
> I've never seen a COVID denier admit that they had COVID.
> 
> 
> -Ben
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- Original Message ---
> On Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 10:38 PM, Jake Bottero j...@botteronet.net 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > Good grief. A COVID denier, or what I call, a Covidiot.
> > 
> > On Sun, Feb 26, 2023, 20:52 Ted Mittelstaedt t...@portlandia-it.com wrote:
> > 
> > > The last time I had a severe respiratory infection was 
> > > Thanksgiving
> > > 2019 through January 2020. I've only had the 2 original Moderna 
> > > shots. However during the entire pandemic I was still out and 
> > > about
> > > - since you can't do IT consulting on a server that's down remotely.
> > > Even long before the Moderna vaccine came out. I must have been 
> > > exposed dozens of times. Never got it. And have never gotten a 
> > > cold or flu or anything since 2019. I guess I'm a Typhoid Mary, lol.
> > > 
> > > FWIW,
> > > 
> > > I have always felt that there's a TON of stuff that "they" know 
> > > about COVID that is being withheld from the general public. I've 
> > > read so many stories of people repeatedly exposed and not come 
> > > down with it, some completely unvaccinated, and stories of people 
> > > vaccinated to the gills but still got it. I think that there has 
> > > GOT to be a genetic marker that indicates susceptibility to it 
> > > that "they" know about that they are not telling us about. And 
> > > Trump must have been told he was most likely immune or if he did 
> > > get it it would be a light case, otherwise he wouldn't have been 
> > > running around unmasked. I never believed the stories about how 
> > > the best medicine in the world saved him when he got COVID. He 
> > > knew it would be a light case, he wanted to get it to seem like he was 
> > > "one of us" and only after he got it and looked like a fool did he 
> > > backpedal on that.
> > > 
> > > I'll die of old age before knowing the truth but I hope my 
> > > descendants generations files a Freedom of Information request eventually.
> > > 
> > > Ted
> > > 
> > > > Full disclosure: I recently had covid. I was fully (5 times) vaccinated.
> > > > I was exposed on February 8. I started having symptoms on 
> > > > February 10. The symptoms weren't pleasant but remained pretty mild.
> > > > Started testing positive on Feb 12, had pretty much recovered by 
> > > > February 15th, but continued >testing positive until my first 
> > > > negative test on February 20. I tested negative again on the 21st, 
> > > > 22nd, and 25th.

Re: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Raised flooring went out with IBM servers, lol.  Far easier to run overhead 
cable management.  I'm not a fan of pulling a raised floor to get at a cable 
and finding a dead rat down there.

The Dell and HP systems require an extra license fee be paid to enable the 
remote tools and most of my customers are smaller.  Their tendency is to try to 
press workstations into use as servers, it's a big stretch to get them to 
actually buy a real server like a Proliant, let alone pay the additional fees 
to enable ILO. It's also kind of hard to reach those servers when the Internet 
connection itself is down.  I have actually in a few cases in the past gotten 
2-3 year old servers off Ebay for a particular customer who was resistant to 
the idea of paying real money to replace the typical 5 year old workstation box 
out of warranty under the CEO's desk that gets kicked occasionally.  I've also 
supplied at very little cost (since I picked them up used for free or very 
little cost) relay racks and shelving and other accessories to some customers 
to outfit a closet as a "server room"

Once I get them setup with real server hardware and they notice wow - the 
server isn't going down every week - then they start to become believers.  But 
it takes a lot of baby steps and time for this.  And there's a LOT of hack 
techs running around out there who are happy to continue nursing the 5 year old 
workstation boxes out of warranty under the CEO's desk that get kicked 
occasionally.  I guess their MO is make money from service calls so they 
encourage that nonsense.  I only do retainers so as I explain to my customers, 
_I_ have a financial incentive for things to NOT go down because if they are 
going down all the time, my retainer fee isn't going to cover my time, whereas 
if you are paying that fee and you never see me, then that's good for you 
because then things are never going down, got it?  It's like a revelation to 
some of them.

The other thing is that most smaller customers do not, in fact, have a real 
Terminal Server.  What I do in those cases is either setup VPNs using Untangle 
as a firewall (Untangle has very slick support for OpenVPN) to replace the 
usual 4 port Netgear router or cablemodem/router combo, or I load Microsoft 
Remote Desktop Gateway Server on one of their servers than setup the RDP 
clients to use the GW server.  They RDP into their desktops not a terminal 
server.

The remote KVM's are cool but once more, you have to have an operating Internet 
connection for them to work.  With my customers most of their downtime is due 
to workstation issues and Internet connectivity so a KVM is not going to help.  
And there's a whole circus to discuss on what is called "solid workstation 
hardware"   It's why I only buy HP Elites and Pros nowadays for myself and my 
family members instead of the crappy stuff.  But when a small business is 
looking at upgrading 10-20 desktops it's very hard for them to see why they 
should double their spend for good gear when they can get the cheap crap for 
half the cost of good gear.

Ted


-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Robert Citek
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 10:19 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Remote work on downed server ( Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG 
Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown )

On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 9:52 PM Ted Mittelstaedt 
wrote:

> However during the entire pandemic I was still out and about - since 
> you can't do IT consulting on a server that's down remotely.


By "server", I am assuming that you mean some system on rails in a rack in a 
datacenter with raised flooring, hot/cold aisles, redundant power/networking, 
and physical security.  In that environment, you usually can ( and want to ) be 
able to work on a downed server remotely.  For example, Dell has iDRAC/DRAC and 
HP has iLO.  For those systems that don't have built-in out-of-band ( OOB ) 
management, there are multi-port KVM over IP switches with many having virtual 
USB/CDs and power control.[1]  For single use, there is the Lantronix Spider 
which is also available with remote power control.[2]  In other words, you can 
connect over the internet to the DRAC/KVM ( e.g. ssh ), upload an ISO of your 
OS onto the virtual CD, power cycle the box, and have full remote control from 
BIOS to RAID to OS repair/installation.

If the issue is hardware, e.g. bad drive, bad power supply, you put in a 
service request to remote hands at the data center and have them hot-swap your 
cold spare for the bad device.  You've given them a copy of your runbook.  They 
know what to do.

lf the system has truly failed, you have a new system sent to the data center.  
When it arrives, have remote hands swap the bad for the good, plugging it into 
the OOB so you can once again access it remotely.  And they package and send 
the bad system back to wherever.

On the other hand, if by "server" you mean

Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I agree this should have been originally posted to plug-talk but it was not, 
which is why my response was to plug and why this response is also to plug.  I 
am not going to accept a label of "covid denier" since I am not one, nor was I 
advising people to take no precautions.

So I'm a "covid denier" eh?  OK let's look at this particular logical game, 
called "cancelling someone"

The CDC's rules are that that anyone who does not bother with getting 
additional vaccines is going to get COVID and thus is a COVID denier.

Except, the CDC also stated that COVID was not in the US in 2019.  I got sick 
in 2019 around Thanksgiving.

So, if someone wanting to cancel me based on the CDC's rules asserts I had 
COVID in 2019, and am denying I had it, then they are asserting the CDC was 
lying.  So if the CDC is lying about that, then it's lying about the basis for 
me being a COVID denier - so they lose.

However, if that person accepts that I DID NOT have COVID in 2019, then since I 
did NOT get it even while being exposed (before vaccines were available), and 
because I have not taken the full course of vaccines, once more the CDC is 
lying, and so it's also lying about the basis for me being a COVID denier.  So, 
once more - the person trying  to cancel me loses the game.

I've had plenty of experience playing the cancel culture game and most people 
who play it with me leave bleeding. LOL

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 11:28 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List 
Meltdown

I've never seen a COVID denier admit that they had COVID.


-Ben


--- Original Message ---
On Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 10:38 PM, Jake Bottero  
wrote:


> Good grief. A COVID denier, or what I call, a Covidiot.
> 
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2023, 20:52 Ted Mittelstaedt t...@portlandia-it.com wrote:
> 
> > The last time I had a severe respiratory infection was Thanksgiving 
> > 2019 through January 2020. I've only had the 2 original Moderna 
> > shots. However during the entire pandemic I was still out and about 
> > - since you can't do IT consulting on a server that's down remotely. 
> > Even long before the Moderna vaccine came out. I must have been 
> > exposed dozens of times. Never got it. And have never gotten a cold 
> > or flu or anything since 2019. I guess I'm a Typhoid Mary, lol.
> > 
> > FWIW,
> > 
> > I have always felt that there's a TON of stuff that "they" know 
> > about COVID that is being withheld from the general public. I've 
> > read so many stories of people repeatedly exposed and not come down 
> > with it, some completely unvaccinated, and stories of people 
> > vaccinated to the gills but still got it. I think that there has GOT 
> > to be a genetic marker that indicates susceptibility to it that 
> > "they" know about that they are not telling us about. And Trump must 
> > have been told he was most likely immune or if he did get it it 
> > would be a light case, otherwise he wouldn't have been running 
> > around unmasked. I never believed the stories about how the best 
> > medicine in the world saved him when he got COVID. He knew it would 
> > be a light case, he wanted to get it to seem like he was "one of us" and 
> > only after he got it and looked like a fool did he backpedal on that.
> > 
> > I'll die of old age before knowing the truth but I hope my 
> > descendants generations files a Freedom of Information request eventually.
> > 
> > Ted
> > 
> > > Full disclosure: I recently had covid. I was fully (5 times) vaccinated.
> > > I was exposed on February 8. I started having symptoms on February 
> > > 10. The symptoms weren't pleasant but remained pretty mild. 
> > > Started testing positive on Feb 12, had pretty much recovered by 
> > > February 15th, but continued >testing positive until my first 
> > > negative test on February 20. I tested negative again on the 21st, 22nd, 
> > > and 25th.

Re: [PLUG] ANNOUNCEMENT: March PLUG Meeting: Anatomy of a Mailing List Meltdown

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The last time I had a severe respiratory infection was Thanksgiving 2019 
through January 2020.  I've only had the 2 original Moderna shots.  However 
during the entire pandemic I was still out and about - since you can't do IT 
consulting on a server that's down remotely.  Even long before the Moderna 
vaccine came out.  I must have been exposed dozens of times.  Never got it.  
And have never gotten a cold or flu or anything since 2019.  I guess I'm a 
Typhoid Mary, lol.

FWIW,

I have always felt that there's a TON of stuff that "they" know about COVID 
that is being withheld from the general public.   I've read so many stories of 
people repeatedly exposed and not come down with it, some completely 
unvaccinated, and stories of people vaccinated to the gills but still got it.  
I think that there has GOT to be a genetic marker that indicates susceptibility 
to it that "they" know about that they are not telling us about.  And Trump 
must have been told he was most likely immune or if he did get it it would be a 
light case, otherwise he wouldn't have been running around unmasked.  I never 
believed the stories about how the best medicine in the world saved him when he 
got COVID.  He knew it would be a light case, he wanted to get it to seem like 
he was "one of us" and only after he got it and looked like a fool did he 
backpedal on that.

I'll die of old age before knowing the truth but I hope my descendants 
generations files a Freedom of Information request eventually.

Ted

>Full disclosure: I recently had covid. I was fully (5 times) vaccinated. I was 
>exposed on February 8. I started having symptoms on February 10. The >symptoms 
>weren't pleasant but remained pretty mild. Started testing positive on Feb 12, 
>had pretty much recovered by February 15th, but continued >testing positive 
>until my first negative test on February 20. I tested negative again on the 
>21st, 22nd, and 25th.

[PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Hi All,

I have a perplexing question I am seeking answers to.  Note that this DOES 
concern BOTH Windows and Linux, I'll start off with Windows.

So as I mentioned in my talk on security cams the Reolink cam I passed around 
outputs video over the network.  There are 2 streams it makes available, a 
primary stream and a substream.

The primary stream is the full resolution of the camera and it outputs in 
H.265.  The substream is a much more limited resolution of the camera and it 
outputs in H.264

Normally the way you configure the NVR is to do all the motion analysis and 
triggering on the substream, because it is not compressed and since it's lower 
resolution this is much less taxing on the CPU of the NVR since it does not 
have to decompress every frame just to do motion detection analysis on it.   
Then you set a trigger on the main stream so the NVR only records the main 
stream when there's motion.  Basically the NVR just throws the H.265 video 
directly to the hard disk, no analysis.

This of course creates a bunch of H.265 archival event *.mp4 files on the hard 
disk of the NVR should you ever have to go back and review video.

Now, under a fresh install of Windows 10 build 22H2 , what I have discovered is 
that with a brand new Windows 10 installation on a PC that has a pre-Kaby Lake 
CPU, (pre Kaby Lake CPUs do not have a hardware H.265 codec in them) all 3 of 
the major web browsers - Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, will NOT show the video 
files, and will throw a message about codec being unavailable.  In addition, 
Windows Media Player will not play it either.  Nor will the latest "Media 
Player" player (there is a version of Media Player which is the player that 
replaced Groove Music in Windows 11 that works on Windows 10 that Microsoft 
accidentally let slip out)

If you go to the Microsoft Windows Store, and you download a 99 cent HEVC codec 
from Microsoft, titled HEVC Video Extensions, then Edge will now play the 
videos as well as the old Windows Medial Player and the new Media Player.

(I am aware that VLC and Klite codec with Windows Media Player Classic contain 
open source HEVC decoders that nobody has paid a patent fee to MPEG-LA to that 
will play these videos but I'm not going to go there at the moment.

Under a brand new installation of Windows 11 build 22H2 on a Kaby Lake CPU or 
later (such as my laptop which has a Core i5-8365U CPU in it) _BOTH_ Edge and 
Chrome _will_ display H.265 encoded videos WITHOUT the 99 cent HEVC video 
extensions app from Microsoft, and without any other HEVC extension.

In the past, Microsoft included this thing called "HEVC Video Extensions for 
Device Manufacturer" in older Windows 10 builds.  Allegedly, during windows 
installation if it detected a Kaby Lake CPU it would install this.  However, it 
appears that later versions of Edge broke compatibility with that although the 
Windows Media Player did work with it on Kaby Lake.  THIS EXTENSION IS _NOT_ 
INSTALLED on a fresh Windows 11 build 22H2 on a Kaby Lake CPU.

When I had Windows 10 on my Kaby Lake CPU laptop, either with or without the 
HEVC extensions, Chrome refused to display H.265 videos.

Under the latest version of Ubuntu, running on a pre-Kaby Lake CPU, Firefox 
will NOT display H.265 videos which is what I expected.

However, there is a version of Chrome/Chromium that appears to be compiled with 
a software H.265 decoder in it located at 
https://github.com/StaZhu/enable-chromium-hevc-hardware-decoding/releases that 
DOES play HEVC videos on Ubuntu on systems that have a pre Kaby Lake CPU.

So, what I am trying to find out is the following:


  1.  Is it possible to get Firefox to display HEVC videos?  Everything I have 
read indicates the Mozilla developers have some religious war thing going on 
with MPEG-LA and refuse to put support into Firefox for it - EVEN WHEN the 
underlying CPU is Kaby Lake, with the hardware codec.  They seem to think that 
they can push VP9 or AV1 codecs but the problem is vp9 is not as efficient as 
HEVC and none of the cheaper security cameras seem to output in this format 
anyway - they all output in HEVC.  I assume some of the cost of the camera is a 
patent fee paid to MPEG-LA
  2.  Obviously, the compiled version of Chromium with the software HEVC 
decoder in it has not yet come to the attention of the MPEG-LA's lawyers who 
have not yet filed a takedown request on it (I am not going to get involved in 
discussing that patent mess - it's well documented on the Internet if you care 
to look for it)  It's built on the open-source Chrome code.  I don't know, of 
course, if it's code will actually use a hardware decoder if one is present or 
not, but I KNOW it's decoder must have a software codec in it since it runs on 
hardware with an Intel Core i5-4570 CPU (which is definitely pre-Kaby Lake)

I have read that it should be possible for anyone to download Chrome and 
compile it with the h265 codec enabled since apparently Chrome's developers 

Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Unfortunately my experience in "technical blog posts" is that most of them are 
crap, they are put together by people who run scraping software that rips off 
content from other people's sites then assembles it to try to make money off 
advertising on their sites.

Unless the technical post is part of a forum that has a lot of participation on 
it to where people with more knowledge/experience can either add to it or 
refute it, usually it's just not that good.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG [mailto:plug-boun...@lists.pdxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Ben Koenig
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2023 1:19 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?

None of this is news. That entire blog post looks like it written to appeal to 
someone who spent the last 30 years not asking how the internet works then 
freaking out after realizing what is possible. No joke, I read the following 
quote from that article and nearly fell out of my chair.

"What’s ironic about device fingerprinting is that the more privacy-centered 
add-ons you install on your browser (e.g. Privacy Badger, Do Not Track Me, 
Ghostery to name a few) in a bid to protect the remnants of your privacy, the 
easier it becomes to identify you because of the uniqueness of your browser’s 
configuration."

ROFLMAO. It's so brilliantly stupid that it cannot be refuted by logical means. 
That whole article is an accurate example of human intelligence after decades 
of inadvertent lead exposure. Nice.

-Ben


--- Original Message ---
On Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 10:21 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt 
 wrote:


> Why is this even necessary to look at nonsense like the plugins, both HP, 
> Dell, and Lenovo computers make their motherboard serial numbers available 
> via BIOS calls and those serial numbers are unique. Hard disks also have 
> unique serial numbers and of course the LAN MAC addresses and Bluetooth 
> BD_ADDR are unique. The machine's ARP cache is not protected either so if 
> they really want to fingerprint they can look at the netmask in use, setup a 
> loop and ping every IP in the network then pull all the MAC addresses out of 
> the ARP cache and then if they really want to get clever they can match the 
> MACs and see if any other machines on the local network that they have 
> fingerprints for are online.
>
> The entire hoo-ha over Intel putting serial numbers in it's CPUs a few years 
> back was complete baloney, a red herring to distract the masses.
>
> The clearcode article is just barely scraping the surface and what they say 
> is being collected sounds like amateur hour.
>
> Ted
>
> -Original Message-
> From: PLUG [mailto:plug-boun...@lists.pdxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Michael 
> Rasmussen
> Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2023 10:46 AM
> To: Portland Linux/Unix Group p...@pdxlinux.org
>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?
>
>
>
> Fingerprint computes avail themselfs to a variety of items that, taken 
> together, come close to uniquely identifing your computer.
>
> From:
> https://clearcode.cc/blog/device-fingerprinting/#What-information-is-collected-to-create-a-device-fingerprint
>
> They list:
>
> * IP address
> * HTTP request headers
> * User agent string
> * Installed plugins
> * Client time zone
> * Information about the client device: screen resolution, touch support, 
> operating system and language
> * Flash data provided by a Flash plugin
> * List of installed fonts
> * Silverlight data
> * List of mime-types
>
> For more information you can check out the description of it on
> Wikipedia:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint
>
> * Timestamp
> *
>
> --
>
> Michael Rasmussen
> Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity

Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Why is this even necessary to look at nonsense like the plugins, both HP, Dell, 
and Lenovo computers make their motherboard serial numbers available via BIOS 
calls and those serial numbers are unique.  Hard disks also have unique serial 
numbers and of course the LAN MAC addresses and Bluetooth BD_ADDR are unique.  
The machine's ARP cache is not protected either so if they really want to 
fingerprint they can look at the netmask in use, setup a loop and ping every IP 
in the network then pull all the MAC addresses out of the ARP cache and then if 
they really want to get clever they can match the MACs and see if any other 
machines on the local network that they have fingerprints for are online.

The entire hoo-ha over Intel putting serial numbers in it's CPUs a few years 
back was complete baloney, a red herring to distract the masses.

The clearcode article is just barely scraping the surface and what they say is 
being collected sounds like amateur hour.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG [mailto:plug-boun...@lists.pdxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Michael 
Rasmussen
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2023 10:46 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] [PLUG-TALK] How do web servers identify visitor devices?



Fingerprint computes avail themselfs to a variety of items that, taken 
together, come close to uniquely identifing your computer.

 From: 
https://clearcode.cc/blog/device-fingerprinting/#What-information-is-collected-to-create-a-device-fingerprint

They list:

* IP address
* HTTP request headers
* User agent string
* Installed plugins
* Client time zone
* Information about the client device: screen resolution, touch 
support, operating system and language
* Flash data provided by a Flash plugin
* List of installed fonts
* Silverlight data
* List of mime-types

For more information you can check out the description of it on
Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint

* Timestamp
*

-- 

Michael Rasmussen
Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity

Re: [PLUG] Testing the new OSUOSL hosted mailman set up

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Clicking reply shows  plug@lists.pdxlinux.org instead of p...@pdxlinux.org   
don't know if that matters or not.

Ted

-Original Message-
From: PLUG  On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 4:27 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group 
Subject: [PLUG] Testing the new OSUOSL hosted mailman set up

Hi out there!


-- 
Russell Senior
russ...@personaltelco.net