Re: [SLUG] today's scary thought
On 16/07/10 12:31 PM, Daniel Pittman wrote: Also, lots of different apps, so I might well end up with multiple solutions. A good distributed POSIX FS with replication, eventual consistency, some sensible conflict resolution model, and data center awareness would have been easy enough to use though. If I could have my pony. ;) So as you and Jamie have both alluded to, this is a pretty hard problem to solve. Most of the Enterprise-y solutions I deal with solve it by pushing the problem down the stack and using $expensive_storage_array with synchronous replication. Possibly over also $expensive_dwdm_fibre. The most accessible of these solutions is probably NetApp's MetroCluster tech. If you truly need real-time POSIX compliant synchronous access between sites, this (and it's kin from HDS and EMC) is pretty much your only choice. Most of the other Open-Source (and indeed, commercial) solutions to doing this at a filesystem-level have left me wanting. We tested and deployed GlusterFS for a large customer project last year, purely for HA file serving, and regretted it so much that we ripped it out in the middle of a busy production period and replaced it with NFS + Rsync (particularly after the customer revised their recovery time objective :)). We've had similar amounts of pain with Microsoft's DFS solution (in Windows land, ugh). As Jamie notes, it's at this point that you'd usually go back and redefine the problem, particularly after the sales dudes make your eyes bleed. :) There are a couple of different shapes this problem usually takes in the market - I want a DR site or I need to share files with a remote branch. Considering these, and their various solutions (Publish/two+ subscribers, move the desktops closer to the data, active/passive access, ...) might give you some more ideas about outside-the-box ways to solve the problem. Your mileage will almost certainly vary. Cheers, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Network Real-Time Hot Filesystem Replication?
Crossfire wrote: I've just spent some time quickly researching this to no real satisfaction. What I'm looking for is a way to do real-time hot-replication of a whole filesystem or filesystem tree over 2 nodes (and strictly 2 nodes) without STOMITH[1]. The scenario is I have two identical systems with local (software) RAID1. They will be tethered onto their internet feed via ethernet, and can optionally be tethered to each other via Gig. I want to be able to set it up so /home (and maybe other filesystems) are replicated from one to the other, in both directions, in real time so they can run in an all-hot redundant cluster. The environment should be mostly read-oriented, so I can live with write-latent solutions as long as they handle the race/collision gracefully (preferably by actually detecting and reporting it if they can't avoid it). I've had some success with Software iSCSI targets on Linux to date. I'm currently using software iSCSI over Gigabit Ethernet to back a VMware ESX cluster[0]. Software iSCSI targets (I have experience only with tgtd - the only one that seemed current) present a Linux block device as an iSCSI target over the network. I present an LVM logical volume. One could conceive of an eventuality where you made both machines iSCSI targets and initiators and ran RAID1 over the local and remote iSCSI targets[1]. I have no idea what sort of (terrible) performance you might get out of this sort of setup, but it would meet your requirements, and with enough RAM for read-caching in each node, it might not be too bad. You would need that Gigabit cross-connect. There are large warnings in the scsi_tgt code about using it in production, however. I suspect this problem space isn't addressed terribly often because, well, (1) it's Hard, (2) most people who care about this stuff buy shared storage (check ebay), (3) It's even Harder once you start talking file systems that do this[2]. Cheers, Matt 0. I can post my recipe for the target bits, if anyone cares. 1. With a global filesystem, of course. 2. Ceph, which Robert Collins suggested above, is a really good example of a brilliantly designed distributed file system (much better than MogileFS, which is more an on-disk hash table with quirks), but I have my doubts about it's suitability for production systems (though I hope it gets there). -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] 2008 SLUG Election Results
Hi All, Please find below the results of the 2008/2009 SLUG Committee Elections, held at the 2008 SLUG Annual General Meeting on Friday 28 March 2008. Congratulations to the new committee, and thank you to the outgoing 2007/2008 Committee. Special thanks to Mary Gardiner, our Returning Officer. Regards, Matt Moor SLUG Secretary === Results === President: Sridhar Dhanapalan (Elected unopposed) Vice-President: Anna Buttfield (Elected unopposed) Treasurer: Ken Wilson (Elected unopposed) Secretary: Carol Hoare (20 Votes, Elected) Konrad Zielinski (10 Votes) Ordinary Members: Sonia Hamilton (24 Votes, Elected) Scott Waller (21 Votes, Elected) Michael Kedzierski (15 Votes, Elected) Konrad Zielinski (12 Votes) Rodger Dean (14 Votes) === Nominations === President: Sridhar Dhanapalan (N: Lindsay HolmWood, S: James Polley, Accepted) Mary Gardiner (N: Robert Collins, Declined) Vice-President: Anna Buttfield (N: Matt Moor, S: Pia Waugh Accepted) Treasurer: Ken Wilson (N: Self, S: Silvia Pfeiffer, Accepted) Secretary: Carol Hoare (N: Self, S: Pia Waugh, Accepted) Konrad Zielinski (N: Self, S: James Dumay, Accepted) Erik de Castro Lopo(N: Matt Moor, Declined) Ordinary Member: Rodger Dean (N: Self, S: Sridhar Dhanapalan, Accepted) Sonia Hamilton (N: Self, S: Accepted) Michael Kedzierski (N: James Dumay, S: Erik de Castro Lopo, Accepted) Scott Waller (N: Silvia Pfeiffer, S: Matt Moor, Accepted) Konrad Zielinski (N: Self, S: Pia Waugh, Accepted) Anna Buttfield (N: James Dumay, S: Sridhar Dhanapalan, Elected to Vice President, didn't run for Ordinary Member) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] (Correction) Re: [SLUG-ANNOUNCE] 2008 SLUG Election Results
Hi All, The post I made earlier this evening of the 2008 SLUG Election Results contained an error. Sonia Hamilton's nomination did in fact have a second, Erik de Castro Lopo. The corrected text should have read: Sonia Hamilton (N: Self, S: Erik de Castro Lopo, Accepted) Regards, Matt Moor Matt Moor wrote: === Nominations === [...] Ordinary Member: Rodger Dean (N: Self, S: Sridhar Dhanapalan, Accepted) Sonia Hamilton (N: Self, S: Accepted) [..] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Nominating Scott Waller
Silvia Pfeiffer wrote: I'd like to nominate Scott Waller for the SLUG committee as an ordinary member. Scott has been taking care of the video recordings of each SLUG meeting for the last year and has reliably recorded, transcoded and published the video. On the committee, he will be in a better position to improve on our video publishing work. Scott is a quiet but highly engaged person. Scott for committee!! Cheers, Silvia. I'll second Scott's nomination. As Silvia mentioned, Scott has made a fantastic contribution to SLUG over the last year, and I think he will make an excellent committee member. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: [SLUG-ANNOUNCE] May SLUG Monthly Meeting
Hi All, Unfortunately Justin is unable to present his talk Building a load-balanced, highly-available web site with Debian, Pound, Apache, Spread and Wackamole. We're currently seeking other speakers on the activities list, so the topic for the general talk is now TBA. :-) Also, please note that we will be returning to last month's restaurant, Sezechewan Chinese Restaurant, in St Leonards for dinner, at a cost of $20 per person. Regards, Matt Lindsay Holmwood wrote: G'day all, == May SLUG Monthly Meeting == When: 18.30 - 20.30, Friday, 25 May, 2007 Where: Level 13, IBM Building, 601 Pacific Highway, St. Leonards This month's meeting will be at the IBM building, Level 13, 601 Pacific Highway, St. Leonards, starting at 18.30. We ask that people arrive 20 minutes early so we can all get into the building and start on time. We will have people stationed at the door of the building to greet and let you into the building. Thanks to the fantastic people at IBM for our great venue! Following on from last month's shortened meeting success, we're again cutting down the talk times so we have more time to eat dinner, hang out and get to know each other a bit better. = Talks = General Talk: Justin Randall - Building a load-balanced, highly-available web site with Debian, Pound, Apache, Spread and Wackamole As the title suggests. :-) Technical Talk: Taryn East - Introduction to Ruby on Rails Taryn will be giving us the scoop on Ruby On Rails (www.rubyonrails.org) and guide us through the land of web development, on Rails! Hope to see y'all there. Lindsay -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] late entry to slug meeting
Hi Amos, Unfortunately IBM security leave at approximately 8pm. This means that no one can gain entry to the building after then. If you do turn up before that, you can just signal the guard to let you into the building and escort you up to the 13th floor. Please have some patience, however - there is only one security guard and he does have duties besides letting SLUGgers into the building, so may not always be at his desk. :) Regards, Matt Amos Shapira wrote: Hello, I've just realized I might be able to make it to the meeting this week but I'll be a bit late. Is anyone here willing to give me their mobile number so I can call them to open the doors downstairs for me? Thanks, --Amos -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Nomination: John Ferlito for Treasurer, Secretary, Ordinary Committee Member
I'd like to nominate John Ferlito for the positions of Treasurer, Secretary and Ordinary Committee Member. John is a valuable member of the community, having been involved in SLUG from the very early days, and more recently as a core member of the LCA2007 team. He has a sound financial and organisational background, having managed numerous businesses while architecting and building the technical infrastructure for linux.conf.au 2007. I feel John can make a strong contribution to the SLUG committee in any of the above positions. Regards, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Nomination: James Polley for Secretary, Ordinary Committee Member
I'd like to nominate James Polley for the positions of Secretary and Ordinary Committee Member. James has shown considerable initiative and dedication to the community in the past six months, volunteering at linux.conf.au 2007 and drafting an important ammendment to the SLUG constitution. James has amazing attention to detail and a thorough commitment to the maintenance and advancement of SLUG's organisational practices. I feel that James can make many important contributions to the SLUG Committee in either of the above positions. Regards, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Nomination: Lindsay Holmwood for President
I'd like to nominate Lindsay Holmwood for the position of President. Lindsay has been a part of the SLUG committee for the past two years, serving as President for the past twelve months. Lindsay has proved himself invaluable, whether simply working out the agenda for a monthly meeting, dealing with organisational issues, or acting as a spokesperson for the association. In particular, Lindsay's work in organising a new venue after the problems with UTS has been instrumental to the continued functioning of the association. I would like to see Lindsay's excellent work continue in the 2007-08 term. Regards, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] 2007-08 SLUG Annual General Meeting
for one of the 2006-2007 committee members will hold your proxy vote. Your email must be digitally signed for it to be accepted as a valid proxy notification. If you are standing for a position and cannot make it to the AGM, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and one of the 2006-2007 committee members will make a statement for you. == Outgoing Committee == The 2006-2007 committee were: President Lindsay Holmwood Vice-president Silvia Pfeiffer Secretary Matt Moor Treasurer Ken Wilson Ordinary Committee Members Jeremy Apthorp Chris Deigan James Dumay Honorary Members None Matt Moor, 2006-2007 Secretary Lindsay Holmwood, 2006-2007 President -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] 686 || !686
Penedo wrote: [...] BTW - speaking of which - the new Xen packages documentation in Debian Etch seem to assume that the user already knows which package he should use. Could someone please tell me yes/no on weather linux-image-2.6.18-3-xen-k7 is the right package to use to run a Xen machine on top of Etch running on AMD Athlon 2500 (the old 32 bit non AMD-V)? Yes, a 32bit AMD Athlon contains a core from the K7 family of CPUs. I'm unsure, however, as to whether you can run a K7 kernel in a domU ontop of an i386/i686 dom0, if that's what you're interested in (Debian package naming is making me unsure about whether the linux-image-blah-xen-k7 package is dom0 or domU, or both, as a little googling would seem to indicate...) Cheers, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: [CTTE] in Sydney on Friday
Hi Russell, Just to make sure you're aware - SLUG is no longer being held at UTS - They started to ask for money - we're now at the IBM building in St Leonards [1]. Meeting times are still the same, however. We're full up for talks this month, but perhaps we could get you to talk about Postal for 5-10 minutes before the main talks? I for one would be very interested :) Cheers, Matt 1. http://www.slug.org.au/node/19 Russell Coker wrote: CC'd the committee in case the [EMAIL PROTECTED] address doesn't go to the members. http://www.ruxcon.org.au/ This weekend I am attending Ruxcon (see the above URL). I will arrive in Sydney at 4PM on Friday. I'll be attending the SLUG meeting which fortunately is on the same weekend. If anyone wants to meet up before the SLUG meeting then let me know, I've currently got nothing planned from 4:30 to 6:30. I can give a talk on something about SE Linux, the latest developments of my Postal benchmark (which I have been actively developing over the last few days), or anything else I know of that people want to learn about. As it's too late for a spot at the main meeting I can only give a talk at a bar before the meeting. That worked well on a previous visit to Sydney. Also if anyone wants to do a GPG key signing, my key is better connected than most people. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] DebSIG: Wednesday 19/07 - Matt Palmer on automated debian/ubuntu installation
Hi All, Sorry for the late announce (of course, those eager beavers and their iCal subscriptions should already know from the SLUG website), but DebSIG is on at 6:30pm Wednesday 19 July at the Cohi Bar - 359 Harbourside Darling Harbour. Tonight's talk will be on automated installation and will be given by our own Matt Palmer (really this time). The blurb: Having wrestled with automated installations recently, Matt will share his hard-won experience with Instalinux, preseeding, kickstart, and the debian-installer -- both how they work, and how they can be customised to do all manner of unnatural things. Should be good for anyone wanting to install multiple Debian/Ubuntu machines with a minimum of pain. Regards, Matt Moor SLUG Secretary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] DebSIG Tonight!
Hi All, Sorry for the late announce (of course, those eager beavers and their iCal subscriptions should already know from the shiny new SLUG website), but DebSIG is on again tonight at the Cohi Bar - 359 Harbourside Darling Harbour. Tonight's talk will be on automated installation and will be given by our own Matt Palmer. The blurb: Having wrestled with automated installations recently, Matt will share his hard-won experience with Instalinux, preseeding, kickstart, and the debian-installer -- both how they work, and how they can be customised to do all manner of unnatural things. Should be good for anyone wanting to install multiple Debian/Ubuntu machines with a minimum of pain. Regards, Matt Moor SLUG Secretary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] DebSIG - Talk change
Hi All, Unfortunately Matt has had to pull out sick at the last minute, and won't be able to present tonight. Instead, we offer random commentary and discussions on Debian Ubuntu. And beer. Apologies to anyone put out by this, but it should be a fun evening anyway. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Sydney Novell User's Group SuSE Installfest
This isn't a SLUG event, but we on the committee thought it might be of interest. Regards, Matt Original Message Subject:[CTTE] Open Invitation Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 02:06:37 +1000 From: SNUG Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, Just want everyone to know that there will be an InstallFest for SUSE Linux Desktop 10 at Novell on the 16th of May in Sydney, 5.30PM sharp. goto www.snug.net.au for more details. It is a great opportunity to talk to Novell engineering about SUSE 10, also great opportunity to mingle with other users. Talk to the Novell about the up and coming new Cool features of the desktop including Beagle, XGL, compiz, etc. and how it will affect your computing life. The meeting is free and there is drink and snack food - all welcome to come. Bring your laptop (we can't cater for PCs) and have Novell guide you through an install. Oh and the laptop must be able to read DVDs - read the recommended hardware list on the snug website. There are giveaways and a luck door prize - a really cool backpack Hope to see you all there Snugmarketing -- SLUG Committee -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Committee Nomination: Matt Moor
Thanks guys! I accept and look forward to contributing to what I hope will be a very exciting year for SLUG. More spiel tonight! Regards, Matt Moor Lindsay Holmwood wrote: G'day all, I'd like to nominate Matt Moor for the positions of Secretary and Ordinary Committee Member. Over the last year Matt has contributed to the Slug community through handling committee correspondence, running meetings, and picking up the slack when necessary. :-) His knowledge of Slug processes would be a great asset to the next committee. Lindsay -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] [Fwd: [CTTE] Linux Management Survey Results]
Original Message Subject:[CTTE] Linux Management Survey Results Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:36:10 -0700 From: Andi Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, You might remember in November last year, I asked for assistance from you and members of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG) for our research on the cost and effort involved in managing Linux server environments. Your members’ responses to our web survey were added to a wide-ranging random telephone survey and in-depth interviews to get a vendor-neutral look at Linux system management. Well, the study is complete now, and I promised to send it to you when it was done. You can get the executive summary from OSDL’s web site at http://osdl.org/newsroom/studies/EMA, and the full PDF is available at the web site of the main sponsor (Levanta) at http://www.levanta.com/linuxstudy/. Please feel free to pass these links along to your members, at your discretion. Both the summary and the full report are available free of charge. I want to thank you again for your help with collecting primary data for this study. Due to the anonymous nature of the web survey, I cannot be sure that your members contributed, but I am sure they will be interested to see the results anyway. If you have any questions or comment, please feel free to contact me. Regards, Andi Mann Senior Analyst Enterprise Management Associates. -- SLUG Committee -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [ot] Using telephone wiring for networking?
Hi Richard, This was one of those buzz-wordy type things a few years ago, and some of the big consumer network device companies put out product. I didn't hear about any of them reaching 100Mbit/s, though - and I'd be really surprised if they did, given the number of pairs available in your standard phone line (CAT3, as others have mentioned). You will need special hardware, as listed on the homepna.org site you linked, and I'm not sure what linux support is like. The equipment would also need to be AUSTel certified to be legal in australia (Perhaps not for a PABX system? Dunno if it would even work in this environment) Cheers, Matt P.S. If it's not AUSTel certified, but you want to take the risk, you'd want to know the difference between the US phone network (voltage, etc), and the australian one. Richard Hayes wrote: Dear List, I have seen claims that normal twisted pair telephone can work up to 100MBits/Sec. Has anyone had any experience with it in the real world? http://www.homepna.org/ -- Richard Hayes Nada Marketing PO Box 12 Gordon Australia 2072 Tel: +(61-2) 9412 4367 Fax: +(61-2) 9412 4920 Mob: +(61) 0414 618 425 www.nada.com.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] PC-BSD vs Desktop-BSD
Hi Dom, BSD is reasonably straight forward, and typically has very good documentation. Since PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD, you should find the FreeBSD hand book at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html useful. If you're looking for something more complete, the bible of FreeBSD books is Greg Lehey's The Complete FreeBSD - http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cfreebsd Regards, Matt Domingo Llavero wrote: Dean, Thanks for the info. I am an expert Windows user *cough cough*, a newbie/internediate Linux user, and definetily nowhere with BSD. Is the any links or books you might recommend that I can read prior to taking the plunge? Thanks, Dom -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] VMware 5 Workstation + Linux = kernel panic?
There are 'issues' with VMWare 5's bridge module and the kernel that ships with Breezy. Apparently, the latest any-any patch will fix it. See here for details: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-77040.html You could also try building your images elsewhere, and runnning them up in VMWare Player. Cheers, Matt P.S. I'm running 5.5 RC2 on Breezy, works great. James Gray wrote: Hi All, The company who puts their logo on my pay cheque requires me to use VMware (as of today) to do some funky product demos. No big deal. However, during the configuration of the 3 VM's I need to run (simultaneously) I found a curious little bug. If I configure a bridging network adapter, in VMware, to either of my laptop's interfaces then bring that interface up, the kernel panics and it's all over. Host networks are fine. Haven't tried NAT'ed networks but we'll see about that when I'm online again. Seems there's something the kernel doesn't like about the bridging VMware network kernel module. I'm running Kubuntu (Breezy) with 2.6.12-9-686. The VMware modules are being compiled with Breezy's GCC-3.4 compiler (which works fine with the ATi binary driver's kernel module). Anyone else seen this before and if so, did you fix it? Google and VMware's website turns up nadda. Cheers, James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Treo 650 on Ubuntu
A little googling: http://soft.zoneo.net/Linux/palm_pictures.php I guess the GNOME utilities might bring the photos across too, so you might want to do a search for *.jpg.pdb.. Cheers, Matt Pia Waugh wrote: Hi all, so I have got my Treo 650 synchronising perfectly on Ubuntu over the USB cable, it just works :) However I haven't yet figured out how to get my photos from the phone. Any suggestions? There doesn't seem to be a conduit for photos. Cheers, Pia -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Fwd: [CTTE] TV Show Request
Original Message Subject:[CTTE] TV Show Request Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:07:28 +1000 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, I'd be very grateful if you'd consider alerting your members to the request shown below, either by internet bulletin board or any e-mail mailing list of your members you may have. Many thanks. Asif Zubairy Series Producer Grundy Television COULD YOU BE DESCRIBED AS AN INTELLEGENT GEEK? GOT A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOUR? ARE YOU READY FOR A NEW CHALLENGE? THEN GRUNDY TELEVISION WANTS YOU! A new TV series is looking for 14 men aged 18 – 25. It will be filmed a few days every week in Dec, January and February in and around Sydney. Successful applicants will have to be flexible about committing time to the project so it would be an advantage if you study or do not have a full time job. The reward is to be part of something that may be a life-changing experience, probably make you a TV star and definitely see you earning some cash for taking part. If you're interested, come to Venue Plus, Ground Floor, 619 Pacific Highway, St. Leonards , NSW 2065 (turn left exiting St Leonards station 300 metres to junction with Christie Street) on Thursday 27 October at 7pm when all will be revealed. Grundy Television Pty Limited considers being male and aged 18-25 is a genuine occupational qualification for this position under sections 31 and 49ZYJ of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) respectively. ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. ** -- SLUG Committee -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Keeping passwords safe
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Jeff Waugh wrote: Maybe not so silly. Obviously you don't want to use to use public key encryption because that would put the private key, the public key and the cipher text all on the same machine. That makes the encrypted data only as secure as the machine its sitting on. Errr, I don't thin thats right. Even if they have the machine, they still don't have the pass phrase. Is that right? Any crypto gurus out there? Essentially, you're correct. A private key (file, chunk o' text, etc) is actually a copy of your private key (the really long number) that's been symmetrically encrypted (with a password as a key). Unfortunately, passwords suck for security (mainly because we suck at making them up and remembering them). So, if you store the keys and the ciphertext together, rather than having a couple of pretty good layers of security (some of which are cryptographically strong), you're left with one pretty brittle one. There's nothing stopping you keeping the private key seperate, though - on a usb key, for instance. It's worth noting here that public key crypto wasn't built for this sort of thing, though, so I'd want to have a long hard think about the design and whether you were doing anything new, lest you introduce some weird vulnerability. Particularly since everyone else seems to do away with the abstraction and use a symmetric cipher. Anyway, based on the idea that public key crypto is still Ok for this, I spent a couple of hours and bashed out a little app using libgpgme and that seems to work for me. This isn't the world's brightest idea -- no offence -- almost every single piece of secure software out there has been shown to have vulnerabilities at one point or another, and you'll find that almost all of those vulnerabilities were related to implementation (assuming they weren't so stupid as to try their own cipher *cough*css*cough*). It's basically impossible to factor every attack vector for an app, and you'll probably go insane trying. :) (as I understand it, the only accepted methodology seems to be peer review) Of course, it depends on how secure you want the info you're protecting to be. Building on a solid crypto library is a really good start, but for your particular app, there are much easier attacks I'd be looking at first, like how you're storing the plain text prior to encryption (memory structure), what you're using to edit the text (oh, you're not using an off-the-shelf are you? bzzt! Most of them have a temp file!), right down to file formats (how do you serialise the data prior to encryption without weakening the crypto scheme?), and what you do with the data in memory prior to encrypting it (PasswordSafe goes so far as to implement a new version of strcpy after they decided that the standard version didn't clean up safely). Then I found the -x option in Vim. Anyone know what crypto algorithm it uses? I really hope its not XOR. Heh. Your garden variety symmetric cipher is a series of functions and XORs. :) Cheers, Matt P.S. Wikipedia seems to have a pretty good introduction to symmetric cryptography and it's (dis)advantages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_cryptography -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Keeping passwords safe
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: The aim was to be secure enough that if I loose my laptop the file can't be decrypted without a a large bunch of smarts and CPU grunt. I think I need to re-evaluate what I'm doing. Have a look at passwordsafe - as you noted below. They've made a reasonable attempt to seperate out the core functions, and describe their data format in the corelib dir. They also get around the editor problem neatly by simplifying the input - generally you'll only want to input a domain, username, password and some notes - so they just present those fields to the user in a gui. I suspect they solve the serialisation problem by using blowfish as a block cipher, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough about the crypto (yet :)) as to whether that really is the case/solves the problem. [..] Anyone now of a nice lib for symmetrix crypto? I know gpg does symmetric as well as PK, but libgpgme does not expose that. OpenSSL's libcrypto. Can't say I've had opportunity to use it, but it looked ok last I checked (and lots of people use it). Various bindings are around, I gather. Cheers, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Keeping passwords safe
There's passwordsafe: http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/. It was written originally by Bruce Schneier, but has long passed out of his hands. It's for windows, but see the 'related projects' link. PasswordSafe is really good at what it does crypto-wise. The implementation's certainly passed the test of time. There have been two Java ports published in the last few months: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jpws and http://blogs.bytecode.com.au/glen/2005/07/28/1122498227186.html Of course, without having looked at the code, they may well have done something horribly stupid implementation wise (not all that hard to do w/ crypto), given their language choice dictates throwing the existing code base (C++) out the window. I had looked to do a Linux port of the existing code base, but C++ and MFC don't really feature on my 'this would be fun to play with' list. The codebase is a bit tangled and messy too. Cheers, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Wireless Help Please
Hi Kevin, A little bit of poking around led me to this: http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/#issues The first issue on the page seems relevant - it would seem that the hotplug timeout is too low. I would have thought that you'd be able to load the firmware even with the transmitter switch off, but I may be wrong. Cheers, Matt Kevin Fitzgerald wrote: Hi All Just got a new laptop with wireless inbuilt and I realised I have never tried setting up wireless before so I may need sme guidance please. dmesg is finding the card (see Below) but I'm getting errors. I tried iwconfig but no luck yet. Can anyone shed me a little light on what to look for next Kev Fedora core 4 HP Pavillion zt3000 dmesg section 8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v1.2 (Mar 22, 2004) ACPI: PCI Interrupt :02:01.0[A] - Link [C0C3] - GSI 10 (level, low) - IRQ 10 eth0: RTL-8139C+ at 0xe0826000, 00:0f:b0:40:ce:b6, IRQ 10 ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL' ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.0 ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [C0C5] enabled at IRQ 5 ACPI: PCI Interrupt :02:02.0[A] - Link [C0C5] - GSI 5 (level, low) - IRQ 5 ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2 ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: 0xFFFE ipw2200: failed to register network device ipw2200: probe of :02:02.0 failed with error -5 ACPI: PCI Interrupt :00:1f.5[B] - Link [C0C3] - GSI 10 (level, low) - IRQ 10 PCI: Setting latency timer of device :00:1f.5 to 64 intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 49447 usecs intel8x0: clocking to 48000 ACPI: PCI Interrupt :00:1f.6[B] - Link [C0C3] - GSI 10 (level, low) - IRQ 10 PCI: Setting latency timer of device :00:1f.6 to 64 hw_random: RNG not detected -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Low - mid level graphic card recommendations
That's certainly out of the norm, at least from my experience (with a couple of boxes). Before I the motherboard died, I was running an athlon machine with a Geforce2 MX 24/7 for 2 years. I was rebooting every 2-3 months (usually for kernel or hardware upgrades), but iirc, never had X or the box crash on me. Perhaps it's something funky about your work machine? Have you tried the non-proprietary drivers? (If you can) - Matt Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Harald Ashburner wrote: Assertion 1: There is no decent open source drivers for 3D video cards Unfortunately, this definitely does seem to be true. My box at work has the binary Nvidia drivers and about once a fortnight or so, X dies, restarts and provides me with GDM login screen. For someone who keeps half a dozen windows open with what I'm working on, this is a royal PITA. Erik -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] DirecPC under Linux (Telstra Sattelite)
A quick google uncovered this, but there doesn't seem to be too much doco available.. http://sourceforge.net/projects/direcpc and http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:m088cZRuls8J:www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/howtos/direcpc But not much else. DirecPC is immensely popular in the parts of the US that can't get other broadband, so one would expect that there's some support, somewhere. Cheers, Matt Ryan Verner wrote: Hi there, Anybody had any experiences setting up 1-way DirecPC (Telstra Bigpond) satellite with an uplink through an NT1+II USB ISDN modem on Linux? The DirecPC USB modem is a Hughes Network Systems (HNS) Sattelite Device, model ISU-R1. I seem to remember some commercial software a few years ago to achieve this, but I can't seem to find anything (at least, even remotely recent). Thanks, R -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Kernel Panic - missing file system from kernel?
Terry Collins wrote: I have Debian woody running with kernel 2.2.20. I am trying to build 2.4.27 and apart from a kernel build that takes a few hours, each time I try to boot it, I get a kernel panic. It's Been A Long Time, but iirc there are some very significant system tools upgrades that have to happen for a 2.2 - 2.4 kernel upgrade, and you'll want to be sure you're doing them. Perhaps the easiest way to get it going is to apt-get a debian packaged 2.4 kernel (they're in Woody), and let it track dependencies. Upgrading from there to a newer 2.4 kernel is somewhat more trivial and should cause you less pain. Regards, Matt Moor -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Squid accelerator + SSL
So, the way that we do this, along with a million other suckers running IIS is to use apache and mod_proxy and/or mod_backhand. Our apache server is configured to only serve SSL (i.e. redirects requests to port 80 to 443), and we have a vhost for the site in question, with mod_proxy pushing the URLs off to this other site (which is only available in house). Cheers, Matt Bruce Badger wrote: On Tue, 2005-06-07 at 12:00 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not sure if this is even possible. We have an Exchange server behind our Linux firewall runnning webmail on port 80. Would it be possible to run Squid as an accelerator on the firewall but adding SSL to it? So basically within our lan it uses http but from outside (the firewall via Squid) it uses https. Any ideas on how to make this webmail run over https outside our network. Thanks. Carlo I certainly hope this is possible, because this is exactly what we plan to do for the OpenSkills SkillsBase and membership systems. Rob Collins pointed in the direction of the (still unreleased) Squid 3.0 as having better reverse-proxy support for authentication, SSL and load balancing. So far we are using the authentication capability only, but have tested out the load balancing. The SSL stuff is on the list of things to do soon. If you would like to work together on this, let me know. All the best, Bruce -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] java security in Linux
this is what I would like to be clear about Apart from spamfilters, is reliance on JVM design enough? (apart from continually reminding the users) So, as others have pointed out, JavaScript in browsers and email has nothing to do with the Java programming language and JVM. But, to answer the general question on the JVM: The JVM, and particularly the applet component of it, which is the only piece of software accessible from your browser, is a very mature piece of software. It's been around for ~10 years on solaris/windows, and at least 5 on linux. Given the relatively open nature of the design, you'd expect any glaring security flaws to be identified and fixed in subsequent versions (as they were with MS' JVM). It's also worth noting that even if an applet were to escape out of a sandbox, and try to do something naughty, it would be trapped by UNIX permissions, unless you were silly enough to do something like run the offending applet as root. A basic introduction to the JVM security model is here: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-1997/jw-08-hood.html Cheers, Matt Moor -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Request/issue trackers - options?
We use Request Tracker for helpdesk ticketing in here, and it rocks. We've got ~20k requests/issues in it, across 4 queues, and from other sites I've seen, this is small. We handle errors, requests for new services and tracking general issues. The only comment I'd make is that I don't think it'll allow you to classify a request into a category like other bug tracking / issue tracking software might. It seems more aimed towards helpdesk use than anything else. You might also want to look at deb-bugs (The debian bug tracking system). Cheers, Matt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just a general question for the list. We've got the mediawiki going for general feature whiteboarding but it really doesn't cut it as an issue/bug database. I was wondering what other people are using to manage bug lists and issues /feature requests? The ones I've heard of include: Request Tracker IssueZilla BugZilla confluence (not sure if open source?) Any perferences and/or war stories most appreciated. ATB Stu -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Geographic Information Systems and PostgreSQL
I've run a few more tests... I remember someone saying that they had the loan of a kick-arse server as a test bench (was it Matt? can't remember) Funny story, that. We sent it back, but not before it (helped) take out a power circuits in the office where it was located. :( Before I could do too much testing, either. But we did get a kernel compile in 200s (with fairly conservative make options). Cheers, Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Copyright and FTA seminars -- Aus. Copyright Council
Hi All, The following was sent to me at work, and it's probably of interest to some/all of you: Has the Free Trade Agreement given you a bad dose of copyfright? Many people are worried about the effect of the Australia US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) on copyright. Does it affect the duration of copyright? What about out-of-copyright material? And is it true that some things that weren t copyright issues before such as playing a pirated CD or DVD are now copyright infringements? These and other changes in the law will be covered in the Australian Copyright Council s 2005 copyright seminar program. * Copyright Essentials: gives a thorough introduction to copyright in Australia now the AUSFTA is in force. If you want to know what copyright protects, who owns copyright, and how long it lasts, this is the session for you. * Moral Rights: were introduced in Australia in 2001. This year s session includes the introduction of moral rights for performers as a result of the AUSFTA, and other key issues. * Recent Developments: is for people already familiar with copyright who want to bring themselves up to speed with the latest developments. This short, sharp seminar covers the AUSFTA amendments as well as proposals for changing government ownership of copyright. You ll also find out what s been happening in important cases such as Kazaa. These sessions being run in: * Sydney: 6 June, * Adelaide: 5 September, * Brisbane: 17 October, * Perth: 1 August Expand your knowledge and nip copyfright in the bud, for further details please visit: http://www.copyright.org.au/training Australian Copyright Council, PO Box 1986, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012. TEL: 02 9699 3247, FAX: 02 9698 3536, WEB: www.copyright.org.au Regards, Matt Moor -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] fscking ISPs
I'm in a similar bag. I'm all for ADSL or Cable, though. Optus won't cable me, though, and if I'm gonna be speed limited, I'd prefer ADSL (given that I could then change to another provider later, with the same equipment -- in theory). So, my question is, is Telstra's ADSL (the freedom plan) all that bad (I've heard rumors of 200+ pings)? Cheers, Matt - Original Message - From: "Michael (Micksa) Slade" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 4:31 AM Subject: [SLUG] fscking ISPs : okay, so dingo blue just pulled the rug out from under their customers, : myself included, and cancelled their unlimited hours plan. All plans : how appear to have limits on both hours and bandwidth. : : So I want to switch ISPS (again). : : Any recommendations? I don't want to go with cable or ADSL because I : plan to move in a couple of months and I don't want to incure the extra : cost. : : Mick. : : -- : ---===---===---===---===-+-===---===---===---===---===---===---===---== : Michael (Micksa) Slade | "I don't want you playing with something : [EMAIL PROTECTED] | that has such bizarre hair" - Marge Simpson : http://www.knobbits.org/ | : : -- : SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ : More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
