Re: [ubuntu-uk] Checking if a System restart is required

[Paul Willis]

On 21 Apr 2011, at 16:55, Alan Pope wrote:

> On 21 April 2011 16:52, Paul Willis  wrote:
>> Occasionally, after running...
>> sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
>> ...my server it needs a reboot. Trouble is I don't see the *** System 
>> restart required *** message until next time I log in.
>> 
>> I usually log out and back in again straight after running the update but 
>> I'm sure there must be a command to check if a reboot is required without 
>> doing that.
> 
> /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-reboot-required
> 
> e.g.:-
> 
> $ /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-reboot-required
> *** System restart required ***
> 
> or..
> 
> $ cat /var/run/reboot-required
> *** System restart required ***
> 
> Al.

Exactly what I needed. Thanks very much for the speedy reply.

Paul
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[ubuntu-uk] Checking if a System restart is required

[Paul Willis]

Hi

Occasionally, after running...

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

...my server it needs a reboot. Trouble is I don't see the *** System restart 
required *** message until next time I log in.

I usually log out and back in again straight after running the update but I'm 
sure there must be a command to check if a reboot is required without doing 
that.

Anybody know?

Cheers

Paul

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Server won't start without screen

[Paul Willis]

On 27 Oct 2010, at 14:01, Tyler J. Wagner wrote:

> On Wed, 2010-10-27 at 12:24 +0100, Paul Willis wrote:
>> I do remember now that some older Mac G4 towers we used (running Mac OS X 
>> server) had a similar headless problem and plugging the DVI to VGA adapter 
>> in the back sorted it. I had forgotten about that so it might be the answer 
>> as the discussions on those links suggest.
> 
> Ah, yes. You've reminded me as well. Some time ago, my company operated
> a Mac running MacOS 9. It had two special peripherals: a DVI-VGA dongle
> to make it boot, and a small device on the power cable. That device had
> a USB cable, connected to the same Mac. If the Mac locked up, apparently
> detectable by some kind of USB activity, it would cycle the power.

Yep, we had those too. Kick-off I think it was called.

In fact here it is 
http://www.sophisticated.com/products/kick-off/kick-off_mac.html

Paul
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Server won't start without screen

[Paul Willis]

On 26 Oct 2010, at 23:35, Grant Sewell wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:28:35 +0100
> Rob Beard wrote:
> 
>> On 26/10/10 22:41, Glen Mehn wrote:
>>> Do you get to see what happens when the screen is plugged in? i.e,.
>>> is it stuck before grub or after? I kind of assume you aren't
>>> running X on the server (stock ubuntu server, right?)
>>> 
>>> I know of a hosting company who uses mac minis (though I can't
>>> think of who they are at the moment... grumble...) as a server that
>>> sits between dedicated machines and virtual servers. Obviously only
>>> good for low-intensity i/o tasks. You might try to find them to see
>>> if there's something mac-specific that's going on.
>>> 
>>> I would easily put £20 on it being a mac thing that has to be
>>> disabled in the mac prom, but I've no idea how to do that (I don't
>>> think that apple opens up their firmwares to outside people)
>>> 
>>> Aha! Here's the company. The short version suggests not using boot
>>> camp (I'm not sure what else you might use)
>>> 
>>> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/support/macminicolo_howto.html
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Doing some more reading on 
>> http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternative-operating-systems/296206/headless-mac-mini-server-using-bootcamp/
>>  
>> it looks like a couple of pins need to be connected together with a 
>> resistor on the DVI port.  Details are on the thread a bit further
>> down (there is a link from the link to the Macnn.com forum but it's a
>> broken link).  It appears to be something to do with Bootcamp.
>> 
>> Rob
> 
> I have not looked into this, but is there no way of installing Ubuntu
> natively without resorting to bootcamp's fake BIOS environment?  If it
> is bootcamp's VGA issue that is causing this problem, and Ubuntu can be
> installed natively sans bootcamp, then surely there's the answer right
> there.
> 
> (BTW, I do not have an EFI IntelliMac... mine is a nice old OF G3
> iBook.)
> 
> Grant.

Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions and things to explore.

I do remember now that some older Mac G4 towers we used (running Mac OS X 
server) had a similar headless problem and plugging the DVI to VGA adapter in 
the back sorted it. I had forgotten about that so it might be the answer as the 
discussions on those links suggest.

As far as what happened at the point where the Mac Mini was on but not visible 
on the network I'm not sure what stage it was at. As I mentioned this is in a 
remote office so I'm troubleshooting it via email and phone with a non 
technical person but I'll check if they actually plugged the screen in at that 
point and what they saw if they did.

I'm new to Ubuntu on a Mac that isn't running in VMWare to be honest. I'm not 
sure if I'm using Bootcamp. We booted from an Ubuntu CD we had downloaded and 
chose the option to overwrite the whole disk. I don't believe there is any 
Apple software on the disk but I must admit I'm not really sure how the 
installer does it.

Paul




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[ubuntu-uk] Server won't start without screen

[Paul Willis]

Hi

I set up Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server on a Mac Mini and shipped it off to our other 
office (too far for me to go and troubleshoot) where they plugged in a screen 
configured the network settings in the cli and then unplugged the screen.

Everything worked fine until at some point a few weeks later the machine was 
switched off and when turned on again it wouldn't boot up properly (well it 
wouldn't appear on the network) until a screen was plugged in at which point it 
booted fine and appeared on the network without any problem.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how the unit came to have the power disconnected it 
is plugged into a UPS all I know is that it was turned off when staff came in 
in the morning.

This same scenario occurred a second time a week or so later and once again a 
screen was required for the server to be fully operational.

When it starts up with a screen I'm told there is nothing unusual and it just 
shows the login prompt - there is no windowing system installed it's a basic 
LAMP server installation

We have another Mac Mini (not 100% the same spec but as close as damn it) with 
exactly the same Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server installation on it and that boots 
headless without any problems

So my questions: Is there some setting somewhere in Ubuntu that requires a 
screen to be plugged in that I can disable? Is something else going on here? Is 
it possible that if the server is booted with a screen and then shut down by a 
power failure expects a screen on reboot and is confused if there isn't one 
attached?

Cheers

Paul


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] LTS or Latest Version??

[Paul Willis]

On 20 Oct 2010, at 12:54, Chris Coulson wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-10-20 at 06:58 +0100, Alan Bell wrote:
>> On 20/10/10 00:07, Chris Coulson wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well, the LTS *will* get a new version of Firefox in the future (once
>>> 3.6 is end-of-life), although it will most likely skip 4.0.
>>> 
>>> Regards
>>> Chris
>> no, don't think 10.04 LTS will get a new version of Firefox, however if 
>> you install 10.04 you will be able to stick with it and upgrade to 12.04 
>> LTS without going through the intermediate steps, and 12.04 will have 
>> shiny new versions of stuff when it comes out.
>> 
>> Alan.
> 
> That's not quite right. Being the maintainer, I can assure you that
> Lucid will not be staying on version 3.6 of Firefox forever.
> 
> Regards
> Chris

While Chris is right I think it only clouds the issue. The general rule is that 
once a release is official the only changes are bug fixes.

Firefox is one of the exceptions 


Generally if you want newer versions of packages you need to enable Backports 


Paul

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Vote Results!

[Paul Willis]

On 1 Sep 2010, at 14:49, Jacob Mansfield wrote:

> I vote for logo_on_vote_screen.jpg
> 
> On 31 August 2010 15:11, Paul Willis  wrote:
> And me. Looking from a Mac here and I se them different too...
> 
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/595696/ubuntu/logo_on_vote_screen.jpg
> 
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/595696/ubuntu/logo_on_result_screen.jpg



Well done you picked the winner.

Paul
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Vote Results!

[Paul Willis]

And me. Looking from a Mac here and I se them different too...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/595696/ubuntu/logo_on_vote_screen.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/595696/ubuntu/logo_on_result_screen.jpg

Paul

On 31 Aug 2010, at 14:58, Tony Scott wrote:

> Same here - I'm seeing it minus relevant font...
> 


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[ubuntu-uk] Shutdown mysql with cron

[Paul Willis]

Hi

I'm trying to shutdown MySQL on an Ubuntu 10.04 server for half hour everyday 
using cron but I can't get it to work

Using "sudo crontab -e" I entered the line...

15 19 * * * root /etc/init.d/mysql stop

In the syslog I can see it fired at the time I expected...

Aug 10 19:15:01 domU-11-11-11-11-CD-11 CRON[5984]: (root) CMD (root 
/etc/init.d/mysql stop)

But MySQL is still running.

If I run the same /etc/init.d/mysql stop as root in the command line MySQL 
stops just fine.

Any ideas why MySQL doesn't quit or where I might look for clues? 

Just for extra info: this server is a MySQL replication slave running on Ubuntu 
on Amazon EC2 and I want to shutdown MySQL, snapshot the volume, restart MySQL

Cheers

Paul

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Recommended small server hardware

[Paul Willis]

Hi

Thanks for the replies Al suggested the.. 

> Dell Inspiron Zino:-

and John recommended the...

> Acer Aspire Revo

Both of which seem to fit the bill regarding power, footprint etc both at good 
prices but have either of you (or anyone else) actually run 10.04 on them okay?

I know I sound a bit paranoid but the Mac Mini we bought was originally going 
to be used and we wasted a lot of time (and expense) before we realised Ubuntu 
wasn't yet compatible. We really just need to buy something that we know will 
work.

Luckily the Mac has found a new home so it's not all a waste.

Regards

Paul

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[ubuntu-uk] Recommended small server hardware

[Paul Willis]

Hi

Can anyone recommend any hardware that would be the equivalent to a Mac Mini 
that is guaranteed to run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS as a headless server?

Background: 

We are a Mac shop but are now using Ubuntu 10.04 on our production servers. We 
would like to set up an Ubuntu 10.04 server in our office for development.

We have a brand new Apple Mac Mini which would have been perfect but having 
looked into it there's a bug/driver problem with the latest Macs with SATA 
drives. While this is on the list to be fixed nobody knows how long this will 
be so I think our best bet is to get a small PC for the purpose.

I know nothing about PCs, what's available, what's dodgy, what will work 
without problems with Ubuntu etc so I'm hoping someone here can point me in the 
right direction. As mentioned - ideally we'd like the PC equivalent of a Mac 
Mini. Small footprint, low power consumption, couple of GB of RAM, fairly 
decent CPU, ethernet most important though is a fuss free Ubuntu install.

As it will be run as a headless server great graphics capability isn't an issue

Any suggestions

Paul

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 44

[Paul Willis]

That's a bit of an open ended question. Running a name server is pretty 
straightforward it's just a matter of running bind and configuring it but like 
learning apache and how to set that up, it's another whole new world.

Do you have a domain name already? Most registrars offer domain name services 
as part of registering the domain with them. In which case it would be a matter 
of entering the IP of you apache server in their control panel.

You can of course do it yourself. You will need a minimum of two separate name 
servers, ideally on different networks.

Paul

On 13 Jun 2010, at 12:00, ubuntu-uk-requ...@lists.ubuntu.com wrote:

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> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. Re:  Apache add-on domains? (Daniel Case)
>   2. Re:  Apache add-on domains? (Chris Rowson)
>   3. Re:  Streaming to a shoutcast server (Byte Soup)
>   4. Re:  Problems with facebook/photouploads/plugin in   Google
>  Chrome (John Matthews)
>   5. Re:  Problems with facebook/photouploads/plugin in   Google
>  Chrome (Ron Rhodes)
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:29:51 +0100
> From: Daniel Case 
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Apache add-on domains?
> To: UK Ubuntu Talk 
> Message-ID:
>   
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Thank you very much guys, as far as i understand, i just need to add a new
> vhost on the server side in order to set it up.
> But how about on the registrar side? It seems to want Nameservers, not an IP
> address to link too?
> 
> What are nameservers, are they easy enough to set up?
> 
> On 12 June 2010 09:41, Chris Rowson  wrote:
> 
>>> Hi guys,
>>> I was just curious as to how i would go about adding "add-on" domains
>> with
>>> the apache configuration files?
>>> If anyone has used Cpanel, im after manually doing the "Addon Domains"
>>> feature they have, if someone could walk me through it i would
>> apprechiate
>>> it greatly :)
>>> Dan
>> 
>> Is this what you're looking for Dan?
>> 
>> http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/412
>> 
>> Chris
>> 
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> --
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:29:37 +0100
> From: Chris Rowson 
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Apache add-on domains?
> To: UK Ubuntu Talk 
> Message-ID:
>   
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
>> Thank you very much guys, as far as i understand, i just need to add a new
>> vhost on the server side in order to set it up.
>> But how about on the registrar side? It seems to want Nameservers, not an IP
>> address to link too?
>> What are nameservers, are they easy enough to set up?
> 
> A name server stores information about which domain names point to
> which IP addresses. If you search for www.mydomainname.com your name
> server will reply back with the IP address of the server hosting the
> www.mydomainname.com website. It's actually a bit more complicated
> than that but you can always Google it if you're interested.
> 
> If you're using a Cpanel powered server it's probably managing DNS for
> you. As you're wanting to migrate to your own server you're going to
> have to sort out the DNS side of things yourself.
> 
> Some registrars like GoDaddy for instance will also handle DNS for
> you. That is they will provide you with a name server. Others don't
> and ask which name server will be handling your domain.
> 
> If your registrar doesn't provide you with a name server then you
> might find a free one by searching Google.
> http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=free+name+server
> 
> I can't recommend one myself as I use the DNS service provided for
> free by my registrar.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:39:34 +0100
> From: Byte Soup 
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Streaming to a shoutcast server
> To: UK Ubuntu Talk 
> Message-ID:
>   
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi Guys,
> 
> Thanks for your advice, Ive found that Ice2 only streams to a icecast
> server, at least thats what I was told on #icecast irc. Ive found "darkice"
> and "darksnow" in the repo