Linux-Misc Digest #747, Volume #19 Mon, 5 Apr 99 04:13:17 EDT
Contents:
Re: Using Linux instead of NT Server in home environment.... (Richard Pitt)
Re: Help - letting users set their original password via web. (Tim Lines)
Re: RPM Catch-22s? (Bob Tennent)
Re: Using Linux instead of NT Server in home environment.... (Todd Knarr)
missing library libz.so.1 (Alan Hobesh)
Re: Why Linux still isn't my standard boot-up OS, or what are the Linux-equivalents
for these Windoze programs? (Jeremiah)
Re: /tmp screws up printing if moved? (oak)
Re: Proposal: "Linux 2000 Platform" (Peter Samuelson)
Re: /tmp screws up printing if moved? (oak)
Re: Beowulf Anyone? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: BUS error - Netscape (Tim Lines)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Pitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Using Linux instead of NT Server in home environment....
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 04:38:34 GMT
Stuart Fox wrote:
>
> >
> More often the patches get put
> >into the next release and we have to pay for them!
>
> Crap - heard of a service pack????
Yup...one came with the first release I used. Problems I've had with it
took so long to resolve (time from service pack to service pack seems to
be about 6 months or so) that I gave up.
> >
> >> >>> 3. A properly configured NT box will not Blue Screen, and will be as
> >> >stable
> >> >>> as a well configured Linux box.
> >
> >Yes - as long as you don't let a user on it - because one lowly user can
> >screw up the system by clicking on "upgrade" on one lowly program.
> >
>
> Again crap
> 1. You don't let users log in to a server - they don't need to and if you
> let them, you are probably being a little stupid as an admin
OK - here I'll admit that I didn't see the word "server" in your
original post - thought you looked after 40+ user machines - should be a
little slower on the <reply> button...but my points are valid where NT
is used on the desktop - a place where MS seems to want it as much as it
wants it in the machine room.
> 2. If a user does (which you can of course restrict on NT) an ordinary user
> won't have rights to make modifications that will bring the server down e.g.
> apply a service pack, upgrade an application
> 3. Most users wouldn't be able to find out how to upgrade an NT box - they'd
> still be looking for the Word icon.
>
> >Some asshole = user
> Or a stupid admin - and there are plenty (in both MS and Linux camps). My
> motto: Trust No One
agreed.
>
> >
> >If you let them near the computer, they can/will do things simply
> >because they can, and there is nothing you can do about it except do
> >backups. Even if the system has no floppy there is still a strong
> >possiblilty that the user can/will put something into their area that
> >the system will load and subvert your careful setups.
> >
>
> So why would you let your users near a server.
I let my users even on the console. They use the systems as work
stations as well as servers in some cases.
>
> >Windows is for techies - the problem is that it doesn't have any way of
> >distinguishing a casual user from the chosen administrator. That's what
> >things like 'root' on a Unix/Linux system is for. The user should
> >_NEVER_ have access to root - or the things it can do - except through
> >carefully crafted SETUID type programs, and should never need it. The
> >problem with the Windows programming paradigm is that it has no true
> >concept of such priviledge.
>
> You obviously have no idea of NT - there is a user called "administrator" -
> you may have heard of it. Also, a group called administrators. They have a
> set of rights that users don't have...
> You may be confused with Windows 95 which is not worth defending
Seen systems subverted - picked up the pieces - you're right, it was
sloppy administration to start with - some of it as a result of the
cotton-batten that MS wraps around the system.
richard
--
Richard C. Pitt FirePlug Computers Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 604-465-2666
Internet Server Software - Tuning, Maintenance, Consulting
www.fireplug.net edge.fireplug.net - free firewall software
------------------------------
From: Tim Lines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Help - letting users set their original password via web.
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 04:32:46 +0000
How are the users going to set their passwd over the web? Sounds like a
job for a cgi script/program to me. At some point in this the script will
have to call a program that takes the unencrypted passwd and encrypts it
using the crypt(3) library routine. Building the rest of the passwd file
entry is trivial.
Nico Zigouras wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I am wondering if someone can help me with this. I want to set up a
> script that lets users set their password over the web. Before you
> start worrying about secuirty, I have locked out all FTP access and
> telnet access to all except admin. Basically I want users to
> automatically set up POP accounts for themselves.
>
> I am able to change adduser to suid root so it can get called from a web
> script, but passwd does not want to budge and insists that I am logged
> on as root to change each password.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help..
> Sincerely,
> Nico Zigouras.
------------------------------
From: r d t@c s.q u e e n s u.c a (Bob Tennent)
Subject: Re: RPM Catch-22s?
Date: 4 Apr 1999 12:02:12 GMT
On Sat, 3 Apr 1999 23:33:19 -0500, Ewan Dunbar wrote:
>Jon McLin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> My experience with rpm thus far is that it is close to worthless. About
>> 25% of rpms I download can be installed. The remainder fail. There are
>> circular dependencies, and what appears to be inconsistent naming:
>> packages will not install due to dependencies, despite the fact that the
>> required library is in fact installed.
>
>Which is why you RTFM and use the --force option.
>
It should almost never be necessary to use --force; sometimes --nodeps
if you have something installed that rpm doesn't know about. The
dependency warnings are there for a reason: usually they should be
heeded if you don't want to mess up your system.
One trick that sometimes avoids dependencies is to have several
versions of the same library installed. Try to use rpm -i instead of rpm -U
on a new version of a library and see if there are no conflicts. You
may however have to rpm -e the corresponding devel package first.
Bob T.
------------------------------
From: Todd Knarr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Using Linux instead of NT Server in home environment....
Date: 5 Apr 1999 03:58:50 GMT
In comp.os.linux.misc Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So what exactly do your Linux boxes do when a disk controller fails -
> magically keep working?
Depends on what's on the mounted filesystems on the drives handled by
that controller. The root filesystem is usually a fatal problem ( although
I have had a system continue running after completely zeroing the root
filesystem ), the rest cause various bits of havoc but you can usually
work around the problems enough to begin repairs. Getting a filesystem on
a dead controller unmounted can be an interesting exercise, but then if
the controller's dead I don't really care about a clean unmount do I?
--
All I want out of the Universe is 10 minutes with the source code and
a quick recompile.
-- unknown
------------------------------
From: Alan Hobesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: missing library libz.so.1
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 23:06:51 -0700
==============4B89FBDA1C255E7599A0BAAA
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I'm running Slackware 3.5, (Linux version 2.0.34. Everything seems to
be working fine. I am trying to build texinfo 3.11; Everything
compiled, but when I try to execute it, I get the message,
can't load library libz.so.1.
Just trying to run the GNU 'info' program results in the same message.
Anyone know where libz come from? Did I fail to load something during
my initial setup?
Thanks,
Alan Hobesh
==============4B89FBDA1C255E7599A0BAAA
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<HTML>
I'm running Slackware 3.5, (Linux version 2.0.34. Everything seems
to be working fine. I am trying to build texinfo 3.11; Everything
compiled, but when I try to execute it, I get the message,
<BR><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">can't load library libz.so.1</FONT>.
<P>Just trying to run the GNU 'info' program results in the same message.
Anyone know where libz come from? Did I fail to load something during
my initial setup?
<P>Thanks,
<P>Alan Hobesh</HTML>
==============4B89FBDA1C255E7599A0BAAA==
------------------------------
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jeremiah)
Subject: Re: Why Linux still isn't my standard boot-up OS, or what are the
Linux-equivalents for these Windoze programs?
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help,linux.redhat.misc
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 05:34:39 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Michael Powe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spake thusly:
>
>> ? Sure you can... I do it all the time... select
>> the section with the left button, paste with the middle
>> button.
>
> However, this is a fix. I can't do it on my slackware box & I
> couldn't do it on my Really Horrible box, either.
I could do it out of the box on my RH5.2 setup, and I could
do it on my ancient Slackware (kernel 1.2.13 setup).
Brian
--
email to bmeloon at twcny dot rr dot com. evilquaker is a spam collector.
------------------------------
From: oak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /tmp screws up printing if moved?
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 07:30:25 GMT
> You've just answered your own question. If you do A and B stops working
> and then undo A and B starts working again then don't do A. Simple!
Simple minded :)
> I'd really have to ask why you would want to do this. I know you're
> going to say "but the RAM disk will be so much faster than the drive".
You've answered your own question. :)
> Obviously you've fogotten about virtual memory and disk caching under
> Linux.
Nope.
> Basically what happens is that any RAM which is not being used
> for the kernel, applications and data is used as disk cache. Under this
> situation it is possible to create a file, write to it and then delete
> it without that file EVER being written to disk. So why do you need
> use a RAM disk for /tmp???
I've heard this time and time again but the fact is that something written
to disk accesses the disk in a matter of a couple seconds or so usually,
but with temporary files that don't need to be written to disk the drive
will never get accessed....pretty simple really. In some applications
there are files that get accessed a alot and a ram drive gives noticable
improvement. Disk access is notably decreased. I've also thought of
increasing the flush time.
-Tony
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Proposal: "Linux 2000 Platform"
Date: 4 Apr 1999 23:40:19 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Kendall Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> The important thing that I was trying to get across, something that
> everyone seems to have completely missed is that Linux needs:
> . Cooperation
> . Standardisation
> . Uniformity
> Those three points are vital for the continued growth of Linux. I am
> not talking about this in the sense of 'continuing to challenge
> Windows'.
I can't speak for the rest of the newsgroups but to me, your idea
looked an awful lot like it would yield big restrictions in flexibility
and small benefits. Drop dpkg in favor of rpm? Thanks but no thanks.
I suspect many rpm users wouldn't be very happy if you proposed the
reverse.
Believe it or not, and I know you do believe it because you have been a
Linux user since version 0.90, about a year before *I* ever used Linux,
Linux is quite well standardized. The myth of fragmentation is only a
myth, and only exists in the rather high layers. Everyone [except
David Parsons of course] uses either libc 5.4.x or glibc 2.0/2.1, and
have nearly finished standardizing on glibc. Everyone uses XFree86
3.3.x with only cosmetic differences between compilations. Everyone's
binaries can run on everyone else's systems, if you don't count base
system stuff that might have compiled-in init.d pathnames, etc.
My point being that third-party software should have *no* difficulty
interacting with various flavors of Linux, as long as it is reasonably
self-contained. If it wants to modify boot scripts or replace system
library versions -- I don't think *I* want to trust its install scripts
on my box anyway.
> The standard response to my proposal seems to be something along the
> lines of 'Hell, you can solve those problems; you are just too
> lazy!'. Well a lazy programmer is a good programmer, and if there
> are ways that things can be streamlined to cut down on the amount of
> effort someone needs to expend to release a product that supports
> Linux, that is a good thing right?
I just don't see how an application can *not* support most
distributions pretty much by default. If you really feel the need to
modify the user's system in distribution-dependent ways, to me it looks
like poor design, or (to use words that might push buttons) "thinking
like a Windoze developer". This is not to slight Windoze developers,
but they do think differently; they think in terms of a platform
standard enough that you can make all sorts of assumptions about it.
Even if Linux were as standard as this, I would not want installation
procedures doing this.
On the other hand, there is the issue of software testing, and any sort
of guarantee that it works properly on a given distribution. I can see
the problems a house would have validating everything. But to me, if
you follow sensible rules on Separation of Church and System Stuff,
most distro-specific bugs would be distro bugs, and thus the
responsibility of the distro, not the third-party house.
> It appears to me that many in the Linux community are either just to
> vain, or too damn ignorant to realise this. So forget that I ever
> brought up the subject...
Look, you can drop the martyr act. To me, at least, the issues aren't
personal, they aren't about whether you're thinking as a Windoze user
or as a Red Hat bigot or what. To me, it's about the ideas, and
frankly, I don't like them.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: oak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /tmp screws up printing if moved?
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 07:43:32 GMT
Ahh! I overlooked that! Thanks!
Strange that you have tmp in /var alot of programs default to /tmp
Do you have a link to /var/tmp from /tmp?
Can anyone suggest where I should put my script to create the ram disk?
/rc.d/rc.boot sounds like the likely place but I'm not sure.
> ...If /tmp isn't world-writable (which it almost definitely won't be
> right after you use 'mkdir') then anything which tries to use it will
> probably lose.
> ..On my system, /tmp is on my /var partition...
> .... Unless you have
> truly gratuitous amounts of memory, putting /tmp on a RAM drive is
> probably a waste; you're better off putting /tmp on disk and using the
> memory for disk cache and programs...
The kernel cannot guess which files I don't need written to disk, only
I can tell it not to write certain files to the hard drive by
using a ram disk. tmp usually doesn't require that much
space so I'm putting it all in ram. I have 64 megs of ram.
Thanks
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Beowulf Anyone?
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 07:29:22 GMT
We are actually using Pentium II 450's at the moment. They are more cost-
effective and easier to support than the Alphas.
In article <7bt09d$rp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"David A. Frantz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Oscar;
>
> Just a quick question.
>
> Why are you moving away from the Alpha to the P3?
>
> Dave
>
> Oscar Stiffelman wrote in message <7brvrm$egh$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> >Our 1000 node beowulf will probably use NFS, though we have heard that NFS
> >does not scale very well.
> >
> >We currently have a 70 node diskless beowulf (running 533 MHZ Dec Alpha's
> >and Redhat 4.2). Each of the 70 nodes mounts its root on NFS.
> >
> >
> >Glenn Butcher wrote:
> >> A.R.Allen wrote:
> >> (snip)
> >> > I appreciate the link. I'll post some more that I've found along my
> >> > research. Basically, I'm trying to get some people together to share
> >> > experiences. I am considering buying Red Hat's Extreme Linux package.
> >> > Doesn't really look like alot - found the ftp site for all the source
> >code
> >> > so thats not really a bonus. Wondering if you've had any experience
> >with
> >> > it?
> >>
> >> I just installed Extreme. Linux on a front end for a diskless cluster.
> >> It comes with all the software we wrestled with in Slackware last
> >> quarter pre-configured: PVM, MPI, PVMPOV, XPVM, etc. I commend it...
> >>
> >> > I kinda got sidetracked on trying to setup a diskless cluster using
> >NetBoot.
> >> > Bad idea - software still seems to need some work. So I'm back to
> >square
> >> > one, build a two "normal" systems and get them working in a cluster
> >before
> >> > attempting the diskless route.
> >>
> >> I'm going to try the same thing with RARP and a NFF-root kernel on a
> >> floppy.
> >>
> >> Glenn Butcher
> >
> >
> >------------------ Posted via SearchLinux ------------------
> > http://www.searchlinux.com
>
>
============= Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ============
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
------------------------------
From: Tim Lines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: BUS error - Netscape
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 04:40:19 +0000
In my experience (7 years) EVERY system hang under Linux I've ever experienced
has been due to misconfigured/defective hardware. Netscape is more difficult
to diagnose but I've had good luck with 4.08.
I suspect that you have timing problems between RAM and the CPU. You wouldn't
be overclocking a little, would you?
Ilya wrote:
> I was running Netscape when it suddenly crashed! I got this message:
>
> root@republic-p4-~>
> [1] + bus error netscape
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Also, a few days ago, my Linux machine completely froze. /var/log/messages
> didn't show anything... Any ideas what could have caused that?
>
> Linux 2.2.1
> root@republic-p4-~> netscape -v
> Netscape 4.08/Export, 02-Nov-98; (c) 1995-1998 Netscape Communications Corp.
------------------------------
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