Linux-Misc Digest #939, Volume #20 Tue, 6 Jul 99 04:13:11 EDT
Contents:
Re: moving an entire installation to a different partition ("Ryan T. Rhea")
Does Linux erase memory before giving it to a process? (Matthias Benkmann)
Re: Linux and Viruses - Not the same old question (Robert Heller)
Re: Support for Kodak DC120 photo download (Derek Shaw)
Re: Download freeBSD and Slackware 4 (Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?=)
Re: problem compiling sources with C++ ("Ryan T. Rhea")
Real Player G2 (scable)
Re: Linux and Viruses - Not the same old question (Robert Heller)
Re: Solving the 1024 cylinder LILO problem (Cameron L. Spitzer)
LILO as primary boot, Re: LILO hangs on LI (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Re: Download freeBSD and Slackware 4 (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Re: Ftape and Red Hat 6.0 Info (Brad Melendy)
Employment Opportunity - Transportation ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: windows95 and lilo (Jason Clifford)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Ryan T. Rhea" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: moving an entire installation to a different partition
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 01:04:14 -0400
Robert Komar wrote:
> Ryan T. Rhea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : I have a linux server which is entirely installed on one 450 MB
> : partition. I have a need to move the entire install to a second larger
> : partition on the same drive. There is a separate linux swap partition
> : that will not change.
>
> : Has anyone tried this? I examined the boot logs, and I don't see any
> : references to partitions other than the obvious ones to the root file
> : system and the swap space - I will change that in fstab and lilo.conf.
> : Did I miss anything? I did see a reference to kswapd - I assume this is
> : a daemon for kernel swap space, I can find no info on it.
>
> : Also, can I just use the 'cp' command, with perhaps '-dpr' for the
> : options (no link Deference, Preserve ownerships and permissions,
> : Recursive) to copy all the files from one partition to the other? Or
> : will this miss some files such as cp itself or any other open files?
>
> Hi,
> I think that this should work. Make sure that you run lilo after you
> edit the lilo.conf file and copy the filesystem. You could edit the
> lilo.conf file to point to both partitions, so that you could boot
> from the old one if the new one had problems. I'd also keep a boot
> floppy on hand in case it doesn't just work. When copying, you
> don't want to copy /proc onto the new partition. I think that
> using the `-x' switch with cp should keep it from doing that.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob Komar
This worked without a hitch! used cp -ax instead of cp -dpr.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Benkmann)
Subject: Does Linux erase memory before giving it to a process?
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 19:02:13 GMT
Does Linux clear memory blocks before granting processes access to
them? In other words. Does a program that works with sensitive data
have to clear all its memory blocks before terminating to eliminate
the possibility of another process getting a previously used memory
block that still contains passwords etc.
In a situation where many people use the same computer (e.g. a
University's computer room) this might be a real issue. I don't want
strange people to catch fragments of my emails just by doing a bunch
of mallocs an then scanning the memory blocks. MSB
------------------------------
From: Robert Heller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux and Viruses - Not the same old question
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 06:21:12 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (William Burrow),
In a message on 6 Jul 1999 03:06:28 GMT, wrote :
WB> On 5 Jul 1999 21:36:14 GMT,
WB> Cameron L. Spitzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
WB> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jiim McIntyre wrote:
WB> >The best example of this automatic execution is MS-DOS' and MacOS'
WB> >way of finding out how a floppy was formatted. The floppy disks in
WB> >common use today may be formatted several different ways, and the
WB> >OS has to find out which way any particular floppy was formatted
WB> >before they can read the directory on the floppy. They do it by
WB> >executing a tiny program found on the very first sector of the floppy!
WB>
WB> I suspect you mean Windows9x where you say MSDOS. MSDOS has never
WB> executed code on the floppy to find out what the floppy is.
I think Win 3.11 did something like this, but Win9x dropped it because
of 'boot sector' virus which were rampant at one time. Win9x and WinNT
do have a potiental contender to resurrect the 'boot sector': AUTORUN.INF
on CD's. Now that CDRs are cheap and plentiful, it is only a matter of
time for some bored little boy to burn a CD with something totally nasty
in in AUTORUN.INF...
WB>
WB> I doubt that MacOS does this either, though it will certainly
WB> automatically execute things from the floppy.
Only if it is a *boot* floppy being used to boot up the system.
Random, foreign boot floppies can trash *any* system. MacOS's file
system has a special 'finder info' 'file' of each directory. This
'file' contains the directory/folder's visual 'state': open/closed,
size/location of the window, view style (large icons, small icons,
sorted by name, date, size, type, etc.). Same for CD-ROMs.
All systems check the floppy / CD-ROM / Zip / Jaz / etc. format by
looking at the info recorded in the proper places for these devices --
sector 0 on the floppy, the partition table on disks (including Zip &
Jaz), and the track TOC on CD-ROMs. There is no need for *any* O/S to
'execute' any code on removable media, unless and until the *operator*
requests it. Presumably, the operator knows what he or she is doing at
that point (we hope) -- eg a virus scan of some sort has been run
(Norten, et. al. for MS-* and MacOS, a good eyeballing under Linux/UNIX).
WB>
WB> These things are just too easily specified to bother putting code to do
WB> something similar.
WB>
WB>
WB> --
WB> William Burrow -- New Brunswick, Canada o
WB> Copyright 1999 William Burrow ~ /\
WB> ~ ()>()
WB>
\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153
--
\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153
------------------------------
From: Derek Shaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Support for Kodak DC120 photo download
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 05:48:51 GMT
I did a search for this about 6 months ago, on behalf of a legal firm that had
pictures taken with the camera, but no software. If I remember correctly, the
DC120 is the entry-level camera from Kodak. I used deja-news to find some very
erudite discussions on the subject. The gist was that Kodak had used a
bastardized jpeg compression scheme for the camera, and had never published the
specs for the algorithm, so that's why you can't find any software. They ended
up buying a camera and we used the supplied software (in windows).
Good hunting, though, six months is a long time for the guys who where working
on the problem. They might have finished reverse-engineering the thing by now.
cheers!
d.
Karl Morgan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Was wondering if anyone could let me know of a method to connect to
> and download pictures from my kodak DC120 camera to my redhat 6.0
> Linux box?
>
> I found the *most excellent* gphoto utility at www.gphoto.org but
> support for the DC120 isn't included in the package yet. Would it
> be hard to add? I might be coerced into taking a poke at that if
> someone would shove me in the right direction (like where to start).
>
> Please send direct email to me with any response. I'm not a regular
> newsgroup reader.
>
> Thanks/Regards
>
> - Karl
--
Derek Shaw
Business Information Systems
Victoria, BC.
voice: 250-885-2021 fax: 250-386-4060
------------------------------
From: Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Download freeBSD and Slackware 4
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 08:00:39 +0200
vineet wrote:
> =
> Can anyone tell me the site where I can download the full and latest
> version of FreeBSD and Slackware 4?
> =
> ------------------ Posted via SearchLinux ------------------
> http://www.searchlinux.com
FreeBSD should be available via ftp.cdrom.com.
Slackware? Beats me.
Josef
-- =
PS Die hier dargestellte Meinung ist die persoenliche Meinung des
Autors!
PS This article reflects the autor=B4s personal views only!
------------------------------
From: "Ryan T. Rhea" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: problem compiling sources with C++
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 01:06:10 -0400
Frederic L. W. Meunier wrote:
> configure:1187: c++ -o conftest conftest.C 1>&5
> /usr/i386-linux/bin/ld: cannot open -lstdc++: No such file or
> directory
> ,,,
> Here's the problem. Install libstdc++ and libstdc++-devel (they're part of
> egcs if you compiled them from the sources). Look at /usr/lib for libstdc++*
Great, this was the problem! I had to install the libraries from the
distribution RPMS (Caldera). They were listed under libgc and libgc-devel.
------------------------------
From: scable <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: mindsping.users.linux
Subject: Real Player G2
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 01:21:26 -0500
Downloaded Real Player G2. Can get video but no audio with the
one little .ra file I have. Won't work with Netscape. Get an error:
"Cannot open the audio device. Another application may be using it."
Nothing is using the audio device that I know of. After giving up on
G2, I was able to play a CD, so it seems to my feeble mind that the
audio device is free. I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks for your
help.
------------------------------
From: Robert Heller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux and Viruses - Not the same old question
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 06:21:08 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED],
In a message on 05 Jul 1999 19:59:03 -0700, wrote :
j> Robert Heller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
j>
j> > I don't believe that
j> > most I/O devices can be *physically* damaged by software
j>
j> I was thinking more in terms of memory and such. I was told by one guy that
j> he could just tell the computer to send an electronic pulse down the wrong
j> side of the ROM and be done with it. Course this was in the days of Apple ][e
j> so....
I rather doubt this, but who knows -- the Apple ][ series had many
'interesting' hardware features...
j>
j> I have also heard that DOS viruses can do this kind of thing, having direct
j> hardware access.
Right.
j>
j> >(I don't
j> > consider something like 'format C:' physical damage -- the drive still
j> > works -- it just would be devoid of your data).
j>
j> Oh neither do I, I am talking hardware 'damage'....like toasting the ROM or
j> BIOS or maybe a drive, to the point were it needs to be replaced.
j>
I guess a 'Flash BIOS' could be toasted in a sense, but this would again
be more of a flavor of 'format C:'. It should be possible to restore it
from some sort of special floppy boot (they must program these things at
the factory somehow). Ditto for diddling with the NV RAM. Again, none
of this is accessible from a process -- you need the kernel to be very
cooperative, either with a flagrant bug or a seriously broken driver. I
*suppose* someone could write a trojan horse in the form a device driver
kernel module, but this is seriously hairy, and ultimately needs the sys
admin to be very stupid.
I would think it would be a really bad hardware design to build a mother
board that could feed improper voltages or signal levels to things like
the processor, RAM, or ROM devices. Yes, there are mother boards that
support different processors (5v / 3v, etc.), but these configurations
are via jumpers on the board. *I* don't know of *any* mother board that
can change these setting *from software* -- I can't think of any *sane*
reason to do that, except on a PROM/PAL burner (where a mistake here
toasts the PROM/PAL in question) -- in the case of a 5v vs 3v processor
-- a 5v processor won't run on 3v and a 3v process will toast at 5v,
long before one even starts looking for a boot device -- changing the
voltage of a running processor makes no sense.
I guess it is possible to roast a power supply by rapidly power cycling
it, and while it is possible to have the processor shut the computer
off on some of the newer mother boards, killing the power effectively
stops things -- powering back up requires manual access of the power
switch. Even if the 'virus' clobber the MBR to run the power shutdown,
NO computer will get to 'MBR' load stage fast enough to hurt the power
supply.
These are all far-fetched possibilities, AFAIK.
--
\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development
Subject: Re: Solving the 1024 cylinder LILO problem
Date: 6 Jul 1999 06:44:12 GMT
In article <7lrqp5$tmp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Charles Sullivan wrote:
>If you've got Linux in a partition which crosses cylinder 1024,
>the simplest thing to do is use Partition Magic 4.0 to adjust its lower
>boundary upward
Partition Magic 4.0 is a proprietary commercial product.
Therefore it is not a general solution, either.
>Cameron L. Spitzer wrote in message ...
>>All I need to do is adjust the size of a file downward, without moving it.
>>That is, throw away its last block.
>>Is there any way to do this from user space?
The answer turns out, yes, use ftruncate(2).
Stay tuned.
Cameron
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: LILO as primary boot, Re: LILO hangs on LI
Date: 6 Jul 1999 06:40:51 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>In order to be the primary boot loader LILO must be installed on the
>MBR of the 1st hdd, but your Linux partitions can be anywhere.
>Putting Windows partiton(s) on /dev/hda and Linux partitons on
>/dev/hdb does not prevent you from installing LILO on the MBR of
>/dev/hda.
I think that's Answer #2 for the LILO FAQ.
Yes, the LILO /boot directory can be on a Microsoft partition,
and LILO can launch Windows-95/98.
(However, a lot of people have
told me LILO cannot launch Windows-NT. Does anyone know why?)
Answer #1 is (everybody say it), boot DOS and run the undocumented
command FDISK /MBR !!!
Cameron
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Download freeBSD and Slackware 4
Date: 6 Jul 1999 06:48:15 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Josef M�llers wrote:
>vineet wrote:
>>
>> Can anyone tell me the site where I can download the full and latest
>> version of FreeBSD and Slackware 4?
>FreeBSD should be available via ftp.cdrom.com.
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/FreeBSD/
>Slackware? Beats me.
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-4.0/
Cameron
------------------------------
From: Brad Melendy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Ftape and Red Hat 6.0 Info
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 07:06:31 GMT
Doug,
Thanks for your posting this information. I am putting it into a safe
place for later use. I have spent almost 8 hours trying to get the
EXACT SAME HARDARE and SOFTWARE working. :-( I had read most of the
HOW TO and my lack of experience with the Linux Kernel was killing me.
Anyway, I was about to give up and go back to NT when I saw your message
and finally found the commands to load the modules. (I think they
should add that to the HOW TO). I was elated to see my Ditto 3200 jump
to life and return:
qic-117 drive type = 0x08882
file number=-1, block number=-1.
mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x0
mt_dsreg:0xe31865, mt_gstat: 0x41000000
General status bits on (41000000):
BOT ONLINE
I don't know what this means yet, but to me, it is like landing on the
Moon! Thanks.
As for your problem and wanting the most recent version of ftape. I
don't know I can help and you are most likely right in suspecting you
may have to just compile the kernel. But, I did find this site that had
made an RPM of the most recent version. I am not entirely sure if it
will help you out or how far it goes (does it replace the module??) but
maybe it is worth looking into??? Here is the URL:
http://linusp.usp.br/rpm2html/contrib/libc5/i386/ftape-4.02-1.i386.html
Thanks again for your post. I found it very helpful and suspect I am
very close to making my first backup!!!! :-)
....Brad
Douglas Bollinger wrote:
>
> This weekend I managed to get my internal Travan 3 tape drive, Ftape
> and Red Hat 6.0 working reasonably well together. While searching
> around for information to help solve my personal dilemma, it seems
> that quite a few other people are having problems with Ftape and RH
> 6.0. This post contains some tips and tricks from my experience
> that might help others. I could also use some help getting the
> _newest_ version of ftape working on my machine; see the end of this
> post.
>
> My Linux box is using Red Hat 6.0 with kernel 2.2.5-22. My tape
> drive is a Iomega Ditto 3200, an internal TR-3 unit hooked up to a
> floppy port.
>
> The first step for anyone trying to get Ftape working is the Ftape
> homepage, a vital source of updated documentation and support
> programs.
>
> http://www.math1.rwth-aachen.de/~heine/ftape/
>
> Despite rumors to the contrary, RH 6.0 uses ftape 3.04d. Look in
> /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/ftape/ to verify. The latest version of
> ftape available at the homepage is 4.03-pre2.
>
> You might be looking for important ftape tools like ftformat,
> listtape, etc that are not included with RH6.0. These can be d/l'ed
> from the ftape homepage, but be aware that the latest ftape tools
> are not compatible with ftape 3.04d, the version included with
> RH6.0. I am quite sure that the newest version of ftformat will not
> work with the 3.04 modules, but the scripts from the new ftape tools
> package seem to work ok. You have to d/l the older 3.04 archive,
> ftape-3.04d.tar.gz, and look in the contrib directory for a version
> of ftformat that will work with RH6.0.
>
> After reading the docs and editing the MCONFIG to suit your personal
> preferences (I dumped all the help programs in /usr/local), typing
> "make" and "make install" should set everything up. The modules
> won't compile (they are already installed), but everything else
> that you need should work. Since I just needed the older version of
> ftformat, it was easier for me to type "make" in the ftformat
> directory to compile the program, and manually move the executable
> to /usr/local/bin.
>
> When you need to use ftape, you have to load the modules into
> memory. As root, type "modprobe zftape" to load the zftape and
> ftape modules. Typing "lsmod" should list both modules. The zftape
> modules is required!
>
> If you would like the ftape modules to load auto-magically, add this
> line to /etc/conf.modules
>
> alias char-major-27 zftape
>
> At this point, everything should work. Try typing "mt -f /dev/qft0
> status" or, if you have the ftools installed, "ftmt -f /dev/qft0
> status" and you should get some kind of positive response.
>
> You might want to change the ownership of the principal devices,
> qft0 and nqft0, so you don't have to be root all the time to use
> your tape drive.
>
> When using ftformat, I had to be root to get things to work even
> though I could backup with my normal user account (I set device
> ownerships). This is the command I used to format a Travan 3
> cartridge, "ftformat -f /dev/rawqft0", notice the use of the raw
> device.
>
> The intricacies of using tar and mt with your tape drive will be
> left as an exercise for the reader.
>
> Right now, I can format tape cartridges and the small backups that
> have been tried seem to work ok, but I still would rather be using
> the newer 4.x version of ftape. The new ftape tools also includes a
> nifty x-window front-end, but it doesn't seem to work correctly with
> ftape 3.02.
>
> Unfortunately, I can't compile the latest ftape modules, probably
> because the kernel is already set-up with the older version. To use
> ftape 4.x, I believe I'm going to have to recompile the stock RH
> kernel, but I'm hoping someone will tell me a better way!
>
> --
> Douglas Bollinger
> Mt. Holly Springs, PA 17065
>
> My other computer runs Linux.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Employment Opportunity - Transportation
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 07:30:58 GMT
For more information see:
http://OpsResearch.com
------------------------------
From: Jason Clifford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: windows95 and lilo
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 01:10:47 +0100
On 5 Jul 1999, pico wrote:
> Besides Linux I make use of windows95. I have installed it 2 times. One I
> want to keep clean and one I use for testing software. How can I configure
> Linux (LILO) to make it possible to switch between the 2 installations of
> windows 95? Just adding both in /etc/lilo.conf doesn't work. I have to
> change the active partition first before it is possible for LILO to boot
> that partition. I hope I am clear.
Older versions of lilo (0.17 and previous) supported a feature called
rewrite-table which would make the necessary changes to the partition
table so that the installation you want would be recognised as C: which is
necessary for Win95 to boot.
Current versions do not do this and older versions don't work very well
with large drives.
I tend to recommend Partition Magic to people who want multiple Windows 95
partitions now. 40 quid and it's boot manager works well.
Jason Clifford http://www.dlsl.demon.co.uk/
** Specialist Linux Consultancy and Support Services **
**** Linux Workstation Server and Laptop Systems ****
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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