Re: [Dorset] Odd KDE almost-random lock-up issue

2011-04-30 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Saturday, April 30, 2011 11:00:51 AM StarLion wrote:
> > Apologies if I missed it, but you havent yet clarified if the whole m/c
> > is locked up or just the display/kbd.
> > Can you access it via the network - as various people suggested?
> > If so, what does ps show?
> > what happens when you send a HUP signal to the X server?
> > Regards
> > Andy
> 
> That's my mistake for overlooking that, sorry.
> It seems to be inaccesssible over the network as well. The network's
> router lists it in the DHCP client list, but neither ping or ssh can
> reach it.
> 
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Ah - thanks for that - I had a similar problem with FC13 - I concluded it was 
a hardware fault to do with memory mapped between the Graphics card & 
something else.
So I just lived with it  and surprise surprise after upgrading, it doesn't 
occur in FC14 - so it wasnt a hardware issue after all.
I tried various guesswork things at the time, but what had the most effect was 
getting X to decrease its use of memory - I did the following straw-clutching 
-
o Dont load a background bitmap
o Ensure KDE uses NO clever things like silly graphics effects
o Disconnect any usb devices you don't really need
o If poss (prob not with a laptop display) run X at a lower resolution.
o Use an external monitor (if that works it would seem to indicate a heat 
problem associated with the laptop display ?!?).
o Have the m/c exorcised :)

But after my experience it really looked like a misbehaving device driver.
Sorry can't help - but of course - if you have a much older kernel in you boot 
list - see if it runs better with that.
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] Odd KDE almost-random lock-up issue

2011-04-30 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Saturday, April 30, 2011 10:48:27 AM StarLion wrote:
> > Have you checked the powersaving setting, as you say you don't have a
> > problem if you leave the laptop on without X running. As KDE will
> > control the powersetting have you checked that it is not set to goto to
> > sleep\hibernate and when you open the lid in the morning the laptop is
> > not resuming correctly
> 
> I've run through the options, turned off everything that says sleep
> and hibernate mostly because AFAIK both need the swap to equal the
> RAM, something I chose not to do with the swap partition.
> Although it's not exactly the best idea, I even turned off KDE's power
> management entirely by forcefully removing it, and while that gave me
> a number of complaints about it being missing, the original problem
> still occurs.
> 
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Apologies if I missed it, but you havent yet clarified if the whole m/c is 
locked up or just the display/kbd.
Can you access it via the network - as various people suggested?
If so, what does ps show?
what happens when you send a HUP signal to the X server?
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] Odd KDE almost-random lock-up issue

2011-04-29 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, April 29, 2011 10:43:29 PM StarLion wrote:
> Hallo all. Got a bit of a puzzler for you to... well, puzzle over.
> Finally gave in and put Arch on me new(er) laptop, set myself up a KDE
> desktop, personalise, etc... the usual post-install kind of things.
> Now, I've often got downloads I leave going overnight while I sleep,
> which wouldn't be a problem... except at some point in the night the
> entire system just locks up. By the time I open the lid in the
> morning, the laptop presents me with a black screen and is totally
> unresponsive.
> Yet if I leave it on a console without X running, it doesn't happen.
> Of course, this doesn't really help much, since the download app I use
> is a graphic app without a CLI backend, inconveniently.
> I've thought to check the logfiles, except even the 'everything.log'
> just shows a line with '--MARK--' on it, and then nothing else until
> syslog-ng starts up on the next boot up.
> Without anything logged to trace it from, I'm at a complete loss here.
> I've tried disabling pretty much all of KDE's power management in case
> it happened to be that, but no luck.
> 
> Searching about the internet suggested two problem possibilities,
> namely VLC (which apparently somehow causes KDE to experience issues
> just by having it installed...) and cron, though there's nothing cron
> is running except three daily jobs - logrotate, man-db and shadow
> respectively, none of which would seem to me to be the cause.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas to lend a hand here?
> 
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Hi,
to me that sounds like an X screensaver problem.
If the m/c is on a network, try pinging then logging in remotely with telnet 
from a windows box (unless you have another linux m/c on your network in which 
case use that).
I suspect you will find your laptop is very much alive, but the X server is 
"hung" blocking the screen & keyboard. In which case ... first off disable the 
screensaver.
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] Setting up hostname in Linux

2011-04-05 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Monday, April 04, 2011 11:37:19 PM Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Terry,
> 
> > Maybe my memory is faulty, but my recollection of doing this on
> > earlier Unix systems, (like Solaris), is that the hostname went into
> > the file called hostname (or similar) and that did it (after a
> > reboot).
> 
> Debian/Ubuntu still have that.
> 
> $ cat /etc/hostname
> orac
> $ hostname
> orac
> $ hostname -f
> orac
> $
> 
> Note, the -f output is wrong here, I haven't got it to be correct yet
> which is annoying as some programs, e.g. postfix, rightly expect it to
> be a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
FC14 seems to use the /etc/sysconfig tree to hold this kind of info
/etc/sysconfig/network:HOSTNAME=myhostname
& /etc/rc.sysinit reads the sysconfig tree
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] DNS on an isolated (1:1) network

2011-03-10 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Thursday, March 10, 2011 08:17:20 pm John Carlyle-Clarke wrote:
> On 10/03/11 18:59, Terry Coles wrote:
> > On Thursday 10 Mar 2011, Chris Dennis wrote:
> >> dnsmasq[1] is relatively simple to work with, and is probably available
> >> in your favourite distro.
> >> 
> >> [1] http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html
> > 
> > Thanks.  That looks like a good start.
> 
> +1 for dnsmasq.
> 
> I have configured dhcpd and bind to do DHCP, DNS and dynamic DNS updates
> before, but it was not easy.  dnsmasq, by comparison, takes about 10
> minutes to set up (and that includes the time to make a cup of tea).
> 
> 
> 
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I completely agree with you - I had the same trouble.
+2 to dnsmasq

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Re: [Dorset] [OT] DNS port number

2011-02-25 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 25, 2011 05:25:29 pm Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> > Once a connection is made (an incoming connect request to an allowed
> > port) accept(2) will grab another port so that the original port is
> > free for further connect requests.
> 
> For the benefit of others, since I know you really know this already
> 
> :-), accept(2) creates another *socket* to handle the connection that's
> 
> been made, not another port, so further connection requests on the
> existing socket can be accepted.  The port number is the same for both
> sockets;  that's fine since the 5-tuple overall with be distinct between
> the two.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
> 
> 
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Yup!
sincerest apologies.
You are of course right - its the 5-tuple that identifies the endpoint.
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] [OT] DNS port number

2011-02-24 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Thursday, February 24, 2011 07:06:34 pm Tim wrote:
> On Thursday 24 February 2011 00:15:10 Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> > Hi Dan,
> > 
> > > On Wednesday 23 February 2011 23:12:31 Dan Dart wrote:
> > > > 8.8.8.8 is Google's DNS service. If you're using it, then that'll be
> > > > why.  The high port numbers are the responses. which were blocked :(
> > > 
> > > I know 8.8.8.8 is google, I have had the same log entries when I was
> > > using opendns IP (208.67.222.222).  I realise that the log entry is
> > > telling me that a port scan was blocked but I want to know why the dns
> > > is scanning my system on high port numbers when the dns port number is
> > > normal 53, is this high level port number scanning normal activity??
> > 
> > If I'm remembering my Stevens' correctly, and Andy Paterson will correct
> > me if I'm wrong, IP packets use a 5-tuple to fully specify the
> > "connection", e.g.  TCP.  Its members are
> > 
> > protocol, local address, local port, remote address, remote port
> > 
> > When my machine sends a DNS request to Google that tuple might be
> > 
> > UDP, 87.113.175.32, 49681, 8.8.8.8, 53
> > 
> > 87... is my IP address at the moment, 8.8.8.8 and 53 you recognise as
> > one of Google's DNS servers' IP addresses and the domain service's port
> > number.  The local port, 49681, has been picked randomly by my machine
> > because the resolver software said it didn't care what the port number
> > was so it just got a spare one.
> > 
> > It's the well-known destination port, 53, that's important when
> > initiating a request to a server.  The server will see the address and
> > port number of the peer, 87.113.175.32 and 49681, and send the reply
> > there.
> > 
> > No two duplicate 5-tuples exist at the same moment.  If I ssh, port 22,
> > from machine foo to machine bar in one terminal, and then do the same in
> > another, the tuples may be
> > 
> > TCP, foo, 41839, bar, 22
> > TCP, foo, 38220, bar, 22
> > 
> > It's the differing local port numbers that allow those two connections
> > to exist at the same time;  every other member of the tuple is
> > identical.
> > 
> > So back to your original issue,
> > 
> > > TCP- or UDP-based Port Scan DETECTED on Wed Feb 23 22:21:20 2011
> > > Â targeting ***.***.***.***,61169, sent from 8.8.8.8,53 (*=my ip
> > > address)
> > 
> > 61169 is the local port number that Google's DNS server thinks
> > originated the request that it's replying to.  Your stateful firewall
> > software thinks that's a port scan because it never saw the outgoing
> > request or the request to Google didn't come from you and someone is
> > spoofing your IP address.  Or your firewall is buggy.  :-)  If they are
> > spoofing you then they're probably not picking on you per se, it's just
> > one of those things and this email is long enough already.
> > 
> > As for why they still occur when you use OpenDNS, I guess it's because
> > something on your LAN is still configured to use Google.  You could use
> > tcpdump or Wireshark on an appropriate machine to try and see the
> > outgoing request.
> > 
> > sudo tcpdump port domain
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Ralph.
> 
> So these inbound TCP\UDP based request, should I continue to block them? if
> I allow them through how do I do it, do I need to forward them to
> something on my netwrok possibly my firewall?
> 
> Tim
> 
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Hi,
I stand corrected if I am wrong - but I beieve with TCP you are 
blocking 
CONNECT requests. There shouldn't be anything trying to connect to an unknown 
(high) TCP port [not specifcally allowed by your firewall] on your m/c - so yes 
- block them.
Once a connection is made (an incoming connect request to an allowed port) 
accept(2) will grab another port so that the original port is free for further 
connect requests.
The new port [your end of the tcp connection] will be an unused port in the 
range you are talking about - but this won't matter, since its the connect 
requests that are blocked not parts of an active tcp connection.
However (as Ralph is pointing out) the firewall tries to recognise that a TCP 
message (datagram) is part of an established connection & if it doesnt think 
it is - for the reason Ralph gave - it will drop the datagram).
With UDP (since its connectionless) you are simply blocking any datagrams 
(messages) destined to the specified port on your system.
Just my 10C
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] [OT] DNS port number

2011-02-23 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Thursday, February 24, 2011 12:03:26 am Andrew Reid Paterson wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:33:57 pm Tim wrote:
> > On Wednesday 23 February 2011 23:22:14 Andrew Reid Paterson wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:11:59 pm jr wrote:
> > > > On 23 February 2011 23:03, Tim  wrote:
> > > > > Any thoughts?
> > > > 
> > > > I'd look into setting up a DMZ box (if you've a spare machine),
> > > > separating the internal network from the Virgin/BT/whatever supplied
> > > > h/ware.  extreme, admittedly, but what price peace of mind?
> > > 
> > > Hi Tim,
> > > I have precisely this kind of setup simply by having two network
> > > interfaces on my main system which runs iptables and is connected vis
> > > the internal lan cable and hub to a wireless repeater on which connect
> > > to my wifi gadgets like ps3, nokia phone & bravia tv.
> > > What I really like is the level of control I have from configuring
> > > iptables right down to monitoring with wireshark and dhcp contro of
> > > clients. Perish the thought of a cable wifi router.
> > > incidentally, as Dan sys 8.8.8.8 is google dns.
> > > Whya are you not using Virgins own dns - which can be set via dhcp?
> > > Regards
> > > Andy
> > > 
> > > --
> > 
> > Hi Andy, I have been with NTL\Virgin a very long time (since it arrived
> > in the bmth\Poole area, I was a tester) and in the early days NTL DNS
> > were terrible, so I have been using non NTL\Virgin DNS for as long as I
> > have been using NTL\Virgin cable.
> > 
> > I do have my own Firewall PC behind the router but I have been
> > considering removing it as it is very old PC and an old firewall
> > software.
> > 
> > While I am aware that 8.8.8.8 is google, I have had exactly the same
> > problem when I was using opendns IP  (208.67.222.222)
> > 
> > Tim
> > 
> > 
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> 
> Hi Tim,
>   I understand what you say - I do remember something about the DNS being
> slow - once - indeed I tried changing to use something (prob not opendns at
> the time) & I had problems I never managed to identify. So I switched back
> to NTLs' servers and to be frank, I dont have any problems now (I suspect
> this is poss. because NTL/virgin cable is relatively lightly loaded - cos
> they are expensive!).
> But as I say, I simply have my main system with an additional ethernet card
> - so it behaves just like your old stand-alone firewall PC but its also my
> server.
> Its quite educational setting it up tho' particularily whan upgrading - but
> then - its good fun (except you have no internet connection till you get it
> right!).
> Whatever is to your taste  - I just do what works for me - whatever you do
> - good luck.
> Regards
> Andy
> 
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Hi again Tim,
what I prob didn't make clear (but I'm sure you knew what I meant) is 
that I have an ethernet cable modem NOT a router.
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] [OT] DNS port number

2011-02-23 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:33:57 pm Tim wrote:
> On Wednesday 23 February 2011 23:22:14 Andrew Reid Paterson wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:11:59 pm jr wrote:
> > > On 23 February 2011 23:03, Tim  wrote:
> > > > Any thoughts?
> > > 
> > > I'd look into setting up a DMZ box (if you've a spare machine),
> > > separating the internal network from the Virgin/BT/whatever supplied
> > > h/ware.  extreme, admittedly, but what price peace of mind?
> > 
> > Hi Tim,
> > I have precisely this kind of setup simply by having two network
> > interfaces on my main system which runs iptables and is connected vis
> > the internal lan cable and hub to a wireless repeater on which connect
> > to my wifi gadgets like ps3, nokia phone & bravia tv.
> > What I really like is the level of control I have from configuring
> > iptables right down to monitoring with wireshark and dhcp contro of
> > clients. Perish the thought of a cable wifi router.
> > incidentally, as Dan sys 8.8.8.8 is google dns.
> > Whya are you not using Virgins own dns - which can be set via dhcp?
> > Regards
> > Andy
> > 
> > --
> 
> Hi Andy, I have been with NTL\Virgin a very long time (since it arrived in
> the bmth\Poole area, I was a tester) and in the early days NTL DNS were
> terrible, so I have been using non NTL\Virgin DNS for as long as I have
> been using NTL\Virgin cable.
> 
> I do have my own Firewall PC behind the router but I have been considering
> removing it as it is very old PC and an old firewall software.
> 
> While I am aware that 8.8.8.8 is google, I have had exactly the same
> problem when I was using opendns IP  (208.67.222.222)
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
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Hi Tim,
I understand what you say - I do remember something about the DNS being 
slow - once - indeed I tried changing to use something (prob not opendns at 
the time) & I had problems I never managed to identify. So I switched back to 
NTLs' servers and to be frank, I dont have any problems now (I suspect this is 
poss. because NTL/virgin cable is relatively lightly loaded - cos they are 
expensive!).
But as I say, I simply have my main system with an additional ethernet card - 
so it behaves just like your old stand-alone firewall PC but its also my 
server.
Its quite educational setting it up tho' particularily whan upgrading - but 
then - its good fun (except you have no internet connection till you get it 
right!).
Whatever is to your taste  - I just do what works for me - whatever you do - 
good luck.
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] [OT] DNS port number

2011-02-23 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:11:59 pm jr wrote:
> On 23 February 2011 23:03, Tim  wrote:
> > Any thoughts?
> 
> I'd look into setting up a DMZ box (if you've a spare machine),
> separating the internal network from the Virgin/BT/whatever supplied
> h/ware.  extreme, admittedly, but what price peace of mind?
Hi Tim,
I have precisely this kind of setup simply by having two network interfaces on 
my main system which runs iptables and is connected vis the internal lan cable 
and hub to a wireless repeater on which connect to my wifi gadgets like ps3, 
nokia phone & bravia tv.
What I really like is the level of control I have from configuring iptables 
right down to monitoring with wireshark and dhcp contro of clients.
Perish the thought of a cable wifi router.
incidentally, as Dan sys 8.8.8.8 is google dns.
Whya are you not using Virgins own dns - which can be set via dhcp?
Regards
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] Slight OT: Regular Expressions in Winblows

2011-02-21 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Monday, February 21, 2011 09:38:24 pm Keith Edmunds wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:21:14 +, l...@discoverlinux.co.uk said:
> > In vi
> > 
> > :1,$s/_[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]/found/g
> 
> In case it isn't clear, Vim is available on Windows as well. I know Vim
> isn't everyone's cup of tea (for some inexplicable reason), but good to
> know that there is a powerful editor available for those unfortunate
> enough to need to edit files on a Windows platform.
> 
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And of course winviis available on windows too.
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-18 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 18, 2011 02:27:43 pm jr wrote:
> On 18 February 2011 14:09, Andrew Reid Paterson
> 
>  wrote:
> > So, I will now wait & see what haappens.
> 
> those settings (probably) won't survive a reboot, you might want to
> add a small script to your system start.

Funny you should say that! - I just discovered that and added them to my 
rc.local
 Thanks
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-18 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 18, 2011 12:39:37 pm Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> > What kind of spin-up times do you think are normal for a modern
> > hard-drive then?
> 
> Second or two?  Purely from very limited experience.  Have just timed
> this very old 20GB PATA drive.
> 
> $ foo() { date +%S.%N; }
> $ sudo true; foo; sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb >$N; foo
> 31.142709016
> 35.482519853
> $ e 35.482519853 - 31.142709016
> 4.339810837
> $
> 
> So that's quite a bit slower.
> 
> There are a few SMART stats with spin in their name, including apparent
> spin up time.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
> 
> 
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Hi again Ralph,
I have found :

http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~greg/projects/erc/

Which talks about a solution (back in 2009 - a patch to smartctl).
I assumed ;) the patch is included in the FC14 smartctl and tried it :

# smartctl -d sat -l scterc /dev/sdb
smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

SCT Error Recovery Control:
   Read: Disabled
  Write: Disabled

# smartctl -l scterc,70,70 /dev/sdc
smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

SCT Error Recovery Control:
   Read: 70 (7.0 seconds)
  Write: 70 (7.0 seconds)

-

# smartctl -d sat -l scterc /dev/sdb
smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

SCT Error Recovery Control:
   Read: 70 (7.0 seconds)
  Write: 70 (7.0 seconds)
-

So, I will now wait & see what haappens.

Regards
Andy




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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-18 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 18, 2011 12:39:37 pm Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> > What kind of spin-up times do you think are normal for a modern
> > hard-drive then?
> 
> Second or two?  Purely from very limited experience.  Have just timed
> this very old 20GB PATA drive.
> 
> $ foo() { date +%S.%N; }
> $ sudo true; foo; sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb >$N; foo
> 31.142709016
> 35.482519853
> $ e 35.482519853 - 31.142709016
> 4.339810837
> $
> 
> So that's quite a bit slower.
> 
> There are a few SMART stats with spin in their name, including apparent
> spin up time.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
> 
> 
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Hi Ralph,
this is what made me raise an eyeborw:

>From the Western Digital website: 
 
Western Digital manufactures desktop edition hard drives and RAID Edition hard 
drives. Each type of hard drive is designed to work specifically in either a 
desktop computer environment or a demanding enterprise environment. 
 
If you install and use a desktop edition hard drive connected to a RAID 
controller, the drive may not work correctly unless jointly qualified by an 
enterprise OEM. This is caused by the normal error recovery procedure that a 
desktop edition hard drive uses. 
 
When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter 
into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data 
from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the 
problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the 
severity of the issue. Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time 
for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to 
complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array. Most 
RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping 
a hard drive from an array. Western Digital does not recommend installing 
desktop edition hard drives in an enterprise environment (on a RAID 
controller). 
 
Western Digital RAID edition hard drives have a feature called TLER (Time 
Limited Error Recovery) which stops the hard drive from entering into a deep 
recovery cycle. The hard drive will only spend 7 seconds to attempt to 
recover. This means that the hard drive will not be dropped from a RAID array. 
Though TLER is designed for RAID environments, it is fully compatible and will 
not be detrimental when used in non-RAID environments. 

My new drives are labelled "Desktop Drives".

However as I say, I have had no problems so far & maybe my next electricity 
bill will be tiny ;)
Regards
Andy
 

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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-18 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 18, 2011 08:43:43 am Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> > After spending days(!) fscking and trying to decode all kinds of stuff
> > I stepped back and saw the light - I MUST have a duff disk.
> 
> `smartctl -a /dev/sda' can be useful to get the drive's own stats on how
> things are going.  (Does fsck(8) still only check a filesystem's
> metadata?)  smartctl(8) can, I think, be used to get the drive to do
> some non-destructive tests on all sectors.  May be something to try now
> you've nothing to risk losing from them, although I don't know how well
> the SMART commands work through non-[PS]ATA interfaces.
> 
> > I therefore went out and replaced BOTH disks (which were Hitachi
> > Desktar 200GB IDE units which on extracting them I find are dated 2005
> > (so fair enough!).
> 
> Post IBM's Deathstar then.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Deathstar
> ;-)
> 
> > "The "green" credentials of the new disks will mean they will power
> > down after (20? secs) of inactivity and take too long to power up
> > causing linux Raid to fail a disk and detach it." !!!
> 
> hdparm(8) has options, e.g -S (capital), to control aspects like idle
> spin-down time;  perhaps that can help.  I didn't realise any modern
> drives took too long to spin up though.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
> 
> 
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Hi Ralph,
I recall I did try probing the disk with smartctl before I replaced it, but 
the counts it returned said it was all good (i.e. all fail caounts were zero).
Interestingly if I now try to run smartctl on the old disk (connected by my 
external IDE/USB connector) - appearing as /dev/sde,  I get :
--
smartctl -a /dev/sde

smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

/dev/sde: Unsupported USB bridge [0x04cf:0x8818 (0xb008)]
Smartctl: please specify device type with the -d option.

Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary
--

Which I have to say - is a understandable but a disappointment! 

You are prob right about spin-up (It could be that the notes I came across on 
an internet search were not that accurate).
I understood that "Green" drives try to hide the fact that they are "spun-
down" (presumably with huge buffers?) and even (according to what I have read) 
dont log their spin-downs for things like smartctl to get at - i have seen a 
few angry comments about that.
What kind of spin-up times do you think are normal for a modern hard-drive 
then?

Andy

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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-18 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Friday, February 18, 2011 07:52:30 am Keith Edmunds wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:59:22 +, andy.pater...@ntlworld.com said:
> > Then Nokia puts a spoke in the works and effectively indicates that
> > continuing learning QT will be a waste of t!me
> 
> I think you're extrapolating considerably more than was announced. I very
> much doubt Qt is going to disappear.
> 
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I hope you are right Keith - I really hope you are right!
Andy

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Re: [Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-17 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
On Thursday, February 17, 2011 04:49:24 pm Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> > The kernel log shows (e.g):
> > [ 7551.160178] ata10.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6
> 
> Is this a bug covering your problem?
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=549981
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph.
> 
> 
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Hi all (particularily Ralph and Keith)
re - my raid disk problems.
As Keith pointed out, I obviously had a disk problem.
After spending days(!) fscking and trying to decode all kinds of stuff I 
stepped back and saw the light - I MUST have a duff disk.
I therefore went out and replaced BOTH disks (which were Hitachi Desktar 200GB 
IDE units which on extracting them I find are dated 2005 (so fair enough!).
I replaced them with 2 X WD Caviar Green 1TB SATA units.
(WD 'cos I went shopping in "desperation" mode!).
I have subsequently mounted both of the old disks(using an external IDE-USB 
adapter) and done mke2fs -c (badblocks) on them and found one of the two 
partitions on one of the disks reports bad blocks in its initial sectors so 
that prob explains things.
I have subsequently read all kinds of horror stories regarding the insanity of 
my WD purchase ! - because (allegedly) ...
"The "green" credentials of the new disks will mean they will power down after 
(20? secs) of inactivity and take too long to power up causing linux Raid to 
fail a disk and detach it." !!!
Well, having sinned, I have no alternative than to live with my sins.
I have to admit - I now have all four disks with SATA connectors which are so 
much more wieldy than the inflexible IDE connectors - (I can now hang my jacket 
in the Case alongside the motherboard).
Its been up for 5 days now and works perfectly (so far)... fixing and upgrading 
my system  went well  except for FC14 - did I hear someone claim it was an 
easy install - thats an illusion - after getting round the /boot size problem 
- I then had a very tedious time configuring 2 ethernet interfaces & iptables - 
mainly because FC14 installs with such a basic package set that you have to 
spend an evening downloading most of the useful (sysadmin) stuff.
But here I am, disks replaced (& restored) - system properly upgraded to FC14 
- all ready to start development using QT4..
Then Nokia puts a spoke in the works and effectively indicates that continuing 
learning QT will be a waste of t!me - which is a shame 'cos I have always 
loved KDE - (at risk of getting flamed) its much better than Gnome.
Sigh!
Thanks for the help
Andy

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[Dorset] disk problems

2011-02-11 Thread Andrew Reid Paterson
Hi all,
I have a pernennial problem with a raid array (which contains a 400GB 
filesystem 72% full.
Since its raid 1 I am bemused that I keep getting file-system errors every 2 or 
threee days on reboot (requiring a manual fsck).
The kernel log shows (e.g):
___



[ 7551.160178] ata10.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6
[ 7551.160182] ata10.00: BMDMA stat 0x4
[ 7551.160186] ata10.00: failed command: WRITE DMA
[ 7551.160194] ata10.00: cmd ca/00:18:39:50:a1/00:00:00:00:00/e9 tag 0 dma 
12288 out
[ 7551.160196]  res 51/84:00:50:50:a1/00:00:00:00:00/e9 Emask 0x10 
(ATA bus error)
[ 7551.160200] ata10.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
[ 7551.160203] ata10.00: error: { ICRC ABRT }
[ 7551.160236] ata10: soft resetting link
[ 7551.323572] ata10.00: configured for UDMA/100
[ 7551.329343] ata10.01: configured for UDMA/66
[ 7551.329595] ata10: EH complete





Is anyone able to reasonably decipher this?
I recently upgraded the filesystem from ext3 to ext4 (via "appropriate 
incantation"  of tune2fs).
This made not the slightest difference.
Strangley, after the fscks has fixed things (mainly dup allocated blocks) I 
never appear to have lost anything (!).

Any (reasonably polite) suggestions gratefully received. In particuylar - how 
to match the ata no. given with one of my actual disks 
filesystems mounted as follows:

/dev/mapper/vg_waverley-lv_root on / type ext4 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,rootcontext="system_u:object_r:tmpfs_t:s0")
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/vg_waverley-lv_home on /opt type ext4 (rw)
/dev/md1 on /home type ext4 (rw)
/dev/md0 on /multimedia type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/andyp/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon 
(rw,nosuid,nodev,user=andyp)


/proc/diskstats:
___
...
...
...
   8   0 sda 72495 13319 3310860 320940 21615 267129 2184958 674670 0 
250084 995628
   8   1 sda1 644 250 9656 919 170 17603 35558 3187 0 1309 4106
   8   2 sda2 71683 13065 3299828 319382 18924 249526 2149400 637608 0 
215408 957010
  11   0 sr0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   8  16 sdb 27076 13275 1084119 146144 10482 18556 231792 92334 0 218764 
238432
   8  17 sdb1 615 1460 3079 547 0 0 0 0 0 469 546
   8  18 sdb2 2083 1991 14586 2839 2 0 16 3 0 2738 2842
   8  19 sdb3 22345 9518 909948 134862 10385 18551 231528 91810 0 209747 
226630
   8  20 sdb4 1985 290 155994 7715 26 5 248 210 0 6991 7922
   8  32 sdc 23652 12092 690676 137121 10457 18579 231776 93315 0 210435 
230407
   8  33 sdc1 691 1384 3079 495 0 0 0 0 0 437 494
   8  34 sdc2 412 1523 1959 549 0 0 0 0 0 518 548
   8  35 sdc3 20659 8873 550762 129205 10362 18574 231528 92761 0 203760 
221944
   8  36 sdc4 1842 296 134364 6601 26 5 248 217 0 6235 6813
  11   1 sr1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 253   0 dm-0 83866 0 3290154 502689 268450 0 2143624 13403047 0 248238 
13905734
 253   1 dm-1 394 0 3152 1919 719 0 5752 4035 0 994 5954
   9   1 md1 61401 0 1460282 0 25500 0 203448 0 0 0 0
   9   0 md0 4348 0 289946 0 19 0 152 0 0 0 0
 253   2 dm-2 722 0 5770 1378 5 0 24 78 0 554 1456
...
...
___

/proc/mdstat:
_
Personalities : [raid1] 
md0 : active raid1 sdc4[1] sdb4[0]
  58605056 blocks [2/2] [UU]
  
md1 : active raid1 sdc3[1] sdb3[0]
  58605056 blocks [2/2] [UU]
  
unused devices: 
___


md1 is the offending mirror.

System is FC14: Fedora release 14 (Laughlin)
(But I was getting this with FC11 prior to an upgrade)

TIA
Andy







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