January 2008 - Roundtable

Any advnaced phpBB admins out there?
by Raymond J. Henry 07 Jan '08

07 Jan '08

I've got an issue that has me completely stumped.... Using phpBB with mail2forums and Mailman. The phpBB end of things appears to be working fine, with one accept ion. When an email is made to the list, it goes through a registered user and gets posted to the forums just fine. But then it appears that the phpBB/mail2forum detects the "new" post, and sends that back to the list. So anyone using posts to the list via email show up in email twice and once on the forums. Posts made directly to the forums show up once in the forums, once in email.

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Clean Linux install problems
by Mike Pfaiffer 04 Jan '08

04 Jan '08

So far it's not going too well. I've tried a couple of distros and variants. Here is what I've been doing so far... Fedora 8 installed but froze severely on the post boot load (I saw grub). CentOS installed didn't like my existing user drive. Then I tried four types of Ubuntu (the current Gutsy). The regular Ubuntu and Kubuntu froze while trying to run /etc/rc.local. I spent the entire afternoon and evening trying the Ubuntu alternate. It installed but when it was time for the reboot (default option) it froze at the same location as the live CDs. I was able to get into recovery mode without any problems. After disabling a whole bunch of power management, bluetooth, and laptop stuff (even so it was still convinced my mini-tower is drawing power from a battery) I was able to get to a user account text prompt. Now I'll admit I prefer text mode but some of the things I do require a GUI. Since I have a working Mac I was not in much of a panic. From Google I found there may be a little trouble with the Radeon 7000 video card (go figure...). I saved the old xorg.conf and replaced it with one which was working with the Gutsy Beta. It then complained about no device. I fiddled around with it a little more and got to the point where it complained about no screens. After merging the two files it ended up at the point where it said it found screens but none were usable. By this time the Kubuntu alternate was down and burned. I installed it and it looks like it's going to be more of the same. I figure I have a reasonable number of options at this point. - Ask the group here for advice (I may ask again on Tuesday). - Go back to the Gutsy Beta. Possibly update from there. - Go back to Feisty. - Go back to FC 2 (I dislike anything newer in this distro). - Install Free BSD. Has anybody had this problem and fixed it? Is there anything I have missed? I gather there are problems with the update from previous installs as well. Here is some info on the setup. Plenty of hard drive and RAM. An Athlon 1800XP+ processor. An OEM ATI Radeon 7000 video card. All this stuff was working with older installs. This is mostly a workstation dual booting into Windows ME on the same drive (only for games). The sole user account is on a separate (larger) hard drive so I'm not really worried about things messing up too badly. Obviously I wouldn't want a solution which would take over the entire system. I'd better stop now otherwise I'd end up writing a whole lot more. ;-) Later Mike

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MUUG Meeting, Jan 8, 7:30pm -- Network Monitoring with Zenoss
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, January 8. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Network Monitoring with Zenoss How do you keep tabs on your equipment? Do you remember to check free disk space on a regular basis? Have you set up MRTG to monitor every single network interface on every single system? Have you set up Nagios to alert you whenever any service on any server goes down? Most people dont have satisfactory answers to these questions. MRTG and RRDTool are time-consuming and sometimes difficult to set up, and ongoing configuration is difficult. Getting Nagios going can be an exercise in frustration for the newcomer to network monitoring, and ongoing configuration is a task best left to experts. Monitoring the dozens (or hundreds) of parameters that tell you whether a system is working properly or not is, quite simply, a royal pain. The developers of Zenoss thought that, too. Rather than building another bolt-on front-end to an aging platform (nagios) or a limited-function tool (mrtg) they just started building a new system that worked the right way. Enter Zenoss. Zenoss isnt 100% feature-complete vis--vis expertly- installed Nagios and MRTG, but its enough of the way there to make it a lot easier to set up and get going. Zenoss automatically discovers devices on your network, then using SNMP, TCP probes, WMI or telnet discovers what services exist on those devices, and automatically sets up polling of several relevant pieces of information. Adam Thompson, who's with the Divisional IT Department of the St. James-Assiniboia School Division, will be our presenter for this month. Adam will attempt to cover the fundamentals of how Zenoss works, how to get Zenoss up and running on your network, and time permitting will demonstrate some of its features on a live network. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $3.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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