November 2013 - Roundtable

out of inodes
by Trevor Cordes 24 Nov '13

24 Nov '13

Had a weird issue today where I had 1GB free disk space on / but programs were bombing out with "no more space" errors. I deleted big files to make 1.6GB free. Still the same error! Turns out (thanks Adam) I had run out of inodes. That's pretty wild as I tweak my fs's to ensure that won't happen based on my usage patterns. In the end, it was Opera that had created 2 *million* temp files in its user cache dir! Which leads me to the question: why didn't Linux (or I guess extX) reserve whatever% inodes for root, as it does for actual disk space? Has no one ever thought of this? It seems rather silly that a user program could bring down the whole system by using up all the inodes. I just wanted to check other peoples' thoughts before I contemplate making a bugzilla on this.

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Using Neoware thin client as an ASCII terminal
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 15 Nov '13

15 Nov '13

Hi folks. Just a quick follow-up on my round-table question at the last MUUG meeting... I still haven't found a way to access the serial port on the Neoware using Neolinux. So, I went hunting for a small Linux distro dedicated to running minicom. A Google search for "minicom linux boot floppy" pointed our a couple... http://www.asashi.net/pages/pitux.html http://www.riddoch.org/linux/terminal/ ... plus an excerpt from a book called Embedded Linux, which showed you how to roll your own. The second link above also explains how to roll your own, but concludes with a link to his own bootable floppy image. PiTUX also comes with a boot floppy image, as well as an ISO CD image. I was able to get the boot image onto a partition in the Neoware flash drive, and modified the Neolinux lilo.conf to boot from that. (The last part ended up being the hardest part, but I was kind of hoping not to toast the Neolinux image, in case I want to boot to that.) -- 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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Disk drive longevity - new study
by Adam Thompson 15 Nov '13

15 Nov '13

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/12/server_server_in_the_rack_whens_my_… -- -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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MUUG Special Event: Nov 15, 4:30pm -- Theo de Raadt on OpenBSD
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 13 Nov '13

13 Nov '13

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding a "special event" meeting this Friday, November 15. The meeting topic is as follows: Theo de Raadt on OpenBSD Theo de Raadt, founder of the OpenBSD project, will be giving an informal talk about... well, whatever he's comfortable talking about. We expect to hear something about OpenBSD, but the details will be a surprise for everyone (possibly even Theo)! Doors open at 4:30pm. Talk starts at 5:30pm. Finger food will be provided, courtesy of MUUG. All interested people are welcome. (There is no charge for this event.) Location for this special event: King's Head Pub, 120 King St. The King's Head Pub, across from Old Market Square, is hosting this talk. The talk will be in the event room on the north side of the building. Enter through the main door on King St. Parking is available on surrounding streets and in various parkades nearby (including an indoor Impark lot immediately south of the King's Head). For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this special event, 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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OpenSSH advisory...
by Sean Cody 09 Nov '13

09 Nov '13

Hey folks: http://www.openssh.com/txt/gcmrekey.adv TL;DR… aes-gcm implementation has issues… turn it off or patch… here’s how (openbsd centric but similar methods apply for other OS’). To mititgate add: Ciphers aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc (note should be all decent ciphers minus aes-gcm) to /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Then run SSHD to test the configuration: sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -T In the output notice the ciphers line matches what you configured and no other configuration warnings are present. And then finally (to avoid outages) send the HUP signal to the root sshd process (ie. the one owned by root). sudo pkill -HUP -lxf /usr/sbin/sshd When successful you will see similar additions to /var/log/authlog: Nov 8 12:02:13 fnord sshd[3995]: Received SIGHUP; restarting. Nov 8 12:02:13 fnord sshd[2255]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 22. Nov 8 12:02:13 fnord sshd[2255]: Server listening on :: port 22. Enjoy your weekend, -- Sean

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MUUG Meeting, November 12, 7:30pm -- Visualization
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 05 Nov '13

05 Nov '13

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, November 12. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Visualization This month is the MUUG annual general meeting, where we'll be electing our new board for the year, most likely by acclamation. After the break, Robert Keizer will be presenting a generic visualization framework, and some applications thereof. For this month's RTFM, Adam Thompson will talk about the dstat(1) command, a versatile tool for generating system resource statistics, and a replacement for vmstat, iostat and ifstat. 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 *NEW* meeting location for this month: Room 1L08, Lockhart Hall, University of Winnipeg, entrance on Ellice Ave. between Spence St. and Balmoral St. Parking is available on the surrounding streets and in the lots on nearby streets. Look for signage once you're at the building, or ask a security guard. ***************************************************************** 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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Lightweight Linux
by Kevin McGregor 04 Nov '13

04 Nov '13

I have a Pentium 4 laptop with 512 MB RAM and 80 GB drive. I'd like a fast and lightweight Linux on it. Web browsing is about all it will be doing. Recommendations?

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