March 2016 - Roundtable

IBM "clicky" keyboards
by Adam Thompson 13 Oct '16

13 Oct '16

Enough people have wondered/asked/complained to me about this that I'm posting this now as a public service. IBM Model "M" keyboards are still available, *NEW*, today. They are expensive, but they are the original design that you can use as a melee weapon. The catch is that they don't say "IBM" or even "Lexmark" on them. They are available for purchase from the manufacturer, Unicomp, who can be found online at http://www.pckeyboard.com/. You can also find some vintage NIB units from time to time at http://www.clickykeyboards.com/. There are also a number of other manufacturers now making similar, but not quite as good, keyboards. - CVT Inc., the maker of the Avant Stellar (I own two of them), which is the direct descendant of the Northgate Omnikey, seems to have restructured and no trace of their keyboard manufacturing operation can be found online. However, Northgate keyboards are still available new-in-box from (this is a horrible site, beware) http://www.northgate-keyboard-repair.com/. - The Happy Hacking keyboard (now owned by Fujitsu, apparently) is equally comforting to some people despite having a totally different feel. They, and many others, can be had from http://www.elitekeyboards.com/ - Das Keyboard - Anything using Cherry MX Green, Blue, or White keyswitches. The "green" switches apparently are the closest anyone's come yet to emulating the IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp switches... and they can be had in MUCH cheaper keyboards, like the Rosewill RK-9000 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201040 and http://techreport.com/review/23405/rosewill-rk-9000-series-mechanical-ke yboards-reviewed). - And there are an increasing number (yes, again, after the big die-off ca. 2009) of speciality manufacturers of "ergonomic" keyboards that are making clicky keyswitches available as an option. One of the better ones is a tiny shop in Ontario, but I can't find the name right now. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicomp http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_MX -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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shrink to smaller disk, offsite
by Trevor Cordes 02 Apr '16

02 Apr '16

I have an interesting problem. Linux box. /, /boot, swap on 3 RAID1 partitions 2 disks currently RAID is degraded, just using 1 750G disk. / (ext3) is 700G, only 200G used. No LVM. I added a 500G SSD. I want that to be the new 2nd RAID1 disk. I need to shrink / to be ~450G before I can do this. resize2fs can only do shrink on unmounted. That's a problem. RAID1 can shrink the RAID block dev once I get the fs shrunk, so that's not a problem. I'm offsite and want to find a way to do this without going onsite and using single-user mode or a boot cd. Options? I guess I could make a new, smaller RAID1 / on the SSD, quiet down all services, and do a cp -a or cpio or something? Then get the system to boot off the new / and ignore the old one, and reboot. Besides in theory, has anyone actually do a whole cpio or cp -a of an entire *running* / and been successful? Sample command lines? I guess nowadays there would be zero dev files that need to be copied because udev recreates them all? So it's literally just files, dirs, links and fifos that need copying? Any options using just ext3 and mdadm tools? Surely there must be some way... unless the no-shrink-mounted makes that impossible. Maybe I'm missing something. Thanks!

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apache logging full path of script run?
by Trevor Cordes 31 Mar '16

31 Mar '16

Does anyone know if you can make apache log the full path to a hit (i.e. script run or jpg served up). It logs the basedir-relative path by default it seems: 52.10.199.91 - - [31/Mar/2016:18:02:16 -0500] "GET /index.phtml HTTP/1.1" 200 9024 "http://72.3.247.85:80" "Go-http-client/1.1" Instead of /index.phtml I'd like to see: /var/www/html/app1/index.phtml One might say, ah, but you know where index.phtml lives, so just use find or something. In this case it doesn't help me because I serve up 1 of about 5 different index.phtml depending on whether the hit is https, "dev", "live", "demo" (hostname, vhosts, etc). I don't want to use separate log files, as I'd have a ton of them, and eyeballing them all for discrepancies would be a pain. Also, I think the "GET /index.phtml" doesn't even have to represent a file, I think that's just the raw URI. I do use mod_rewrite a lot in some parts and it would be nice to have it log the final file it decides to serve up, not just the URI that might get hacked and mangled. Thanks!

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Survey
by Eureka Project 31 Mar '16

31 Mar '16

View this email in your browser (http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=6483449b1bb79e945dd98e30f&id=c462156178…) http://eurekaproject.ca/ ** ------------------------------------------------------------ Hello! We’re hoping you’ll lend a hand to help startups as they work to validate their ideas. All it takes is a bit of your time to answer an email survey. Only four are planned for each year. The insight you provide is invaluable. Your participation is appreciated, but not required. If you would like to opt out, click here (mailto:suzanne@eurekaproject.ca?subject=Opt%20out%20of%20survey's) and type “out” into the body of the email. Thank you for your continued support of our startup community. Sincerely, Jeff Ryzner President, The Eureka Project NOTE: If you are a startup interested in using this service next quarter, please contact lindsay(a)eurekaproject.ca (mailto:lindsay@eurekaproject.ca?subject=Surveys) . SURVEY LineHub Mobile Inc. is developing an exciting technology product and is inviting business owners and employees to take a short survey. All the information provided will be kept strictly confidential and used to enhance this new product offering. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XH8CTLF Thank-you for taking the time! ============================================================ ** The Eureka Project (http://www.eurekaproject.ca) The Eureka Project 200-135 Innovation Drive Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T6A8 Canada Phone: 204.262.6400 Fax: 204.262.6407 Copyright © 2016 The Eureka Project, All rights reserved. You are on this list either because you have supported The Eureka Project and we want to keep you in the loop or you've signed up to receive our news after an event. If you wish to stop receiving these emails, please click unsubscribe. Thank you. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can ** update your preferences (http://eurekaproject.us4.list-manage2.com/profile?u=6483449b1bb79e945dd98e3…) or ** unsubscribe from this list (http://eurekaproject.us4.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=6483449b1bb79e945dd9…)

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Re: [RndTbl] shrink partitions
by Michael Doob 31 Mar '16

31 Mar '16

Is gparted useful? My recollection is that it is pretty good at what you want to do. Cheers, Michael On 16-03-31 12:00 PM, roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca wrote: > Send Roundtable mailing list submissions to > roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca > > You can reach the person managing the list at > roundtable-owner(a)muug.mb.ca > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Roundtable digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. shrink to smaller disk, offsite (Trevor Cordes) > 2. Re: shrink to smaller disk, offsite (Gilles Detillieux) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2016 20:56:08 -0500 > From: Trevor Cordes <trevor(a)tecnopolis.ca> > To: MUUG RndTbl <roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca> > Subject: [RndTbl] shrink to smaller disk, offsite > Message-ID: <20160331015608.GA22087(a)pog.tecnopolis.ca> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > I have an interesting problem. > > Linux box. > /, /boot, swap on 3 RAID1 partitions > 2 disks > > currently RAID is degraded, just using 1 750G disk. > / (ext3) is 700G, only 200G used. > > No LVM. > > I added a 500G SSD. I want that to be the new 2nd RAID1 disk. > > I need to shrink / to be ~450G before I can do this. > > resize2fs can only do shrink on unmounted. That's a problem. RAID1 can > shrink the RAID block dev once I get the fs shrunk, so that's not a > problem. > > I'm offsite and want to find a way to do this without going onsite and > using single-user mode or a boot cd. > > Options? > > I guess I could make a new, smaller RAID1 / on the SSD, quiet down all > services, and do a cp -a or cpio or something? Then get the system to > boot off the new / and ignore the old one, and reboot. Besides in theory, > has anyone actually do a whole cpio or cp -a of an entire *running* / and > been successful? Sample command lines? I guess nowadays there would be > zero dev files that need to be copied because udev recreates them all? So > it's literally just files, dirs, links and fifos that need copying? > > Any options using just ext3 and mdadm tools? Surely there must be some > way... unless the no-shrink-mounted makes that impossible. > > Maybe I'm missing something. > > Thanks! > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 11:47:08 -0500 > From: Gilles Detillieux <grdetil(a)scrc.umanitoba.ca> > To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > Subject: Re: [RndTbl] shrink to smaller disk, offsite > Message-ID: <56FD548C.9010702(a)scrc.umanitoba.ca> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed > > It's been a while since I've had to do this, but I have successfully > replicated a live root volume on a few occasions using rsync. It could > be as simple as doing this: > > rsync -aHXx /. /mnt/newdisk/. > > I've adopted the "/." at the end of both paths to rsync as a defensive > measure because it can make some funky assumptions about where you want > source directories put in the target directory otherwise. I've often > ended up with the target having an extra level of directory when I tell > rsync to copy one directory to another without the /. at the end. The > advantage of using rsync is that you can rerun it again to more quickly > update the target if you suspect the source changed during the first > copy, which can happen even on a relatively quiet system. To make the > subsequent update even quicker, you can just run it on directories that > are likely to have changed, e.g. /etc. > > I don't recall if I had to play around with --exclude options to avoid > paths I didn't want traversed, or if the -x took care of all of these. I > do recall that on a few occasions I played it safe by using a for loop > to only copy specific subdirectories and avoid things like /sys and > /proc altogether, but that was a bit more complicated and error-prone > (easy to miss something important). > > Note that if you're using SELinux on your system, you'll want to verify > that the target's contexts are correctly set, and chcon any that aren't. > rsync with the -X option should copy contexts accurately, but you may > want to manually override the context for any mount points on the target > volume, and make sure the volume's root directory is set to > system_u:object_r:root_t. ls -Zld dir is the way I examine contexts (in > addition to modes & ownership). > > Hope this helps. > > Gilles > > On 2016-03-30 20:56, Trevor Cordes wrote: >> I have an interesting problem. >> >> Linux box. >> /, /boot, swap on 3 RAID1 partitions >> 2 disks >> >> currently RAID is degraded, just using 1 750G disk. >> / (ext3) is 700G, only 200G used. >> >> No LVM. >> >> I added a 500G SSD. I want that to be the new 2nd RAID1 disk. >> >> I need to shrink / to be ~450G before I can do this. >> >> resize2fs can only do shrink on unmounted. That's a problem. RAID1 can >> shrink the RAID block dev once I get the fs shrunk, so that's not a >> problem. >> >> I'm offsite and want to find a way to do this without going onsite and >> using single-user mode or a boot cd. >> >> Options? >> >> I guess I could make a new, smaller RAID1 / on the SSD, quiet down all >> services, and do a cp -a or cpio or something? Then get the system to >> boot off the new / and ignore the old one, and reboot. Besides in theory, >> has anyone actually do a whole cpio or cp -a of an entire *running* / and >> been successful? Sample command lines? I guess nowadays there would be >> zero dev files that need to be copied because udev recreates them all? So >> it's literally just files, dirs, links and fifos that need copying? >> >> Any options using just ext3 and mdadm tools? Surely there must be some >> way... unless the no-shrink-mounted makes that impossible. >> >> Maybe I'm missing something. >> >> Thanks! >> _______________________________________________ >> Roundtable mailing list >> Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael Doob Telephone: (204) 474-9796 Department of Mathematics Fax: (204) 474-7606 University of Manitoba email: Michael_Doob(a)umanitoba.ca Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3T 2N2 ------------------------------------------------------------------

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SQL problem
by Trevor Cordes 25 Mar '16

25 Mar '16

Can anyone help me figure out how to do this in SQL (MySQL)? (pseudo-code giving you the gist): SELECT custid, (count orders where ttl=X), (count orders where ttl=Y) FROM ordertable GROUP BY custid; I basically want to count two different things based on two different wheres. If I put in a where clause then I select either the X or the Y but I can't seem to get both in such a way I can count the X's and Y's. I tried thinking about unions but couldn't make it work. I want to do this all in 1 query as I want the sorted union of all custid's (X and Y). P.S. ordertable has/can have multiple entries for each custid. Ideas are appreciated!

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Re: [RndTbl] openssl bug
by wyatt＠prairieturtle.ca 15 Mar '16

15 Mar '16

Seems to me the fault is entirely Intel's. No programmer can be expected to make unsafe hardware safe. Daryl ----- Reply message ----- From: "Trevor Cordes" <trevor(a)tecnopolis.ca> To: "MUUG RndTbl" <roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca> Subject: [RndTbl] openssl bug Date: Mon, Mar 14, 2016 00:31 A side-channel attack was found which makes use of cache-bank conflicts on the Intel Sandy-Bridge microarchitecture which could lead to the recovery of RSA keys. The ability to exploit this issue is limited as it relies on an attacker who has control of code in a thread running on the same hyper-threaded core as the victim thread which is performing decryptions. This issue affects OpenSSL versions 1.0.2 and 1.0.1. ======== Uhh... Umm... OK. How does one decide to start looking at hardware cache-bank conflicts to hack RSA keys? Worse yet, how is a programmer supposed to think of this stuff in his "brainstorm what can go wrong" phase of programming? "Oh, I need to alter my code to ensure it uses different cache banks on Sandy-Bridge." This is insane. _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

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openssl bug
by Trevor Cordes 14 Mar '16

14 Mar '16

A side-channel attack was found which makes use of cache-bank conflicts on the Intel Sandy-Bridge microarchitecture which could lead to the recovery of RSA keys. The ability to exploit this issue is limited as it relies on an attacker who has control of code in a thread running on the same hyper-threaded core as the victim thread which is performing decryptions. This issue affects OpenSSL versions 1.0.2 and 1.0.1. ======== Uhh... Umm... OK. How does one decide to start looking at hardware cache-bank conflicts to hack RSA keys? Worse yet, how is a programmer supposed to think of this stuff in his "brainstorm what can go wrong" phase of programming? "Oh, I need to alter my code to ensure it uses different cache banks on Sandy-Bridge." This is insane.

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ecc laptops!
by Trevor Cordes 12 Mar '16

12 Mar '16

Now you can get ECC in a laptop, without spending tons (but still lots) of money. Lenovo's new P70 line has optional Xeon and ECC. They claim to be the "First ever Intel Xeon power in a mobile" but of course we know some smaller outfits have made Xeon/ECC laptops for years now. But, this probably is the first "name brand" Xeon/ECC laptop. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p70/ You have to look at the highest-end ones to get ECC. Also, 4 RAM slots is nice. Note, I do sell Lenovo, but am posting this just as an FYI since I know a lot of us discuss ECC on a regular basis.

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strange IMAP / G3 problem
by Trevor Cordes 08 Mar '16

08 Mar '16

Brad & I are having a weird problem with his iphone 4S (with the latest iOS versions). iphone builtin mail imaps (port 993) ssl (self-signed) (old ciphers disabled on server) dovecot He can connect to imap with the above config on his in-office wifi, in-home wifi over vpn to office, and shaw open wifi outside his office/home network. If he switches to 3G (I don't think his phone does LTE) then suddenly he can't connect! (With some useless "can't connect" error.) Huh? Duh? Exact same setup and settings on an iphone 5 works fine. Also works fine on Android. The problem is just on his 4S. Even more interesting, if he wifi tethers a PC to his 4S over 3G and hits imaps using thunderbird on the PC it works fine. My question is, what on earth does changing the connection layer have anything to do with this? Can the phone be doing something differently in the mail app depending on 3G or wifi??? Can the 3G network be blocking something (unlikely since the tethered PC works)? It make no sense whatsoever to me. Maybe his phone is p0wned? I'm stumped. Ideas?

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