August 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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Re: [RndTbl] how to share/move sensitive data
by Robert Keizer 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Tar it up and compress it. Scp it. On Aug 24, 2016 17:19, "Trevor Cordes" <trevor(a)tecnopolis.ca> wrote: On 2016-08-24 Micah Garlich-Miller wrote: > > - It's about 400 GB, but I dont know the data structure as I > haven't seen it yet. ie, I'm not sure if its naturally chunked. > - It's of a sensitivity that it needs to be crypted before being > sent. > - Sending on a crypted external harddrive is not acceptable in this > situation. I find a very easy, secure way to give people large files from my linux box is via apache. If you already have a linux box you run apache on then this is a breeze. If you don't, you need apache (or any other WS) and have it serve up port 80/443 to the external internet (either directly, through DMZ, or port forwarding). Since you want encrypted, SSL is a must, even if you put in a self-signed ssl cert (just send the fingerprint to the other user to verify in that case). What I do is I have a directory on my web server that has directory indexing turned off in apache. Then I put a directory in it that is some uberlong (like 64 chars) random alphanum string like pYwRYezIOz6EIAi4HijyF2hVe70L2V2hF3CR6UFMbvjCBgaI5XVsvDeiqzTJa307 Then in that directory have directory indexing turned on (you can use .htaccess for this). Put your big files in there. Then email or otherwise get the link to your end user: https://foo.com/hidden/pYwRYezIOz6EIAi4HijyF2hVe70L2V 2hF3CR6UFMbvjCBgaI5XVsvDeiqzTJa307/ Voila, secure, encrypted access to the files. For someone else on the net to gain access, they'd have to intercept your email/backchannel with the link, or guess the random string, which is basically impossible for this 62**64 string (or have local shell access to your server, though creative use of apache group permissions can mitigate this). If you wanted to you could even add .htpassword basic auth to the above. (Also, make sure you don't provide an un-SSL port 80 http:// link to it!) Test that your no-dirindex is indeed working by going to: https://foo.com/hidden/ which should give you an error saying indexing denied. As for breaking up the files, you could use split to break them into chunks, which might be prudent, though many http downloaders/browsers will resume a broken connection so even a single 400G file might be ok (try using wget with resume options for it). To split you'd do: split -b 1000000000 infile dl-me for 1GB-ish chunks. On the other side it's just: cat dl-me* > original-file Even Windbloze might be able to do it, maybe with type? type dl-me*.* > original-file ??? not sure on that one, maybe powershell gives us better options now. Final note, this transfer will saturate your modem's upload connection, so you might want to schedule it for a weekend or something. Ratelimiting with apache is kind of a pain, but the receiving end could use wget's rate-limiting options (aim for 75% your nominal u/l bandwidth maybe). Or you can setup qos / ratelimiting (using tc and iptables) for egress web traffic on your linux web server or linux router you control, but that gets complicated if you've never done it before. Final final note, you may tick off your ISP and/or exceed your monthly transfer limits (uploads are usually quite limited vs downloads). 400GB is a huge amount to upload for normal home/SMB shaw/mts accounts. (You could bzip (or better) the file before starting the whole process to make it smaller, if both sides have enough disk space for 2 copies.) _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

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Re: [RndTbl] WTB: dvd-r media (MUUG)
by Hartmut W Sager 25 Aug '16

25 Aug '16

OK, thanks! I'll try to supply. As for including MUUG RoundTable in the reply, I had purposely omitted it because I deemed my reply to be "private commercial". However, as you requested, I'm now continuing in public. Is that OK with the rest of you MUUG-ers here? Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331 On 24 August 2016 at 17:36, Trevor Cordes <trevor(a)tecnopolis.ca> wrote: > On 2016-08-24 Hartmut W Sager wrote: > > Trevor, I may have quite a lot of these, and they are pretty well all > > name brand, mostly Verbatim. I'll look around. At one time, I > > thought I'd need lots of these, but things have changed. > > > > If you get sufficient quantities elsewhere, do tell me so that I'll > > stop looking around. > > I still need hundreds a year so I'm game for any you find whenever you > find them. I'll never not need them :-) There's no dire rush, as I > maintain sufficient stock. > > Whenever they pop up is fine with me! Thanks a ton, I really > appreciate it. (P.S. If you reply, keep the MUUG in the subject so I > see it right away.) >

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how to share/move sensitive data
by Micah Garlich-Miller 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Hi all, I seem to recall that there was someone in the group that needed to share/move large amounts of sensitive data with other groups on the interwebs. (original film segments IIRC). I'm wondering what was the general strategy? and what were the tools used? What I do know so far: - It's about 400 GB, but I dont know the data structure as I haven't seen it yet. ie, I'm not sure if its naturally chunked. - It's of a sensitivity that it needs to be crypted before being sent. - Sending on a crypted external harddrive is not acceptable in this situation. What I don't know yet that I think may be relevent: - What the target system OS is. - What the degree of technical sophistication at the client end is. I'm hoping that we can get credentials at the target address, but we could make it available via sftp (for example) on our end if necessary. Sorry for the open endedness of the question and lack of details, but the situation is also urgent and I'm expected to be working on it today. I'm grateful for any feedback. Micah -- Micah Garlich-Miller <micahgarlichmiller(a)gmail.com>

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WTB: dvd-r media
by Trevor Cordes 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Still have some old DVD-R blank discs in spindle packages lying around? Maybe some you got at MUUG meetings in the past? I want to buy those blanks! I'll give you $10 cash for full 50-pc spindles ($5 for 25, $20 for 100) for *namebrand* (Fuji, HP, Verbatim, Sony, etc) spindles. If they are noname (ie Ridata, or any Tawain-Inc name) I'll give you 20% less. Must be DVD-R ("dash R") not DVD+R, and not RW's. If you do have a lot of + or RW you want to get rid of, I may be interested also, but at a lower price as they aren't really what I'm looking for. (I need them for my backup system.) Just bring them to the next muug meeting and look for Trevor.

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Serial to IP Gateway?
by Wyatt Zacharias 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

So currently at Bluecross we have a pool of modems connected to a cisco 2600. What happens is when a connection is received on the modem line, the cisco router initiates an IP connection to an internal server and forwards the data from the serial line to the server. We're looking to move that Serial to IP functionality over to a Linux server so we can retire the EOL routers. Does anyone know of a way to do this? Also if anyone has any good resources for modem connectivity with linux they can forward me I'd appreciate it. -- Wyatt Zacharias

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Using Shaw 150 mbps down / 15 mbps up / 1 TB data plan on 100 mpbs ports and hardware
by Hartmut W Sager 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

I'm sure everyone here is well aware of Shaw's heavily promoted new Internet plan that gives 150 mbps down / 15 mbps up / 1 TB data per month. My big question is, are there any hiccups/hangups when this plan is used on 100 mpbs ports and hardware? A couple of my computers have 100 mbps (not gigabit) ethernet ports, and so does a router or two here. Obviously my download speed will be limited to slightly under 100 mbps, but my big fear is that the requisite stop/start handshaking protocol (if I encounter a server that wants to send/stream at over 100 mbps) could hiccup and hangup things. I don't even know at which layer/level such a protocol would operate. I've definitely had such hangups with stop/start handshaking protocols in the distant past, like with RS-232 serial. Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331

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DNS search/resolv.conf help!
by Kevin McGregor 17 Aug '16

17 Aug '16

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 on a particular server. In the /etc/resolv.conf there are two search lines: search domA.example.org domB.example.org # [NOTE I made these up, but the form is the same] search domA.example.org I want the search setting to be just: search domA.example.org I've deleted the top/offending line, but every time I restart dnsmasq or run resolvconf -u (for example), the offending line comes back. Where is it getting the domB.example.org from? I've looked in all the usual places (I think), and tried "grep -R domB *" in /etc, but nothing turns up! I'm at a loss. Any pointers on where I should look next? Thanks, Kevin

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32 -> 64 offsite? just maybe?
by Trevor Cordes 13 Aug '16

13 Aug '16

In my unending quest to find an easy way to upgrade 32-bit Linux (Fedora) systems to 64-bit systems on headless boxes at remote sites (i.e. don't need to go onsite), I think I may have thought of a way. Can I get uber-genius approval? (Distro doesn't matter, same thought process should work on any distro/packagemgr.) 0. starting point is a working 32-bit userland and kernel install with ssh access only 1. install (force) 64b kernel on running 32b system, leave userland 32b, reboot. Though not supported by Fedora, this should work in theory, says the kernel guys. 2. trick dnf (nee yum; think apt-get) into thinking the system is 64 somehow (many ways to do this) 3. run dnf upgrade distsync (i.e. I'll go from F23 to F24 at the same time), all userland goes 64, manually delete any leftover 32's that aren't normally on a 64 system. 4. reboot, now kernel and ul are both 64 ... might work?? A completely offsite way to pull off this extremely tricky but urgently needed process? Potential gotchas? Maybe in step 3 the order of installs of libs vs bins goes wonky causing failure of forking / execing of new bg (think pre/postinstall) ps's? (Yes, I'll remember to ascii dump and stop any bitness-sensitive-data progs like mysql first, then restore from ascii.)

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