I have a question about subdomain wildcards in Bind-style DNS editing, so that I can more conveniently edit DNS zone files to implement Fastmail's support of MX records specifying "*.mydomain.com." for e-mail at subdomains. (Yes, Fastmail's documentation states their support for this.)
Now, in Bind-style DNS, we have valid short notations for full FQDN in the name field (the left side) as follows:
"@" = "mydomain.com."
"abc" = "abc.mydomain.com."
So my question is, might the following also …
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"*" = "*.mydomain.com."
"*.@" = "*.mydomain.com."
Hartmut
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I finally gained access to the documentation for RHEL for a
dedicated-hosting RHEL server I work on.
But I find it hard to figure out where to go in there to find much of
anything. And google doesn't seem to index what it is I need, maybe
because of the paywall?
I'm trying to figure out 2 things:
1. How can I tell what is the latest rpm/version RH has put out for httpd?
I'm talking stock RHEL-supplied, not IUS/EPEL or whatever 3rd party. I
know in Fedora this would be simple with bodhi/…
[View More]koji and/or simple rpmfind.
2. How can I tell if my RHEL box is setup to receive updates? Dnf works
to install packages, but no updates seem to be coming across? I'm a bit
worried because of the recent not-so-great apache/httpd bugs. I know RH
has all this subscription stuff I normally don't have to mess with with
Fedora, and I like to think the dedicated hoster set this all up properly,
but I'm not sure how to tell.
Thanks!
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I’m trying to debug a shell script that uses dialog(1), which has the unfortunate habit of overwriting the debug output I wanted to see.
After quite some time banging my head against the wall, I grabbed the source to dialog to look at their examples.
Their examples follow a pattern I have NOT been following; I’m now looking at this trying to understand WTF it does:
1 exec 3>&1
2 returntext=`$DIALOG --title "RANGE BOX" --rangebox "Please set the volume..." 0 60 0 …
[View More]123 5 2>&1 1>&3`
3 returncode=$?
4 exec 3>&-
so… ok.
Line 1 duplicates FD 1 (stdout) into FD 3. That’s usually so we can mess with FD 1 later on and still have a handle to stdout. Good so far.
Line 2 runs /usr/bin/dialog in a subshell, the options to dialog(1) are irrelevant here. I’m looking at the redirects.
“2>&1” duplicates FD 1 into FD 2, effectively throwing away the handle to the inherited /dev/stderr and forcing stderr output onto stdout. That’s a good thing because dialog(1) reports its results onto stderr by default to avoid messing with curses(3) output.
“1>&3” however, throws away stdout (FD 1), replacing it with FD 3 which is… already a copy of FD 1 ???
Line 3 is obvious.
Line 4 closes FD 3. Not sure that we need to bother, but OK, cleaning up behind ourselves is usually a good thing.
I get the need for swapping stdin/stderr, as dialog(1) – well, really curses(3) - uses stdout to paint the screen, so dialog(1) spits its results out on stderr to avoid conflicting. If we’re in a subshell trying to capture that output, we need to grab it just as dialog(1) exits – and $() assignment only captures stdout.
But what’s the point of having FD 3 in this setup, if all we do is assign it to stdin inside the subshell and then forget about it?
Can anyone see what I’m missing here?
-Adam
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For those not subscribed to the newsletter, here's a final reminder that,
if you haven't done so already, you need to RSVP for the MUUG BBQ coming
up on July 9, 6:30pm.
Please RSVP by July 7.
More details can be found in the uber-rare Super Special Edition MUUGLines
newsletter:
https://muug.ca/pub/muuglines/pdf/muug2407.pdf
Thanks!
P.S. So far rain is forecasted, but we'll see as we get closer. If it's
badly rained out, we'll reschedule if we can; see the newsletter for
details! Subscribe …
[View More]to muug-announce to hear the latest.
http://www.muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/muug-announce
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Hi everyone,
TL;DR: My email was down for a week while I migrated to a new provider.
I've been using valuehost.ca to host groupbcl.ca's mail for over a decade now. On June 3 they
sent me an invoice for service renewal just 3 days before expiration. The only payment option
was credit card via PayPal.
When I attempted to pay, PayPal demanded a mobile phone number in addition to billing
address information, which in my opinion is unnecessary for a simple credit card transaction. As
far as I'…
[View More]m concerned, a mobile number is the 2020s version of the SIN/SSN: a unique identifier
that can be used to link disparate accounts together. I simply do not trust PayPal to use that
information solely for the purposes of this one transaction.
I opened a support ticket on June 6 requesting alternate payment methods. There was no
response for over 40 hours, despite a follow-up I posted nearly 34 hours later.
On June 8 my account was suspended for non-payment, despite a ticket being open on this
matter with their billing department for a day and a half. (The only thing to Valuehost's credit in
this entire affair was they waited two days past the invoice due date before suspending my
account.) That cut off my groupbcl.ca email address, which I've been using for over 20 years
for most of my email correspondence.
I updated the ticket 7 hours after my follow-up, requesting to be billed only for the domain
renewal and not the hosting package. They replied 2 hours later stating that my domain is not
registered with then (which was true) and had marked my hosting as cancelled. This was the
only time they made any sort of comment on the ticket.
Seven hours later I replied to the ticket, noting my email was now down and requesting options
to get it going again. They never responded to that note.
Late in the day on June 10 I sent a letter of complaint to the only other contact Valuehost has
on their site, hoping that would get someone's attention. They never replied; not even a pro
forma message indicating they received my email.
By the evening of June 12 I had given up on Valuehost and signed up for mail hosting with
HostPapa, who accepted my credit card without any problems. I had to provide them with a
phone number, but because they're in Canada they're subject to PIPEDA. After updating my MX
record, I spent a fair bit of time getting the HostPapa account to show test messages I sent
them from my ISP's email.
I had problems getting KMail talking to HostPapa. Their documentation for Thunderbird says
to use port 995 (pop3s) with TLS for receiving and 465 (smtps) for sending, but when I
duplicated the settings in KMail it failed on both. Eventually I configured KMail to connect to
port 25 using STARTTLS for receiving and to localhost for sending, both of which worked. I
then configured my postfix server to relay outbound mail via HostPapa's mail server.
On June 13 I updated the ticket at Valuehost to say I had migrated to a different provider, and
closed it.
Unsurprisingly, I'm very disappointed in Valuehost's almost complete lack of action to my
ticket and will no longer do business with them.
Brian
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Hi all,
I'm thinking of getting a Mikrotik hEX router for light OpenVPN service. Is
this a good choice? Are there better ones? Where would you recommend buying
one?
As I mentioned during this month's MUUG round table meeting:
I have recently switched 2 of my family's mobile cell phone lines to
Fizz Mobile and I am loving them so far!
fizz.ca
Cell Phone Plans in Manitoba | Fizz <#>
Discover Fizz customizable mobile plans for Manitoba. Adapt yours based
on your needs and budget. Plus, you get rewards on day 1.
🔗
https://fizz.ca/en/mobile/manitoba?ADDONS[0]=18&CVRG=108&DATA=231&PLAN=1&SM…
<https://fizz.ca/en/mobile/manitoba?…
[View More]ADDONS[0]=18&CVRG=108&DATA=231&PLAN=1&SM…>
I had mentioned that Quebecor was delaying bringing their Freedom Mobile
brand to Manitoba (in favour of launching their own Fizz Mobile brand
here first), but it looks like I missed their official new Freedom launch!
Quebecor has now officially launched their Freedom mobile brand (which
they acquired from Shaw during the recent Rogers/Shaw merger) to
Manitoba as of May 23, 2024!
https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/article-freedom-manitoba
"At launch Freedom is offering customers in Manitoba a deep discount on
its 10GB Canada-U.S. mobile plan which is available for $14.50 per month
($29 reg.) for six months."
You can view the Freedom plans for Manitoba here:
www.freedommobile.ca
Cell Phone Plans Winnipeg (Manitoba) | Freedom Mobile <#>
Discover Freedom Mobile's cell phone plans in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
🔗 https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/manitoba/plans
<https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/manitoba/plans>
I still think their Fizz Mobile brand offers greater flexibility with:
- data rollover,
- data gifting,
- generous perks (like free unlimited data days and additional free
data every month),
- the ability to change your plan every month to fit exactly what you
need,
- and it has slightly lower overall prices for <= 10 GB data plans.
But you can't go wrong with either company compared to what the big 3
(Bell, Rogers, and Telus) are charging us here in Manitoba.
*If you do decide that you want to try Fizz Mobile, don't forget to use
my referral code "16KPK" to get a $25 credit (for both you and me!)
during your second month of membership.*
If anyone has any questions about my experience with Fizz, just ask away.
It worked flawlessly in the US during my recent trip to Huntsville,
Alabama and I haven't had any issues with it in the Winnipeg area so far.
--
Bradford C. Vokey
Treasurer
Manitoba UNIX User Group
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