February 2008 - Roundtable

Follow up to video card question
by Mike Pfaiffer 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

After consulting with a few people I settled on a GeForce 5200. Not the latest and greatest. However it gets the job done. The down side is I lose my second monitor connection. At least I still have s-video out and the driver will let me operate each separately. Later Mike

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Shaw Shaping
by Kevin Scott 20 Feb '08

20 Feb '08

>From what I have been told and my understanding, Shaw only traffic shapes the upload traffic, their Enhanced Quality of Service is supposed to remove your modem from being shaped, On their website, they say its mainly for VoIP services, but that's what it does. I haven't been able to test and confirm this tho. Kevin

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Recommendations for a video card
by Mike Pfaiffer 20 Feb '08

20 Feb '08

Long story short. It looks like ATI is no longer supporting their Radeon 7000 series under Linux. Recent updates result in the boot process freezing while going into X. I'm able to operate in text mode but get an error 104 (no valid modes) when I to start it manually. After trying various things like restoring a previously functional xorg.conf and searching Google for an entire afternoon for a solution, it looks like my only option (assuming I want to stay current) is a new video card. Does anybody have a recommendation for something around the $50.00 range? IOW, what have people had success with in the past? I'd like an AGP card with TV out (yes I do the occasional video editing). From this months meeting I gather sticking with ATI is not advised in the short term. Itech suggests a GeForce5200 (AGP) card mainly for price. Later Mike

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Strange Shaw traffic. Shaping?
by John Lange 19 Feb '08

19 Feb '08

Just recently I noticed that when I try and upload a file from my Shaw home Xtreme account via SSH (scp), the transfer starts out quickly reaching nearly 1Mb, then my entire Shaw connection clamps right down and my ping times shoot through the roof (800ms). In fact, not only does the upload slow to a crawl but the entire connection becomes unusable for anything. I don't do a lot of uploading but I don't recall this ever happening before. Is anyone else seeing this? Has Shaw started some heavy duty traffic shaping? John

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chrooted sftp sessions using rssh
by Montana Quiring 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

Hello, I've been banging my head against the wall for a while now. My head is sore. Please help! :) =========== What happens: =========== See log below of sftp session. Essentially what happens is when I try to sftp into the server it asks for the password then I get a "Connection closed" message. What I've done: =========== 1. verified home directory, and changed default shell to be rssh in: /etc/passwd 2. when I run: #ldd /var/rssh/libexec/rssh_chroot_helper I get... linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00dfd000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x0054c000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0052e000) I've copied all of /lib into the users /home/testuser/lib directory (just to make sure) and it had all but the first file listed above. I read that I don't have to worry about the linux-gate.so.1 file, is that true? 3. made a null file: #mknod -m 666 /home/testuser/dev/null c 1 3 4. copied over the usr, var directories from what was supposed to be a working chrooted directory =============== Here are some Files: =============== /var/rssh/etc/rssh.conf -------------------------- logfacility = LOG_USER allowsftp umask = 022 user=testuser:011:00010:"/home/testuser" /etc/ssh/ssh_config ---------------------- Host * GSSAPIAuthentication yes ForwardX11Trusted yes /etc/ssh/sshd_config ---------------------- Protocol 2 SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV PermitRootLogin no AllowUsers testuser PasswordAuthentication yes ChallengeResponseAuthentication no GSSAPIAuthentication yes GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes UsePAM yes X11Forwarding yes Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server =============== Here are some Logs =============== See below for the sftp session and some log results... *********START**************** quiringm@montanaqL-67769:~$ sftp -v testuser(a)company.com Connecting to company.com... OpenSSH_4.6p1 Debian-5ubuntu0.1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug1: Connecting to company.com [206.45.100.100] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/quiringm/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/quiringm/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_4.0 debug1: match: OpenSSH_4.0 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.6p1 Debian-5ubuntu0.1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host 'company.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/quiringm/.ssh/known_hosts:3 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-mic debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information No credentials cache found debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information No credentials cache found debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /home/quiringm/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Trying private key: /home/quiringm/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Next authentication method: password testuser(a)company.com's password: debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). debug1: channel 0: new [client-session] debug1: Entering interactive session. debug1: Sending environment. debug1: Sending env LANG = en_CA.UTF-8 debug1: Sending subsystem: sftp debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0 debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1 debug1: fd 0 clearing O_NONBLOCK debug1: Transferred: stdin 0, stdout 0, stderr 0 bytes in 0.4 seconds debug1: Bytes per second: stdin 0.0, stdout 0.0, stderr 0.0 debug1: Exit status 1 Connection closed ************END****************** Here's is the tail from /var/log/secure: **********START********************** Feb 6 11:41:44 company sshd[28011]: Accepted password for testuser from ::ffff:192.168.1.254 port 58539 ssh2 Feb 6 11:41:44 company sshd[28015]: subsystem request for sftp *********END****************** Here's the tail from /var/log/messages **********START************* Feb 6 11:41:44 company sshd(pam_unix)[28015]: session opened for user testuser by (uid=0) Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: setting log facility to LOG_USER Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: allowing sftp to all users Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: setting umask to 022 Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: line 73: configuring user testuser Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: setting testuser's umask to 011 Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: allowing sftp to user testuser Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: chrooting testuser to /home/testuser Feb 6 11:41:44 company rssh[28016]: chroot cmd line: /var/rssh/libexec/rssh_chroot_helper 2 "/usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server" Feb 6 11:41:44 company sshd(pam_unix)[28015]: session closed for user testuser *************END***************** here's the tail from /var/log/audit/audit.log **START*********** type=USER msg=audit(1202320405.636:5044225): user pid=28189 uid=0 auid=4294967295 msg='PAM authentication: user=testuser exe=/usr/sbin/sshd (hostname=192.168.1.254, addr=192.168.1.254, terminal=ssh result=Success)' type=USER msg=audit(1202320405.942:5044280): user pid=28189 uid=0 auid=4294967295 msg='PAM accounting: user=testuser exe=/usr/sbin/sshd (hostname=192.168.1.254, addr=192.168.1.254, terminal=ssh result=Success)' type=USER msg=audit(1202320406.251:5044474): user pid=28191 uid=0 auid=4294967295 msg='PAM session open: user=testuser exe=/usr/sbin/sshd (hostname=192.168.1.254, addr=192.168.1.254, terminal=ssh result=Success)' ***********END**************

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linux everywhere
by Glen Ditchfield 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

I was reading the manual for my mother-in-law's new TV set, an LG 32LC7D, and there at the back is an Open Software notice. It's running a Linux 2.6.12 kernel, with Busybox. It has an RS232C "service" port on the back, too. No, I'm not going there. In the good old days, when you turned on your TV, you had to wait for the tubes to warm up. Now you have to wait for the blasted thing to boot.

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Airport
by Kevin Scott 17 Feb '08

17 Feb '08

I have a LAN which uses static private IP addresses. The machines are connected to one another by a hub. The gateway machine is a Linux box running iptables . This has worked well with one recent exception which is likely a failed NIC, and it provides a means of examining traffic. I just purchased a Mac and want to add it to the network. It is in a place where there are no cables at present. I should have purchased a wireless adapter for the gateway machine, but instead I purchased the Airport Extreme Base Station. In hindsight, I don't really need a router - but is there a way to use it to simply get my Mac onto the network? In setup, the airport base station insisted on having something plugged into the WAN port, so I eliminated the hub, plugged the gateway machine's LAN side ethernet into the WAN port of the airport, and plugged the other wired LAN machines into LAN ports. All the wired machines are able to browse the internet (though I'm guessing everything is NATd twice - once in the router and again in the gateway machine). I have not been able to get internet access through the wireless on my Mac. Is there a simple way to use this device as a simple wired and wireless 'switch' on my LAN? or should I simply throw in the towel and let the base station be a router and firewall, and do away with a gateway computer? -- -Dan Dr. Dan Martin, MD, CCFP, BSc, BCSc (Hon), MSc GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143(a)shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on log into the airport, turn off DHCP, plug your existing network into one of the LAN ports, and you've turned the router into an access point and switch. WAN port on the router shouldn't' be used at all in this case. You also get around the double-natted issue. Good luck, Kevin

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Re: [RndTbl] network problem
by Dan Martin 17 Feb '08

17 Feb '08

Kevin McGregor wrote: > Well, no. By default, Shaw gives out one IP address per cable modem, > so if you change the connected device from the original router you > tried, to something else, it ignores the new device. Sometimes > powering down the cable modem (and waiting... hours? Days?) helps, but > the better solution is to call Shaw Internet tech support and tell > them you want your free second IP address activated. I only need one address. I just need the NIC to get it. I was trying to bypass the firewall to see if that's where the problem was. I am guessing the firewall is NOT the problem: 1) I can connect on another machine on the LAN that should be handled the same way by the firewall. 2) The second app used to work with the same firewall on the first machine. Could a NIC 'partly' fail so that it can't accept an address by DHCP and will fail with some connections but not others? > You may still have to power down and up the cable modem after they do > this. Shaw provides all Internet users with two IP addresses, but the > second one has to be activated on request. > > After that, you can try plugging in your computer or other device to > the cable modem to do tests - although I'd be loathe to do that with a > Windows 2000 machine. > > Kevin > > Dan Martin wrote: >> I have a home LAN that uses a iptables firewall running on FC 4 on my >> gateway machine. I run Win2K on an internal LAN machine that I use >> to run (among other things) 2 applications that contact remote >> servers. Using SNAT in iptables, everything seemed to run fine, >> since all communications with the servers were initiated on my end >> and return packets were appropriately translated back. >> ... >> >> I plugged my Win2K machine directly to the cable modem and configured >> it to connect by DHCP. I could not get an address for it. Shaw >> believes the modem is working and trying to assign an address. >> >> ... >> >> It is suspicious that the NIC would not configure when plugged to the >> cable modem - but everything else works. I can browse the web and >> get my mail. >> >> Is this consistent with a NIC failure? could it be something else? >> > > -- -Dan Dr. Dan Martin, MD, CCFP, BSc, BCSc (Hon), MSc GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143(a)shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on

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ubuntu 7.10 and shaw cable
by schwartz 14 Feb '08

14 Feb '08

The problem was a defective nic. I'm so glad it was something cheap and easy to replace.

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Re: [RndTbl] network problem
by Dan Martin 14 Feb '08

14 Feb '08

Sean Walberg wrote: > Random thoughts: > > Win2k outside fw is not a conclusive test. Some people are only > allowed 1 ip from the modem. Unplug fw from modem, reboot modem, and > try again > I did power it down - though only for 30 sec. It appeared to go through the cycle of flashing lights, etc. > Does the win2k box pick up an addy on the inside (assuming you use dhcp)? > Using fixed private addresses on the inside. > Not sure why you're getting proxy errors, are you configured for a proxy? > No - other than the firewall acting as a proxy (which should be transparent to the app). > You could also try tcpdump or wireshark to see what's going on network wise. > I will have to play sometime - but at present it works on a different machine on the network, even though it should be handled exactly the same by the firewall. > Sean > > > On 2/14/08, Dan Martin <ummar143(a)shaw.ca> wrote: > >> I have a home LAN that uses a iptables firewall running on FC 4 on my >> gateway machine. I run Win2K on an internal LAN machine that I use to >> run (among other things) 2 applications that contact remote servers. >> Using SNAT in iptables, everything seemed to run fine, since all >> communications with the servers were initiated on my end and return >> packets were appropriately translated back. >> >> Recently I upgraded one of the apps that accesses a broker and real time >> quotes. It then failed to run, and their minimal tech support could not >> help me get it going. The failure was blamed on my firewall. I changed >> it to allow some new connections from the internet (DNAT) but to no >> avail. I assumed that I had implemented DNAT incorrectly or there were >> things they weren't telling me. >> >> Yesterday, I found I was unable to run an app that accessed a second >> server - even though I had run it many times previously. It gave the >> error "Cannot connect to the ... server. Proxy connection failed: the >> configured proxy server is not accepting connections." Changing my >> firewall back to the previous version did not solve the problem. >> >> I plugged my Win2K machine directly to the cable modem and configured it >> to connect by DHCP. I could not get an address for it. Shaw believes >> the modem is working and trying to assign an address. >> >> I finally installed this second app into another Windows machine on the >> internal LAN and it ran perfectly. >> >> It shouldn't be a firewall problem - the iptables should handle one >> internal machine exactly the same as the other - no rules specify a >> particular machine except the DNAT rules, which were removed. >> >> It is suspicious that the NIC would not configure when plugged to the >> cable modem - but everything else works. I can browse the web and get >> my mail. >> >> Is this consistent with a NIC failure? could it be something else? >> >> -- >> -Dan >> -- -Dan Dr. Dan Martin, MD, CCFP, BSc, BCSc (Hon), MSc GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143(a)shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on

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