- Roundtable - muug.ca

I'm back!
by Brian Lowe 16 Jun '24

16 Jun '24

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'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

5 12

Mikrotik routers
by Kevin McGregor 10 Jun '24

10 Jun '24

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?

4 3

Fizz (and Freedom) Mobile cell phone plans are now available in Manitoba
by Bradford Vokey 06 Jun '24

06 Jun '24

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?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

2 2

Fizz (and Freedom) Mobile cell phone plans are now available in Manitoba (Bradford Vokey)
by Vicki Nemeth 05 Jun '24

05 Jun '24

On 2024-06-05 13:00, Brad Vokey wrote: > 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. Can you go into more details about the history of mobile service gouging and MTS privatization in Manitoba? As I didn't arrive in Winnipeg until after that event, I missed out on learning the context. Vicki Nemeth -- Freelance Technology Writer | IT | Sustainability | OT | Cybersecurity | Canadian Businesses | Remote Work VickiWriter.com

2 1

Intel Mac linux recommendations?
by Trevor Cordes 30 May '24

30 May '24

Can someone help out here with this Linux distro on Mac question? Please cc: almastrauss(a)outlook.com on any replies, thanks! Begin forwarded message: Date: Thu, 23 May 2024 10:00:18 -0500 From: Alex <almastrauss(a)outlook.com> Dear Sirs: I would like to migrate from macOS to Linux, and would very much appreciate it if you could please recommend me the most stable, fast, secure, and user-friendly Linux distribution to install on my Mac mini 2012 (https://support.apple.com/en-us/111926) computer based system comprising of: · 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU · 16GB (two 8GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 memory · 2TB SSD · Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard K811 (https://support.logi.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360023464673-Logitech-Bluetooth-…) · Logitech T651 (https://support.logi.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360023466673-Logitech-Rechargeab… Trackpad (https://support.logi.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360023466673-Logitech-Rechargeab…) · HP ZR30w monitor (https://www.hp.com/canada/products/landing/monitors/files/ZR30w-data-sheet-…) I am thinking along the lines of Ubuntu or Linux Mint (various desktop environments!), but it is extremely hard to understand which one is the most suitable for me… Or, perhaps, I am barking at the wrong tree? Please help a newbie! _____________ Respectfully, Alex _______________________________________________ Board mailing list Board(a)muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/board

3 5

MUUG Meeting, Tuesday, June 4, 7:30pm (In-person/Hybrid Meeting) -- Proxmox
by Gilbert Detillieux 28 May '24

28 May '24

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting IN PERSON, on Tuesday, June 4th, at 7:30pm. Yes, that's the FIRST Tuesday of the month... Proxmox Virtual Environment With the recent acquisition of VMWare by Broadcom, many are looking for an alternative to closed source hypervisors. Wyatt has previously presented on Linux KVM virtualization, but without a management layer it can be clunky to use. [35]Proxmox offers a fully featured web based administration suite for KVM. It includes support for multi-host clusters, live migration, clustered filesystems, and more. Wyatt will give a tour of the Proxmox interface with a possible demo of VMWare to Proxmox migration. Where to find the Meeting: Fortress Software Inc., 350 Keewatin St -- Unit #2 We have a new in-person meeting location now! Brad Vokey has graciously let us use his work office for our next in-person meeting. The meeting room will be open by 7:00 pm, with the actual meeting starting at 7:30 pm. If driving, enter the lot using the most north east entrance and drive around to the south west corner of the building (see route in map detail on poster linked below). You can use any of the free, ample, and safe parking spots that say "reserved" in front of units #1 through #4 before entering unit #2. Bus stops #30814 and #30880 (route 77) are only 150 meters away. The last bus leaves for Polo Park at 10:15 pm and for Garden City at 10:31 pm. Logan Ave. bus routes #19, #26, and #27 are a 600 meter (8 minute) walk to the south. For those unable or preferring not to attend in person, the meeting will also be available online, using BBB as usual. Stay tuned to our muug.ca home page for the official URL, which will be made available about a half hour before the meeting starts. (Reload the page if you don't see the link, or if there are issues with connecting.) The group now holds its meetings at 7:30pm on the *first* 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. For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their web server: https://muug.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board, or linking to it on social media: https://muug.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://muug.ca/

1 0

yay systemd-boot
by Trevor Cordes 21 May '24

21 May '24

Upgraded to F39 tonight (F38 just announced EOL in 1 week!) " Install an image using systemd-boot rather than grub With this release, systemd-boot can be selected as an alternative boot loader for testing and development purposes. " Fedora release notes has the above nugget. Yay, groan, another systemd feature-creep. Now grub is under attack? We really need a new way to boot? Ugh.

2 1

Use laptop as k/v/m
by Adam Thompson 13 May '24

13 May '24

This isn't a traditional KVM *switcher*, it lets you use your existing laptop as the keyboard/video/mouse for an existing system... I think. https://www.crowdsupply.com/techxartisan/openterface-mini-kvm If anyone gets one, let us know how it works! -Adam Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>

2 1

Internet Message Format line length max
by Trevor Cordes 11 May '24

11 May '24

As a followup to my presentation where I mentioned SMTP line length limits biting me (one of the last slides): RFC5322 Internet Message Format https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt "There are two limits that this standard places on the number of characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than 998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding the CRLF." I was slightly off, I said 1024 chars max. It's 1000 hard max, and "aim for" 80 chars max -- including the obligatory CR/LF. So the fogeys hard-NL'ing their text-only emails... you're doing it right and those young'ns are out of spec! :-) I still don't know why opendkim was barfing on ~500 char lines. One would think they would allow up to RFC5322 spec. Maybe DKIM spec or opendkim itself has a lower limit. I tried using the source luke but I couldn't quickly find the offending code, and since my bug was solved, I moved on. Upon further reflection, perhaps I should file a bug... Now, to go and make sure my custom headers are wrapping at 76...

1 0

DMARC slides up
by Trevor Cordes 09 May '24

09 May '24

For those interested, I put the slides for the DMARC presentation on the web page: https://muug.ca/meetings/23-24.html#may

1 0