- Roundtable - muug.ca

boot stalls
by millward 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

I've had this system for about 4 years now with no problems, but lately it stalls during bootup. After it counts the memory and discovers the drives, it says "Updateing EDSP" and just sits there. I have to hit the reboot button, sometimes twice, before it boots normally. I suspect the motherboard battery might be getting weak, but that's just a guess. Or maybe it's a power supply problem? Has anyone got any suggestions as to what might be going wrong? AMD K6-2 500 MHz 3DNow Epox EP-MVP3G5 with VIA MVP3 AGPset 384 Megs EDO/SDRAM 100 MHz Radeon 7500LE 64 Megs DDR Samsung SV4084H hard drive

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USENIX LISA Conference in Atlanta, Nov 14-19, 2004
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

This was forwarded to me from someone at USENIX, and I thought it might be of interest to some of you... -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Register now for LISA, the 18th Annual Large Installation System Administration conference at: http://www.usenix.org/lisa04/progm LISA comes to Atlanta November 14-19. As always, the breadth and quality of this years tutorials, refereed papers, invited talks, and participants is excellent. Some highlights: Professional TRAINING: The biggest and best slate of tutorials we've ever had: 36 instructors teaching 51 full-day and half-day tutorials, 30 of which are new. Some quick examples: o John Sellens: System and Network Monitoring o David Rhoades: Securing Web-based Apps o Eric Allman: Advanced Sendmail o Rik Farrow: Thinking Like a Hacker o Peter Baer Galvin: Advanced Solaris Administration o James Mauro and Richard McDougall: Solaris Kernel Performance, Observeability, and Debugging PAPERS and INVITED TALKS: luminaries such as Joshua Goodman, Esther Filderman, Gerald Carter and Yi-Mon Wang will present cutting-edge issues in topics such as: o Looking at both symptom and state information for configuration faults o Biology and Informatics for System Adminstrators o Electronic Presidential Campaigning and the lessons learned o How spammers are circumventing Bayesian filtering o Information Security Laws o Grid Computing Birds-of-a-Feather sessions and Work-in-Progress reports give you a preview of next year's news, or present fledgling work of your own and get feedback from the audience. Single- and multi-day registration options let you attend for one day or several. Register by October 22 and save up to $300. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT: LISA - the 18th Large Installation System Administration Conference WHEN: November 14-19, 2004 WHERE: Atlanta, GA: Atlanta Marriott Marquis WHO: System Administrators, Network Administrators, CIOs, CTOs, Researchers, Tool Providers, Support and Help Desk personnel, etc. WHY: To get to and stay on the cutting edge of computer system administration HOW: http://www.usenix.org/lisa04/progm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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MUUG Meeting, Oct 12, 7:30PM -- Linux Thin Clients
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

[Posted to man.unix.general and other news groups] ------ Forwarded Article <cjulfs$gvf$1(a)canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca> ------ From gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, October 12. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Linux-Based Thin-Client Technologies By centralizing your computing resources and using any of a variety of thin-client technologies, you can realize savings in both cost and labour. Adam Thompson will demonstrate some of the thin-client technologies available today, especially those that allow diskless operation. PXES in particular will be highlighted, due to its ease of deployment. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30 PM on the second 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. ********************************************************************** Please note our new meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15 PM, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30 PM. Don't be late, or you may not get in. Limited parking is available for free on the street, or in a lot across Ellice from IBM, for $1.00 for the evening. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $2.00 for the evening. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Also note that MUUG maintains two mailing lists, called "muug-announce" and "roundtable". If you're not already on these lists, we encourage you to subscribe now: http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/ The "muug-announce" list is used for monthly meeting announcements (such as this one) as well as other important announcements of interest to MUUG members. The "rountable" list is meant to be a forum for follow-ups to topics discussed at the meetings, or for round-table-style discussion on other topics that come up between meetings. Of course, for this to be effective, we need to reach a certain critical mass. So, please subscribe, and stay involved! -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ P.O. Box 130, St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 ------ End of Forwarded Article

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Servers for sale
by John Lange 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

I have 3 high end Dell servers that I'm going to be selling on ebay. However, since ebay is a major pain, I'd much rather sell them locally. If anyone is interested please let me know. NO REASONABLE OFFER REFUSED! I'm expecting to get between $200-$400 per unit. A primitive web page with pictures is here: http://www.bighostbox.com/forsale/ Here are their particulars: -------------- Dell Power Edge 6300 Quad processors Pentium II 450 1 Gig RAM Four 9 Gig SCSI drives CDROM -------------- Dell Power Edge 4350 Dual PentiumII 400. 256M RAM 9G SCSI Drive. -------------- Dell Power Edge 4350 Dual PentiumII 400. 256M RAM 9G SCSI Drive. -------------- -- John Lange BigHostBox.com (204) 885 0872

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Plug: LPIC Book released
by Sean A. Walberg 29 Sep '04

29 Sep '04

If any of you are going for the LPIC certification, I can't recommend anything better than this book that was just released: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789731274 I was one of the technical editors on the project, and was impressed at the depth of information in the book. The author's writing style was also easy to follow, and had the occasional laugh to keep you going. Not sure if it's hit the shelves of Winnipeg, or what the Canadian price is. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca seem to disagree on the US list price. Sean -- Sean A. Walberg <sean(a)ertw.com> http://www.ertw.com

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Asterisk x100p clone?
by Sean A. Walberg 24 Sep '04

24 Sep '04

I remember hearing that the Wildfire x100p FXO card was open source, and that clones have been made. Is this correct, and does anyone know where to find the schematics? Thanks, Sean -- Sean A. Walberg <sean(a)ertw.com> http://www.ertw.com

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MUUG Board Elections - FINAL CALL for Nominations
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 24 Sep '04

24 Sep '04

Hear ye, hear ye! This is the FINAL CALL for nominees to participate in the election for the MUUG board. Those elected will serve from October 2004 until October 2005. The deadline to nominate yourself, or someone else, is September 28, 2004. Instructions follow. The MUUG board is charged with coordinating the meetings and other events by the group. It's fun, and you get a role in guiding the group. All are encouraged to apply. ----------------------- MUUG Board Elections - Call for Nominations Every October the Manitoba Unix User Group holds its Annual Meeting, the main goals of which are to elect a new Board of Directors and to pass any special resolutions. (Aside from that, it is a regular meeting) Any member in good standing can be nominated to run for a position. As of this writing, the following members of the current Board have let their names stand for re-election: Gilbert Detillieux Systems Analyst University of Manitoba Kevin McGregor Systems Specialist City of Winnipeg Doug Shewfelt Systems Specialist City of Winnipeg Adam Thompson Consultant athompso.net Shawn Walbridge System Administrator Frantic Films Of course, this list is just a starting point. Any member in good standing of the group can be nominated simply by getting the support of one other member. If you feel you would like to contribute to the group by running for a board position, please don't hesitate to do so. (In fact, we'd like to see the number of board members increase.) If you want to be nominated, or to nominate someone else, send a letter to the group's postal box or deliver it in person to a current board member. The letter must contain the name, title, and employer of the nominee, along with a short (100 word or so) biography, and must contain the signatures of the nominee and one other member. The letter must be received no later than September 28, 2004, which is 14 days prior to the October 12 meeting. Although the by-laws require that the nominations be done in writing, with signatures, you can speed up the process by sending us e-mail to <election(a)muug.mb.ca>, with the above information, and sending the signed paper copy later. In this case, please include the e-mail address of both the nominee and the supporter on the CC: list of the message, so that all parties concerned have a record of the communication. Nominees should familiarize themselves with the MUUG bylaws, found here: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pub/bylaws/ If you have any questions about the election or the nomination process, please contact Gilbert Detillieux, either by phone (474-8161) during business hours, or by e-mail to <election(a)muug.mb.ca> anytime. Gilbert Detillieux Election Committee Chair -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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Fw: user unable to login after session drop in RedHat
by Steve Moffat 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

Hi MUUG Roundtable; I have a physically remote system that is accessed using ssh. On a fairly regular basis the session drops (I suspect due to network issues). Once the session has dropped though, I can't login again using that same userid. I can get logged in as root, and have tried killing all the processes from that user (which are now owned by init "1"), but can't get rid of them all. There doesn't appear to be any associated sshd or getty processes. Anyone have an idea how to resolve this without at "windows style" reboot? In case it matters, this is RedHat Enterprise License 3.0. I'm using a terminal emulator called "putty" from my end, though I'm not sure the problem is related to the emulator... guess it's possible, but that fact that I can account for all the sshd processes kinda means to me that the tcp/ip connection is down and the kernel is trying to clean up. Any ideas are welcome. Thanks Steve Moffat IBM Global Services sjm(a)ca.ibm.com (204)934-2767

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Heard's Instant software has everything on sale with this e-coupon
by Norah Champagne 19 Sep '04

19 Sep '04

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Raid 5 benchmarks under 2.6.x
by John Lange 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

During my presentation at the MUUG meeting I mentioned that I got much better performance for RAID under the 2.6 kernel. I just thought some of you might be interested so this is a draft of a How-To that I was working on. At the very bottom of the document you can see the graph of benchmarks. http://www.langefamily.ca/howto/SlackwareRaidHowTo.html Originally I was trying to see what impact the "chunk-size" parameter had on performance. To that end, the graph compares 3 different machines in a few different configurations. Read the notes just about the graph for a better explanation. The 3 machines used were interesting in that they compared ATA100 vs. SATA, vs. SCSI. -- John Lange

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