- Roundtable - muug.ca

Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference - another free PDF download!
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 18 Feb '09

18 Feb '09

http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/index2.html I found out about the above, plus another couple free online tutorials, here... http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/01/28/top-notch-tutorials-for-three-great-so… -- 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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Computer Give Away: six computers with Linux
by Mark Jenkins 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

I am offering six old computer towers with Linux pre-installed for pickup in the William Whyte neighbourhood in the North End. Each has a cdrom drive, floppy drive, built in usb, built-in or sound card, network card, video card, power cable, and xubuntu 8.04 installed with installation CD included (http://xubuntu.com/) In all cases a RAM upgrade is recommended for better enjoyment. A mouse, keyboard, or monitor is not included. I also have some old mice and monitors that you could optionally take as well. Tower #1 350MHZ PII 3.2 GB hard disk 128M of RAM Tower #2 400MHZ PII 2 x 1.0 GB hard disks 128M of RAM Tower #3 400MHZ Celeron 4 GB hard disk 128M of RAM AGP slot is damaged, has pci video card Tower #4 AMD K6-333 has battery problems 2 GB hard disk 128M of RAM usb is disabled, when enabled there are errors related to it Tower #5 400MHZ PII, clocked 350MHZ for better stability This one does crash occasionally, but is mostly usable, it could perhaps benefit from a fan. 8 GB hard disk 128M of RAM Tower #6 400MHz PII, clocked at 350 for better stability 2.5 GB hard disk 128M of RAM ------------- 4 serial (RS232) mice. (requires special configuration, I need advance notice to configure a computer for this) 2 PS/2 mice -------------- two 14" monitors - working fine one 14" monitor, is very dim, even with max contrast and brightness one 14" monitor, has a very ugly blotch of scratches in the center, but is generally readable, 85% of the screen is fine. two 15" monitors, with colour problems

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Help! SCO Rescue plan?
by John Lange 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

Does anyone have any advice on how to resurrect a SCO box with a full root partition? Apparently the system won't boot even in single user mode and the client has no recovery or boot media. >From what I can find online, Linux isn't able to mount SCO file systems (called HTFS I believe). If it could then it would be possible to mount it and delete some files to make some space. If anyone has any suggestions on where to go from here that would be great. Regards, -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca

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iptables match for creator's id
by Dan Martin 12 Feb '09

12 Feb '09

p 103 of "Linux Firewalls" 2nd Ed by Robert Ziegler discusses the 'owner match extension' that matches the packet's creator. A match can occur on uid, gid, pid, or sid. The extension can be used on the OUTPUT chain only. -- Dan Martin, MD GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143(a)shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on

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Meeting ideas
by Kelly Leveille 12 Feb '09

12 Feb '09

Hi All, I had a few ideas about for the meetings I thought I'd air for others to comment on. Someone asked about "newbie" friendly topics, so how about a "command of the month"? It might be fun to have a different person each month do a micro presentation (10-15 mins max) on a single command. It should be enough to introduce the command & then provide a couple brief examples of usage scenarios. These presentations should be all demo (terminal) with no slides required. This might be a good way refresh the memories of the more experienced users, enlighten us "newbies" & would provide a not so stressful way to get more of the group members to become "presenters". Finally, the same command could be explored in more detail in the newsletter which might encourage more contribution there. Second, it might be a nice change to have the presentation during the first half of the meeting, then take the break & finish with the round table. For longer presentations, we could take the break after an hour & resume after the break. This would allow "breathing room" for longer presentations as well as a an opportunity for more focussed round-table session following the presentation. As a side benefit, it would also provide the option of getting home earlier (without missing as much of the presentation) to anyone who was not able to stay to the end or not interested in the discussion that followed. I've been a member for a few years now but don't know if this approach was ever tried. Any comments? Kelly

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Winmodems and Linux
by M Moffat 07 Feb '09

07 Feb '09

I'm a newbie to Linux. I saved a Win98 system from going to the Dump; the Windows system was non-functional but hardware seemed useful for some version of Linux. I have managed to find and download two different distributions of Linux which are intended for use on older and less powerful systems, BasicLinux 3.5 and TinyLinux. I have both of these installed and functioning on separate partitions of the hard drive. Unfortunately the modems that were in the system are NOT functional. One is an ISDN modem and the other is a Motorola SM56 Voicemodem. I have scoured the websites with references to Motorola SM56 modems and although I found a couple of references to the existence of a Linux driver for this modem, I can not actually find where to download this supposed driver and see if I can make it work!! Anyone have info on this?? If not, does anyone have an external 56K modem kicking around that they would like to get rid of?? I'm out in the boonies near Russell, MB and don't have many used computer sources nearby :-(( If this is not the desired type of inquiry/use of this mail list, just say so and I'll just butt out. Mel.

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New laptop with XP?
by Kevin McGregor 05 Feb '09

05 Feb '09

Not really apropos of this list, but does anyone know where one can still get a new laptop with Windows XP pre-installed as opposed to Vista? It's for someone at work who's asking. Thanks, Kevin

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MUUG Meeting, Feb 10, 7:30pm -- Firewall Software for UNIX
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, February 10. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Firewall Software for UNIX Network firewalls are typically dedicated boxes that sit between an organisation's internal network and the Internet. But how do you protect hosts that are outside of that, such as in a DMZ? How do you protect your internal hosts from potential rogue systems? What if you can't afford a dedicated firewall? As it turns out, most common UNIX/Linux systems today have some form of packet filtering software included in their kernels. These can be used to provide added protection for Internet-connected hosts, at no extra cost. In this presentation, Gilbert Detillieux will look at three such solutions: ipfilter for Solaris (and also available for other platforms), ipfw for Mac OS X, and Netfilter/iptables for Linux. In addition to showing some of the basic features of each, the presentation will also mention some of the limitations. Time permitting, a demo of each system will be given (possibly with GUI front-ends). The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm 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 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 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $3.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- 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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Sun Type 5 kbd cable?
by Adam Thompson 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

Does anyone have a Sun Type 5 keyboard cable they can spare? My E450 keeps dropping to the OBP prompt spontaneously and I suspect the cable rather than the keyboard itself. Thanks in advance if anyone has one to offer! -- -Adam Thompson <athompso(a)athompso.net>

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Connection tracking in ipfilter (Solaris) or ipfw (Mac OS X)?
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

I asked about this at the meeting last week, but nobody present was familiar with ipfilter, so I thought I'd ask here in hopes of finding a Solaris and/or Mac guru familiar with firewall configuration on these platforms... I've been using the Linux kernel's Netfilter/iptables configuration for some time now, to handle firewalling for each of our Internet-connected Linux hosts, and I'd like to do the same for our Solaris and Mac OS X hosts as well. I've found some reasonable tutorials and FAQ's online to help with the basic setup, but I'm stuck with a few issues surrounding connection tracking. With iptables, you can load kernel modules to do connection tracking that is application-layer-specific. I use 3 such modules: - ip_conntrack_amanda, to handle Amanda backup requests - ip_conntrack_ftp, to support FTP server data connections - ip_conntrack_netbios_ns, to support NetBIOS name services (e.g. in Samba) I haven't found an equivalent mechanism in either ipfilter or ipfw to allow for this, and their state-table mechanisms aren't powerful enough. For example, for NetBIOS name services, the request goes out as a broadcast, but replies come back directly, so they don't match the state of the requests. (I can work around this by allowing all NMB replies from the local net, but this is uglier.) Amanda backup support is even trickier, for two reasons: First of all, replies to requests can come back much later, after the state table entries will have expired (whereas with ip_conntrack_amanda, you can set a longer delay if needed), and secondly, there will be related, follow-up connections on other ports, which need to be tracked. (Again, I can work around this by allowing replies from the amanda port for hosts on the local net, using a separate rule, as well as opening up entire ranges of other ports for the local net. Again, this is uglier.) Supporting an FTP server is even more problematic, particularly if I want to open it up to connections from outside of the local net, without opening up an entire port range to the outside world as well. Any suggestions for clean, secure ways to implement firewall support for these services using ipfilter or ipfw? -- 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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