August 2003 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Common Install Standard
by edward＠murrell.co.nz 14 Aug '03

14 Aug '03

Hi all. Below is a submission for standard that I'm working on. I'd appreciate thoughts, comments, and ideas. Recently, I have been working over strategies for Linux on the desktop. In particular, I've been comparing usability of system administration tasks to Windows 2K/XP and Mac OS X, the main contenders on the desktop. System administration tasks are done by almost everybody who owns a computer. It's not only things like applying security patch's, but includes mundane things like cleaning out old files, changing thedial-up number for your ISP, and installing and removing software. The last point is a bit of contention under Linux. Sure, apt-get, urmpi, and the like make it easy to get and install the latest open source software from your favourite vendor, but they don't cover 'other'software. Third party, and closed source software is somewhat more difficult. Third party applications are often found on CDs, and quite often the vendor may not be around any more. While there are many arguments for and against closed source software, the fact is that it exists, and it needs to be installed, maintained, and eventually, removed. A common example of popular third party applications are games. Currently, every vendor has their own method of handling the installation and (optionally) removal of software. This is often handled by scripts, Make files, or an GUI application stored somewhere on the file system, perhaps on the original CD. This is confusing for the end user, and to be brutally honest, it's a mess. While it is possible to statically compile libraries, it's not exactly reasonable to have binary files with every single piece of information required to run a program. Things like icons, sound, data, andconfiguration files all often need to be accessible to the user and other programs. One possibility, that I put forward here, is for a simple install and uninstall system, based around symlinks, and a common applications directory. The application, to all outward appearances in most common file browsers, would appear as a file, but it's really a directory. Let us assume the application is called 'Foo'. Foo consists of binary files, supporting libraries, icons, configuration files usually found in /etc/, and so on. We can express most of these in terms of where they normally fit in the unix file system. A few, mainly icons, and programsshortcuts, vary from environment to environment. The 'Applications' folder is accessible from the users Control panel as a special directory, allowing write access with sudo and the rootpassword. The folder itself would most likely sit in somewhere like /usr/local/Applications/. Thus, our application 'Foo', would be in /usr/local/Applications/Foo/. It's file structure would look something like this: /usr/local/Applications/Foo/ /usr/local/Applications/Foo/icon.svg /usr/local/Applications/Foo/description.txt /usr/local/Applications/Foo/main -> ./tree/usr/local/bin/foo /usr/local/Applications/Foo/tree/usr/bin/foo /usr/local/Applications/Foo/tree/usr/lib/foo/libfoo.so /usr/local/Applications/Foo/install/etc/foo/foo.conf /usr/local/Applications/Foo/home/.foo/ To install, symlinks from are made from /usr/bin/foo and /usr/lib/foo/ and /usr/local/Applications/Foo/tree/usr/lib/foo/ to/usr/local/Applications/Foo/tree/usr/bin/foo, and to /usr/local/Applications/Foo/tree/usr/lib/foo/. A copy of /usr/local/Applications/Foo/install/etc/foo/foo.conf is made to /etc/, so that changes made to the configuration do not affect the original files of the program. At the most basic level, Foo/ needs to be copied from it's original source to /usr/local/Applications/ and a script run to copy files in Foo/install/ and make symlinks of the files in Foo/tree/. However, this allows for much greater usability. The file Foo/icon.svg can replace the standard folder icon, and Foo/description.txt can contain multiple language descriptions of the program, to be read by any program used to handle the installation and removal of applications. On moreuser-friendly systems, double clicking on the icon for the program on a CD would prompt the user if they wish to install the program. Attempting to delete the 'program' from the Applications directory would prompt the user if they wish to 'uninstall'. The computer would then remove the symlinks and any configuration files. It also allows the program to ask if the user wishes to remove the system configuration files, originally copied from the the Foo/install/ directory, and user configuration files, originally copied from the Foo/home/ directory. Other benefits of this method come to mind. Source installed packages, for example, Mplayer, instead of being installed directly into the file system, is instead copied into /usr/local/Applications/mplayer/, and installed in the above manner. Mplayer can then be copied easily to other systems, and removed easily. It is also fairly easy to install such applications in systems that do not support it 'natively'. Although a simple shell script is all that is required to 'install' the programs, files can easily be symlinked and copied by hand if need be. I will emphasise again that this system is not meant to replace things link apt-get and rpm, but sit alongside them, and provide a common simple platform independent way of installing third party software.

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The Hamilton PC users group meeting is tonight
by Meeting Reminder Bot 12 Aug '03

12 Aug '03

The The Hamilton PC users group meeting is tonight This is an announcement about the Hamilton PC Users Group, not the next WLUG meeting. Feel free to ignore it. If you're interested in the PC Users Group they meet about 7:30pm on the second Wednesday of each month at St Peters Cathedral Hall, which is up the hill at the South End of Victoria Street. They also have a website at http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~jonali/, but it was last modified 09/07/1999 and appears to be out of date.

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ragger's newbie again: to make a file executable
by sable drum 12 Aug '03

12 Aug '03

hi! i am learning how to use cdroast on mandrake 9.0. i have checked that the ide-scsi diver is indeed loaded and i can check that i have a functional burner at cd level using cdrecord -scanbus. both parts a-ok! now, along with wlug advice from last week or so, i am using advice from this article http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid5800 and am stuck at the part that says "make file executable" using chmod and g group something this feels really silly but i cannot figure out what is the correct file name for my file -- i use the one that is on the file as displayed in the file manager but chmod does not find it. what am i doing wrong???? thanks folks from me here in raggers town is overcast and it is full moon, which is always dangerous on one level or another. :-) _________________________________________________________________ Surf the net and talk on the phone with Xtra Jetstream @ http://www.xtra.co.nz/products/0,,5803,00.html !

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RE: [nznog] RPC DCOM Worm On The Loose
by Lindsay Druett 11 Aug '03

11 Aug '03

Yep... We have live one :-) Secure your Windows Servers, upgrade them to Linux :-) > For those who have not read /. Yet > http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?date=2003-08-11 > > For those who cant read the link > Here is a cut and paste > > > This RPC DCOM worm started spreading early afternoon EDT > (evening UTC). At this point, it is spreading rapidly. > > ********** > NOTE: PRELIMINARY. Do not base your incidents response solely > on this writeup. ********** > > Increase in port 135 activity: > http://isc.sans.org/images/port135percent.png > > Latest update: The worm may launch a syn flood against > windowsupdate.com on the 16th. (unconfirmed) > > The worm uses the RPC DCOM vulnerability to propagate. One it > finds a vulnerable system, it will spawn a shell on port 4444 > and use it to download the actual worm via tftp. The exploit > itself is very close to 'dcom.c' and so far appears to use > the "universal Win2k" offset only. > > The name of the binary is msblast.exe. It is packed with UPX > and will self extract. The size of the binary is about > 11kByte unpacked, and 6kBytes packed: > > MD5sum packed: 5ae700c1dffb00cef492844a4db6cd69 (6176 Bytes) > > So far we found the following properties: > > - Scans sequentially for machines with open port 135, > starting at a presumably random IP address > - uses multiple TFTP servers to pull the binary > - adds a registry key to start itself after reboot > > Name of registry key: > SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, name: 'windows > auto update' > > Strings of interest: > > msblast.exe > I just want to say LOVE YOU SAN!! > billy gates why do you make this possible ? Stop making money > and fix your software!! windowsupdate.com start %s tftp -i %s > GET %s %d.%d.%d.%d %i.%i.%i.%i BILLY windows auto update > SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run > > Existing RPC DCOM snort signatures will detect this worm. The > worm is based on dcom.c > > known tftp servers for this worm: > > 204.210.57.87 > 217.211.179.193 > 24.147.64.171 > 24.147.64.205 > 24.147.64.208 > 24.147.65.146 > 24.147.65.45 > 24.147.65.9 > 61.254.65.159 > 67.119.36.219 > 68.112.65.38 > 68.166.102.136 > 68.166.107.21 > 68.166.111.175 > 68.166.120.34 > 68.166.121.135 > 68.166.123.4 > 68.166.124.186 > 68.166.124.93 > 68.166.139.155 > 68.166.139.210 > 68.166.141.66 > 68.166.142.194 > 68.166.142.215 > 68.166.36.178 > 68.166.56.123 > 68.166.60.51 > 68.166.98.3 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Nznog mailing list > Nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzn> og > >

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Hamilton PC Users Group meeting is tomorrow night
by Meeting Reminder Bot 11 Aug '03

11 Aug '03

The Hamilton PC Users Group meeting is tomorrow night This is an announcement about the Hamilton PC Users Group, not the next WLUG meeting. Feel free to ignore it. If you're interested in the PC Users Group they meet about 7:30pm on the second Wednesday of each week at St Peters Cathedral Hall, which is up the hill at the South End of Victoria Street. They also have a website at http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~jonali/, but it was last modified 09/07/1999 and appears to be out of date.

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RE: [wlug] The Wiki
by Lindsay Druett 11 Aug '03

11 Aug '03

> Some kind soul had the mark-up fixed within minutes. > > Next morning, I went back to the page to view the masterpiece > of the night before. It was gone, refactored out of > existence by some guy in Europe :-) > Now let me guess who that is... It must be Aristotle Pagaltzis

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The Wiki
by Perry Lorier 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Since we're unlikely to get much traffic to the wiki for the next while from google, perhaps we should do something else to get the traffic up. I propose we have another week of trying to put information into the Wiki. For those of you that haven't tried to contribute, goto http://www.wlug.org.nz/ and find a page, and click the "Edit" button at the bottom. It'll ask you for your name, you can put anything there, just take your first and last names, capitalise them and mush them together, thus "Perry Lorier" -> "PerryLorier". Then edit the page. If you don't know what to add, check out * http://www.wlug.org.nz/HelpingOut * http://www.wlug.org.nz/WantedWikis (generated regularly) Also, perhaps look at what searches people are doing * http://www.wlug.org.nz/webalizer/ * http://www.wlug.org.nz/archive/querys-recent.txt or, if you want a nice long download * http://www.wlug.org.nz/archive/querys.txt Perhaps also try reviews of software you've used, or questions you want answers to. If everyone adds one page a day for 5 days, we will have a huge impact on the amount of extra information in the wiki when google decides to readd us to the index :) - -- I smell a RANCID CORN DOG! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Only when you are sure they have you, can you stop being paranoid iD8DBQE/NPYtcAgRpy8z8UQRAhYiAJ9+YD656zCD0Bh+u2AOKQ9e8FRIOgCeNw3R Jqmktw0eddX/6pBo7B+ZCuA= =b/XM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Google searches
by Gavin Grieve 09 Aug '03

09 Aug '03

Is it just me or have we fallen off Googles radar? I've tried a few searches including (without the quotes - they just show what i searched for) "wlug", "waikato linux users group", "linux afsnotes", "linux wlug ipv6" and i didn't get a single hit for the wiki. I did get a few hits for "waikato linux users group" that referred to the mailing list, or links from other sites. Has enabling ipv6 on www.wlug.org.nz broken googles ability to access the wiki and provide links to it? Just a thought - not sure what else could be the problem. Ideas? Gavin Grieve

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Re: [wlug] Learning the CLI ... using the wiki as well
by Jared Wigmore 09 Aug '03

09 Aug '03

> I think that the offer that we have for live CLI> tutorials using Rute> is great. But we need also to provide ongoing help.> Is it possible> to make further use of our excellent infrastructure:> the wiki? Can> we have portions of the rute with comments from us> and perhaps with> one or more people proof-reading this part of the> wiki?I think we could. I might be a proof-reader; I've been almost obsessive-compulsive about error correction the last few years. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Personals - New people, new possibilities! Try Yahoo! Personals, FREE for a limited period!

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kppp sucky-motto
by S Swami 06 Aug '03

06 Aug '03

'top(1)' tells me that my ppp connection from the console (while in X) takes significantly less memory than kppp: ------------------------------------------------------------------- # X usage for comparison PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 390 root 18 0 16880 9268 3444 R 3.6 7.3 8:12.19 X # dial-up connection via console PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 24477 root 8 0 876 872 732 S 0.0 0.7 0:00.01 pppd # and then later dial-up connection via kppp PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 25070 sns 9 0 13012 12m 11m S 0.0 10.3 0:01.34 kppp 25071 root 9 0 8080 8080 7624 S 0.0 6.4 0:00.01 kppp ------------------------------------------------------------------- Any advice will be appreciated. (I know what Craig's thinking :) Cheers, Sid.

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