- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Automatically enabling numlock in an X11 session, *without* a window manager
by Eric Light 12 Jul '15

12 Jul '15

I just spent a whole day on this, so I wanted to share it with some people who would understand the struggle. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Scenario:You have some remote users who need to securely access your application, delivered in plaintext over SSH. To do this, they get a thin client delivered to them, fully set up. However, most of these users have very limited computer knowledge, so they need the application to be as simple and responsive as possible. The Solution: The thin client needn’t have Windows on it. Also Windows is slow (wimpy thin clients), prone to fickleness (“have you tried turning it off and on again?”), and insecure (no antivirus or even security updates are installed on the thin clients). In fact, these users are so limited they shouldn’t even have a window manager at all. No need to resize, copy & paste, or multitask – a single application window would be ample. So let’s install just a plain edition of Debian, then run sudo apt-get install xinit, to get the barest of essential graphical libraries. The Challenge: Set up our thin clients, based on a Linux install, such that it boots quietly and quickly, automatically logs in as the user, waits for the network, and launches a Putty window. When the user quits Putty, they should only have two options: launch a new Putty session, or shutdown the computer. The Yak: Because there’s no window manager, every Putty window is launched in its’ own session. A new X11 session has number lock disabled by default. The standard answer for controlling numlock, a program named “numlockx”, works just fine – however, because there’s no window manager, you can only send a single command to the X11 session. Thus, you can *either* turn on NumLock, *or *you can launch Putty. Shaving the Yak: 1) Create the file ~/putty This file contains the lines: numlockx on & putty -load {your saved session} 2) Launch the file with: xinit ~/putty $* -- The End: Now you can set up your silent boot (/etc/sysctl.conf -> kernel.printk), your automatic login (/etc/system/system/getty(a)tty1.service.d/autologin.conf), and your auto-start locked-down profile (~/.profile) with other tutorials available on the internet. (PS they boot in about ten seconds, and our guinea pig testers love them) Eric

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Quote Of The Week
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Jul '15

11 Jul '15

“I have the greatest respect for mathematicians, but we need a national conversation about their claims about the division by zero problem.” -- Matt Blaze >From this report <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/08/crap_crypto_enforcement_laws_coming…> on how various sectors of the US Government seem intent on re-fighting the “crypto wars” of the 1990s. Tip to those in power: the laws of nature haven’t changed since then. (And if it isn’t clear, Matt Blaze is one of those who is fully aware of that!)

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Customizing The Compose Key
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Jul '15

09 Jul '15

The Compose key <http://wiki.wlug.org.nz/ComposeKey> is probably the best way of typing less common characters available on any OS. It lets you use mnemonic sequences that actually bear some relationship to the character you are trying to enter, instead of having to remember numeric codes. You will find there a list of the characters that I found most useful, though the complete set will be in the Compose file for your chosen locale. You can even add your own compose sequences. This tutorial for KDE <https://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials/ComposeKey/en> covers the procedure. Basically, you create a file “.XCompose” in your home directory, include a system Compose file to inherit the standard sequences, and put in extra compose-key definitions using the same syntax as the system Compose files. I had got this far, but then was baffled as to why KDE seemed to pay no attention whatsoever to my custom compose-key sequences. It turns out you need to define additional environment variables to get Qt/KDE- and GTK-based apps to use the X11 input method that actually reads the .XCompose file. Put these in your .bashrc: export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim export QT_IM_MODULE=xim and when you logout and login again, it should all work. For example, in my .XCompose, I have the line <Multi_key> <p> <i> which lets me type compose-p-i to produce “π”.

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Ah, The Memories...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Jul '15

09 Jul '15

In the wake of the latest round of Microsoft’s layoffs, it seems apropos to remember the time they held a mock funeral for their competition at the time of the Windows Phone 7 launch: <http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/10/microsoft_employees_hold_funeral_…>. “Research firm Gartner predicted ... Nokia Symbian and Google Android [would be] first and second with 30.2 percent and 29.6 percent [market share] respectively [in 2014].” Did anybody notice any Symbian phones still on sale? Android had more like 80%...

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Debian To Switch From Libav Back To ffmpeg
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Jul '15

09 Jul '15

I’ve been using FFmpeg for years. I always built it from source, because I was aware that prebuilt distro packages were 1) well behind the latest development tree, and 2) likely to leave out features because of patent issues. So I hardly noticed the whole Libav fork issue <https://lwn.net/Articles/433347/>. I was dimly aware that my Debian system had these “libav” packages on it, that looked and behaved just like FFmpeg in everything but name. But I hardly ever used them—not directly. Then, last year, I found out a bit more about what really happened <https://lwn.net/Articles/607591/>, and why Debian went with the fork. Can you say “conflict of interest”? (Well, that’s how it looks like to me.) So now, Debian has officially decided to return to the original FFmpeg project <http://lwn.net/Articles/650495/>.

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your dishwasher is starting to discuss Sartre with you
by Ian Young 08 Jul '15

08 Jul '15

OK, vague relevance but it is Linus speaking, my excuse. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2416607/linux-founder-says-you-mus…

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BBC Micro Bit
by Ian Young 07 Jul '15

07 Jul '15

Stop me if you already are fully briefed on this -- I'd never heard of it. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33409311

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Amazon's New SSL/TLS Implementation In 6,000 Lines of Code
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

'Amazon has announced a new library called "s2n," an open source implementation of SSL/TLS, the cryptographic security protocols behind HTTPS, SSH, SFTP, secure SMTP, and many others. Weighing in at about 6k lines of code, it's just a little more than 1% the size of OpenSSL, which is really good news in terms of security auditing and testing. OpenSSL isn't going away, and Amazon has made clear that they will continue to support it. Notably, s2n does not provide all the additional cryptographic functions that OpenSSL provides in libcrypto, it only provides the SSL/TLS functions. Further more, it implements a relatively small subset of SSL/TLS features compared to OpenSSL.' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/07/01/0214248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GMT Versus UTC
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

It still seems to be common among groups outside the computing and scientific worlds to talk about “GMT” rather than “UTC”. The trouble with “GMT” is that it doesn’t seem to be clearly defined; it might or might not differ from UTC by up to 0.9 seconds. The (unadjusted) time reference defined by an official collection of atomic clocks worldwide is called “TAI”. This pays no heed to the slowing rotation of the Earth. Astronomers prefer a time reference called “UT1”, which is based on the actual rotation of the Earth (subject to some time-averaging, I think). The definition of “UTC” comes from TAI, adjusted by applying leap seconds. These accumulate as needed so as to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of UT1, and we are currently up to 36 of them. That is, at 0:00:00 UTC today, TAI was actually 0:00:36. The trouble with GMT is that it is not officially clear whether it is the same as UT1, or the same as UTC. Given that it was originally defined at the Greenwich Observatory, which was (is?) run by astronomers, one would think they would make it the same as UT1. But the practical fact is, our usual everyday timekeeping is based on standard time zones, which are all defined as whole-second (indeed, whole multiples of a half-hour) offsets from UTC.

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How Long Can A Filename Be?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

Allowed length of an individual file/directory name: ldo(a)theon:~> getconf NAME_MAX / 255 Allowed length of a full path name: ldo(a)theon:~> getconf PATH_MAX / 4096 The answers can be filesystem-specific; here “/” is an ext3 filesystem. But on my /home, which is ext4, I get the same numbers.

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Reuters: Samsung won’t give up on Tizen OS, plans more phones this year
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

'Samsung still loves its home-grown operating system. A report from Reuters says the company is planning more Tizen phones for 2015, and they'll come in at "varying prices."' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/06/reuters-samsung-wont-give-up-on-tize… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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So How Did Your Leap-Second Go?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

At noon today NZ time, an extra second was inserted into UTC, the time kept by the world’s atomic clocks. The time that was one second before midnight UTC (one second before noon NZST) became two seconds before intead: after 23:59:59 UTC came 23:59:60 UTC, before ticking over to 0:00:00 UTC. The previous time this happened, three years ago, several Linux-based systems malfunctioned. No word yet on how this one went... <http://lwn.net/Articles/648313/>

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Doing For Video What PulseAudio Did For Audio
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

Pinos is a project to allow better handling of video input across multiple applications. Pinos will make it easier to switch cameras in applications and for the same camera source to be used by multiple apps simultaneously, there will be support for multiple types of video inputs, GStreamer integration, and some audio support. Pinos should allow better screencasting within GNOME 3, video support for desktop sandboxes, and many other potential use-cases. In an email, Christian mentioned why it didn't end up being called PulseVideo over name squatting. <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-Pinos-Announced>

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presentations/demos for next meeting
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

Hi everyone At the moment, we're still looking for a theme (read presenters) for this month's WLUG meeting on July 27. Any takers? As a fallback option, I was thinking of giving the new Linux Mint 17.2 a spin (MATE and Cinnamon) and Ian has plenty of Debian 8 installations on his machine to show off briefly. Thanks. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How to upgrade Debian Wheezy to Jessie safely
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

"This tutorial explains how to upgrade your Debian system from Wheezy to Jessie in a few simple steps. Before you start with the upgrade, backup all critical data. Thats especially the config data in the /etc directory and the user data in /home. When you run a server then you should include the databases (MySQL, Postgresql, etc), web and email data in the backup as well." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/how-to-upgrade-debian-wheezy-to-je… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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SSH To Multiple Machines Simultaneously with DSH
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

"Once you grow beyond managing one or two servers, you???ll find yourself wasting a ton of time if you don't have a way to run commands on multiple Linux computers simultaneously. In this post, I'll explain how to quickly run commands on large numbers of Linux machines at once." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/upload/ssh-to-multiple-machines-simultaneously-wi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Win XP lives OK!??
by Ian Young 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Sorry this is utterly off-topic but couldn't resist. Stranger than fiction. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2414849/windows-xp-us-navy-throws-…

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MAC Address Privacy Standard Coming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Every network interface (wired or wireless) on every networked device in the world is assigned a unique 48-bit identifier—the MAC address—burned into its ROM at manufacturing time. While it’s often (usually?) possible to change this via the software driver, nobody thought of it as a big deal. Until recently, when certain, ahem, spying revelations have woken people to the privacy implications of being able to track a machine, particularly on wi-fi networks, based on its unique MAC address. And so some folks at the Internet Engineering Task Force have been doing experiments to determine whether randomly changing these addresses would cause hiccups for any network protocols. The good news is that the answer so far seems to be “no”. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/26/mac_address_privacy_inches_towards_…>

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How Long Should Microsoft Be Forced To Provide Windows XP Support?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Reading about how the US Navy <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/us_navy_windows_xp_support/> has signed a contract to get continuing support from Microsoft for Windows XP, led me to wonder how long is a “reasonable” interval for Microsoft to continue to provide patches and updates for this ancient OS. My reasoning is thus: Windows XP is still under copyright. Microsoft still considers it to be its “intellectual property”. The term “property” is deliberately used, to convey the idea of something owned by Microsoft, not by you, the customer. All you get when you buy it is a “licence”, not ownership. But with property rights come property responsibilities. If your property is causing harm or nuisance to others, the onus is on you to fix it. Therefore, Microsoft’s responsibilities over its “intellctual property” should continue just as long as it claims those property rights. If unmaintained Windows XP machines are being exploited as parts of botnets or spam relays or virus vectors or whatever, the onus for fixing those problems should be on the property owner, right? Under current US copyright law, that duration would be 90 years from when Windows XP was first published, or, by my reckoning, the year 2091.

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F2FS Brings Per-File Encryption With Linux 4.2
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jun '15

25 Jun '15

"Based on the native encryption support added to EXT4 with the Linux 4.1 kernel, Linux 4.2 is bringing encryption support to the F2FS file-system. F2FS has been working on native encryption support in tandem with the EXT4 work and now it's been called for merging today into Linux 4.2. Jaegeuk Kim sent in the F2FS feature update for Linux 4.2 and it features per-file encryption support along with new capabilities for FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE (converting a range of file to zeroes), FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE (removes a byte range from a file), and RENAME_WHITEOUT. The Flash-Friendly File-System for Linux 4.2 also has recovery for broken super-blocks, TRIM improvements, and various fixes. " -- source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=F2FS-Encryption-Linux-4.2 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Got Chrome? Google Just Silently Downloaded This Onto Your Computer
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

'On June 17th, Google did not announce (the news broke) that the DARPA affiliated corporation has been silently downloading audio listeners onto every computer that has Chrome. This effectively means that Google sees your privacy as piddly-squat, which does not necessarily come off as a surprise, when one considers Google’s censorship of We Are Change – this very organization as nothing. The website Private Internet Access‘s Rick Falkvinge reported how he came to understand this new policy: “It looked like just another bug report. “When I start Chromium, it downloads something.” Followed by strange status information that notably included the lines “Microphone: Yes” and “Audio Capture Allowed: Yes”. Without consent, Google’s code had downloaded a black box of code that – according to itself – had turned on the microphone and was actively listening to your room.”' -- source: http://wearechange.org/got-chrome-google-just-silently-downloaded-this-onto… Confirmed that on my box as well, when using the following URL: chrome://voicesearch/ Nice... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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"Invite-Only" Ubuntu Mobile-Powered Meizu UX4 Goes On Sale
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

"Chinese manufacturer Meizu and Ubuntu developer Canonical have released the MX4 smartphone, but prospective owners will have to 'earn' an opportunity to buy the phone by playing an interactive origami game. Players are limited to three chances per day and this is the only way to buy the smartphone as it will no go on wider sale at a later date. The MX4 is the third Ubuntu Mobile smartphone to be released, following the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and E5 devices." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/24/1642213 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 4.1 Kernel Released With EXT4 Encryption, Performance Improvements
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

"The Linux 4.1 kernel has been announced and its release brings expanded features for the Linux kernel including EXT4 file-system encryption, open-source GeForce GTX 750 support, performance improvements for Intel Atom / Bay Trail hardware, RAID 5/6 improvements, and other additions." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/22/1431243 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Pi and BeagleBone for Dummies in library
by Ian Young 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

City libraries have titles in the Dummies series about the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. Much of the material is directed at providing information on Linux for beginners, covering much the same ground in both titles. There is also a primer on Python programming. Perhaps the most interesting information deals with hardware aspects of interfacing with the boards including several small projects. In related news the latest Distrowatch Weekly has an article on using a Raspberry Pi as a server for backups in a home network.

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Resurrecting The SuperH Architecture
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Jun '15

18 Jun '15

I guess this is more of an embedded thing, but ... <http://lwn.net/Articles/647636/> “He then asked what constitutes the minimal system that can run Linux. All that is really needed, he said, is a flat, 32-bit memory address space, a CPU with registers to hold instructions, some I/O and storage (from which the kernel and initramfs can be loaded), and a timer for interrupts. That plus GCC is sufficient to get Linux running—although it may not be fast, depending on the specifics. One does not even need a cache, floating-point unit, SMP, or a memory-management unit (MMU).” “The other main advantage of the J2 project is that the work for implementing SuperH support is already done in the kernel, GCC, GDB, strace, and most other system components.” “The project has thus "inherited" an excellent ISA, and has even been in contact with many of the former Hitachi employees that worked on SuperH.” “...there are many ASIC vendors who are happy to produce low-cost chips on their older equipment because the cost of retooling a plant is exorbitant. A 180nm implementation of the J2 design, he said, costs around three cents per chip, with no royalties required. "That's disposable computing at the 'free toy inside' level."” “At the end of the talk, an audience member voiced concern that SuperH was old enough that support for it is unmaintained in a lot of projects. He suggested that the J2 team might need to act quickly to stop its removal. Landley noted that, indeed, the latest buildroot release did remove SuperH support, "but we're trying to get them to put it back now."”

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The South Pole Is On NZ Time!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

ldo(a)theon:~> ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/Antarctica/ ... lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Apr 27 10:36 South_Pole -> ../NZ ...

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Re: [wlug] The Fate Of The Fairfield Lab
by David Nicholls 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

So... What exactly is the Fairfield Lab? Where is it set up? a few details to elaborate on it's background might be helpful. I know someone with teaching (primary) and tech quals who might be useful. On 15 June 2015 at 11:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > To bring up a (not entirely) unrelated subject, I was at Te Whare O Te > Ata last week, and I asked Mike Rarere what was going to happen to the > computer lab. > > It’s clear Bruce Kingsbury was instrumental in getting this lab set up > and running, and it was providing a useful service to the community. > All of which was shot completely to hell as a result of his criminality > and stupidity. > > I understood from Mike that, without somebody willing to provide > full-time support for free, as Bruce was, the lab cannot continue. This > seems a shame, but is there anything else we can do? Fundraise to pay > someone to provide support, even if only part-time? > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- *Cheers...David Nicholls* *Computer Support* *Faculty of Science and Engineering* *x5006, *fsen_csg(a)waikato.ac.nz

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Fwd: [NZLUG] Major Ubuntu Linux Vulnerability - all current versions
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

Apologies, if you've already received this. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Foster Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 11:28 AM Subject: [NZLUG] Major Ubuntu Linux Vulnerability - all current versions To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz>, aucklug(a)googlegroups.com, Wellington Linux Users Group <wellylug(a)lists.wellylug.org.nz> http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2015/q2/717 ... "allows a local root privilege escalation in the default configuration on all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. The overlayfs filesystem does not correctly check file permissions when creating new files in the upper filesystem directory. This can be exploited by an unprivileged process in kernels with CONFIG_USER_NS=y and where overlayfs has the FS_USERNS_MOUNT flag, which allows the mounting of overlayfs inside unprivileged mount namespaces. This is the default configuration of Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 14.10, and 15.04 [1]." This could be something requiring a bit of attention. Heads-up. There is a simple work-round if you're not using overlayfs, detailed at the above url. Mark. PS: Apol's for the cross-post. _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linus Torvalds Says Linux Can Move On Without Him
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

'In a typically blunt interview, Linus Torvalds has said for the first time that if he were to die, Linux could safely continue on its own. Bloomberg has the report, which includes a video with Torvalds at his home office. Torvalds insists that people like Greg Kroah-Hartman have taken over huge parts of the day-to-day work maintaining Linux and that they've built up enough trust to be respected. This all comes as Torvalds has been irking more and more people with his aggressive attitude.' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/16/1630252 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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TRIM and Linux: Tread Cautiously, and Keep Backups Handy
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

'Algolia is a buzzword-compliant ("Hosted Search API that delivers instant and relevant results") start-up that uses a lot of open-source software (including various strains of Linux) and a lot of solid-state disk, and as such sometimes runs into problems with each of these. Their blog this week features a fascinating look at troubles that they faced with ext4 filesystems mysteriously flipping to read-only mode: not such a good thing for machines processing a search index, not just dishing it out. "The NGINX daemon serving all the HTTP(S) communication of our API was up and ready to serve the search queries but the indexing process crashed. Since the indexing process is guarded by supervise, crashing in a loop would have been understandable but a complete crash was not. As it turned out the filesystem was in a read-only mode. All right, let's assume it was a cosmic ray :) The filesystem got fixed, files were restored from another healthy server and everything looked fine again. The next day another server ended with filesystem in read-only, two hours after another one and then next hour another one. Something was going on. After restoring the filesystem and the files, it was time for serious analysis since this was not a one time thing. The rest of the story explains how they isolated the problem and worked around it; it turns out that the culprit was TRIM, or rather TRIM's interaction with certain SSDs: "The system was issuing a TRIM to erase empty blocks, the command got misinterpreted by the drive and the controller erased blocks it was not supposed to. Therefore our files ended-up with 512 bytes of zeroes, files smaller than 512 bytes were completely zeroed. When we were lucky enough, the misbehaving TRIM hit the super-block of the filesystem and caused a corruption." Since SSDs are becoming the norm outside the data center as well as within, some of the problems that their analysis exposed for one company probably would be good to test for elsewhere. One upshot: "As a result, we informed our server provider about the affected SSDs and they informed the manufacturer. Our new deployments were switched to different SSD drives and we don't recommend anyone to use any SSD that is anyhow mentioned in a bad way by the Linux kernel."' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/16/201217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting coming up next Monday. Please note, that this is a social event taken place at The Cook and *not* at university as usual (the room wasn't available due to exams)! Details can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/222855181/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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computer lab Te Whare O Te Ata
by Bill Rosoman 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

fyi I have been working many voluntary hours at Te Whare with mike for several months restoring, improving, documenting, training and assisting Mike to get things back to normal with the computers and the websites. So a lot of documentation has been happening. I do not think it is a good idea to see Mike and try and reopen the lab at this time after such an horrific experience they have been thru. They need time to see what the future holds for them. Bill Rosoman

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Re: [wlug] The Fate Of The Fairfield Lab
by William Mckee 15 Jun '15

15 Jun '15

I have the time and knowledge to open the lab. I've emailed Mike regarding this but recieved no reply. Rod has expressed interest in help running also. I'm willing to open the lab twice a week from 9-12. With more people I would love to open it from 2:30 till 5pm for primary and intermediate. It's a great resource and it makes me sad to see it closed. Cheers, William Cheers, On 15/06/2015 11:56 AM, "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > To bring up a (not entirely) unrelated subject, I was at Te Whare O Te > Ata last week, and I asked Mike Rarere what was going to happen to the > computer lab. > > It’s clear Bruce Kingsbury was instrumental in getting this lab set up > and running, and it was providing a useful service to the community. > All of which was shot completely to hell as a result of his criminality > and stupidity. > > I understood from Mike that, without somebody willing to provide > full-time support for free, as Bruce was, the lab cannot continue. This > seems a shame, but is there anything else we can do? Fundraise to pay > someone to provide support, even if only part-time? > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

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Ubuntu-Based REMnux 6.0 Linux Distro for Malware Analysis Officially Released
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jun '15

09 Jun '15

"The hard working developers behind the REMnux Linux distribution, an Ubuntu derivative that promises a lightweight solution for assisting malware analysis with reverse-engineering malicious software, announced the release of REMnux 6.0." -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-Based-REMnux-6-0-Linux-Distro-for-Mal… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft To Support SSH In Windows and Contribute To OpenSSH
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '15

03 Jun '15

'Microsoft has announced plans for native support for SSH in Windows. "A popular request the PowerShell team has received is to use Secure Shell protocol and Shell session (aka SSH) to interoperate between Windows and Linux – both Linux connecting to and managing Windows via SSH and, vice versa, Windows connecting to and managing Linux via SSH. Thus, the combination of PowerShell and SSH will deliver a robust and secure solution to automate and to remotely manage Linux and Windows systems." Based on the work from this new direction, they also plan to contribute back to the OpenSSH project as well.' -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/02/1950234 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Broadcom worth 37 billion
by Ian Young 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

A company called Avago has paid 37 billion for Broadcom, makers of the system on a chip in the Raspberry Pi. http://www.cnet.com/news/chipmakers-avago-broadcom-join-forces-in-37b-megam… http://www.theplatform.net/2015/05/28/avago-broadcom-to-take-on-intel-in-th… Some interesting analysis http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/31/why-is-avago-technologies-…

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Indonesia Uses Linux, openSUSE for Pilot Project
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '15

27 May '15

"An estimated 45,000 students from a province in Indonesia have enhanced their education and computer-usage knowledge through a pilot program using Linux and openSUSEthat is expected to become a nationwide educational program. >From 2009 to 2014, the project called “Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Utilization for Educational Quality Enhancement in Yogyakarta Province” used openSUSE and created material with Linux to enhance educational quality and equality inYogyakarta Province schools." -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/832417 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Should I get an Arduino or Raspberry Pi?
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '15

27 May '15

'I spend a lot of time at conferences and events like Maker Faires, and having co-authored a book on the Raspberry Pi, I spend a lot of time talking to people about things like small electronics and open hardware. Probably the most frequent question I hear is, "Should I get a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino?"' -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/should-i-get-an-arduino-or-raspberry-pi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux/Moose Worm Targets Routers, Modems, and Embedded Systems
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '15

27 May '15

'Security firm ESET has published a report on new malware that targets Linux-based communication devices (modems, routers, and other internet-connected systems) to create a giant proxy network for manipulating social media. It's also capable of hijacking DNS settings. The people controlling the system use it for selling "follows," "likes," and so forth on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Facebook, and Google+. Affected router manufacturers include: Actiontec, Hik Vision, Netgear, Synology, TP-Link, ZyXEL, and Zhone. The researchers found that even some medical devices were vulnerable to the worm, though it wasn't designed specifically to work with them.' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/05/26/1854207 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Mandriva Goes Out of Business
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '15

27 May '15

"After struggling for the past several years, Mandriva has finally gone out of business, and is in the process of being liquidated. The company was responsible for Mandriva Linux, itself a combination of Mandrake Linux and Conectiva Linux. When Mandriva fell upon hard times, many of the distro's developers migrated to Mageia Linux, which is still going strong and just putting the final touches on its next major version (5).' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/05/26/2157243 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How to Develop Own Custom Linux Distribution From Scratch
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '15

26 May '15

"Have you ever thought of making your own Linux Distribution? Every Linux user in their journey to Linux thought of making their own Linux distribution, at-least once. Even I was not an exception as a newbie to Linux land and have given my considerable time developing my own Linux Distribution. Developing a Linux Distribution from scratch is called Linux From Scratch (LFS)." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/how-to-develop-own-custom-linux-distrib… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How to Install Zimbra 8.6 on Ubuntu 14.04 Server
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '15

26 May '15

"The Zimbra Collaboration Server is a mail server, collaborative web application and a web based mail server admin console in a single application. It provides LDAP, antivirus, antispam, collaboration features and a ajax webmail client. Zimbra is easy to use for administrators as well as end users due to its fast Ajax based web interface." -- source: https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/ubuntu-14-04-zimbra-server/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Debian8 Gnome3 desktop - Debian Installer problem
by Ian Stewart 26 May '15

26 May '15

Hi, At last nights wlug meeting I did a show and tell of my recent adventures with downloading and installing Debian 8 Live + non-free. I had encountered a problem with the Gnome3 desktop in that the Debian Installer application, which displays itself in full-screen mode, was not positioned correctly. As a result the Debian Installer applications "continue" and "go back" buttons are off the bottom of the display. Today I bumped into Ian Young, who provided a solution to this Gnome3 / Debian Installer problem. The workaround is to type Alt+Spacebar to open up a menu. Then select "Move to Workspace Down". The debian installer is placed into the second display workspace and in full-screen mode it is now positioned correctly so all pushbuttons may be accessed. I've tested out the Debian8 Installer on the KDE, xfce, LXDE, and Mate desktop environments and they position the Debian Installer window correctly. Also at last nights meeting I suggested the following command to copy the .iso file to a USB stick as device sdc... $ sudo dd if="debian-live-8.0.0-amd64-gnome-desktop nonfree.iso" of=/dev/sdc bs=4M; sync An alternative to this, which I tested out OK today is... $ sudo cp "debian-live-8.0.0-amd64-gnome-desktop nonfree.iso" /dev/sdc ...wishing you all the best with Debian8. cheers, Ian.

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“*ERROR* pipe is still busy with an old pageflip”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 May '15

24 May '15

I’ve been hitting an occasional display freeze that matches this description <http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7675146.html>. Looks like a known problem with the 3.16 kernel. I thought things had got better with a system update I did 11 days ago, but this afternoon the freeze recurred. Unlike the previous times, killing all my user processes succeeded in unfreezing the display, so I was able to log in again without rebooting.

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WLUG meeting tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 24 May '15

24 May '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting tomorrow: "git - from novice to master. Lawrence D'Oliveiro will introduce you to the distributed revision control system git, demonstrating the basic commands and also more advanced actions." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/222463816 Unfortunately, due to work commitments, I won't be able to make it. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Glitch Art
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 May '15

22 May '15

(From the Cairo mailing list.) A version of GIMP that produces glitch art (entertaining display bugs): <https://www.flickr.com/photos/hellocatfood/17336134091> How to build glitch-GIMP: <http://www.hellocatfood.com/glitch-gimp/>.

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Meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 22 May '15

22 May '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting coming up next Monday: "git - from novice to master. Lawrence D'Oliveiro will introduce you to the distributed revision control system git, demonstrating the basic commands and also more advanced actions." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/222463816 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph.+64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz

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'Logjam' Vulnerability Threatens Encrypted Connections
by Peter Reutemann 22 May '15

22 May '15

'A team of security researchers has revealed a new encryption vulnerability called 'Logjam,' which is the result of a flaw in the TLS protocol used to create encrypted connections. It affects servers supporting the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, and it's caused by export restrictions mandated by the U.S. government during the Clinton administration. "Attackers with the ability to monitor the connection between an end user and a Diffie-Hellman-enabled server that supports the export cipher can inject a special payload into the traffic that downgrades encrypted connections to use extremely weak 512-bit key material. Using precomputed data prepared ahead of time, the attackers can then deduce the encryption key negotiated between the two parties." Internet Explorer is the only browser yet updated to block such an attack — patches for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari are expected soon. The researchers add, "Breaking the single, most common 1024-bit prime used by web servers would allow passive eavesdropping on connections to 18% of the Top 1 Million HTTPS domains. A second prime would allow passive decryption of connections to 66% of VPN servers and 26% of SSH servers. A close reading of published NSA leaks shows that the agency's attacks on VPNs are consistent with having achieved such a break." Here is their full technical report (PDF).' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/05/20/1258251 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 4.0 Has a File-System Corruption Problem, RAID Users Warned
by Peter Reutemann 21 May '15

21 May '15

'For the past few days kernel developers and Linux users have been investigating an EXT4 file-system corruption issue affecting the latest stable kernel series (Linux 4.0) and the current development code (Linux 4.1). It turns out that Linux users running the EXT4 file-system on a RAID0 configuration can easily destroy their file-system with this newest "stable" kernel. The cause and fix have materialized but it hasn't yet worked its way out into the mainline kernel, thus users should be warned before quickly upgrading to the new kernel on systems with EXT4 and RAID0.' -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/05/21/1324229 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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theregister.co.uk - Inkscape 0.91 review
by William Mckee 21 May '15

21 May '15

A very positive review of Inkscape 0.91 release. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/19/inkscape_review/?page=1 Most notable they talk about the speed and performance in the new release. I'm a heavy GIMP user but have been using Inkscape recently for website logos. Like the reviewer - I have been impressed with the improvements. Cheers, William.

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