- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Stupid Hardware Clock Tricks, aka: WTF?
by Theo Van Dinter Aug. 28, 2002

Aug. 28, 2002

Over this past weekend I upgraded my server from a P200/RedHat Linux 7.2 to a new Athlon 850/RedHat Linux 7.3. The Athlon was my trusty workstation for many a year. Everything's great, except for one problem: the clock goes crazy! It seems to be a once per second issue: $ perl -e '$t=time;while(1){$t2=time; warn join("\n",scalar localtime($t),scalar localtime($t2),"") if ($t2-$t>4); $t=$t2;}' Wed Aug 21 17:17:28 2002 Wed Aug 21 18:29:03 2002 Wed Aug 21 17:17:29 2002 Wed Aug 21 18:29:04 2002 Wed Aug 21 17:17:30 2002 Wed Aug 21 18:29:05 2002 I use netsaint to monitor system health, and it keeps complaining about the time jumps: Aug 21 18:28:03 eclectic netsaint: Warning: A system time change of 4296 seconds (forwards in time) has been detected. Compensating... Aug 21 17:16:31 eclectic netsaint: Warning: A system time change of 4293 seconds (backwards in time) has been detected. Compensating... Aug 21 18:29:42 eclectic netsaint: Warning: A system time change of 4296 seconds (forwards in time) has been detected. Compensating... Aug 21 17:18:10 eclectic netsaint: Warning: A system time change of 4293 seconds (backwards in time) has been detected. Compensating... Of course, random checks start failing as well since they occasionally run during the time jump, and if they're checking for time since something occured (log entry, cron run, query response time, etc) ... I've tried "hwclock --systohc" to force the hardware clock to the same time as the system, didn't help. I'm running NTP and thought maybe it was having problems, so I tried turning that off, didn't help. I went through BIOS and tweaked memory/IRQ settings -- I didn't think it would really solve anything, but the setting changes and reboot kept the behavior away for ~14-15 hours. So I'm completely stumped as to what causes this problem. Has anyone seen anything like this before? Any suggestions for things to look at? I'm at the point where I'm planning to just buy a new bit of hardware, migrate the drives and such again, and go from there. With my luck the problem would follow me of course... :( Thanks in advance. :) BTW: If anyone is wondering, I'm running SGI's XFS patched 2.4.18 kernel: 2.4.18-SGI_XFS_1.1. I'm thinking about dropping back to a 2.4.9 kernel w/ XFS support and seeing if that works any better. :( I was running 2.4.18 on the P200 for quite a while though without problem. -- Randomly Generated Tagline: I don't want to look like a weirdo. I'll just go with a muumuu. -- Homer Simpson King-Size Homer

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python regular expressions
by Brad Noyes Aug. 28, 2002

Aug. 28, 2002

Hi All, I'm starting to learn python. I was looking for a python equivalent to a perl regular expression such as $_ = "FreeBSD"; /(.*)BSD/; where $1 would get what ever is between '(...)', 'Free' in this case. Is there a way i can make use of the () regex operator in python? I can't seem to find an equivalent in python's regex module (re). Thanks, --brad

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Exchange clients for linux
by Haines, Charles Allen Aug. 28, 2002

Aug. 28, 2002

I was wondering if anyone knew of any exchange clients for linux besides the plugin for evolution. WPI is now offering a student exchange server and I am testing it for the admin's. However I currently have to use the outlook web client to view my mail (which of course doesn't look right in galeon, since M$ designed the outlook web). So any comments, flames, or suggestions are welcome. Thanks, Chuck Haines WPILA Lab Manager

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An update to all user group leaders...
by Rick Zach Aug. 27, 2002

Aug. 27, 2002

____________________________________ sent via the Boston User Groups Leadership Listserv ____________________________________ ==================================================================== Our annual user group MegaMeeting-III is near! Wed, Sept-25 Sheraton Tara in Framingham, MA Wednesday, September 25 from 6:30 - 9:30 PM http://www.BostonUserGroups.com/MegaMeeting ==================================================================== To all user group leaders: Boston User Groups is now almost one year old (at least as a true non-profit corporate entity) and MegaMeeting-III is just around the corner. Our value proposition TO you and our expectations OF you as a user group leader are quite simple: Boston User Groups' value proposition TO you: * Greatly increase your user group's visibility to the public * Help promote, increase and cross pollinate your user group membership with other groups * Assist to provide speakers via BUG web site awareness * Provide an annual MegaMeeting for face-to-face networking and exposure Boston User Groups expectation OF you as a user group leader * Greatly increase your User Group's visibility to the public by promoting BUG and it's other user groups * Have a link on your home page or other readily visible location on your web site back to BUG (again to increase mutual awareness) * Promote the MegaMeeting to your group to increase our mutual awareness As you can see, even BUG's expectations OF you are solely to help promote all user groups which certainly includes you. I would like to leave you with two thoughts and a "call to action": 1) Like your own user group, Boston User Groups is mostly funded by out-of-pocket personal donations of it's User Group leadership. In the case of MegaMeeting-III, we could not locate a free facility of adequate size and location so certain people fronted about $3,000 for room rental in the expectation of re-covering the costs by renewed BUG/UG leader memberships, door admission and a few corporate sponsorships. We are VERY non-profit. 2) I ask you to please help to aggressively promote the upcoming MegaMeeting and BUG. In the process, you will be promoting your own group! MegaMeeting-III Chairperson Brad Dinerman will be following up with a "call to action" email with specifics on up-front cash costs to you (none) and how to help promote the MegaMeeting and your own group! Please look for Brad's email coming soon. And finally: Please note a recent article by John C. Dvorak on the death of User Groups and the few glimmers of light out there. As a united group of groups, we may be one of those few glimmers. Please help us to help each other! The URL is http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,3048,a=29639,00.asp ______________________________________ Rick Zach, President Boston User Groups, Inc. cel: 508-395-8730 http://www.bostonusergroups.com/Benefactors/

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Server crash - is recovery possible?
by Richard Goodman Aug. 26, 2002

Aug. 26, 2002

I'm running a RH 7.0 box at home that does (a) NAT for the local network (b) mail server for multiple domains (c) web server for multiple domains and (d) DNS for multiple domains Yesterday I attempted to ssh login from a workstation and got a message "..exited with Signal 11". I attempted to log on from the console and could not - got screen full of messages and numbers. At this point at least the web server was still running. I hit reset to reboot, got all the standard messages until "Checking root filesystem...." About 5-10% in, then: "Warning ..fsck.ext2 for device /dev/hda2 exited with signal 11 [FAILED] " Looked in my configuration book this morning ... hda2 is "/" . The only fortunate thing is that /home and /var are separate partitions on a second hard drive. Is there any way to recover from this? Barring that - is there any way to recover any config files from various places in /etc on this partition. If not I guess its a complete reload - mainly a problem with mail and DNS config files. I am only mildly competent on this stuff. If you need more info, I'll get it, although I don't know how to capture that screen full of info at the abort point. Dick Richard Goodman (508) 757-3452 r.goodman(a)11harvard.com 11 Harvard St, Worcester MA 01609

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/dev/sequencer problems
by Wesley T Allen Aug. 25, 2002

Aug. 25, 2002

Hi all, I'm full of problems this week. Hopefully this'll have a successful ending as well! Any time I try to open a midi file, I get an error "can't open /dev/sequencer" it doesn't matter what desktop I'm in (sometimes I hate arts); and I can't figure this out. Anyone got an idea? Wes

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RE: [Wlug] orinoco driver
by Haines, Charles Allen Aug. 23, 2002

Aug. 23, 2002

I've got a question relating to this. I've got a netgear wireless card also. The card is detected and i can plug and play with it but I can't seem to get it set and essid. First off, I'm not sure which config it reading from /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts. I've tried manually configuring it with iwconfig, it accepts the WEIP key, however it will not accept my essid. I've tried typing iwconfig essid "WPI-Wireless-Network", but it doesn't seem to keep it. Once I put it in and type iwconfig again, it says ESSID="". Anyone have any ideas. I'm using gentoo linux with kernel 2.4.19. -----Original Message----- From: Andy Stewart [mailto:andystewart@attbi.com] Sent: Thu 8/22/2002 11:20 PM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Cc: Subject: Re: [Wlug] orinoco driver Hi Wes, I discovered on my laptop that I had to insure that my wireless card was listed in /etc/pcmcia/config or things didn't work. (Although I use SuSE 8.0, I believe the description below is distribution agnostic). Try this as root: # cardctl ident Note the "manfid" line. Next, check /etc/pcmcia/config and see if a card with an entry matching the manfid is present. In my case, there was no entry so I added one thus: card "Andy's Linksys Wireless" manfid 0x0274, 0x1613 bind "orinoco_cs" The card string seems to be arbitrary text. The manfid comes from "cardctl ident", and the bind is to a kernel module. I have hotplugging services running, so when I plug in my wireless adapter, it automagically loads the kernel module(s), starts the net, sets up routing, etc. Give it a try and let us know how it goes! Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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orinoco driver
by Wesley Allen Aug. 23, 2002

Aug. 23, 2002

Hi all, hope the BBQ went well, sorry I couldn't come (I was picking up my Brother-In-Law at Logan...sigh, one day I'll get to a meeting). I've got a netgear wifi card that works great in Mandrake Linux, with the exception of wep (I know, it's cracked). In doing some research on the card and the kernel module that loads wvlan_cs, I have found out that this module has been replaced (by and large) by orinoco_cs, which I understand to be more functional (i.e. maybe I can get wep working?). I tried modprobe -r wvlan_cs and modprobe orinoco_cs but it won't bind to my pcmcia card. So I figured, "Well, maybe my card is just one that can't use the newer driver..." WRONG! Just to see what it was like, I download Knoppix, burned it onto a cd, and booted it up. Guess what driver loaded? orinoco_cs!! And it worked well too. Well, since Knoppix is a cd-boot, run in memory distro; I'm not changing to it anytime soon. So I'm going to use this opportunity to learn something new. How can I bind the orinoco driver to my card? Wes -- This message may be digitally signed. For my public key, e-mail me a request.

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LUG's rule
by Wesley Allen Aug. 23, 2002

Aug. 23, 2002

Gang, can I just tell you how much I love the Linux community. You figure stuff out part way, and the community fills in the gaps! orinoco_cs is loaded, and wep is FINALLY enabled on my wlan! Thank you! Wes -- This message may be digitally signed. For my public key, e-mail me a request.

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WLUG BBQ
by Andy Stewart Aug. 22, 2002

Aug. 22, 2002

HI gang, I'm running late. I'm leaving my house now for the BBQ. I'll see ya there around 6:30 - 6:45 PM. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Red Hat, Westford MA career day
by Tim Burke Aug. 20, 2002

Aug. 20, 2002

FYI - we're having an open house next Wednesday. http://bostonworks.boston.com/events/openhouses/redhat.shtml

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REMINDER: WLUG BBQ
by Andy Stewart Aug. 18, 2002

Aug. 18, 2002

HI everybody, The WLUG BBQ will be held on Thursday, August 22nd starting at 6 PM. Directions to Doug Waud's house, a.k.a BBQ Central, can be found on the WLUG website. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. I've received 3 or 4 RSVPs and I'm sure there will be more people than that. We need to have an idea how much food to purchase. WLUG will supply the standard BBQ fare and some soda and munchies. If you want beer or wine, you may BYOB and we'll have a way to keep it cold. Feel free to bring your own dessert or cold salad items if you so choose. Doug's house has a pool so bring towels and such! If you can think of anything else, let me know. Otherwise, I'll see you all on Thursday. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Kernel int-13 interface?
by Chuck Homic Aug. 16, 2002

Aug. 16, 2002

Hey, this one goes out to all you kernel hackers out there. After 4 years, I've once again become interested in installing Linux on my HP OmniBook 300. Because it's an aswesome computer, and I think DOS 5 is a complete waste of its skill. [Background. The OB300 is a vintage 386-20, with a passive reflective 640x480 LCD display. Basically an oversize TI calculator running DOS] Anyway, from my first tests, I discovered that I can indeed boot the kernel using loadlin. But it immediately freaks out because it can't read (or even think about) my primary media... solid-state PCMCIA flash cards. Now, I briefly tried looking up some data on the OB300's PCMCIA chipset (I think the first standard was still being developed when this computer was made) and quickly decided that wasn't the route to go. And HP told me to go to hell when I asked. But DOS seems to work just fine using the int 13 interface to access the flash disks. So now my question... can I do that in Linux? I don't see any block device support (and most people would agree an int 13 block device would be stupid), but I think I can write one myself. All it would have to do is make the switch into real mode, call the int 13 interface, and then come back. Will Linux tolerate that? As far as I know, many drivers use a real mode interrupt on laptops to trigger their power saving capabilities (suspend, etc...), so I suspect it would be okay. Can anyone stop me before I go too far? Or should I go ahead and write this thing? -Chuck

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potential mailing list problems
by Frank Sweetser Aug. 15, 2002

Aug. 15, 2002

Just a quick heads up - the WLUG mailing list server seems to be having some issues, and since I won't be around to fix it until Monday, it may not be stable over the weekend. I have a backup of the mailing list data, though, so nothing should be lost once things are all fixed up. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 18 Full-time WPI Network Engineer, Part time Linux/Perl guy | Soitainly. I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it. -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692(a)wall.org>

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USB Support in Linux 2.4.18
by chuck Aug. 11, 2002

Aug. 11, 2002

How can I tell if a specific USB device, in this case a removable USB hard drive, is supported by my kernel? I know that Linux 2.4.18 has "support" for USB devices. Does this mean all USB devices or just a few? I would think that the OS talks to the USB controller via a series of well documented commands and that its up to the controller to talk to the specific USB device. Does this make sense, or is there more to it? Thanks, Chuck

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Firewall Stops Working...
by jose sanchez Aug. 11, 2002

Aug. 11, 2002

> Hello: > > This is my first post to the list and I would like > to > know if anyone have experienced or heard of what's > happenning to my box. > > I have a RH7.2 box as a firewall running an iptables > script. The box has three NICs. One for a LAN, one > for > a DMZ, and one for the Internet connection running > dhcpcd to get an IP from a cable modem (isp: Road > Runner). Everything works fine but, after hours of > innactivity I cannot access the Internet from the > LAN. > I can do everything else (chat, ftp, ssh, ping, > traceroute, etc...) from the LAN to the outside > world. > > > I was thinking it might be something with the > expiration of the IP lease but I have a chain to > take > care of that: > > iptables -A INPUT -i $INTERNET -d udp -s > $DHCP_SERVER > \ > --sport 67 --dport 68 -j ACCEPT > > iptables -A OUTPUT -o $INTERNET -d udp -d > $DHCP_SERVER > \ > --dport 67 --sport 68 -j ACCEPT > > These chains should do it but unfortunately in order > for me to get the box back to normal I have to > restart > it and also restart the modem. > > Thank you in advance for your help. > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs > http://www.hotjobs.com > ===== "An ounce of gold cannot buy an ounce of time." - Anonymous www.whmicro.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com

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dhcp clients
by Brad Noyes Aug. 10, 2002

Aug. 10, 2002

Hi All, I got my home network rigged up to do dynamic dns with dhcp. It seems that the linux and fBSD dhcp clients don't send the hostname to the dhcp server, so no name record is created for those clients. Does anyone know how to do this? (windows clients seem to send the hostname okay). Thanks, --brad

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Wireless antennas
by Andy Stewart Aug. 9, 2002

Aug. 9, 2002

HI gang, I have discovered that there are a couple of locations in my house where the wireless network does not work well at all. Naturally, they are the locations where I most want to use my laptop. My access point is on the 2nd floor in approx. the middle of that floor. I'm trying to use the laptop on the 1st floor at one end of the house to (almost) no avail. Moving the access point to other locations in the room seems to make little difference. My house is not a mansion - I'm well within the 300 ft alleged range. My 2.4 GHz wireless phones have no problem over this particular path through the house (and yes, I turned them off in case they were causing interference). I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Issues with aic7770?
by Keller, Tim Aug. 9, 2002

Aug. 9, 2002

Has anybody done a Red Hat 7.3 install on a box with an Adaptec 7770 card in it? The machine was running *cough* the server version 4.0 of an OS that rhymes with "Empty" and working fine. However, when boot off the CD due to our buddy "El Torito" and INT13. The bios is able to get the diskette image but then unable to find the CD. I've got a ftp site with RH 7.3 so I point to it and everything works fine until I have to specify which driver I'd like to use for the scsi card. When I specify the Adaptec 7xxx series driver, the kernel issues an "Opps" and continues on. This machine is a 100mhz pentium HP Netserver. (yeah, I know its slow... I plan on using it as a standalone JBOD) Thanks, Tim.

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NFS, anyone?
by Skip Gaede Aug. 7, 2002

Aug. 7, 2002

Hi, I have a server running Mandrake 8.2. I had a problem unmounting a CDROM (I hate supermount!), so I rebooted the server. On the way back up, the NFS service hung. This is now the second time this has happened. (The first time, I attributed it to students messing with the server, and reinstalled everything.) Now, after two days of getting things back to normal, it's happened again, this time sans students. I'm writing this from home, as the school's link to the Internet is down. Anyone know where the relevant state data for NFS is stashed? Thanks, Skip

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Pascal madness?
by desdinova＠soupforare.net Aug. 6, 2002

Aug. 6, 2002

yeah.... I'm trying to teach myself pascal. What with the new release of Freepascal, and what with Delphi6/Kylix being out, I figure I should get something done while I'm out pounding pavement. Anyone know of any used book stores that have a decent computer section? I tried Another Story on Stafford St., but he didn't have anything for pascal. :( Any help is appreciated, Thanks James KB1FJQ

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Gentoo
by desdinova＠soupforare.net Aug. 6, 2002

Aug. 6, 2002

Just putting the finishing touches on my first gentoo linux installation. Took between 15 and 20 hours on a Dual PPro, it might have gone quicker, but the boot-cd's kernel doesn't support SMP. It's a pretty neat distro. James (Thanks to John)

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give away's and trades!
by Keller, Tim Aug. 5, 2002

Aug. 5, 2002

Trades: A buddy of mine is looking for a 32mb PCI video card. He'd be willing to trade 2, 800mhz pentium 3's. I've also got a 800mhz Pentium 3 with a fan and a socket 370 to socket 1 gender bender I'd be willing to part with for 20 bucks. What's the status on the BBQ? Thanks, Tim.

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WLUG BBQ!!!
by Andy Stewart Aug. 5, 2002

Aug. 5, 2002

Hi Everybody, Although I have not yet updated the WLUG website, the WLUG BBQ is going to happen! The BBQ will be held in Shrewsbury at Doug Waud's house like it was 2 years ago. Directions are forthcoming. Thanks, Doug! Our next meeting of WLUG will be at the BBQ on Thursday, August 22, 2002. The BBQ will start around 6 PM and go until Doug kicks us out (watch it, he has Steve as his bouncer). If you can't make it at 6 PM, show up whenever you can. WLUG will supply the food and munchies and will have sodas on hand. You may BYOB (beer, wine, whatever) if you wish. If you would like to bring a salad or dessert, feel free! Label your container with your name to insure its return. Doug has a swimming pool which we can use, so if you are interested, bring a bathing suit and towel. Its not clear to me if one must actually *wear* the bathing suit. We'll rig up some kind of projection system for a LInux talk of some flavor. It may end up getting used by some of you ASCII Art fanatics, but that's OK too. ;-) What good would a Linux party be without an Internet connection, a projector, and a laptop or three? Please RSVP to me and let me know that you'll be coming. In this way, we can be sure to have enough food on hand. Other party ideas? Send them out to the list! Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Wireless networking with LInksys WAP11 and WPC11
by Andy Stewart Aug. 4, 2002

Aug. 4, 2002

HI all, I finally got WEP to work with this hardware ! The trick is to download the firmware update to the WAP11 wireless access point and install it. The firmware version is 1.01c and it came out just a few days ago. Now, of course, the install program only runs in Windows. I inquired about non-Windows solutions. One can use tftp to transfer the binary image to the WAP11 to do the firmware upgrade and it does work! One must first disable the WAP11 password and also disable the MAC address filter. Of course, this is totally non-supported, we support windows only, we're sorry for your inconvenience, yada, yada, yada. I'm using the orinoco{_cs} driver without problems. I tried wlan-ng but could not get it to work at all. The configuration of wlan-ng is quite confusing to me. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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