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Re: [Wlug] REMINDER: Meeting Wed, May 15th
by Andy Stewart 15 May '02

15 May '02

HI gang, I have one person who has confirmed that he will bring his laptop to the meeting for a PLIP demonstration. Is there one other person who will do the same? Now, keep in mind that although one group member who shall remain nameless is notorious for yanking on power cords (most especially while they are still in use), it should be safe to be tethered to his laptop with my LapLink cable for the demo at the meeting. You have been warned! :-) Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Locked up
by Gregory Avedissian 14 May '02

14 May '02

Sometimes my computer locks up completely, so that neither the mouse nor the keyboard will work. I'm running SuSE 7.2 on an Athlon 1.2GHz/Shuttle Spacewalker AK12A, 256M memory. It seems to happen when I'm in a chat room. Running Mozilla 0.9.9 with recent Java plugin, also running Yahoo Instant Messenger, and it seems like things were loading very slowly in the chatroom all the times this had happened. I'm on a dialup line, so when I say slow, I mean like go-and-make-tea slow. Otherwise, the connection is ok (46.6K) when loading other pages. ctrl-alt-backspace does nothing, alt-F2,3 etc. does nothing, same for ctrl-D, ctrl-C, ctrl-Z, ctrl-alt-Fx. I had to hit the kill switch. This last time, it wasn't too bad, but the time before this, rebooting to linux was pretty scary. This only happens once every couple of weeks. I'm suspicious of the keyboard, because it persisted once when I rebooted to win98, then it cleared when I rebooted once more, first wiggling the wire where it goes into the keyboard. Does it sound at all like a software problem, or should I just ignore it and replace the keyboard? And is there some other way to bail out that I haven't tried? Thanks, Greg

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Compaq auction
by Michelle Vadeboncoeur 11 May '02

11 May '02

http://www.dovebid.com/Auctions/AuctionDetail.asp?AuctionID=1260 Compaq out of Houston, TX is having a webcast auction on 5/14 of a bunch of their stuff (check the equipment catalog), ranging from the office TVs and video projectors, to monitors, servers, storage arrays, desktops, individual cards, etc. Looks like some nice stuff. 8) I thought that you guys might be interested in perhaps picking up something, hopefully on the inexpensive side. Sorry for the late notice, though. -- --==*==-- --==*==-- Michelle R. Vadeboncoeur --==*==-- --==*==-- mrv(a)kluge.net: http://www.kluge.net/~mrv/

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2 month + Linux Kernel consulting job
by Greg Donovan 09 May '02

09 May '02

Dear WLUG, Thank you for allowing me to send this communication to your members. Optimal Engineering Partners provides embedded software and hardware development expertise within the communications, wireless, storage, and medical industries. Cumulatively the founding employees of Optimal Engineering possess many years of knowledge and contacts within these sectors, and the extent of our expertise within this space will be evident in the quality and responsiveness of the services we provide. We are seeking a consultant to perform some work for a customer of ours leveraging Linux kernel and SCSI skills. It is a two month+ assignment with a customer here in the Boston area. The work would be performed full time on our customer's site. Here is a brief description of the work: Our client is completing a port of Linux 2.42 to their fault tolerant platform and need assistance in finishing the effort. Must have strong debugging skills, storage SCSI or Fiber Channel and Linux kernel experience. Linux SCSI is a major plus. Please feel free to contact me if you or someone you know might be a match for this role. We pay a generous referral fee. Thank you. -Greg Greg Donovan OPTIMAL ENGINEERING PARTNERS "Resources and Expertise for Embedded Systems Development" (978) 256-1113 ext 103 gdonovan(a)optimaleng.com

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stderr v. stdout
by Bill Mills-Curran 09 May '02

09 May '02

I can't believe I'm revisiting this yet again... I'm struggling with identifying "standard practice" for deciding when to write to stdout v. stderr. In particular, I'm working with processes associated with software maintenance (building, copying, SCM, etc.). I'd love to find a definitive whitepaper on the subject. Does anyone have any pointers? TIA, Bill

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timezone
by Baris Hasdemir 08 May '02

08 May '02

hi, I have a strange-for-me problem. I am one of those paranoid guys, who has added "ntpdate time.nist.gov" to the crontab to be executed every day. the problem is that, every night the system time is set 1 hour earlier of the actual time. i.e it is executed at 23:00 and is set to 22:00 after ntpdate, as far as I could observe. I am pretty confused about the subject. Tried different timezone names, etc, hence more confused. I also have a problem with the name of the timezone. which timezone name do you choose guys? US/Eastern? America/Newyork? GMT+5? EST? EDT? or any other? I am using slackware-current. set the timezone to America/New_York and whenever I send a mail, sylpheed shows my timezone as GMT-4 and #date shows my timezone as EDT. any comments. other than removing the crontab job? :) thanks, baris

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PowerMac CD-ROM
by Jeremy 08 May '02

08 May '02

Does anyone have a SCSI cdrom that I can borrow/buy for an old 7500? My linux box is such a hackjob of software that I want to reinstall it with YDL. Low and behold I try it last week and the damn CDROM drive doesnt seem to work! Some files copy, some dont... I will just assume its the drive due to age/heat. So I was hoping someone (near WPI) had a CDROM drive i could borrow (external would be good). The drive i think would have to work in MacOS too (to install BOOTX files). Such a PITA some times. Beside CDROM, what other PPC install options still exisit? The boot floppies over network from linuxppc.org use to work but i am not sure they are still around. YDL seemed like a good choice for now. -Jeremy ===== - __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

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nvidia drivers, re-visited and working
by Brad Noyes 08 May '02

08 May '02

Hi All, You may remember that earlier this year i was having difficulty in getting the nvidia drivers to work with my TNT card. Today i figured out the problem. I needed to enable 'Assign IRQ to VGA' in my BIOS. Things seem to work, except some re-draws are slow for X-term, and konsole. --brad

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Cheap colo!
by Adam Keck 07 May '02

07 May '02

It's not linux, but it is reasonable, finally. http://www.johncompanies.com/collocation/ -Adam "lingua machinationis creo, ergo sum" _____________________________________________ Adam Keck The Mathworks 508-647-7298 Natick, Ma www.mathworks.com FreeNIX/Backup/Unix Administrator _____________________________________________

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Bad NIC?
by Andy Stewart 06 May '02

06 May '02

HI gang, I have a network interface on my firewall that is throwing receive errors at me. They are in the overrun and frame columns of the ifconfig printout for that interface. I tried to restart the interface and reload the kernel module to no avail. I also power cycled the Linksys switch and cabled to a different switch port. A different cable didn't help, either. I'd rather not reboot the machine with 135 days of uptime. I noticed that on a 100 Mbit ethernet segment, I'm getting a failure rate on approx. 25% of the packets. Reducing the MTU from 1500 to 768 helps the transfer rate but doesn't solve the problem. This is the only machine on my home network that shows any errors. Any thoughts? Is it a bad NIC or something I've missed? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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Advise Needed
by Michael Long 02 May '02

02 May '02

It appears that my computer has been hacked into. The following services are run periodically throughout the day. How do I go about finding out what is starting and stopping them and more importantly prevent them from being run. I have a hardware firewall between the computer and isp. 17762 root sh -c (safe_finger -l @64.213.97.247 2>&1| /bin/mail -s "in.ftpd-64.213.97.247 unknown" root) & 17763 nobody safe_finger -l @64.213.97.247 17764 root /bin/mail -s in.ftpd-64.213.97.247 unknown root 17765 nobody finger -l 64.213.97.247 17768 root /usr/sbin/sshd 17770 root sh -c (safe_finger -l @::ffff:64.213.97.247 2>&1| /bin/mail -s "sshd-::ffff:64.213.97.247 unknown" root) & 17771 nobody safe_finger -l @::ffff:64.213.97.247 17772 root /bin/mail -s sshd-::ffff:64.213.97.247 unknown root 17773 nobody finger -l ::ffff:64.213.97.247 Thanks, Mike

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Advise Needed
by Michael Long 01 May '02

01 May '02

It appears that my computer has been hacked into. The following services are run periodically throughout the day. How do I go about finding out what is starting and stopping them and more importantly prevent them from being run. I have a hardware firewall between the computer and isp. 17762 root sh -c (safe_finger -l @64.213.97.247 2>&1| /bin/mail -s "in.ftpd-64.213.97.247 unknown" root) & 17763 nobody safe_finger -l @64.213.97.247 17764 root /bin/mail -s in.ftpd-64.213.97.247 unknown root 17765 nobody finger -l 64.213.97.247 17768 root /usr/sbin/sshd 17770 root sh -c (safe_finger -l @::ffff:64.213.97.247 2>&1| /bin/mail -s "sshd-::ffff:64.213.97.247 unknown" root) & 17771 nobody safe_finger -l @::ffff:64.213.97.247 17772 root /bin/mail -s sshd-::ffff:64.213.97.247 unknown root 17773 nobody finger -l ::ffff:64.213.97.247 Thanks, Mike

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Returned mail: see transcript for details (fwd)
by Michelle Vadeboncoeur 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

can anyone determine from the status codes what software the Reporting-MTA is? Maybe the reason is hidden in that code. Your mysterious non-delivery generated a Status: 5.0.0 for a comparison returned email, I send a test message to a friend's inactive hotmail account (disabled for lack of use). I sent it using Pine on a linux box running sendmail. sorry, I'm not on charter so I can't completely replicate things... besides the status codes being different, it's my server rejecting the email, and not a response from hotmail. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >From MAILER-DAEMON(a)kluge.net Tue Apr 30 15:34:51 2002 Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:23 -0400 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON(a)kluge.net> To: mrv(a)eclectic.kluge.net Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details The original message was received at Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:21 -0400 from mrv@localhost ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com> (reason: 550 Requested action not taken:user account inactive) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to mx09.hotmail.com.: >>> RCPT To:<outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com> <<< 550 Requested action not taken:user account inactive 550 5.1.1 <outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com>... User unknown [ Part 2: "Delivery Status" ] Reporting-MTA: dns; eclectic.kluge.net Arrival-Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:21 -0400 Final-Recipient: RFC822; outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com Action: failed Status: 5.1.1 Remote-MTA: DNS; mx09.hotmail.com Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 Requested action not taken:user account inactive Last-Attempt-Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:22 -0400 Return-Path: <mrv(a)eclectic.kluge.net> Received: from localhost (mrv@localhost) by eclectic.kluge.net (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g3UJOL702343 for <outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com>; Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:21 -0400 Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:24:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Michelle Vadeboncoeur <mrv(a)eclectic.kluge.net> To: craig roberts <outlaweagle(a)hotmail.com> Subject: testing Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0204301524100.27941-100000(a)eclectic.kluge.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

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Mail delivery problems
by Bill Mills-Curran 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

Sorry for the misleading initial description of the problem. Here's what hotmail has been sending me. Bill ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:50:33 -0700 From: postmaster(a)mail.hotmail.com To: subssn594(a)charter.net Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure) This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. kamikaze003(a)hotmail.com

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problems with email to hotmail.com
by Bill Mills-Curran 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

I'm a Charter user, and something has changed between charter and hotmail so that I can no longer send email to hotmail.com accounts. I CAN send if I use Charter's web mail interface, but I much prefer to stick with pine. I suspect that the problem is that I'm behind a linksys router using private IP's and NAT. I've tried talking to Charter tech support, but they are worthless -- they just tell me that they only support Outlook email. I've tried configuring Pine so the it uses the Charter smtp server directly, but that doesn't seem to help, either. Right now, I'm using my local machine, and routing through Charter. Any ideas? TIA, Bill

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bug report
by Bill Mills-Curran 29 Apr '02

29 Apr '02

I need some advice on where to send a bug report. Here's what happened: I was accessing an SMB filesystem mounted "mount -t smbfs" when file accesses (things like "ls" and "cd") started producing "Segmentation fault" messages. I looked in my system log and found: Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: kernel BUG at dcache.c:128! Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: invalid operand: 0000 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: CPU: 0 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: EIP: 0010:[dput+43/384] Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: EIP: 0010:[<c014592b>] Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: EFLAGS: 00010282 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: eax: 0000001c ebx: c0628c40 ecx: ffffffff edx: 00000000 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: esi: c6dd18c0 edi: c2497bc0 ebp: c0628c40 esp: c5c89f54 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Process tcsh (pid: 5018, stackpage=c5c89000) Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Stack: c02128db c021297b 00000080 c3404c60 00000000 00000200 c3404c60 c3404c60 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: c6dd18c0 c0134531 c0628c40 c3404c60 00000000 00000000 bffe8148 c0133603 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: c3404c60 c625fc20 00000000 c3404c60 00000000 c3404c60 08119408 c0133653 Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Call Trace: [error_table+42755/46744] [error_table+42915/46744] [fput+113/208] [filp_close+83/96] [sys_close+67/80] [system_call+51/56] Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Call Trace: [<c02128db>] [<c021297b>] [<c0134531>] [<c0133603>] [<c0133653>] [<c010901b>] Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Apr 16 16:58:53 pent584 kernel: Code: 0f 0b 83 c4 0c ff 0b 0f 94 c0 84 c0 0f 84 33 01 00 00 8d 43 I tried to dismount the suspect filesystem, but I couldn't -- filesystem busy, even though there were no live processes on it. Then, operations on other filesystems started failing, finally ending up with a frozen system. I power cycled, and everything is happy again. So, here's what I found in the MAINTAINERS file: SMB FILESYSTEM P: Urban Widmark M: urban(a)teststation.com W: http://samba.org/ L: samba(a)samba.org S: Maintained DEVICE FILESYSTEM P: Richard Gooch M: rgooch(a)atnf.csiro.au L: linux-kernel(a)vger.kernel.org S: Maintained BTW, I'm running RedHat 7.1. So, who do I tell? TIA, Bill Mills-Curran

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Whee! MIT Flea
by desdinova＠soupforare.net 24 Apr '02

24 Apr '02

::Dances around:: Got so much great swag at the flea this time ^_^; Anyway, I picked up two Dolch 486DX/33s, on board scsi, 32meg for $15. It's been a loooong time since I've run linux on a 486 (slack 2.something, iirc) I'm thinking Debian potato would be alright? I most likely won't install X, but if I do, I'll use X3.foo with a minimalist windowmanager... Any suggestions? It's going to be alot of shoehorning for sure. I won't lie, I haven't ran a linux system since my P200 died, she was a fileserver and random-use machine. So, getting these running would be great so I could fool around at work during slow hours. Thanks, James KB1FJQ

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RE: [Wlug] Regarding M$ enforcement of licenses...
by Simoncini, Matthew 23 Apr '02

23 Apr '02

Hello, It's kind of interesting that an email about this very topic landed in my inbox this morning. Here's the link: http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6022528 ,00.html Good luck. Matthew On Tue, 23 Apr 2002 07:44:37 -0400, Stephen C. Daukas wrote: >In case you haven't heard, M$ is auditing a dozen or so large school >districts for compliance on licensing. Of course, this will be ugly and >will run one district an estimated $1,000,000 per year to comply with >M$. That's $1,000,000 more then they pay now. M$ is offering a simplified >arrangement whereby a school system pays a flat fee for every Intel box >(regardless of what it might actually be running) that would run that same >district about $30,000. You can see where this is headed! > >Aside from noting that people's dishonesty about paying the real costs >associated with M$ software has gotten them into this trouble (if only >because the real costs are not apparent to "management"), I'm wondering >what is available as a real alternative to M$ for the great unwashed masses. > >Of course, the answer I would expect to hear is "Linux!", but... > >I'm talking about a solution that is useable by those who are not rabid >members of a LUG, or Sys admins in their day job. I'm talking about >productivity software that will seamlessly read and write M$ file formats >(Excel, Word, etc.). I don't know, for example, if Star Office is a real >alternative because I don't know how well it interoperates with those who >use Word, for example, on a daily basis. Perhaps there is a solution that >will reliably run M$ applications without having to buy the OS, but that is >only a step in the right direction. > >I was hoping to hear suggestions about what is out there and if Linux is >ready to work seamlessly in heterogeneous High-Tech world. This might be a >good topic for one of the WLUG meetings... > >Steve > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Regarding M$ enforcement of licenses...
by Stephen C. Daukas 23 Apr '02

23 Apr '02

In case you haven't heard, M$ is auditing a dozen or so large school districts for compliance on licensing. Of course, this will be ugly and will run one district an estimated $1,000,000 per year to comply with M$. That's $1,000,000 more then they pay now. M$ is offering a simplified arrangement whereby a school system pays a flat fee for every Intel box (regardless of what it might actually be running) that would run that same district about $30,000. You can see where this is headed! Aside from noting that people's dishonesty about paying the real costs associated with M$ software has gotten them into this trouble (if only because the real costs are not apparent to "management"), I'm wondering what is available as a real alternative to M$ for the great unwashed masses. Of course, the answer I would expect to hear is "Linux!", but... I'm talking about a solution that is useable by those who are not rabid members of a LUG, or Sys admins in their day job. I'm talking about productivity software that will seamlessly read and write M$ file formats (Excel, Word, etc.). I don't know, for example, if Star Office is a real alternative because I don't know how well it interoperates with those who use Word, for example, on a daily basis. Perhaps there is a solution that will reliably run M$ applications without having to buy the OS, but that is only a step in the right direction. I was hoping to hear suggestions about what is out there and if Linux is ready to work seamlessly in heterogeneous High-Tech world. This might be a good topic for one of the WLUG meetings... Steve

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RE: [Wlug] shot power supply?
by dibb_jim＠emc.com 22 Apr '02

22 Apr '02

Most drives require +5 and + 12 volt supplies. Some newer (very new) drives only require +12V. -----Original Message----- From: bryon3245(a)netzero.com [mailto:bryon3245@netzero.com] Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 1:54 PM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: [Wlug] shot power supply? I have a Dell Dimension 4100 and I am pretty sure that the power supply is shot. I was wondering if there are any tests that I can do to make sure that it is the power supply and not something else. I am sure that there is nothing wrong with the power cord. When I plug in the cord and push the power button nothing happens and nothing lights up. I was also wondering why there are four cords going to each drive. I know it needs a positive and negative and posibly a ground but what is the last one for. What does each cord do? Is it possible to replace it with a generic PSU becuase i heard that only dell ones will work with a dell computer. Thanks -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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shot power supply?
by bryon3245＠netzero.com 22 Apr '02

22 Apr '02

I have a Dell Dimension 4100 and I am pretty sure that the power supply is shot. I was wondering if there are any tests that I can do to make sure that it is the power supply and not something else. I am sure that there is nothing wrong with the power cord. When I plug in the cord and push the power button nothing happens and nothing lights up. I was also wondering why there are four cords going to each drive. I know it needs a positive and negative and posibly a ground but what is the last one for. What does each cord do? Is it possible to replace it with a generic PSU becuase i heard that only dell ones will work with a dell computer. Thanks -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

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I hate crackers (not the kind you eat)
by Wesley Allen 19 Apr '02

19 Apr '02

OK, Looking at my log file from my firewall reveals that not I've got people trying to through my firewall from... 66.189.81.226 (and 246) (http connect attempts) 62.163.126.100 (same domain as yesterday) How do I track them back to the ISP's and send a message to their abuse@ address? Someone's trying to ping me from 66.189.24.226 as well. Am I being paranoid or could my isp be trying to crack my firewall to see if I've got any servers running? Time to batten down the hatches... Wes

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Motherboard Monitor
by Michael Frysinger 18 Apr '02

18 Apr '02

are there any utilities out there that you guys know of that work with the sensors that motherboards have ? i'm looking for something that can obtain CPU temperature, fan rpm's, and all that other fun stuff ... at this point i just want something so i can read those values ... i dont need any fancy programs really ... -mike

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netbus attack...
by Wesley Allen 17 Apr '02

17 Apr '02

Hi, my firewall is detecting a "netbus attack" from an external source. Anyway I can basically refuse connections? Nothing's gotten through yet, but it's a pain to see someone doing it and I'd like to smack them around a bit. Any ideas? Wes

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FOR SALE
by jeff 17 Apr '02

17 Apr '02

heya guys... times are tough...have to sell some stuff to stay afloat... so here goes... System A (workstation): HP Pavilion 8570C Pentium III 450 Mhz (Katmai) 192 MB Ram Voodoo 3/3000 Video Soundblaster Live! Value Linksys LNE100TX Ethernet 20 Gig Quantum Fireball IDE HD 32x CD-ROM HP CD-Writer Plus 8100 Series CDRW Floppy Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Speaker System (3-Way) HP Deskjet printer (no ink - very nice though) Samsung 753DF 17" monitor HP Internet Style Keyboard Logitech Firstmouse a little wear and tear but runs fine...have installed Win98SE and Mandrake/Red Hat/Debian several times with no problems... System B (router): Generic Case Doosey AMD K6-2 450 64 MB RAM Voodoo 3/2000 Video Soundblaster Live! Value 2X Netgear FA311 Ethernet 20 Gig Maxtor IDE HD No CDROM Floppy Desktop Speakers (generic) Visio (oldie) 15" color monitor same deal...a little wear and tear...but it's still up and running...i think uname -a was like over 100 days now...running debian 2.2r5 w/2.4.18 kernel...a mini-beast...runs fine... AND, if you act now, i'll include at least 10 xtra 20' CAT-5 cables to wire your dorm/apartment AND my linksys 4-port hub for FREE!!! (crowd ooh's and aah's) as is...must go...play with it first if you like...make an offer if you're interested! THANKS! -jeff MWBLUG (508)792-6070

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