- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro

by Josh Huber

"John Stoffel" <stoffel(a)lucent.com> writes: > I've been playing with Debian 3.0 (stable -> unstable -> testing > (for XFree86 4.3)) on a laptop, and while I like apt, and how well > it does for getting packages and setting them up, it's not perfect > either. Part of that might just be getting used to how it works, > and of course used to how apt works. Anything in particular? Just curious. I suspect I'm one of those people who is really used to how APT works, so I like it a lot. > Finding packages can be a pain at times... Are you not aware of the apt-cache command? > and I'm annoyed it installs a 2.2.x kernel by default. They're > slipping behind the times I feel. Use the bf2.4 installer -- it will install a 2.4 kernel by default. > [snip stuff about using the latest software] > So, what do you all think is the next best distro to go with now? Well, I would recommend using Debian/unstable (unless testing has new enough packages for you), if you want to play with the newest software. I may be biased, however, :) -- Josh Huber

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by Charles R. Anderson

On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 09:43:09AM -0400, John Stoffel wrote: stoffel> So, what do you all think is the next best distro to go with now? Well, Red Hat 9 meets all your requirements above, except the one that says you don't want Red Hat :) You didn't give any good reason why you wanted to stay away from Red Hat other than you "want to change try to stay away from GNOME". Well, Red Hat 9 has KDE too, and you can always get WindowMaker, Blackbox, Fluxbox, XFCE, or something else if you want a ligher weight GUI. http://freshrpms.net/ is a good place to find such addons. The Red Hat Linux distro that we all know an love <g> is turning into the Fedora Core community supported and developed distro. Its direction, shape, package selection, etc. will be very much driven by what the community wants. In this way, it will be more like the Debian Project, which I believe will alleviate some of the reservations people may have had about using Red Hat in the past. E.g. WindowMaker and those other GUIs will be able to come back into the distro if the community desires it. Fedora Core will also support apt-get, yum, and up2date with third party repositories of software. This will include Fedora Core itself, updates, Fedora Extras, Fedora Alternatives, and Fedora Legacy (for those who want an older, more stable distro to be supported for a longer time). See http://fedora.redhat.com/ for more info about the project. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Oct. 3, 2003

Old hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by Karl Hiramoto

for the last few years. I've been running a 486SX-25 with 8M RAM and 100M HD here at my work as a print server. I rescued the box from a pile of garbage. I'm running slackware 3.6 with a 2.0.39 kernel though. Just setup samba and lpd to do the printing. The machine has excellent reliability. These old boxes work fine for print servers, routers, firewalls, Old machines work great to for automation of real world things. Set a voltage, read a voltage, set bit, clear bit control applications. here is the box: #df Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/hda2 97271 83435 8813 90% / # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 486 model : Cx486 vendor_id : CyrixInstead stepping : unknown, core/bus clock ratio: unknownx fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no fpu : no fpu_exception : no cpuid : no wp : yes flags : bogomips : 4.71 # free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 6684 6300 384 4500 1960 2200 -/+ buffers/cache: 2140 4544 Swap: 16432 536 15896 On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Bob George wrote: > "Chuck Homic" <chuck(a)vvisions.com> wrote: > > Oh, hey... my Debian rant reminded me of something! > > > > I have Debian running on a 486-25 with 12MB of RAM. > > [...] > > Hey, mind if I ask what you use it for? The reason I ask is that I'm on a list > dedicated to old PC hardware users, which until recently equated to a base of > fanatical DOS holdouts. Slowly though, most are inquiring about Linux, so I'd > like to give them some useful info about using Debian as a "modern" > distribution on low-resource systems. Unfortunately, I've had to dump most of > my old systems, so can't speak from first-hand experience anymore. > > Stephen Darnold, the guy who put Basic Linux together, used to lurk there, and > there was often extensive discussion on what could be run on older hardware. > Yours sounds like the lower end of the spectrum, so I'm wondering how well it > works. Would it work well with Debian specifically as a firewall/gateway? Would > you say the benefits of running something current offsets the inconvenience of > those delays with installs etc.? > > Thanks, > > - Bob > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit.

Oct. 3, 2003

(OT) HP 49G graphing calculator

by Karl Hiramoto

Sorry a litte off topic, but i'm guessing there are some engineers on here who might like the HP cacluators. I'm looking for someplace local to buy a HP49G calculator. I need it fast, so i can't order online. Anyone have ideas? thanks -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit.

Oct. 3, 2003

Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by John Stoffel

Hi all, I'm in the fun position of trying to figure out how I want to upgrade my main home system. It's a heavily patched and hacked together RedHat 7.2 system. I've not got a new pair of 120gb drives for /home and /usr/local (will be mirrored) and I'm ready to upgrade... but to what? As a professional SysAdmin, I'm not afraid of doing stuff by hand and hacking of stuff. As a dad of a 14 month old, I don't have time! *grin* So I'm hoping to start up a fruitful discussion here to see what other people have done in this type of situation. RedHat 9 isn't that attractive, mostly because I've been using RedHat since 5.2 and I want to change and try to stay away from GNOME since it's a slow pig resource wise. I also want to get updated in terms of GTK so I can run newer GNOME apps, like Gramps 0.9.4. I've been playing with Debian 3.0 (stable -> unstable -> testing (for XFree86 4.3)) on a laptop, and while I like apt, and how well it does for getting packages and setting them up, it's not perfect either. Part of that might just be getting used to how it works, and of course used to how apt works. Finding packages can be a pain at times... and I'm annoyed it installs a 2.2.x kernel by default. They're slipping behind the times I feel. I've also played with Gentoo about six months or so ago. Nice idea, I like the idea of emerge sync (apt-get update for debian folks) but it was also a bit crufty, though not horribly so. Maybe it's better now. I think I used 1.4rc1 or something like that. My main issue is that I want good support for my Matrox G450, USB doohickys (256mb SanDisk memory stick, CompactFlash card reader, etc), sound card (I have CS3236 builtin ISA sound, or ALS4000 PCI), and good LVM/DM support. Oh yeah, the latest libraries so I can run the latest packages like Gnumeric, OpenOffice (1.1 is nice!), etc. My RH 7.2 base is getting way too old. I'm happy to also compile and test kernels on here from time to time as well, just to try and contribute to the kernel developement with trouble reports and some hacking to keep old cards going. So, what do you all think is the next best distro to go with now? John

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: Debian question

by Bob George

"Chuck Homic" <chuck(a)vvisions.com> wrote: > Oh, hey... my Debian rant reminded me of something! > > I have Debian running on a 486-25 with 12MB of RAM. > [...] Hey, mind if I ask what you use it for? The reason I ask is that I'm on a list dedicated to old PC hardware users, which until recently equated to a base of fanatical DOS holdouts. Slowly though, most are inquiring about Linux, so I'd like to give them some useful info about using Debian as a "modern" distribution on low-resource systems. Unfortunately, I've had to dump most of my old systems, so can't speak from first-hand experience anymore. Stephen Darnold, the guy who put Basic Linux together, used to lurk there, and there was often extensive discussion on what could be run on older hardware. Yours sounds like the lower end of the spectrum, so I'm wondering how well it works. Would it work well with Debian specifically as a firewall/gateway? Would you say the benefits of running something current offsets the inconvenience of those delays with installs etc.? Thanks, - Bob

Oct. 3, 2003

Debian question

by Chuck Homic

Oh, hey... my Debian rant reminded me of something! I have Debian running on a 486-25 with 12MB of RAM. (Pause for laughter...) Okay. Now then. When I run dpkg (on its own, or via apt-get) it wants about 18M of RAM to work with. This causes a fair deal of thrashing, and if I just let it go, it takes about 30 minutes to install even the most basic package. My solution thus far is to use the NBD driver to mount a swap space over the network. This is actually faster because the swap and actual package install don't have to contend for precious HDD seek time, and I can install the most basic packages in about 10 minutes or so. Even so, it would be nice if it were a bit faster still. Anyone know what dpkg does with its RAM? Is it loading all the packges into memory to figure out dependencies and stuff? Any way to make it behave more efficiently? -Chuck

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?

by Chuck Homic

On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 09:57:58AM -0400, Gregory Avedissian wrote: > My experience with Debian 3.0 - > > The installer is archaic. First, you have to put in all four disks to be > read. Then you get to select a base package, then you get to fill in > more selections from a list of everything. You can use the arrow keys to > scroll up and down the list of over a thousand packages and the space [...] Ah, someone who hasn't learned the secret of dselect: Don't use it. :) To install debian, go and burn the bootable CD ISO image. After it installs the base system and launches dselect, find the key that exits immediately (I think it's 'x') and press it. (If you don't have access to a CD writer, you can put the base system on your FAT partition, and use the single boot floppy to access it.) You now have a bootable system with networking support. And you've done the hard part. From here on out, if you want anything just use "apt-get" (My first choice is usually "apt-get less" and other rediculously basic packages. Then, "apt-get x-window-system" which is an adventure and a half.) I like this method so much, because you have a system with only exactly what you want and nothing more. Which is good if your hard disk is 240M. But, of course there's a certain personality required to like Debian, because it certainly does nothing for you except install stuff with all its dependencies. Which is all I want in a distro to begin with. -Chuck

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery - success

by Richard Goodman

Many thanks, looks like the mail server backup is operational. The first two pieces of incoming mail after the fix were spam to invalid addresses at the domain, but they were properly queued by the backup server in mqueue. Anything special about getting the mail out when my home DSL (and server) come back up in a few days. I was thinking of possibly moving the queued mail to a temporary directory a few times a day to cut down on needless retries before the DSL is restored. Any thoughts? Dick At 03:57 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: >sorry, > >the local-host-names file should be empty.. >only the access file should have RELAY. > >it is trying to recive mail on your host, but the accounts dont exist >on that box. > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > After 1-1/2 hours studying Oreilly/Sendmail & Oreilly/DNS&Bind, I stumbled > > upon the correct format for my MX records ... turns out they were all > wrong > > on a dozen domains on four servers. > > > > Now I have a new problem ... with the MX records working, the backup > server > > is starting to receive mail, but rejecting it all for "Unknown user" ... I > > thought the mail was to be queued for redelivery, not attempted to deliver > > to mailboxes on the backup server. What have I done wrong NOW? > > > > Dick > > > > At 02:04 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > >you got 0 answer for your MX. your DNS is misconfigured. > > > > > >dig -t mx domain.com > > > > > >should in your case display at least 2 answers. your main server, and > > >your backup server > > > > > >for example: > > >dig -t mx wlug.org > > > > > >; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t mx wlug.org > > >;; global options: printcmd > > >;; Got answer: > > >;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63144 > > >;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > > > > >;; QUESTION SECTION: > > >;wlug.org. IN MX > > > > > >;; ANSWER SECTION: > > >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 20 mx.WPI.EDU. > > >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 10 smtp.WPI.EDU. > > > > > >;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS ns1.wlug.org. > > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS alum.WPI.EDU. > > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS > > >dns1.dovetailinternet.net. > > > > > >;; Query time: 110 msec > > >;; SERVER: 192.168.2.48#53(192.168.2.48) > > >;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 14:02:48 2003 > > >;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 149 > > > > > > > > > > > >You might need to set your secondary DNS to be a master for your > > >domain. remember to restart the named. > > > > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t MX mydomain.net > > > > ;; global options: printcmd > > > > ;; Got answer: > > > > ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3412 > > > > ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > > > > > > > ;; QUESTION SECTION: > > > > ;mydomain.net. IN MX > > > > > > > > ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > > > > mydomain.net. 2924 IN SOA mydomain.net. > > > > rlg.bach.mydomain. > > > > net. 2003100202 10800 3600 604800 3600 > > > > > > > > ;; Query time: 7 msec > > > > ;; SERVER: 67.100.202.xxx#53(67.100.202.xxx) > > > > ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 13:47:15 2003 > > > > ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 75 > > > > > > > > I'd already gotten that output but didn't see any MX output, just the > > > question. > > > > Your interpretation? Further suggestions? I'm losing mail at this > point, > > > > but would like to stop the hemorraging. The SOA serial# indicates > it is > > > the > > > > most recent version of the modified (secondary) DNS > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > At 01:37 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > > > >do a: > > > > >dig -t MX domain.com > > > > > > > > > >should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever > > > > >correctly. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Karl, > > > > > > That was exactly what I was looking for. > > > > > > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in > > > access > > > > > > on the backup machine. > > > > > > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the > > > secondary > > > > > > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second > MX line: > > > > > > > > > > > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > > > > > > and restarted that named. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, > and I know > > > > > > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else > > > > > might I > > > > > > have missed? > > > > > > > > > > > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see > > > whether the > > > > > > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site > > > machine, the > > > > > > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the > down IP > > > > > address. > > > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > > > > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > >on the backup RH mail box: > > > > > > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and > set it > > > > > > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > > > > > > > > > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > > > > > > > > > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, > could telnet > > > > > > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is > accepting > > > > > > >mail for that domain. > > > > > > > > > > > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in > /var/spool/mail > > > > > > > > > > > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > > > > > > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS > directly at > > > > > > >it, if you can. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears > that it > > > > > will be > > > > > > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). > I am > > > > > concerned > > > > > > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > > > > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those > domains. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those > domains (on a > > > > > machine > > > > > > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record > > > pointing to a > > > > > > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, > which I > > > assume > > > > > > > will > > > > > > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, > > > > > fortunately. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd > edition, but > > > > > its not > > > > > > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand > it! Is there > > > > > > > anything > > > > > > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the > new MX > > > > > > > records), > > > > > > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail > config > > > > > files? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wlug mailing list > > > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > > > > > > > >-- > > > > > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > > >Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> > > >Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 > > >Cell: 508-517-4819 > > >http://karl.hiramoto.org/ > > >AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto > > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > > > > > >People are always available for work in the past tense. > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > >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 > > > >-- > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø >Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> >Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 >Cell: 508-517-4819 >http://karl.hiramoto.org/ >AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > >Beggar to well-dressed businessman: > "Could you spare $20.95 for a fifth of Chivas?" > > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Karl Hiramoto

sorry, the local-host-names file should be empty.. only the access file should have RELAY. it is trying to recive mail on your host, but the accounts dont exist on that box. On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > After 1-1/2 hours studying Oreilly/Sendmail & Oreilly/DNS&Bind, I stumbled > upon the correct format for my MX records ... turns out they were all wrong > on a dozen domains on four servers. > > Now I have a new problem ... with the MX records working, the backup server > is starting to receive mail, but rejecting it all for "Unknown user" ... I > thought the mail was to be queued for redelivery, not attempted to deliver > to mailboxes on the backup server. What have I done wrong NOW? > > Dick > > At 02:04 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > >you got 0 answer for your MX. your DNS is misconfigured. > > > >dig -t mx domain.com > > > >should in your case display at least 2 answers. your main server, and > >your backup server > > > >for example: > >dig -t mx wlug.org > > > >; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t mx wlug.org > >;; global options: printcmd > >;; Got answer: > >;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63144 > >;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > > >;; QUESTION SECTION: > >;wlug.org. IN MX > > > >;; ANSWER SECTION: > >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 20 mx.WPI.EDU. > >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 10 smtp.WPI.EDU. > > > >;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS ns1.wlug.org. > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS alum.WPI.EDU. > >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS > >dns1.dovetailinternet.net. > > > >;; Query time: 110 msec > >;; SERVER: 192.168.2.48#53(192.168.2.48) > >;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 14:02:48 2003 > >;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 149 > > > > > > > >You might need to set your secondary DNS to be a master for your > >domain. remember to restart the named. > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t MX mydomain.net > > > ;; global options: printcmd > > > ;; Got answer: > > > ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3412 > > > ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > > > > > ;; QUESTION SECTION: > > > ;mydomain.net. IN MX > > > > > > ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > > > mydomain.net. 2924 IN SOA mydomain.net. > > > rlg.bach.mydomain. > > > net. 2003100202 10800 3600 604800 3600 > > > > > > ;; Query time: 7 msec > > > ;; SERVER: 67.100.202.xxx#53(67.100.202.xxx) > > > ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 13:47:15 2003 > > > ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 75 > > > > > > I'd already gotten that output but didn't see any MX output, just the > > question. > > > Your interpretation? Further suggestions? I'm losing mail at this point, > > > but would like to stop the hemorraging. The SOA serial# indicates it is > > the > > > most recent version of the modified (secondary) DNS > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > At 01:37 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > >do a: > > > >dig -t MX domain.com > > > > > > > >should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever > > > >correctly. > > > > > > > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > Karl, > > > > > That was exactly what I was looking for. > > > > > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in > > access > > > > > on the backup machine. > > > > > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the > > secondary > > > > > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: > > > > > > > > > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > > > > > and restarted that named. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know > > > > > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else > > > > might I > > > > > have missed? > > > > > > > > > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see > > whether the > > > > > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site > > machine, the > > > > > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP > > > > address. > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > > > > > >on the backup RH mail box: > > > > > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it > > > > > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > > > > > > > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > > > > > > > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet > > > > > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting > > > > > >mail for that domain. > > > > > > > > > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > > > > > > > > > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > > > > > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at > > > > > >it, if you can. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it > > > > will be > > > > > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am > > > > concerned > > > > > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > > > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a > > > > machine > > > > > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record > > pointing to a > > > > > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I > > assume > > > > > > will > > > > > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, > > > > fortunately. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but > > > > its not > > > > > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > > > > > > anything > > > > > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > > > > > > records), > > > > > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config > > > > files? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wlug mailing list > > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > > > > >-- > > > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > >Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> > >Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 > >Cell: 508-517-4819 > >http://karl.hiramoto.org/ > >AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > > > >People are always available for work in the past tense. > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >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 > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Beggar to well-dressed businessman: "Could you spare $20.95 for a fifth of Chivas?"

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Richard Goodman

After 1-1/2 hours studying Oreilly/Sendmail & Oreilly/DNS&Bind, I stumbled upon the correct format for my MX records ... turns out they were all wrong on a dozen domains on four servers. Now I have a new problem ... with the MX records working, the backup server is starting to receive mail, but rejecting it all for "Unknown user" ... I thought the mail was to be queued for redelivery, not attempted to deliver to mailboxes on the backup server. What have I done wrong NOW? Dick At 02:04 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: >you got 0 answer for your MX. your DNS is misconfigured. > >dig -t mx domain.com > >should in your case display at least 2 answers. your main server, and >your backup server > >for example: >dig -t mx wlug.org > >; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t mx wlug.org >;; global options: printcmd >;; Got answer: >;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63144 >;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 > >;; QUESTION SECTION: >;wlug.org. IN MX > >;; ANSWER SECTION: >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 20 mx.WPI.EDU. >wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 10 smtp.WPI.EDU. > >;; AUTHORITY SECTION: >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS ns1.wlug.org. >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS alum.WPI.EDU. >wlug.org. 259200 IN NS >dns1.dovetailinternet.net. > >;; Query time: 110 msec >;; SERVER: 192.168.2.48#53(192.168.2.48) >;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 14:02:48 2003 >;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 149 > > > >You might need to set your secondary DNS to be a master for your >domain. remember to restart the named. > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t MX mydomain.net > > ;; global options: printcmd > > ;; Got answer: > > ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3412 > > ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > > > ;; QUESTION SECTION: > > ;mydomain.net. IN MX > > > > ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > > mydomain.net. 2924 IN SOA mydomain.net. > > rlg.bach.mydomain. > > net. 2003100202 10800 3600 604800 3600 > > > > ;; Query time: 7 msec > > ;; SERVER: 67.100.202.xxx#53(67.100.202.xxx) > > ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 13:47:15 2003 > > ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 75 > > > > I'd already gotten that output but didn't see any MX output, just the > question. > > Your interpretation? Further suggestions? I'm losing mail at this point, > > but would like to stop the hemorraging. The SOA serial# indicates it is > the > > most recent version of the modified (secondary) DNS > > > > Dick > > > > At 01:37 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > >do a: > > >dig -t MX domain.com > > > > > >should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever > > >correctly. > > > > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > Karl, > > > > That was exactly what I was looking for. > > > > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in > access > > > > on the backup machine. > > > > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the > secondary > > > > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: > > > > > > > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > > > > and restarted that named. > > > > > > > > > > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know > > > > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else > > > might I > > > > have missed? > > > > > > > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see > whether the > > > > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site > machine, the > > > > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP > > > address. > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > > > >on the backup RH mail box: > > > > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it > > > > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > > > > > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > > > > > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet > > > > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting > > > > >mail for that domain. > > > > > > > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > > > > > > > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > > > > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at > > > > >it, if you can. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it > > > will be > > > > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am > > > concerned > > > > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > > > > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a > > > machine > > > > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record > pointing to a > > > > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I > assume > > > > > will > > > > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, > > > fortunately. > > > > > > > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but > > > its not > > > > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > > > > > anything > > > > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > > > > > records), > > > > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config > > > files? > > > > > > > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wlug mailing list > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > >-- > >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø >Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> >Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 >Cell: 508-517-4819 >http://karl.hiramoto.org/ >AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto >¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø > >People are always available for work in the past tense. > > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: mail disaster probablity

by Bob George

"Keith Wright" <kwright(a)free-comp-shop.com> wrote: > [...] > Wow! Where did you find mail hosting for $2/mo? I replied earlier that I'm using bmhost.com, which provides SMTP and web hosting. I noticed today that dyndns.org has made some changes (good and bad): Custom DNS WAS $30 one-time, but is now an annual charge. They now can do domain registration for $15/yr. for .com (I may transfer mine). More relevant to this thread, they now offer two mail-related services that might be of interest to those on this list running email servers, but who DON'T have a handy second server available for backup, or whose ISP blocks inbound TCP port 25. Quoting from their web page: --- cut here --- cut here --- MailHopSM Relay allows you to relay incoming mail to a mail server on a non-standard port. This is quite useful for those who want to run a mail server but are stuck with an ISP that blocks port 25, the standard mail port. [...] ($24.95/domain) MailHopSM Backup MX provides a secondary mail server to hold your e-mail for you should your main e-mail server go offline for any reason. Once you go back online, your mail will be delivered to you. Our MailHopSM server will attempt delivery more frequently than most mail servers, and will also hold onto your e-mail for twice as long. ($39.95/domain) --- cut here --- cut here --- Both are more expensive than my cheapie hosting outfit, but do allow you to run a "real" SMTP server if so desired. I'm not affiliated with either bmhost.com or dyndns.org, but am a satisfied customer of both. I just wanted to pass this info on to others experiencing the same challenges running home servers that I have. - Bob

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Karl Hiramoto

you got 0 answer for your MX. your DNS is misconfigured. dig -t mx domain.com should in your case display at least 2 answers. your main server, and your backup server for example: dig -t mx wlug.org ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t mx wlug.org ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63144 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;wlug.org. IN MX ;; ANSWER SECTION: wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 20 mx.WPI.EDU. wlug.org. 259200 IN MX 10 smtp.WPI.EDU. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: wlug.org. 259200 IN NS ns1.wlug.org. wlug.org. 259200 IN NS alum.WPI.EDU. wlug.org. 259200 IN NS dns1.dovetailinternet.net. ;; Query time: 110 msec ;; SERVER: 192.168.2.48#53(192.168.2.48) ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 14:02:48 2003 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 149 You might need to set your secondary DNS to be a master for your domain. remember to restart the named. On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t MX mydomain.net > ;; global options: printcmd > ;; Got answer: > ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3412 > ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 > > ;; QUESTION SECTION: > ;mydomain.net. IN MX > > ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: > mydomain.net. 2924 IN SOA mydomain.net. > rlg.bach.mydomain. > net. 2003100202 10800 3600 604800 3600 > > ;; Query time: 7 msec > ;; SERVER: 67.100.202.xxx#53(67.100.202.xxx) > ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 13:47:15 2003 > ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 75 > > I'd already gotten that output but didn't see any MX output, just the question. > Your interpretation? Further suggestions? I'm losing mail at this point, > but would like to stop the hemorraging. The SOA serial# indicates it is the > most recent version of the modified (secondary) DNS > > Dick > > At 01:37 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > >do a: > >dig -t MX domain.com > > > >should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever > >correctly. > > > > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > Karl, > > > That was exactly what I was looking for. > > > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in access > > > on the backup machine. > > > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the secondary > > > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: > > > > > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > > > and restarted that named. > > > > > > > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know > > > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else > > might I > > > have missed? > > > > > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see whether the > > > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site machine, the > > > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP > > address. > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > > >on the backup RH mail box: > > > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it > > > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > > > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > > > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet > > > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting > > > >mail for that domain. > > > > > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > > > > > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > > > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at > > > >it, if you can. > > > > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it > > will be > > > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am > > concerned > > > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a > > machine > > > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record pointing to a > > > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I assume > > > > will > > > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, > > fortunately. > > > > > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but > > its not > > > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > > > > anything > > > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > > > > records), > > > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config > > files? > > > > > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > > > > > Dick > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø People are always available for work in the past tense.

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Richard Goodman

; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t MX mydomain.net ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3412 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mydomain.net. IN MX ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: mydomain.net. 2924 IN SOA mydomain.net. rlg.bach.mydomain. net. 2003100202 10800 3600 604800 3600 ;; Query time: 7 msec ;; SERVER: 67.100.202.xxx#53(67.100.202.xxx) ;; WHEN: Thu Oct 2 13:47:15 2003 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 75 I'd already gotten that output but didn't see any MX output, just the question. Your interpretation? Further suggestions? I'm losing mail at this point, but would like to stop the hemorraging. The SOA serial# indicates it is the most recent version of the modified (secondary) DNS Dick At 01:37 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote: >do a: >dig -t MX domain.com > >should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever >correctly. > > >On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > Karl, > > That was exactly what I was looking for. > > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in access > > on the backup machine. > > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the secondary > > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: > > > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > > and restarted that named. > > > > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know > > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else > might I > > have missed? > > > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see whether the > > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site machine, the > > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP > address. > > > > Dick > > > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > > > >on the backup RH mail box: > > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it > > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet > > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting > > >mail for that domain. > > > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > > > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at > > >it, if you can. > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it > will be > > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am > concerned > > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a > machine > > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record pointing to a > > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I assume > > > will > > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, > fortunately. > > > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but > its not > > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > > > anything > > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > > > records), > > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config > files? > > > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > > > Dick

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Karl Hiramoto

do a: dig -t MX domain.com should show you if the DNS is reporting the backup mail sever correctly. On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > Karl, > That was exactly what I was looking for. > Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in access > on the backup machine. > Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the secondary > (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: > > my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end > and restarted that named. > > > Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know > there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else might I > have missed? > > What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see whether the > MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site machine, the > sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP address. > > Dick > > At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: > > >on the backup RH mail box: > >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it > >to relay in /etc/mail/access > > > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > > > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet > >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting > >mail for that domain. > > > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > > > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just > >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at > >it, if you can. > > > > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it will be > > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am concerned > > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a machine > > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record pointing to a > > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I assume > > will > > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, fortunately. > > > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but its not > > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > > anything > > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > > records), > > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config files? > > > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > > > Dick > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø People are always available for work in the past tense.

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] mail disaster recovery

by Richard Goodman

Karl, That was exactly what I was looking for. Did the local-host-names changes; I already had the RELAY lines in access on the backup machine. Since the primary DNS is on the down IP address, I modified the secondary (slave) DNS which is one of my office boxes by adding a second MX line: my-host MX 99 temp.server.domain. <--dot at end and restarted that named. Its been quite a while and I'm not seeing any mail queueing, and I know there's mail that should be coming in on a regular basis. What else might I have missed? What can I use (nslookup, dig ? with what parameters) to see whether the MX lines are right? When I send a test email from an off-site machine, the sending sendmail log says "Connection timed out" and shows the down IP address. Dick At 03:52 PM 10/1/2003 -0400, you wrote: >on the backup RH mail box: >add you domain to the backup /etc/mail/local-host-names and set it >to relay in /etc/mail/access > >type make in the /etc/mail/ directory and restart sendmail. > >you can try testing it. send mail to your domian. also, could telnet >to mailserver.com 25 and put SMTP comands to verify it is accepting >mail for that domain. > >when it is buffering the mail, it should show up in /var/spool/mail > >if your home DSL is going to be down for some time, you might just >want to bring the box into the office, and point the DNS directly at >it, if you can. > > >On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Richard Goodman wrote: > > > My home DSL has been down for over 48 hours and it appears that it will be > > down for several more days. (I spare you the gory details). I am concerned > > about losing mail coming into various domains at that site. > > That RH 7.3 machine runs mail/web/primary DNS for those domains. > > > > I have modified the secondary DNS records for those domains (on a machine > > at my office - also on DSL) with an higher cost MX record pointing to a > > machine at the office also running RH 7.3 and sendmail, which I assume > will > > pick up and queue the mail. The DNS TTLs are reasonably short, fortunately. > > > > I've done this following O'Reilly/Sendmail book 2nd edition, but its not > > always crystal clear if you don't already understand it! Is there > anything > > else I have to do on the backup machine (pointed to by the new MX > records), > > particularly is there anything I have to do to its sendmail config files? > > > > Any other pointers or "gotcha"s to this whole process? > > > > Dick

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?

by Gregory Avedissian

Hi Brian, I'm just an end user, still finding my way around after a couple years. My experience with a dialup account is that I've never had to talk to my ISP about linux. Setting up the account in SuSE 7.2 was easier than in win98. My experience with Debian 3.0 - The installer is archaic. First, you have to put in all four disks to be read. Then you get to select a base package, then you get to fill in more selections from a list of everything. You can use the arrow keys to scroll up and down the list of over a thousand packages and the space key to select them. If you pick something that has conflicts or dependencies, you jump to another screen and then somehow, if you do the right keystrokes, you get to the list of conflicts or dependencies, and then by some unknown keystrokes, you can get back to the main list. If you have the misfortune to hit the enter key during this process, the installation begins, and you have to wait until it's done to add in the rest of the packages. If you don't do it then, you'll have to scan in all four disks next time to add stuff. I did this a couple weeks ago, and I did manage to get a working installation. Setting up XFree went very smoothly (a new experience for me). It worked fine, but every time I booted up, it brought me to a graphical login screen for X, and I wasn't allowed to log in as root. So I logged in as user, hit ctrl-alt-F2 to get another login screen, and logged in as root. Tried to run a second X-session from root, but it wouldn't work. After two days of screwing around with trying to install what I wanted, I wiped it out and installed SuSE 7.2. It took me about an hour. Have fun, Greg Brian McLinden wrote: > Hi all, > > Newbie here. I want to get to the command line and some interesting scripting > projects as soon as possible. Would you help me get there? Some preliminaries: > > First, I live in Worcester. Can you help me find an ISP that will know how to > talk to a Linux newbie like me? > > Second, I want to multiboot with distros that are easy to tinker with AFTER > that so-caloled "easy install." I hear that RPM-based approaches give > headaches in this regard. So here is my provisional list: > > - Debian 3.0 > > - Slackware 9.1 > > - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial tailoring of Debian) > > How might you comment on or modify this selection so I can learn Linux with the > least impediment to changes after the install? What order would you tackle them > in? > > Finally, on Saturday I may order a SCSI box with Los Alamos Computers, > laclinux.com. Any word about them, good or bad? They are willing to pre-install > a multi-boot for any selection of distros that I want! > > May I phone you if you would be open to that? What are good times for us to > talk? > > Glad to be onboard, > Brian > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Brian L. McLinden > 6 Wachusett Street - #34 > Worcester, MA 01609-2647 > (508) 752-3033 > ++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search > http://shopping.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: mail disaster probablity

by Bob George

"Keith Wright" <kwright(a)free-comp-shop.com> wrote: > [...] > Hey, I wouldn't mind a few of the sort-of-gory details. I'll respond to my bits! > I have > recently installed Speakeasy DSL and am thinking of running my own DNS > and mail. I have no first-hand experience with DSL, but I would expect it's shares a lot of characteristics (in terms of terms-of-services, reliability) with other residential services. There's usually no guarantee of stellar reliability, and many don't support (or allow) "servers". That's an important consideration if your mail is important to you. > I am willing to have a bit of trouble in order to learn how > it works, but is it common for DSL to "go down"? Why is that? Again, I don't use DSL, but I have had plenty of outages both here and back in Phoenix that have nothing to do with the unerlying technology. Your ISP can have routing problems to the rest of the world, their equipment or DNS servers can be misconfigured, and of course denial-of-service attacks can take their toll. Here, I've become much more familiar with power-related problems. Not "common" but certainly not business-class either. > [...] Losing my mail was fine, but the family went nuts when I > > was on the road and we had an outage. > > What's up with that? DSL or TV cable? Why outage? In the example I cited, it was HFC (cable). The reasons for the outage varied from power outages (my end and theirs), changes in service (it's residential -- they change it when they want i.e. sudden port blocking) and those mysterious 3 hour drops that I never could pin down exactly. > > I wound up moving my SMTP to a $2/mo. hosting plan that will queue > > mail for me until I poll using POP via fetchmail. I've permanently > > pointed my MX record there, as their reliability is far better than > > mine (residential cable). > > Wow! Where did you find mail hosting for $2/mo? There are no doubt others, but I went with bmhost.com. It's nothing stellar if you're after hosting for a big website, but you get 10M storage and connectivity seems good. I poll it every 5 minutes via fetchmail and sort things out on my server. They're not particulary linux-aware though, but the servers are RedHat. You can get (chroot) ssh access. The important thing is I can survive an outage on my end without losing mail, and they offer webmail for those situations. Tell 'em I sent ya (ttlexceeded.com is the domain I host there) and we can probably pool to save a few bucks. I paid dyndns.org the $30 one-time fee for "custom" DNS, so I've got my DNS set up there, with dynamically updated entries for my home system (updated via the dhclient scripts), but nice, stable entries pointing at bmhost for MX and web addresses. The only thing I can't do is set up anti-UCE on my SMTP server though bmhost offers some, and they do provide anti-virus scanning standard, so I don't get the glamor of fighting those on my own... which I've found gives me a lot more free time. Of course, none of this applies if you're running a business on your home system. - Bob

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Re: mail disaster probablity

by Josh Huber

Mike Frysinger <vapier(a)gentoo.org> writes: > usually it depends on the provider ... i had shitty service with > verizon and ive heard similar horror stories with earthlink ... > speakeasy is the only one ive never heard anything bad about ... but > thats probably why they cost a little bit more than everyone else :) Speakeasy is excellent. I've had them at my current apartment for 1 1/2 years, and there were only two (very short) outages. They don't mind if you share your connection via wireless, you get static ip addresses, they don't block ports, let you run servers, etc. Very good ISP. -- Josh Huber

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?

by Mike Frysinger

On Thursday 02 October 2003 07:27, Brian McLinden wrote: > First, I live in Worcester. Can you help me find an ISP that will know how > to talk to a Linux newbie like me? speakeasy is the only provider i know of that knows the word 'linux' :) that said, it's probably easier to setup dsl/cable than a dialup service simply because you only have to mess around with nic's rather than modems (ugh) ... > Second, I want to multiboot with distros that are easy to tinker with AFTER > that so-caloled "easy install." I hear that RPM-based approaches give > headaches in this regard. So here is my provisional list: > > - Debian 3.0 > > - Slackware 9.1 > > - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial tailoring of Debian) > > How might you comment on or modify this selection so I can learn Linux with > the least impediment to changes after the install? What order would you > tackle them in? i'd recommend slackware above deb but deb comes with a package manager so i guess it's up to you ;) if you're looking to really dig into linux i might even suggest Gentoo because you tend to learn a lot about how packages work together ... but i'd be a little hesitant about doing so ... -mike

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Re: mail disaster probablity

by Mike Frysinger

On Thursday 02 October 2003 00:02, Keith Wright wrote: > Hey, I wouldn't mind a few of the sort-of-gory details. I have > recently installed Speakeasy DSL and am thinking of running my own DNS > and mail. I am willing to have a bit of trouble in order to learn how > it works, but is it common for DSL to "go down"? Why is that? usually it depends on the provider ... i had shitty service with verizon and ive heard similar horror stories with earthlink ... speakeasy is the only one ive never heard anything bad about ... but thats probably why they cost a little bit more than everyone else :) -mike

Oct. 2, 2003

1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?

by Brian McLinden

Hi all, Newbie here. I want to get to the command line and some interesting scripting projects as soon as possible. Would you help me get there? Some preliminaries: First, I live in Worcester. Can you help me find an ISP that will know how to talk to a Linux newbie like me? Second, I want to multiboot with distros that are easy to tinker with AFTER that so-caloled "easy install." I hear that RPM-based approaches give headaches in this regard. So here is my provisional list: - Debian 3.0 - Slackware 9.1 - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial tailoring of Debian) How might you comment on or modify this selection so I can learn Linux with the least impediment to changes after the install? What order would you tackle them in? Finally, on Saturday I may order a SCSI box with Los Alamos Computers, laclinux.com. Any word about them, good or bad? They are willing to pre-install a multi-boot for any selection of distros that I want! May I phone you if you would be open to that? What are good times for us to talk? Glad to be onboard, Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian L. McLinden 6 Wachusett Street - #34 Worcester, MA 01609-2647 (508) 752-3033 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Re: Does the WPI Linux Association exist?

by Theo Van Dinter

On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 12:37:31AM -0400, Ryan Caron wrote: > There's no reason not to restart the WPILA, especially since it > provides meeting space here on campus. I'm sure it will be closely tied > to WLUG, of course. Man ... I remember filing the paperwork for it back in the day (I still have copies), but I'm not terribly surprised it sort of disbanded. :( -- Randomly Generated Tagline: "Marriage is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." - Lisa Hoffman

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Re: Does the WPI Linux Association exist?

by Mike Frysinger

i too would like to see it reborn ... if only to provide better local mirror support for many of the more popular Linux distros ... *cough* *gentoo* *cough* there also is the issue of wpila.org ... i noticed that when it expired no one local picked it up ... i say local because it was picked up by a pr0n site for sometime ... -mike On Thursday 02 October 2003 00:37, Ryan Caron wrote: > There's no reason not to restart the WPILA, especially since it > provides meeting space here on campus. I'm sure it will be closely tied > to WLUG, of course. > > Ryan Caron > > On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Chuck Haines wrote: > > The club has indeed falled through the cracks. As far as I know, WPI > > still recognizes us as a club, but we might need to get some paperwork in > > to continue that (possibly a revised constitution). I would definitely > > be interested in restarting up the club, since I've got tons more time > > this year than last. > > > > As for reserving rooms, any WPI Alum if I remember correctly can reserve > > a room. I know there are a ton of WPI alum's in WLUG so it shouldn't be > > a problem. > > > > Chuck

Oct. 2, 2003

Re: Does the WPI Linux Association exist?

by Ryan Caron

There's no reason not to restart the WPILA, especially since it provides meeting space here on campus. I'm sure it will be closely tied to WLUG, of course. Ryan Caron On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Chuck Haines wrote: > The club has indeed falled through the cracks. As far as I know, WPI > still recognizes us as a club, but we might need to get some paperwork in > to continue that (possibly a revised constitution). I would definitely be > interested in restarting up the club, since I've got tons more time this > year than last. > > As for reserving rooms, any WPI Alum if I remember correctly can reserve a > room. I know there are a ton of WPI alum's in WLUG so it shouldn't be a > problem. > > Chuck > > - > Chuck Haines > WPI Class of 2005 > chaines(a)ece.wpi.edu > AOL IM: CyberGrex > > On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, MegaZone wrote: > > > Andrew George Marut <agmarut(a)polyesterworctechnicinstitute.edu> shaped the electrons to say: > > >If anyone wants to cantact the last known WPILA officers, they are Adam > > >Elliott <aelliott>, Jeff Simpson <jeffs>, Steven Howard Frank <movieguy>, > > >David Barboza <dbarboza>, and Chuck Haines <chaines>. They may have the > > >WPILA members list, announce list, and/or passwords. Chuck, as Lab > > >Manager, probably has the passwords. > > > > Well, if the club is still recognized *now*, why start over? If WPI > > doesn't *know* it is defunct, then you work with the last known > > officers, follow the bylaws, and get new officers - if they don't wish > > to continue running the club. Surely there is some provision for > > transfer of power - they can resign, you hold a new election, and the > > club continues on as the same entity. > > > > Don't try to restart the club, just continue it - much easier with the > > administration. > > > > -MZ, RHCE #806199299900541, ex-CISSP #3762 > > -- > > <URL:mailto:megazone@megazone.org> Gweep, Discordian, Author, Engineer, me.. > > "A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-755-4098 > > <URL:http://www.megazone.org/> <URL:http://www.eyrie-productions.com/> Eris > > >

Oct. 2, 2003