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"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"


 The Mailbag!

Write the Gazette at gazette@ssc.com

Contents:


Help Wanted -- Article Ideas

Answers to these questions should be sent directly to the e-mail address of the inquirer with or without a copy to gazette@ssc.com. Answers that are copied to LG will be printed in the next issue in the Tips column.

Before asking a question, please check the Linux Gazette FAQ to see if it has been answered there.


 Mon, 13 Mar 2000 17:07:37 -0400
From: DoctorX <d0ct0r_x@hven.com.ve>
Subject: Suggestions

I am from Venezuela South America and I think that the next issue of "Linux Gazette" will contain something about Latin American Linux Distributions , and others project developed in Latin America

I am a leader of a project named HVLinux HVlinux is a project for make a venezuelan linux distribution based on slackware, it run for now in RAM ( version 0.2.2 ) but the next version will run from HD.

HVLinux HOME : http://www.hven.com.ve/hvlinux
this site is in spanish

It is only a suggestion

Wenceslao Hernandez C.


 Wed, 1 Mar 2000 06:47:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Jim Coleman <j_e_coleman@yahoo.com>
Subject: Free ISPs for Linux???

This isn't exactly a burning question but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone in the Gazette readership knows of a free ISP that supports Linux. All of the ones I've checked out so far require Windows and/or Internet Explorer.

Thanks!


 Thu, 02 Mar 2000 08:24:30 GMT
From: Brad Ponton <alpha_bp@hotmail.com>
Subject: redhat 6.1 'hdc: lost interrupt' problems

i own a panasonic 24x CDROM, a quatum 2.5GB bigfoot and recently purchased a segate 17.2GB.

i am getting 'hdc: lost interrupt' constanly through the install ( which ploads along for about 2 hours ) then ends in what i think is suppoed to be text displayed, only the screen then starts displaying out of sync, drawing lines across the screen which look like very large ( 2 inch, or 4 centimetre ) and unreadable letters. thus the install ends. ( obviously incomplete )

other probs with computer which may have influeenced

a) to install the seagate was extremly hard requiring about an hours worth on fiddling with ide cables and jumper settings, currently the quatum is master of the primary ide, with nothing else, the cdrom is secondary master and the seagate is secondary slave. this is about the ONLY way all devices are detected properly AND the cd is able to boot.

b) -before the segate was installed- i have ( along with other a queer 'randomly order' file display in windows explorer for only some directories ) not beenable to play audio cds, with them either not being detected by windows 'cdplayer' or jumping from track to track when play is pressed, without playing anything. although data and video cd's continue to run fine.

thank you for your time ( and possibly help )


 Sat, 4 Mar 2000 01:07:37 +0100
From: Kjell Ø. Skjebnestad <autowern@c2i.net>
Subject: Help Wanted: XF86 3.3.6 vs ATi Rage 128

so. i need some help over here. X is not working properly with my spanking new ATi Rage 128-card ("bar code text"). here's what i have done so far:

downloaded XF86 3.3.6 (binary) (which supports ATi Rage 128) to my Win98 disk. installed a normal installation of Red Hat 6.1 (in text mode) to my linux disk. installed XF86 3.3.6 properly to my linux disk, taking great care not to overwrite the original `xinitrc' provided by Red Hat runned XF86Setup, configured everything there;the XF86Setup-test worked nicely runned `startx', which started Gnome etc. the Gnome Help Browser popped up, but the text... it was all like bar codes (that is, only horizontal lines). but occasionally, perfectly legible text popped up when scrolling. the words `Gnome Help Browser' in the title line was perfectly legible all the time. and yes, i have entered the correct sync rates for my monitor. i presume this is a font problem, but the means to solve it i cannot begin to comprehend. yea, i have clutched my brain rather avidly trying to get my system working properly. i have even tried deleting the font-folder before installing XF86-3.3.6... and making sure that the font-folder was regenerated when installing XF86-3.3.6.

so. in summary, the main problem seems to be the weird behaviour of text when using X ("bar code text"). any help to solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.


 Sun, 05 Mar 2000 02:15:18 -0800
From: Dianne Witwer <dwitwer@innercite.com>
Subject: PLEASE HELP ME!

All right, I have the boot disk failure on my computer. And I was readding the article and I dont have a boot disk or a back up disk. But can I just reinstall windows somehow without using a boot disk. Thanx Josh


 Mon, 6 Mar 2000 14:51:05 -0000
From: Anthony W. Youngman <Anthony.Youngman@ECA-International.com>
Subject: RE: Clenning(sic) lost+found

I notice Ed said "it's often the sign of serious disk corruption". May I beg to disagree? Note that ALL of the files in lost+found are of type b or c. I don't know why or how this corruption occurs, but I found that (1) I couldn't delete them, and (2) the machine gaily carried on working with no sign of any problems.

The problem only went away when the computer was scrapped - it was a 386 and was replaced with a 686MX.

[It sounds like we agree. Perhaps I wasn't clear. Really weird permissions like "c-wx--S-w-" that no sane person would ever do even in their stupidest moments can be a sign that some hardware fault has zapped the system. Data corruption is the result, not the cause. The goal is then to find the cause or scrap the computer. Perhaps the cause was a one-time thing, as apparently happened in your case.

The files that wouldn't delete may have had their immutable or undeletable attribute set. The command lsattr (see manpage) shows which attributes a file has, and chattr -i -u will remove those attributes. Attributes are like permissions but refer to additional characteristics of files in the ext2 filesystem. However, lsattr /dev spews out a whole lot of error messages, so it may be that the command won't help with device files ("b" or "c" as the first character of a ls -l entry.) -Ed.


 Wed, 08 Mar 2000 11:43:04 -0700
From: T.J. Rowe <tjr@ida.net>
Subject: man-db package compilation problems

First of all, I'd just like to thank all those who replied to my previous postings here at LG and got me unstuck. =) I only like to resort to asking when I've exahsted all my own ideas. That being said, I've come up across another interesting challenge to which I've yet found no solution. Here's the deal:

In compiling the man-db package (as at least one reader correctly guessed, yes, I'm following the LFS linux from scratch howto from here at LG), I get the follow compilation error using both pgcc 2.95.2 as well as egcs 2.91.66 on both my new linux partition and the "main" partition:

cp include/Defines include/Defines.old
sed -e 's/^nls = .*/nls = all/' include/Defines.old > include/Defines
make -C lib
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/project/man-db-2.3.10.orig/lib'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/project/man-db-2.3.10.orig/lib'
make -C libdb
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/project/man-db-2.3.10.orig/libdb'
gcc -O -DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -DNLS -I../include -I.. -I. -I-  -c db_store.c
-o db_store.o
In file included from db_store.c:44:
../include/manconfig.h:298: parse error before `__extension__'
../include/manconfig.h:298: parse error before `('
make[1]: *** [db_store.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/project/man-db-2.3.10.orig/libdb'
make: *** [libdb] Error 2

Has anyone gotten this problem before? Any ideas? :)


 Thu, 9 Mar 2000 01:13:16 -0500
From: Kent Franken <Franken@requestfoods.com>
Subject:

I would really like to see case studies on switching to Linux form other platforms.

Here's our platform and some requirements and questions:

We currently use Windows NT Terminal Server Edition. How hard would it be to go to Linux?

- We have two TSE servers with approximately 30 users each logged in on average. In total, we have about 130 users but it is a manufacturing plant and many people share terminals.

- We use Citrix Metaframe, for Load Balancing and failover. Is there a product for Linux that offers this option?

- We use thin clients (Boundless (www.boundless.com) Windows CE terminals with RDP and ICA protocols) and no X. I have not been happy with the CE terminals. I was wondering if an X-term performed better? You can really see how slow CE is if you just click on the start button and move the mouse up and down the program list. I had an old PC with not enough RAM and the ICA client worked much better than the CE ICA client. I just found www.ltsp.org and the x-terms look fantastic (you could do a whole article just on that project).

- Dependability. I have to reboot my TSE servers once a week. Last week a new HP printer driver caused about 40 blue screens of death before we figured out what was going on. Will Linux be better?

- Office productivity software. If we are used to MS Office, what will it be like going to something like star-office?

- Anti-virus programs? Is there an antivirus program to scan mail stores (sendmail POP server)?

- Security. How good is Linux at keeping users honest? With TSE you can delete or overwrite files in the system directories as a user. Can't delete a system file? Just open it in Word and save it and watch us IS guys jump around.


 Thu, 09 Mar 2000 19:27:53 +0100
From: Eva Gloria del Riego Eguiluz <evagre@jazzcyber.com>
Subject: HELP, PLEASE!

I have a problem with one partition of my hard disk. Yesterday I installed Red Hat 6.0 and everything was O.K. until I saw that I could not enter in one of my FAT32 partition.

In Windows '98, when I click on E: (the wrong partition) the message is "One of the devices vinculated to the system doesn't work" (or something like that, I read the message in spanish).

I tried to see the hard disk with Partition Magic 3.0 and the error message is:

"Partition table error #116 found: Partition table Begin and Start inconsistent: the hard disk partition table contains two inconsistent descrptions of the partition's starting sector...."

I want to know if I have lost all the information in this partition or in the other hand a way to get the data again.

The other partition of the hard drive are O.K. and I can start Windows O.K. and Linux also, because the wrong partition isn't primary.

Thank you very much,


 Sat, 11 Mar 2000 08:40:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Ahmadullah Asad <arasad@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: a question...

Hi,

I would like to download the postscript viewer from http://www.medasys-digital-systems.fr/mirror/linux/LG/issue16/gv.html but I cannot connect to this German FTP site. Any help will be appreciated. Also I am totally ignorant of how to compile and run the source if I am successful in downloading this file. I would really appreciate if you can give me some info on that as well.

[Which distribution do you use? It's included in Debian, and it should be included in all the other distributions as well. You can also get the .deb file and convert it to rpm or tgz using the alien program if you have it (in the package "alien"). -Ed.]


 Mon, 13 Mar 2000 18:39:52 +0500
From: Choudhry Muhammad Ali <orbit@nettlink.net.pk>
Subject: VGA card Problem with Redhat 6.1

hi

I 've been running with Linux 4 a few years now, using RedHat 6.0 distributions. I'm currently upgrading my computer with RedHat 6.1. Recently, Redhat 6.1 Running fine, but one small problem with my vga card...6.1 not configure properly....set automatically my VGA Card on perverse version(sis 5 series)...my card is sis 6 +series

Does anyone have any ideas as 2 why this would b happening and how 2 correct it?

CMA


 Tue, 14 Mar 2000 19:07:34 +0100
From: Laurent STEFAN <lstefan@europeenne-assurances.com>
Subject: MIME and mail ?

How to join a file (.html, .gif or whatelse) in a e-mail with the mail program ?

I'm using something like : # ./test.pl | mail someone@somewhere -s"something"

but it result only a full text report in the body.

regards.

The Editor wrote

Try the mpack program. I haven't used it, but its opposite munpack works fine for me. -Ed.

Laurent responded

Thanks for mpack, it seems to be a good stuff but it doesn't works with MIME's type text/html. Maybe I need to add some headers (content-type:) to my file.

Now a good stuff :

I made a bash script that look like this for the mail process:


exec $PROG | mail someone@somewhere.somedom -s "My subject
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Text/html

"

And it works !

So, why not to add a 'boundary=...' with a Multipart/related in Content-Type and while we are at it a 'Content-Transfert-Encoding: BASE64' ?

If you can tell me where there's a BASE64 encoder ... That would be great !


 Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:28:09 +0200
From: Sandeep < fuhrer6mill@yahoo.com>
Subject: Video Card AbigPRoblem

Hello there, i am sandeep from india and i have recently Bought a azza MainBoard with Built in Sound Card (Avance Logic 120) and Video Card (SiS-530(but chip is SiS-5595 (AGP with shared Ram ))) there is a very big problem Linux couldnot recognise the VRAM on the shared Sdram MOdule originally allocated by Award Bios. The sound card also was not recognised by the new Linux 6.0 version but by 5.2v ver of Red Hat it was recognised as Sound Blaster not as my original card as u guys have bveen doing great work i thought that u would be able to solve my problem or direct me to those who can thankiing u guys u r really doing a great work bye My email address is fuhrer6mill@yahoo.com (i am calling from a cafe so please do not reply to any other e mail address than given above(fuhrer6mill@yahoo.com)


 Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:53:22 +0100
From: Wim van Oosterhout <vanoosterhout@email.com>
Subject: ISND PCI128 Trust

Ban anyone tell me how to install my ISDN adaptor? Kind regards Wim van Oosterhout


 Fri, 17 Mar 2000 12:00:59 -0500
From: thesun <thesunray@hotmail.com>
Subject: Mailbag submission: Help Wanted on Japanese text input

Hi,

I'm new to the Linux Gazette but not new to Linux, and I've had a hell of a time trying to find clear, step-by-step info about how to WRITE Japanese under RedHat Linux 6.1. Part of the problem is that I don't READ Japanese well enough to sift through the Japanese sites, but I've found a program called "dp/NOTE" from OMRONSOFT which almost works--apparently, the program is supported by the Japanese version of RedHat 6.1, but I don't know what RPMs to download to get the thing to run under the English version...or even if it will run at all. Are there fundamental differences between the Japanese and the English versions? Should I set up a dual boot system? Ideally, I'd like to just run English RedHat but have a program I can pull up that will allow easy romaji text input and then convert to hiragana, katakana, or Kanji. There's a nice program by NJStar that does that, but it's (barf!) Windoze95 only.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

thesunray@hotmail.com


 Fri, 17 Mar 2000 19:20:34 -0500
From: Clark Ashton Smith <CAS@FutureRealms.com>
Subject: Help with group rights and Netscape Composer

I've search deja news, Linux HowTos, and books, and I have not seen this error mentioned. Makes me think it something on my end, but I can't figure out what it is. I'm hoping someone can help.

I am running RedHat Linux 5.2 and Netscape 4.08.

I created a group called web and made a directory

/usr/local/webauth

I set the group and the SGID bit on that directory

chgrp -v web /usr/local/webauth
chmod -v 2775 /usr/local/webauth

Now for the problem:

Anyone in the web group should be able to save into that directory. With Netscape composer they can only edit files that already are in that directory!?!

If I use the "Save As" option in Netscape Composer to save into that directory I get the following error:

"The file is marked read-only."

The same error occurs using the "Save" option to save a new file to that directory. BUT, if I open a file from that directory in netscape, edit it, and use the "Save" option, it will write over the old file in that directory. I can edit any existing html files created by anyone in the "web" group.

What on earth is going on? The users belong to the web group and they can all create files in /usr/local/webauth via the touch command or emacs. The users all have a umask of 002. The files they create with touch or emacs are all are created

-rw-rw-r-- username.web filename

They can use emacs to open end edit each others files in /usr/local/webauth, but they can't create new files with netscape composer! They can only edit existing files and save them to the same filename.

The only way I can get "Save As" and "Save" to create new files in /usr/local/webauth is to set the permissions to

chmod -v 2776 /usr/local/webauth 
or
chmod -v 2777 /usr/local/webauth
which defeats the whole point of creating special work groups and protecting the files from being written by anyone not in the group.

If you can, please shed some light on this. Thank you.


 Mon, 20 Mar 2000 20:05:16 -0000
From: Tony <tony@exocomp.free-online.co.tony@exocomp.free-online.co.uuk>
Subject: connecting win98 and Linux

I am relatively new to Linux so please be patient. Can anyone tell me how to connect my win 98 machine with my Linux server. I used to run win 95 and had no problems but since using win98 overtime I try to browse my network from network neighbourhood I am unable to browse the network, I cannot ping the Linux server either. I am sure that I have TCP/IP installed correctly on both machines. Any help anyone can give would be most helpful. Regards A newly.


 Fri, 24 Mar 2000 16:23:30 +0300
From: Alexandr Redko <redial@tsinet.ru>
Subject: DNS for home mail not working

For some time I was following the guidelines of article by JC Pollman and Bill Mote "Mail for the Home Network", Linux Gazette #45 with the aim to build my verySOHO net.

  1. Without DNS and sendmail I succesfully established dialup link with my ISP, browsed the Net, send and received my mail.
  2. With caching only DNS the dealings were equally succesfull, DNS dump showed that caching really took place.
  3. I installed sendmail and POP3 on my Linux server. No mail transport between it (sasha.asup 10.0.0.5) and W95 client (10.0.0.101).
  4. I created DNS config files with MX records and got it going but only within the local network. No ping except with ISP server and no nslookups.

Here is my setup:

Linux Red Hat Cat 6.0

-------------------------------------------------------------
 "host.conf"
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 order hosts,bind
 multi on
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 "nsswitch.conf"
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 hosts:      files dns
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 "resolv.conf"
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 search asup
 nameserver 10.0.0.5
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 "named.conf"
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 options {
  directory "/var/named";
    forward first;
  forwarders {
      196.34.38.1;
      196.34.38.2;
  };
  /*
   * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
   * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
   * directive below.  Previous versions of BIND always asked
   * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
   * port by default.
   */
 // query-source address * port 53;
 };


zone "." { type hint; file "db.cache"; };

zone "asup" { notify no; type master; file "db.asup"; }; zone "0.0.10.in-addr.arpa" { notify no; type master; file "db.0.0.10"; }; zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" { type master; file "db.127.0.0"; }; ------------------------------------------------------------- "db.asup" ------------------------------------------------------------- @ IN SOA sasha.asup. redial.asup. ( 1 ; Serial 10800 ; Refresh 3600 ; Retry 604800 ; Expire 86400 ) ; Minimum IN NS sasha IN MX 10 sasha sasha IN A 10.0.0.5 sasha IN MX 10 sasha mail IN A 10.0.0.5 www IN A 10.0.0.5 news IN A 10.0.0.5 localhost IN A 127.0.0.1 asup1 IN A 10.0.0.101 asup1 IN MX 10 sasha ------------------------------------------------- "db.0.0.10" ------------------------------------------------- @ IN SOA sasha.asup. redial.asup. ( 1 ; Serial 10800 ; Refresh 3600 ; Retry 604800 ; Expire 86400 ) ; Minimum IN NS sasha.asup. 5 IN PTR sasha.asup. 5 IN PTR www.asup. 5 IN PTR mail.asup. 5 IN PTR news.asup. 101 IN PTR asup1.asup. ---------------------------------------------------------- "db.127.0.0" ---------------------------------------------------------- @ IN SOA sasha.asup. redial.asup. ( 1 ; Serial 10800 ; Refresh 3600 ; Retry 604800 ; Expire 86400 ) ; Minimum IN NS localhost. 1 IN PTR localhost. ---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- "firewall" ---------------------- :input ACCEPT :forward REJECT :output ACCEPT -A forward -s 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 -d 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 -j ACCEPT -A forward -s 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 -d 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -j MASQ ---------------------- # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward ----------------------------------- /etc/sysconfig/network ----------------------------------- NETWORKING=yes FORWARD_IPV4="yes" HOSTNAME=sasha.asup DOMAINNAMEGATEWAY="" GATEWAYDEV="" ----------------------------------- With ppp0 up route ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10.0.0.5 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 196.34.38.254 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 10.0.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo default 196.34.38.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ppp0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

DNS debug when making nslookup for my ISP server: ---------------------------- datagram from [10.0.0.5].1026, fd 22, len 31 req: nlookup(www.tsinet.ru) id 1755 type=1 class=1 req: missed 'www.tsinet.ru' as '' (cname=0) forw: forw -> [196.34.38.1].53 ds=4 nsid`421 id55 3ms retry 8sec retry(0x4011e008): expired @ 953043527 (11 secs before now (953043538)) reforw(addr=0 n=0) -> [196.34.38.1].53 ds=4 nsid"50 id=0 3ms datagram from [10.0.0.5].1026, fd 22, len 31 req: nlookup(www.tsinet.ru) id 1755 type=1 class=1 req: missed 'www.tsinet.ru' as '' (cname=0) reforw(addr=0 n=0) -> [196.34.38.2].53 ds=4 nsid`421 id55 3ms reforw(addr=0 n=0) -> [196.34.38.2].53 ds=4 nsid"50 id=0 3ms datagram from [10.0.0.5].1026, fd 22, len 31 req: nlookup(www.tsinet.ru) id 1755 type=1 class=1 req: missed 'www.tsinet.ru' as '' (cname=0) ----------------------------

I'll be very greatful if someone say me what I done wrong.

Regards to All

Bill Mote wrote

I appreciated the depth to which you went in talking about your invironment, however, I'm confused about what your problem is. Can you tell me exactly what isn't working and what you're trying to do please? I'd love to help!

The Editor asked whether the problem had been solved, and Alexandr wrote

Thank you for attention to my petty problem. Sorry to say that I'm in no way closer to it's solution then in the beginning. I got two letters (thanks very much ) from JC Pollmann:

Pollman's letter #1

A number of things could be causing the problem:

"db.asup"
-------------------------------------------------------------
@       IN      SOA     sasha.asup. redial.asup.  (
                                      1  ; Serial
                                      10800     ; Refresh
                                      3600      ; Retry
                                      604800    ; Expire
                                      86400 )   ; Minimum

  IN      NS      sasha
  IN      MX 10   sasha
sasha  IN A 10.0.0.5
sasha  IN MX 10 sasha

mail  IN A 10.0.0.5
www  IN A 10.0.0.5
news  IN A 10.0.0.5

I know they say otherwise, but try using CNAME, eg:

mail IN CNAME 10.0.05




localhost IN A 127.0.0.1

asup1  IN A 10.0.0.101
asup1  IN MX 10 sasha
-------------------------------------------------
"db.0.0.10"
-------------------------------------------------
@       IN      SOA     sasha.asup. redial.asup.  (
                                      1  ; Serial
                                      10800     ; Refresh
                                      3600      ; Retry
                                      604800    ; Expire
                                      86400 )   ; Minimum

  IN      NS      sasha.asup.
5  IN      PTR     sasha.asup.
you can not use CNAMED names for reverse lookup
5  IN      PTR     www.asup.
5  IN      PTR     mail.asup.
5  IN      PTR     news.asup.
101  IN      PTR     asup1.asup.
make those changes and do a named restart and see what happens.
Pollman's letter #2

copy this to your rc.local file and reboot:

echo "setting up ipchains"
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
# allow loopback, always
/sbin/ipchains -A input -i lo -j ACCEPT
# this allows all traffic on your internal nets (you trust it, right?)
/sbin/ipchains -A input -s 10.0.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT
# this sets up masquerading
/sbin/ipchains -A forward -s 10.0.0.0/24 -j MASQ

#you need this for ppp and dynamic ip address
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr
Alexandr continues

I did my home work:

---------------
named.conf
---------------
options {
 directory "/var/named";
 forwarders {
     forward.first;
     195.34.38.1;
     195.34.38.2;
     195.34.38.1;
 };
 /*
  * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
  * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
  * directive below.  Previous versions of BIND always asked
  * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
  * port by default.
  */
 query-source address * port 53;
};

//
//
zone "." {
 type hint;
 file "db.cache";
};

zone "asup" {
 notify no;
 type master;
 file "db.asup";
};

zone "0.0.10.in-addr.arpa" {
 notify no;
 type master;
 file "db.0.0.10";
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
 type master;
 file "db.127.0.0";
};
-------------
db.asup
-------------
@       IN      SOA     sasha.asup. redial.asup.  (
                                      1  ; Serial
                                      10800     ; Refresh
                                      3600      ; Retry
                                      604800    ; Expire
                                      86400 )   ; Minimum

  IN      NS      sasha
  IN      MX 10   sasha
sasha  IN A 10.0.0.5
sasha  IN MX 10 sasha

mail  IN CNAME 10.0.0.5
www  IN CNAME 10.0.0.5
news  IN CNAME 10.0.0.5

localhost IN A 127.0.0.1

asup1  IN A 10.0.0.101
asup1  IN MX 10 sasha
-------------------------
db.0.0.10
-------------------------
@       IN      SOA     sasha.asup. redial.asup.  (
                                      1  ; Serial
                                      10800     ; Refresh
                                      3600      ; Retry
                                      604800    ; Expire
                                      86400 )   ; Minimum

  IN      NS      sasha.asup.
5  IN      PTR     sasha.asup.
101  IN      PTR     asup1.asup.
-------------------------
firewall
------------------------
:input ACCEPT
:forward ACCEPT
:output ACCEPT
-A input -s 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -d 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A input -s 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 -d 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -j ACCEPT
-A forward -s 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 -d 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -j MASQ
------------------------
network
------------------------
NETWORKING=yes
FORWARD_IPV4="yes"
HOSTNAME=sasha.asup
DOMAINNAME=
GATEWAY=
GATEWAYDEV=
------------------------

I connect to my ISP by issuing " ipup ppp0 " command, and then my luck ends:

Here is excerpt from tcpdump output:

12:39:23.442252 ppp0 > sasha.asup > 195.34.38.1: icmp: echo request
12:39:23.644703 ppp0 < 195.34.38.1 > sasha.asup: icmp: echo reply
..........
12:39:27.434735 ppp0 > sasha.asup > 195.34.38.1: icmp: echo request
12:39:27.574701 ppp0 < 195.34.38.1 > sasha.asup: icmp: echo reply
12:39:28.014857   lo > sasha.asup.1052 > sasha.asup.domain: 30612+ PTR?
10.0.41.198.in-addr.arpa. (42)
12:39:28.014857   lo < sasha.asup.1052 > sasha.asup.domain: 30612+ PTR?
10.0.41.198.in-addr.arpa. (42)
12:39:28.015356 ppp0 > sasha.asup.domain > 195.34.38.1.domain: 37592+ PTR?
10.0.41.198.in-addr.arpa. (42)
............
12:39:29.434740 ppp0 > sasha.asup > 195.34.38.1: icmp: echo request
12:39:29.564708 ppp0 < 195.34.38.1 > sasha.asup: icmp: echo reply


13:26:31.045625   lo > sasha.asup.1075 > sasha.asup.domain: 31874+ PTR?
90.10.8.128.in-addr.arpa. (42)
13:26:31.045625   lo < sasha.asup.1075 > sasha.asup.domain: 31874+ PTR?
90.10.8.128.in-addr.arpa. (42)
13:26:31.046140 if21 > sasha.asup.1071 > 198.41.0.4.domain: 16489+ PTR?
90.10.8.128.in-addr.arpa. (42)
13:26:31.464747 if21 > sasha.asup > 195.34.38.1: icmp: echo request
13:26:31.604706 if21 < 195.34.38.1 > sasha.asup: icmp: echo reply

I got it so that there is some problem with masquerading and my packets just don't go any further than my ISP's server.

Regards to All


 Fri, 24 Mar 2000 19:13:08 +0200
From: Ivanus Radu <ivanusra@cs.ro>
Subject: I need an answer, pls help me

Hello!

I am proud to announce this: "I'm a 4 day Linux admin, and i'm doing "fine" :) "

OK. Now to the important problems:

1. I've found that in the Net3-4 HOWTO : "If you are interested in using Linux for ISP purposes the I recommend you take a look at the Linux ISP homepage for a good list of pointers to information you might need and use." in Net3- HOWTO I found this : "11. Linux for an ISP ?

If you are interested in using Linux for ISP purposes the I recommend you take a look at the Linux ISP homepage for a good list of pointers to information you might need and use." but the link is broken... Q: What now? (I am interested in making linux for ISP purposes) 2. A Winmodem solution for Linux users. If U are luky to have an win9x sistem connected to the linuxbox trought an network card, then do this: - install a Wingate like SyGate 2.0 for Win on the Win9x box - In Linux make Default Gateway to link to the Win9x box IP That's all for the moment :)

TNX bye.


 Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:29:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Dupree <dimebag2go@yahoo.com>
Subject: HELP!!!!!!!!!!

i need some help if u can do so please do. when i am in a chatroom and stuff on aim people use booters witch create errors i need a patch for aim that will stop these errors if u can please do

[What's "aim"? Is it a Linux program? We publish only questions dealing with Linux-related issues. Also, are these "errors" things which crash the browser or are you simply trying to prevent the roommaster from booting you out when maybe s/he has a legitimate reason for doing so?

If you really have a program with a bug in it, we need to know what the program is, who makes it, whether it's standalone or runs with a web browser, under what circumstances the error occurs, what error messages you get, and what kind of computer and version of Linux you have. -Ed.]


 Fri, 24 Mar 2000 22:37:50 -0500
From: Walter Gomez <lulu@erols.com>
Subject: HP682 C jet ink color printer

My 682C HP printer is not workin properly. When a print signal is sent, the printer will move a page in and start flashing the yellow light but not print the file. I have checked everything I could think about with no result. Could you help me? Regards,


 Fri, 24 Mar 2000 22:54:58 -0800
From: Taro Fukunaga <tarozax@earthlink.net>
Subject: Sendmail faster start up!

Hi,

I am having trouble with sendmail. I read an article in the Gazette dated a few? months? ago about setting up sendmail, but I'm still puzzled.

I am running MkLinux R1 (a RedHat 6.0 implementation) and sendmail takes forever to startup. Taking a cue from the article, I stopped the sendmail daemon, started up pppd, and then restarted sendmail. It started up much faster. Also I've noticed that if I don't have the pppd up,sendmail tries to ping my other computer (the two are connected by an ethernet and router). Both machines are at home. The other machine does not have ppp set up yet. Well if I don't want to start pppd immediately on boot, what can I do to make sendmail start up faster?


 Sat, 25 Mar 2000 12:39:14 +0200
From: Serafim Karfis <serakar@vero.gr>
Subject: Linux as a mail server

I am trying to find instuctions on how to use my Linux server as a mail server for my company. I have a registered domain name, a permanent connecion to the internet and unlimited number of e-mail accounts under my domain name. Please keep in mind that I am a new Linux user, so any instructions have to be detailed for me to understand. Thank you in advance.


 Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:16:30 +0530 (IST)
From: nayantara <ndeep_b@yahoo.com>
Subject: insmod device or resource busy

Hi, I'm running 2.2.12.... I wrote a module that goes:

#define MODULE
#include 

int init_module(void)
{
	printk("<1>It worked!\n");
	return 0;
}
void cleanup_module(void)
{
	printk("<1>All done.\n");
}

now, i compile this and when i insmod it, it printk's It worked! but then gives me :could not load module device or resource busy. what am i missing? what resource is busy? (I looked through the FAQ's but didn't find anything.....so if i missed it please bear with me)

Thanks, Deepa


 Tue, 28 Mar 2000 15:43:10 +0100
From: Luis Neves <luis.neves@netc.pt>
Subject: Xircom CE3 10/100 and Red Hat 6.1

Hello,

I have a toshiba laptop with Red Hat's 6.1 Linux installed. I also have a Xircom 10/100 Ethernet Adapter. I know that xircom doesn�t provide any drivers for Linux and the compatibility list regarding ethernet adapters from RH 6.1 doesn�t include xircom cards. Is there any workarround ? How can I get it to work ?

Thanks in advance,

Luis Neves.

luis.neves@netc.pt


 Tue, 28 Mar 2000 16:16:49 GMT
From: hasan jamal <hasanjamal@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: source code of fsck

I need the source code of "fsck", the file system checker under the /sbin directory. I have searched most of the ftp archives related to linux and did not find anywhere. I got RedHat & SuSe distribution, in none of them I found. I would be grateful if anybody can give me the source code or the ftp site.

Md. Hasan Jamal Bangladesh

The Editor wrote

It should be included in your distribution. I know only Debian, so when I type "dpkg -S fsck" it shows me fsck and fsck.ext2 are in the "e2fsprogs" package. (There are other fsck modules for different filesystem types in other packages, including "util-linux".) Rpm (and yast?) do a similar thing but with different command-line options. Find the appropriate command on your system and it will show which package the program comes from. Probably e2fsprogs*.srpm or util-linux*.srpm or a similar file will have the source you want.

Hasan responded

I got it in SuSE. Thanks a lot for such a quick reply.


General Mail


 Wed, 1 Mar 2000 11:45:34 -0600
From: Scott Morizot <tmorizot@adc.is.irs.gov>
Subject: Pine and Pico not "open source"?

I just got around to reading the February edition of Linux Gazette. I was more than a little perplexed by the claim in the article about nano that pico and pine weren't "open source".

While it's true that pine and pico aren't under the GPL, neither are many other open source stalwarts like sendmail and apache. Even a quick read of the license http://www.washington.edu/pine/overview/legal.html

makes it clear that the source can be used for any use, even commercial, that it can be modified, and that it can be distributed. I certainly don't see anything that would prevent it from being considered open source.

Oh, and the source is available, of course. Always has been.

And, although you can't get the pico source separately from the entire source tree, you can build just pico or, if your OS is one of the supported ones, download a pico binary for your systems from the unix-bin directory. ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/unix-bin/

Not that nano isn't a perfectly good editor and effort. There can't be too many. But keep the facts about pine and pico straight.

Scott Morizot <tmorizot@adc.is.irs.gov> wrote

Ummm. GPL'ed software is protected under copyright also. So is sendmail. So is apache. All of those licenses are licenses to use copyrighted software. UW's is just another license to use copyrighted software. But all free software protected by a license is copyrighted software and includes some sort of restrictions on its use. GPL software is no less under copyright than software under any other license. In fact, copyright is what allows the GPL to make the restrictions on use that it does. Software that is not under copyright is in the public domain and absolutely no restrictions may be made on its use at all.

I didn't see anything in the legal notice that would constrain the redistribution of binary versions of pico. And, in fact, binary versions of pico are redistributed with most distributions of Linux.

While it's not GPL, I still fail to see any terms in the UW pine license that cause it not to meet the open source definition.

[The license does not allow you to distribute modified binaries of pine. (Hint: all the Packages in your Linux distribution are "modified binaries", because they undergo customization to adhere to the distribution's overall standards.) This is why it's not "open source". Pine is not included in Debian. Instead, you install special packages which include the source and diffs and compile it yourself. -Ed.


 Tue, 29 Feb 2000 11:40:06 +0100
From: Linux Gazette <gazette@ssc.com>
Subject: FAQs

The following questions received this month are answered in the Linux Gazette FAQ:


 Thu, 2 Mar 2000 17:17:31 -0800
From: Systems Administrator <sysadmin@ssc.com>
Subject: Duplicate announcement on lg-announce

Some time ago you had trouble with your mailinglist (lg-announce). Your latest announcement was received twice, I therefore attach a text file with the headers from the two messages. I hope this will help you to fix the problem.

[The latest round of duplicates was caused by the same problem as the ones last fall--a certain subscriber or their ISP had a misconfigured mail program which sent the message back to the list. This address was in the middle of the Received: lines of all the duplicate message samples we saw.

There are some mailers (Windoze?) which do not honor the envelope-to field of forwarded mail as they should, but instead think they should send it to everybody in the To: header--even though this has already been done. And majordomo's code to detect this sort of loop appears to be broken. While we work on a solution at the software level, we have unsubscribed that address and complained to the user and his/her postmaster.

The two cases involved different users on different continents. So we cannot guarantee it won't happen again, but will continue to unsubscribe addresses as they are detected. -Ed.


 Fri, 3 Mar 2000 01:38:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Matthew Thompson <mattyt@oz.net>
Subject: Microsoft OS's, their pricing and Linux

Greetings,

Perhaps someone has brought this up before, but I have YAMSCT (Yet another Microsoft conspiracy theory :). Maybe this whole thing about them not being able to combine the NT kernel with the Win9x series of OS's is a ruse.

If they did that, based on the current anti-trust scrutiny, they'd have to lower the price of WinNT/2000/whatever to the price of Win98/ME. They'd never be allowed to force home users to pay the premium price that businesses are now paying for Win2KPro on the desktop.

So as long as they have 2 separate product lines, they can charge basically double for Win2000 that gets sold to businesses. They would completely lose those higher profit margins if they merged the products.

I know I'm preaching to the proverbial choir, here, but it will take Linux to end this. But only when you can have it *all* (I'm typing this from a telnet session to my Debian box from Win98SE, since I want to use all the features of RealPlayer 7, java, Diablo and Descent 3). I'm hopeful that Mozilla will cure the java problems under Netscpape (does anyone know if this will be the case?), more games are coming out for Linux all the time, but what about multimedia apps? Is there Free project out there to fill this gap? I haven't heard anything about Real releasing a fully functional RealPlayer for Linux, especially as a plug-in.

As much as it pains me to say it, right now I'm afraid Linux *is* lacking on the desktop. Here I am, a Linux evangelist (practically a zealot, ask my friends) and I spend more time in Win98 than I do Linux because of the games and internet apps available.

What can we do about this? Is it enough to send emails to companies like Real to get them to release the same software for Linux that they do for Windows? We certainly can't expect MS to release Media Player 6.4 (which *is* an excellent app, btw) for Linux.


 Fri, 3 Mar 2000 16:05:32 -0700
From: Jim Hill <jimhill@meldrick.swcp.com>
Subject: Drop that comic strip pronto

The guy doing your strip can't draw and isn't funny. One can conceivably get away with a lack of either skill or humor but certainly not both.

Thanks for your 15 seconds.

[Since the Gazette is a do-it-yourself enterprise, if you don't like something, it's up to you to send in something better. :) -Ed.]


 Mon, 6 Mar 2000 20:33:03 -0800
From: <fuzzybear@pocketmail.com>
Subject: RE: Who is Jim Dennis?

From SeanieDude on Tue, 21 Sep 1999 Why the f*ck is your name listed so damn much in hotbot?

Dear SeanieDude:

The reason the Godfath... err, Mr. Jim Dennis appears so often in a HotBot search is that, as the current head of the Maf... err, a large syndicate, he is being investigated due to a totally unfounded accusation: namely, that everyone who has ever been rude to him, *particularly* via e-mail, seems to have suffered unfortunate accidents.

Should your precarious health NOT fail shortly, for some inexplicable reason, take this as a guide for your future behavior:

NEVER be rude to people you don't know anything about, in e-mail or otherwise.

Hoping that you're still around to take good advice, Consigliori Ben Okopnik


 Thu, 9 Mar 2000 13:49:49 -0700
From: Vrenios Alex-P29131 <Alex.Vrenios@motorola.com>
Subject: RE: Article Submission

Mike Orr,

I have three articles on your web site so far and you might be happy to know that LG is an inspiration to me. This won't happen over night, but I am starting my own web site magazine about early computers and their use, at http://www.earlycomputing.com/ . You probably have a good deal of experience with the issues surrounding such a venture so any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. (Mine will be more a labor of love than a money making enterprise.)

I look forward to contributing to LG again in the future in any event, as the focus of your site and mine are quite different. Thanks in advance.

[I'll help out if I can. I only began editing the Gazette eight months ago, and it's been around for five years. So I can't say much about starting an ezine; just how to keep it going.

I'm wondering whether you can get enough articles about early computing to have a regular "zine", or if just a "site" where you can post articles as you receive or write them would be just as well? I am surprised at how many people are willing to contribute to the Gazette. Every month I used to wonder whether I'd get only a few articles that month, but so far I've always gotten plenty to make a full zine. But that will be more difficult with a more specialized topic, and especially at the beginning when you're not as well known.

Feel free to send me any other questions you have. maybe we can make an article or section in the Mailbag eventually about starting a zine. Maybe you'll feel like writing an article about your experience setting up an early computer zine, how you're doing it similar/differently than the Gazette, etc. Not exactly Linux related, but I'm the editor so I can put in anything I want. Plus I know that there is an interest in early computers among Linux folk: we got an article about emulators recently and another person is also writing another article about emulators now. -Ed.]


 Sun, 12 Mar 2000 20:52:18 -0500
From: Doc Simont <mdsimont@snet.net>
Subject: Gandhi quote

To Whom it may Concern --

I would be interested to know the source of the (great) quote that you use at the top of your web page:

"One cannot unite a community without a newspaper or jounal of some kind."

I am one of a number of volunteers who manage to produce a surprisingly high-quality monthly "newspaper" for our small town in NW Connecticut. It might be something we could use, but our standards prevent us from taking attributions without verification. Too often something attributed to Abraham Lincoln turns out to really have come from Dante (or vice-versa) ;-).

Any pointers toward the source would be very much appreciated.

[It's from the movie Gandhi. We don't know whether Gandhi himself said it. -Ed.]


 Mon, 13 Mar 2000 09:49:26 -0700 (MST)
From: Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel@graphics-muse.org>
Subject: correction to your Corel Photo-Paint story

Stephen:

In your C|Net article on Corel's release of Photo-Paint for Linux, (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1569948.html) you mentioned Gimp and Adobe as Corel's most likely competitors. This isn't exactly true. First, Gimp has no marketing or business structure. Not even a non-profit. So, although its a terrific program, it lacks the exposure that a commercial application can get. In the long run, this may hurt it.

(I actually toyed with the idea of trying to form a non-profit or even a for-profit to keep Gimp a strong product, but coming up with a business model for this type of application is difficult. Its not likely selling the OS, where service and support can bring in significant income.)

Adobe's move into Linux is limited, so far, to its PDF and word processing tools. Its not, as far as I know, doing anything about porting is graphics or layout applications (though Frame is probably considered a layout too by many). Corel's not really competing with Adobe in graphics on Linux yet.

Mediascape is about ready to launch its vector based ArtStream for Linux next month. This will be the first entry into the Linux layout tools market. Not long after that, Deneba (www.denebe.com) is expected to launch their Linux version of Canvas 7, a popular Mac image editing tool with vector, layout, and Web development features. These would be Corel's main competitors in the vector graphics arena. Gimp remains a competitor in the raster-based image editing front, but the lack of prepress support and and organizational structure could eventually become a problem.


 Fri, 17 Mar 2000 18:36:30 EST
From: <PoiPuPy@aol.com>
Subject: subscription

Hello, I'm looking to find a postal address to you...? I do volunteer work with an inmate pen pal site: http://members.xoom.com/crosllinked/index.htm Today I received a request from an inmate, wanting any type of subscription to any site who offers news on Linux Operating Sytems. Thank You for your time. Sandy

[Our address is:

Attn: Linux Gazette
Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
PO Box 55549 
Seattle, WA 98155-0549   USA 

...but I'm not sure what that will gain him. The Gazette is not available by mail, unless a reader (you?) would be willing to print it out and send it to him. Otherwise, he would have to read it online or via the FTP files or a CD.

Of course, Linux Journal is available by mail if he wants that. A text order form is at http://www.linuxjournal.com/subscribe/subtext.txt which you can print and have him mail in. -Ed.]


 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:12:40 +0100
From: Morgan Karlsson <morgan.karlsson@nordiskcarbonblack.se>
Subject: translation of linux gazette articles

Hello, My name i Morgan Karlsson and I'm a new member of the se.linux.org family. I wonder if it's ok to translate articles from you to swedish and publish them on our website www.se.linux.org? Or even if we get enough people working with it translate every number of you fantastic magazine in swedish. What do you think about this?

[Certainly. We welcome translations. When your site is ready, please fill out the form at http://wwwlinuxgazette.com/mirrors.html so that we can add the site to our mirrors list and people will be able to find you. -Ed.]


This page written and maintained by the Editor of the Linux Gazette. Copyright © 2000, gazette@ssc.com
Published in Issue 52 of Linux Gazette, April 2000
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