From wawrzek at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 23:59:35 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 22:59:35 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: 2009/12/28 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau : Hi, > b) try and recover some > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a lot of > time. > If you were using Ext2/3/4 you can use Test disk to recovery. Yes, recovery from ext3 is possible. http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/linux-lotus-domino/recovering-files-from-an-lvm-or-ext3-partition-with-testdisk/ Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From magnus at therning.org Fri Jan 8 12:35:55 2010 From: magnus at therning.org (Magnus Therning) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 11:35:55 +0000 Subject: Chrome ignores /etc/hosts? In-Reply-To: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Alastair Stevens wrote: > Hi Guys - has anyone else had trouble with Google Chrome ignoring ad > blocking? I've done the /etc/hosts thing on my netbook (don't want to > run a whole local DNS server on here), and the blocking works > perfectly in Firefox 3.0/3.5. But Google Chrome ignores it and finds > all the ad sites anyway. How can I dissuade it? Hmm, isn't it glibc (or something similarly low-level) that uses /etc/hosts to look up host names? Does chrome really come with its own, slightly broken, lookup code then? See http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a8nvd/google_chrome_does_not_use_your_hosts_file/ especially the comment second to last. Rather disturbing that one has to enter "http:" to make it work though... /M -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus?therning?org Jabber: magnus?therning?org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Fri Jan 8 14:39:43 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul M) Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:39:43 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= Message-ID: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive they just got some stock in - previous sorties were without luck HAND Paul From wawrzek at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 01:24:48 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 00:24:48 +0000 Subject: "Introduction to Embedded Linux" Message-ID: Hi, I've just found this event on cambridgenetwork http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=66121 Maybe someone will be interested in. Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 12:57:03 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:57:03 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer references, you name it. First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the latest version. No difference at all. So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't even go there). As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I have to say that). SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy the show. cheers Wolfgang On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > benefit from your work. > > Many thanks in advance, > > Sam > > Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > > > On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > > wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > > call > > on the group for some help? > > > > I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > > RAM > > and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > > card > > of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > > me > > excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > > almost > > 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > > mostly > > Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > > it > > also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > > > > A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > > the > > web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > > apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > > other > > processes before I could get that to work. > > The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > > to > > respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > > as > > usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > > So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > > cleanup. > > > > Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > > and I > > decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > > hosting > > center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > > home, > > and now the really weird stuff starts: > > > > I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > > can > > do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > > All > > fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > > I do > > anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > > hangs. > > Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > > Reboot. > > Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > > fine. Reboot. Same again. > > So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > > are > > damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > > backup > > superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > > (I > > wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > > b) > > there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > > scratch. > > > > I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > > really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > > some > > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > > lot of > > time. > > > > So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > > direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From colinj at mx5.org.uk Sat Jan 9 14:11:08 2010 From: colinj at mx5.org.uk (colin johnston) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 13:11:08 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: Hi Wolfgang, Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? Colin On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > references, you name it. > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > latest version. No difference at all. > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > even go there). > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > have to say that). > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > the show. > > cheers > Wolfgang > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: >> Dear Wolfgang, >> >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to >> benefit from your work. >> >> Many thanks in advance, >> >> Sam >> >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. >> >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" >>> wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could >>> call >>> on the group for some help? >>> >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of >>> RAM >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID >>> card >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given >>> me >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was >>> almost >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, >>> mostly >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And >>> it >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. >>> >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that >>> the >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird >>> other >>> processes before I could get that to work. >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long >>> to >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced >>> as >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and >>> cleanup. >>> >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, >>> and I >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper >>> hosting >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box >>> home, >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: >>> >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I >>> can >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. >>> All >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as >>> I do >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server >>> hangs. >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. >>> Reboot. >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions >>> are >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the >>> backup >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file >>> (I >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and >>> b) >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from >>> scratch. >>> >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover >>> some >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a >>> lot of >>> time. >>> >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. >>> >>> cheers >>> Wolfgang >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> CLUG mailing list >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org >> > > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 15:12:48 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:12:48 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <1263046368.24344.23.camel@wolfgang> Hi Colin, I have run the consistency check from within the RAID controller Firmware (when it boots up, it offers its own control panel), and that runs fine. 100% consistency. At the moment I can't get to the /var/log/syslog or messages, because they are on one of the lvm partitions on the RAID drive. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 13:11 +0000, colin johnston wrote: > Hi Wolfgang, > Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? > > Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? > > Colin > > On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > > > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > > references, you name it. > > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > > latest version. No difference at all. > > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > > even go there). > > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > > have to say that). > > > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > > the show. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > >> Dear Wolfgang, > >> > >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > >> benefit from your work. > >> > >> Many thanks in advance, > >> > >> Sam > >> > >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > >> > >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi all, > >>> > >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > >>> call > >>> on the group for some help? > >>> > >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > >>> RAM > >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > >>> card > >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > >>> me > >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > >>> almost > >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > >>> mostly > >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > >>> it > >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > >>> > >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > >>> the > >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > >>> other > >>> processes before I could get that to work. > >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > >>> to > >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > >>> as > >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > >>> cleanup. > >>> > >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > >>> and I > >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > >>> hosting > >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > >>> home, > >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: > >>> > >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > >>> can > >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > >>> All > >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > >>> I do > >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > >>> hangs. > >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > >>> Reboot. > >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. > >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > >>> are > >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > >>> backup > >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > >>> (I > >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > >>> b) > >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > >>> scratch. > >>> > >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > >>> some > >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > >>> lot of > >>> time. > >>> > >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > >>> > >>> cheers > >>> Wolfgang > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> CLUG mailing list > >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org > >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From sam.kuper at uclmail.net Sat Jan 9 15:52:46 2010 From: sam.kuper at uclmail.net (Sam Kuper) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 14:52:46 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. [...] > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement RAID controller solves the problems. Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) Cheers, Sam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100109/c249fdd3/attachment-0001.htm From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 17:03:37 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:03:37 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263053017.24344.27.camel@wolfgang> Well, lots of people seem to have been able to move drives under software RAID to other machines and then either rebuild the arrays or at least get their data off. Which is definitely an advantage. I think the true lesson to be learned here is to always keep OFFSITE backups. Always, always, always. Would have saved me a lot of trouble. But, I think I have now learned that lesson. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 14:52 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > [...] > > > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement > RAID controller solves the problems. > > > Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software > RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with > your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. > (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while > maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 > *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) > > > Cheers, > > > Sam > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From paul at the-hug.org Sat Jan 9 23:25:54 2010 From: paul at the-hug.org (Paul Oldham) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:25:54 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, > because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display > (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. > > other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive Three cell or six cell battery? -- Paul From dom at latter.org Sat Jan 9 23:39:42 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:39:42 +0100 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B4905AE.5090607@latter.org> Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? Either way, it sounds pretty good. One thing I'd like to know is how a modern netbook like this stacks up against an ultra-portable from a few years ago, performance-wise. Quick check of eBay finds a Dell D420 for ?229 buy-it now: Processor: U2500 Intel Core Duo 1.2GHz (2MB Cache, 800MHz FSB) Memory: 1GB (1024MB) DDR2 667MHz Hard Drive: 60GB (zif) 7200 RPM Display/Screen: 12.4" Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sat Jan 9 23:50:06 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:50:06 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B49081E.2020801@mansfield.co.uk> On 09/01/10 22:25, Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? > three cell battery; lasted me about three hours of fairly heavy usage on wifi - doing all the windows patching prior to making a final backup before wiping and repartioning to install ubuntu netbook remix with windows for emergencies. chances are you've missed it, I was passing through today and no sign of the display stand From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 14:19:25 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:19:25 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> Message-ID: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. I > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; mail > > me off list. > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 driver > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > to. I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can have it, otherwise I'll throw it away. Cheers, Tom From gareth.pullen at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 15:32:37 2010 From: gareth.pullen at gmail.com (Gareth Pullen) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:32:37 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), which uses the Realtek RTL8187L chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. It ended up costing me ~?20 including delivery, which is slightly more than for other cards, but I was after the RTL8187L chipset so I was happy to pay a little more. Gareth. 2010/1/21 Tom Ellis > On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. > I > > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; > mail > > > me off list. > > > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 > driver > > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > > to. > > I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it > seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. > > If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can > have > it, otherwise I'll throw it away. > > Cheers, > > Tom > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100121/0f629d92/attachment.htm From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 17:20:11 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:20:11 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: <20100121162011.GA3476@weber> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 02:32:37PM +0000, Gareth Pullen wrote: > This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 > Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: > http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), > which uses the Realtek RTL8187L > chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's > automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. Off the top of my head, this is the same chipset as the Netgear WG111v3 and the Level One WNC-0305USB that I bought to replace it. From srusson at waitrose.com Sat Jan 23 23:35:47 2010 From: srusson at waitrose.com (Stephen Russon) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:35:47 -0000 Subject: Ubuntu access Message-ID: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the program. Most grateful for any solutions Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100123/a93b52d5/attachment.htm From dom at latter.org Sun Jan 24 10:06:24 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:06:24 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5C0D90.6030502@latter.org> Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions Odd. I assume from the tone of your inquiry that you're a newcomer to Linux and so I'll cover some of the basics. Firstly - Linux / Unix is case sensitive, so if you gave a username of "Stephen" and now you're typing "stephen", you won't get in. Having said that, you probably need to reset the password. You should be able to get into recovery mode - section 8.1 here: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/system_administration_books/ubuntu_starter_guide/ch08.html Once in you'll need a terminal. Look under "Applications -> Accessories". Easiest way to check the username is probably "ls /home". Then reset the password with "passwd stephen" (or whatever it is). Once you've fixed it, boot back into normal mode. You might be tempted to just carry on using recovery mode, but, errr, don't. From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sun Jan 24 23:49:22 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:49:22 +0000 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and compare shift-3 with the hash key. From dom at latter.org Mon Jan 25 00:51:28 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:51:28 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B5CDD00.5040903@latter.org> Paul wrote: > On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: >> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard >> drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted >> these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused >> to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the >> program. Most grateful for any solutions > > a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the > keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice > versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and > compare shift-3 with the hash key. I tend to avoid "funny characters" entirely for this sort of reason. In fact I reckon 8 characters of lower-case alphanumeric is good enough for most situations, and that making the password longer is just as effective as using capital letters etc. Some maths: 8 x [a-z0-9] = 2.8 x 10^12 8 x [a-zA-Z0-9] = 2.2 x 10^14 9 x [a-z0-9] = 1.0 x 10^14 10 x [a-z0-9] = 3.7 x 10^15 From wawrzek at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 23:59:35 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 22:59:35 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: 2009/12/28 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau : Hi, > b) try and recover some > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a lot of > time. > If you were using Ext2/3/4 you can use Test disk to recovery. Yes, recovery from ext3 is possible. http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/linux-lotus-domino/recovering-files-from-an-lvm-or-ext3-partition-with-testdisk/ Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From magnus at therning.org Fri Jan 8 12:35:55 2010 From: magnus at therning.org (Magnus Therning) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 11:35:55 +0000 Subject: Chrome ignores /etc/hosts? In-Reply-To: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Alastair Stevens wrote: > Hi Guys - has anyone else had trouble with Google Chrome ignoring ad > blocking? I've done the /etc/hosts thing on my netbook (don't want to > run a whole local DNS server on here), and the blocking works > perfectly in Firefox 3.0/3.5. But Google Chrome ignores it and finds > all the ad sites anyway. How can I dissuade it? Hmm, isn't it glibc (or something similarly low-level) that uses /etc/hosts to look up host names? Does chrome really come with its own, slightly broken, lookup code then? See http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a8nvd/google_chrome_does_not_use_your_hosts_file/ especially the comment second to last. Rather disturbing that one has to enter "http:" to make it work though... /M -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus?therning?org Jabber: magnus?therning?org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Fri Jan 8 14:39:43 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul M) Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:39:43 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= Message-ID: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive they just got some stock in - previous sorties were without luck HAND Paul From wawrzek at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 01:24:48 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 00:24:48 +0000 Subject: "Introduction to Embedded Linux" Message-ID: Hi, I've just found this event on cambridgenetwork http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=66121 Maybe someone will be interested in. Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 12:57:03 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:57:03 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer references, you name it. First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the latest version. No difference at all. So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't even go there). As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I have to say that). SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy the show. cheers Wolfgang On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > benefit from your work. > > Many thanks in advance, > > Sam > > Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > > > On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > > wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > > call > > on the group for some help? > > > > I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > > RAM > > and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > > card > > of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > > me > > excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > > almost > > 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > > mostly > > Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > > it > > also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > > > > A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > > the > > web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > > apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > > other > > processes before I could get that to work. > > The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > > to > > respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > > as > > usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > > So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > > cleanup. > > > > Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > > and I > > decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > > hosting > > center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > > home, > > and now the really weird stuff starts: > > > > I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > > can > > do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > > All > > fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > > I do > > anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > > hangs. > > Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > > Reboot. > > Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > > fine. Reboot. Same again. > > So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > > are > > damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > > backup > > superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > > (I > > wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > > b) > > there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > > scratch. > > > > I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > > really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > > some > > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > > lot of > > time. > > > > So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > > direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From colinj at mx5.org.uk Sat Jan 9 14:11:08 2010 From: colinj at mx5.org.uk (colin johnston) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 13:11:08 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: Hi Wolfgang, Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? Colin On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > references, you name it. > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > latest version. No difference at all. > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > even go there). > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > have to say that). > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > the show. > > cheers > Wolfgang > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: >> Dear Wolfgang, >> >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to >> benefit from your work. >> >> Many thanks in advance, >> >> Sam >> >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. >> >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" >>> wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could >>> call >>> on the group for some help? >>> >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of >>> RAM >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID >>> card >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given >>> me >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was >>> almost >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, >>> mostly >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And >>> it >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. >>> >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that >>> the >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird >>> other >>> processes before I could get that to work. >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long >>> to >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced >>> as >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and >>> cleanup. >>> >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, >>> and I >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper >>> hosting >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box >>> home, >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: >>> >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I >>> can >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. >>> All >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as >>> I do >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server >>> hangs. >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. >>> Reboot. >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions >>> are >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the >>> backup >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file >>> (I >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and >>> b) >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from >>> scratch. >>> >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover >>> some >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a >>> lot of >>> time. >>> >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. >>> >>> cheers >>> Wolfgang >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> CLUG mailing list >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org >> > > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 15:12:48 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:12:48 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <1263046368.24344.23.camel@wolfgang> Hi Colin, I have run the consistency check from within the RAID controller Firmware (when it boots up, it offers its own control panel), and that runs fine. 100% consistency. At the moment I can't get to the /var/log/syslog or messages, because they are on one of the lvm partitions on the RAID drive. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 13:11 +0000, colin johnston wrote: > Hi Wolfgang, > Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? > > Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? > > Colin > > On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > > > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > > references, you name it. > > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > > latest version. No difference at all. > > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > > even go there). > > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > > have to say that). > > > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > > the show. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > >> Dear Wolfgang, > >> > >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > >> benefit from your work. > >> > >> Many thanks in advance, > >> > >> Sam > >> > >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > >> > >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi all, > >>> > >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > >>> call > >>> on the group for some help? > >>> > >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > >>> RAM > >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > >>> card > >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > >>> me > >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > >>> almost > >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > >>> mostly > >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > >>> it > >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > >>> > >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > >>> the > >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > >>> other > >>> processes before I could get that to work. > >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > >>> to > >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > >>> as > >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > >>> cleanup. > >>> > >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > >>> and I > >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > >>> hosting > >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > >>> home, > >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: > >>> > >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > >>> can > >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > >>> All > >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > >>> I do > >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > >>> hangs. > >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > >>> Reboot. > >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. > >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > >>> are > >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > >>> backup > >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > >>> (I > >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > >>> b) > >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > >>> scratch. > >>> > >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > >>> some > >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > >>> lot of > >>> time. > >>> > >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > >>> > >>> cheers > >>> Wolfgang > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> CLUG mailing list > >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org > >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From sam.kuper at uclmail.net Sat Jan 9 15:52:46 2010 From: sam.kuper at uclmail.net (Sam Kuper) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 14:52:46 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. [...] > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement RAID controller solves the problems. Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) Cheers, Sam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100109/c249fdd3/attachment-0002.htm From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 17:03:37 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:03:37 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263053017.24344.27.camel@wolfgang> Well, lots of people seem to have been able to move drives under software RAID to other machines and then either rebuild the arrays or at least get their data off. Which is definitely an advantage. I think the true lesson to be learned here is to always keep OFFSITE backups. Always, always, always. Would have saved me a lot of trouble. But, I think I have now learned that lesson. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 14:52 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > [...] > > > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement > RAID controller solves the problems. > > > Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software > RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with > your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. > (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while > maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 > *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) > > > Cheers, > > > Sam > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From paul at the-hug.org Sat Jan 9 23:25:54 2010 From: paul at the-hug.org (Paul Oldham) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:25:54 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, > because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display > (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. > > other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive Three cell or six cell battery? -- Paul From dom at latter.org Sat Jan 9 23:39:42 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:39:42 +0100 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B4905AE.5090607@latter.org> Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? Either way, it sounds pretty good. One thing I'd like to know is how a modern netbook like this stacks up against an ultra-portable from a few years ago, performance-wise. Quick check of eBay finds a Dell D420 for ?229 buy-it now: Processor: U2500 Intel Core Duo 1.2GHz (2MB Cache, 800MHz FSB) Memory: 1GB (1024MB) DDR2 667MHz Hard Drive: 60GB (zif) 7200 RPM Display/Screen: 12.4" Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sat Jan 9 23:50:06 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:50:06 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B49081E.2020801@mansfield.co.uk> On 09/01/10 22:25, Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? > three cell battery; lasted me about three hours of fairly heavy usage on wifi - doing all the windows patching prior to making a final backup before wiping and repartioning to install ubuntu netbook remix with windows for emergencies. chances are you've missed it, I was passing through today and no sign of the display stand From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 14:19:25 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:19:25 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> Message-ID: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. I > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; mail > > me off list. > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 driver > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > to. I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can have it, otherwise I'll throw it away. Cheers, Tom From gareth.pullen at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 15:32:37 2010 From: gareth.pullen at gmail.com (Gareth Pullen) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:32:37 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), which uses the Realtek RTL8187L chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. It ended up costing me ~?20 including delivery, which is slightly more than for other cards, but I was after the RTL8187L chipset so I was happy to pay a little more. Gareth. 2010/1/21 Tom Ellis > On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. > I > > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; > mail > > > me off list. > > > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 > driver > > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > > to. > > I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it > seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. > > If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can > have > it, otherwise I'll throw it away. > > Cheers, > > Tom > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100121/0f629d92/attachment-0001.htm From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 17:20:11 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:20:11 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: <20100121162011.GA3476@weber> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 02:32:37PM +0000, Gareth Pullen wrote: > This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 > Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: > http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), > which uses the Realtek RTL8187L > chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's > automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. Off the top of my head, this is the same chipset as the Netgear WG111v3 and the Level One WNC-0305USB that I bought to replace it. From srusson at waitrose.com Sat Jan 23 23:35:47 2010 From: srusson at waitrose.com (Stephen Russon) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:35:47 -0000 Subject: Ubuntu access Message-ID: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the program. Most grateful for any solutions Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100123/a93b52d5/attachment-0001.htm From dom at latter.org Sun Jan 24 10:06:24 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:06:24 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5C0D90.6030502@latter.org> Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions Odd. I assume from the tone of your inquiry that you're a newcomer to Linux and so I'll cover some of the basics. Firstly - Linux / Unix is case sensitive, so if you gave a username of "Stephen" and now you're typing "stephen", you won't get in. Having said that, you probably need to reset the password. You should be able to get into recovery mode - section 8.1 here: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/system_administration_books/ubuntu_starter_guide/ch08.html Once in you'll need a terminal. Look under "Applications -> Accessories". Easiest way to check the username is probably "ls /home". Then reset the password with "passwd stephen" (or whatever it is). Once you've fixed it, boot back into normal mode. You might be tempted to just carry on using recovery mode, but, errr, don't. From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sun Jan 24 23:49:22 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:49:22 +0000 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and compare shift-3 with the hash key. From dom at latter.org Mon Jan 25 00:51:28 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:51:28 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B5CDD00.5040903@latter.org> Paul wrote: > On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: >> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard >> drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted >> these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused >> to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the >> program. Most grateful for any solutions > > a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the > keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice > versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and > compare shift-3 with the hash key. I tend to avoid "funny characters" entirely for this sort of reason. In fact I reckon 8 characters of lower-case alphanumeric is good enough for most situations, and that making the password longer is just as effective as using capital letters etc. Some maths: 8 x [a-z0-9] = 2.8 x 10^12 8 x [a-zA-Z0-9] = 2.2 x 10^14 9 x [a-z0-9] = 1.0 x 10^14 10 x [a-z0-9] = 3.7 x 10^15 From wawrzek at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 23:59:35 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 22:59:35 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: 2009/12/28 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau : Hi, > b) try and recover some > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a lot of > time. > If you were using Ext2/3/4 you can use Test disk to recovery. Yes, recovery from ext3 is possible. http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/linux-lotus-domino/recovering-files-from-an-lvm-or-ext3-partition-with-testdisk/ Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From magnus at therning.org Fri Jan 8 12:35:55 2010 From: magnus at therning.org (Magnus Therning) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 11:35:55 +0000 Subject: Chrome ignores /etc/hosts? In-Reply-To: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4536e91b0912231521r6905477cw7c5c5956f615cb7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Alastair Stevens wrote: > Hi Guys - has anyone else had trouble with Google Chrome ignoring ad > blocking? I've done the /etc/hosts thing on my netbook (don't want to > run a whole local DNS server on here), and the blocking works > perfectly in Firefox 3.0/3.5. But Google Chrome ignores it and finds > all the ad sites anyway. How can I dissuade it? Hmm, isn't it glibc (or something similarly low-level) that uses /etc/hosts to look up host names? Does chrome really come with its own, slightly broken, lookup code then? See http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a8nvd/google_chrome_does_not_use_your_hosts_file/ especially the comment second to last. Rather disturbing that one has to enter "http:" to make it work though... /M -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus?therning?org Jabber: magnus?therning?org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Fri Jan 8 14:39:43 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul M) Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:39:43 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= Message-ID: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive they just got some stock in - previous sorties were without luck HAND Paul From wawrzek at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 01:24:48 2010 From: wawrzek at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Wawrzyniec_Niewodnicza=C5=84ski?=) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 00:24:48 +0000 Subject: "Introduction to Embedded Linux" Message-ID: Hi, I've just found this event on cambridgenetwork http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=66121 Maybe someone will be interested in. Wawrzek -- Wawrzyniec Niewodnicza?ski vel Wawrzek Larry or LarryN Linux User #177124 E-MAIL: wawrzek at gmail.com PhD in Quantum Chemistry WWW: http://wawrzek.name MSc in Molecular Engineering JID: wawrzek at jabber.wroc.pl From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 12:57:03 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:57:03 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer references, you name it. First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the latest version. No difference at all. So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't even go there). As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I have to say that). SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy the show. cheers Wolfgang On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > benefit from your work. > > Many thanks in advance, > > Sam > > Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > > > On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > > wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > > call > > on the group for some help? > > > > I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > > RAM > > and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > > card > > of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > > me > > excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > > almost > > 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > > mostly > > Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > > it > > also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > > > > A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > > the > > web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > > apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > > other > > processes before I could get that to work. > > The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > > to > > respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > > as > > usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > > So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > > cleanup. > > > > Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > > and I > > decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > > hosting > > center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > > home, > > and now the really weird stuff starts: > > > > I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > > can > > do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > > All > > fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > > I do > > anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > > hangs. > > Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > > Reboot. > > Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > > fine. Reboot. Same again. > > So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > > are > > damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > > backup > > superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > > (I > > wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > > b) > > there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > > scratch. > > > > I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > > really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > > some > > of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > > lot of > > time. > > > > So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > > direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From colinj at mx5.org.uk Sat Jan 9 14:11:08 2010 From: colinj at mx5.org.uk (colin johnston) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 13:11:08 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: Hi Wolfgang, Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? Colin On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > references, you name it. > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > latest version. No difference at all. > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > even go there). > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > have to say that). > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > the show. > > cheers > Wolfgang > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: >> Dear Wolfgang, >> >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to >> benefit from your work. >> >> Many thanks in advance, >> >> Sam >> >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. >> >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" >>> wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could >>> call >>> on the group for some help? >>> >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of >>> RAM >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID >>> card >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given >>> me >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was >>> almost >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, >>> mostly >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And >>> it >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. >>> >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that >>> the >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird >>> other >>> processes before I could get that to work. >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long >>> to >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced >>> as >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and >>> cleanup. >>> >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, >>> and I >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper >>> hosting >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box >>> home, >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: >>> >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I >>> can >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. >>> All >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as >>> I do >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server >>> hangs. >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. >>> Reboot. >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions >>> are >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the >>> backup >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file >>> (I >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and >>> b) >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from >>> scratch. >>> >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover >>> some >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a >>> lot of >>> time. >>> >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. >>> >>> cheers >>> Wolfgang >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> CLUG mailing list >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org >> > > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 15:12:48 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:12:48 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <1263046368.24344.23.camel@wolfgang> Hi Colin, I have run the consistency check from within the RAID controller Firmware (when it boots up, it offers its own control panel), and that runs fine. 100% consistency. At the moment I can't get to the /var/log/syslog or messages, because they are on one of the lvm partitions on the RAID drive. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 13:11 +0000, colin johnston wrote: > Hi Wolfgang, > Have you tried to boot in a degraded raid5 state, ie one of the disks out, this should force a raid check of the volumes for consistancy ?? > > Also is there any info in /var/log/syslog or /var/adm/messages ? > > Colin > > On 9 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau wrote: > > > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > > > > I found and downloaded the HP Server Management Tools for this model, > > and extracted the Diagnostic Tools from that CD. Guess what, the > > diagnostics run perfectly fine, except for the CD-ROM drive (seems to > > have taken umbrage over not being used at all for 3 years). I found > > myself a CD-ROM drive from another machine, so that wasn't an issue. > > > > So all tests pass, no matter how often I run them. But the machine still > > crashes completely arbitrarily. And I can't get to the data on the hard > > drives. I can restore my logical volumes, but as soon as I do anything > > with the data, crash. Kernel oops, bad EIP value, unhandled null pointer > > references, you name it. > > First I thought "maybe I need a newer Knoppix CD", so I downloaded the > > latest version. No difference at all. > > So I took the server into work (I am basically an IT Manager). I > > remembered seing a DELL PE 2600 lying around in a corner. Hasn't been > > used for about a year, and is also a few years old. Why is that > > important? Well, by now I suspected some kind of hardware trouble, > > something the diagnostics didn't cover. However, due to the fact that > > all the partitions are on a hardware RAID5, the only way to get to the > > data was to use the same RAID controller in a different machine (there > > are plenty of stories on the Internet from people trying to migrate > > disks to a different controller and ending up with a huge mess, so don't > > even go there). > > As luck would have it, the PE2600 had a few long PCI slots, which is > > exactly what I neede for my HP NetRAID-2M card. In goes the card. The > > take the drives out of the HP caddies, take the PE drives out of their > > caddies, put my drives into the PE caddies and off we go. > > I disabled the onboard RAID in the PE2600 and the box boots. It sees the > > HP RAID controller, and the controller immediately sees the three drives > > and recognizes they are a RAID5 array (HP does produce solid stuff, I > > have to say that). > > > > SO, in goes the KNOPPIX CD and we reboot. At first, it looks fine, but > > soon the same troubles appear again. So by now it's clear: the RAID > > controller is the problem. I then fiddled with different RAM modules > > (needs 64MB or 128 MB registered ECC DIMM, won't accept anything else) > > until I found one that was accepted. But the problem persists. Which > > means, the RAM is not the problem, it's the card itself. > > > > Luckily enough there was a company who sold some surplus stock on ebay, > > including one of these controllers, for around ?20. So now I am waiting > > for delivery of the new controller and then we see further. > > > > I did manage to make disk images of two partitions (using dd), but they > > are essentually scrap. The filesystem is completely shot to pieces. > > Tools like Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can't even see any entries in the root > > folders and I still have to trawl through the entire raw block data to > > see whether there are actually any intact blocks left in the partition. > > Plus: I can't even say with any confidence that what I have in the disk > > image is actually what is on the disks, seeing that all of that data had > > to go through the faulty RAID controller in the first place. > > > > So, the saga continues. Stay tuned, more news to follow. Hope you enjoy > > the show. > > > > cheers > > Wolfgang > > > > > > On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:11 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > >> Dear Wolfgang, > >> > >> Very sorry to hear about those problems. Although I don't have any > >> additional suggestions for solving them, I'd like to encourage you to > >> send another email to this thread when you've finished your efforts, > >> to let us (and the rest of the internet's populace, who have access to > >> the Clug mailing list's archive) know what you think caused the > >> problems and how you went about fixing the rest of them. That way, > >> anyone else who happens to encounter similar issues will be able to > >> benefit from your work. > >> > >> Many thanks in advance, > >> > >> Sam > >> > >> Sent from my mobile; apologies for typos. > >> > >>> On 7 Jan 2010 17:46, "Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau" > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi all, > >>> > >>> I am a bit stuck with a problem, and I am wondering whether I could > >>> call > >>> on the group for some help? > >>> > >>> I have a HP Netserve 2000R, with 2 x 1133MHz Intel P3 CPUs, 2.5GB of > >>> RAM > >>> and 3 x 36GB SCSI drives in RAID5, run by the internal HP NetRAID > >>> card > >>> of the server. I bought the box about 3 years ago and it has given > >>> me > >>> excellent service over the years. In fact, the last reboot was > >>> almost > >>> 1000 days ago. I use this server mostly to host a few websites, > >>> mostly > >>> Drupal or WordPress based, plus the associated MySQL databases. And > >>> it > >>> also runs my live LATRIX site and a demo site. > >>> > >>> A few days ago it started giving me headaches. I first noticed that > >>> the > >>> web sites seemed down. So I ssh into the box, and want to restart > >>> apache. Wouldn't work. I had to kill all sorts of seemingly weird > >>> other > >>> processes before I could get that to work. > >>> The next day I noticed that my remote shells all took terribly long > >>> to > >>> respond to any command, or rather, the command output was produced > >>> as > >>> usual, but the prompt would only reappear minutes later. > >>> So I thought, OK, over Christmas I'll do a major upgrade and > >>> cleanup. > >>> > >>> Well, Fortuna cought me out. On 22/12, the sites were down again, > >>> and I > >>> decided to reboot the server (remotely, it is hosted in a proper > >>> hosting > >>> center) and it did not come back up. I have since taken the box > >>> home, > >>> and now the really weird stuff starts: > >>> > >>> I put a Knoppix CD in (5.0.1), the box boots, the KDE comes up and I > >>> can > >>> do all sorts of things. I have network access, I can browse the web. > >>> All > >>> fine. So I start working on the recovery of my data, and as soon as > >>> I do > >>> anything with any of those partitions, sooner or later the server > >>> hangs. > >>> Completely, totally. No keyboard, no mouse, no network, dead. > >>> Reboot. > >>> Memory test, comes up 100% fine. Hard drive consistency check, 100% > >>> fine. Reboot. Same again. > >>> So far I figured out that some of the superblocks in the partitions > >>> are > >>> damaged, but that's not a big issue, I can rebuild them from the > >>> backup > >>> superblocks. And my /etc/ folder in the root partition is now a file > >>> (I > >>> wonder how that happened, really), but a) I can probably fix it and > >>> b) > >>> there wasn't anything in /etc/ that couldn't be rebuilt from > >>> scratch. > >>> > >>> I've got backups of most of the stuff on the box. However I would a) > >>> really like to figure out what's wrong here and b) try and recover > >>> some > >>> of the stuff that wasn't included in the backups. Would save me a > >>> lot of > >>> time. > >>> > >>> So, if anyone could venture any guesses or point me in any useful > >>> direction, I would really appreciate any help I can get right now. > >>> > >>> cheers > >>> Wolfgang > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> CLUG mailing list > >>> clug at cambridge-lug.org > >>> Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CLUG mailing list > > clug at cambridge-lug.org > > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > From sam.kuper at uclmail.net Sat Jan 9 15:52:46 2010 From: sam.kuper at uclmail.net (Sam Kuper) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 14:52:46 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> Message-ID: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. [...] > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement RAID controller solves the problems. Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) Cheers, Sam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100109/c249fdd3/attachment-0003.htm From wolfgangs at manticoreit.com Sat Jan 9 17:03:37 2010 From: wolfgangs at manticoreit.com (Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:03:37 +0000 Subject: Help, please? In-Reply-To: <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <1262017207.4236.12.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001080911g294ee8a8t82947acc645984de@mail.gmail.com> <1263038223.24344.20.camel@wolfgang> <4126b3451001090652t7622eb0dp199033effe3b09c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1263053017.24344.27.camel@wolfgang> Well, lots of people seem to have been able to move drives under software RAID to other machines and then either rebuild the arrays or at least get their data off. Which is definitely an advantage. I think the true lesson to be learned here is to always keep OFFSITE backups. Always, always, always. Would have saved me a lot of trouble. But, I think I have now learned that lesson. cheers Wolfgang On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 14:52 +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > 2010/1/9 Wolfgang Schulze-Zachau > OK, here's a report so far. And I can tell you, it's not fun. > [...] > > > Thanks for the update. I'm interested to see whether the replacement > RAID controller solves the problems. > > > Incidentally, I've had Debian and Ubuntu machines running software > RAID 5 go weird on me before, and while that might be unconnected with > your troubles, it was enough to make me avoid RAID 5 since then. > (Which is a shame, because if optimising storage space while > maintaining some hard drive redundancy is the goal, then RAID 5 > *ought* to be ideal. Ho hum.) > > > Cheers, > > > Sam > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org From paul at the-hug.org Sat Jan 9 23:25:54 2010 From: paul at the-hug.org (Paul Oldham) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:25:54 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, > because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display > (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. > > other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive Three cell or six cell battery? -- Paul From dom at latter.org Sat Jan 9 23:39:42 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:39:42 +0100 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B4905AE.5090607@latter.org> Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? Either way, it sounds pretty good. One thing I'd like to know is how a modern netbook like this stacks up against an ultra-portable from a few years ago, performance-wise. Quick check of eBay finds a Dell D420 for ?229 buy-it now: Processor: U2500 Intel Core Duo 1.2GHz (2MB Cache, 800MHz FSB) Memory: 1GB (1024MB) DDR2 667MHz Hard Drive: 60GB (zif) 7200 RPM Display/Screen: 12.4" Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sat Jan 9 23:50:06 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:50:06 +0000 Subject: Acer 751H at Asda bargain =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A3227?= In-Reply-To: <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> References: <4B47359F.6020402@mansfield.co.uk> <4B490272.1080702@the-hug.org> Message-ID: <4B49081E.2020801@mansfield.co.uk> On 09/01/10 22:25, Paul Oldham wrote: > On 08/01/10 13:39, Paul M wrote: > >> I thought I'd share the love with CLUG about a bargain netbook at Asda, >> because it's quite a high spec for the price - it has 1366x768 display >> (glossy) 11" display which IMHO makes a huge difference. >> >> other things standard/typical: 1GB ram, 160GB hard drive > > Three cell or six cell battery? > three cell battery; lasted me about three hours of fairly heavy usage on wifi - doing all the windows patching prior to making a final backup before wiping and repartioning to install ubuntu netbook remix with windows for emergencies. chances are you've missed it, I was passing through today and no sign of the display stand From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 14:19:25 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:19:25 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> Message-ID: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. I > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; mail > > me off list. > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 driver > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > to. I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can have it, otherwise I'll throw it away. Cheers, Tom From gareth.pullen at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 15:32:37 2010 From: gareth.pullen at gmail.com (Gareth Pullen) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:32:37 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), which uses the Realtek RTL8187L chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. It ended up costing me ~?20 including delivery, which is slightly more than for other cards, but I was after the RTL8187L chipset so I was happy to pay a little more. Gareth. 2010/1/21 Tom Ellis > On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:06:09PM +0000, Tom Ellis wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 11:50:30AM +0000, Sam Kuper wrote: > > > 2009/12/3 Tom Ellis > > > > Can anyone recommend a USB wifi stick that works with Linux? > > > > > > I have a Linux-compatible NetGear USB wifi stick I don't use any more. > I > > > forget the model. Interested? If so, I can bring it next time we meet; > mail > > > me off list. > > > > The Netgear WG111v3 works natively with Linux now using the rtl8187 > driver > > (kernel 2.6.31), so it was very easy to set up, i.e. I didn't really have > > to. > > I borrowed this USB Wifi stick from Sam but after working for a while it > seems to be broken. It gives a USB error when plugged in. > > If anyone would like it to try to fix it please let me know and you can > have > it, otherwise I'll throw it away. > > Cheers, > > Tom > _______________________________________________ > CLUG mailing list > clug at cambridge-lug.org > Website: http://www.cambridge-lug.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100121/0f629d92/attachment-0002.htm From tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk Thu Jan 21 17:20:11 2010 From: tom-lists-clug2 at jaguarpaw.co.uk (Tom Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:20:11 +0000 Subject: USB Wi-fi recommendation In-Reply-To: References: <20091203114724.GA7571@weber> <4126b3450912030350p74a33323o2dc0cb3f0323b793@mail.gmail.com> <20091204190608.GA10542@weber> <20100121131925.GA6833@weber> Message-ID: <20100121162011.GA3476@weber> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 02:32:37PM +0000, Gareth Pullen wrote: > This might be a little late, but I recently purchased a "Canyon CNP-WF518 > Platinum WIFI USB Dongle" from "MFL Qualtech" (link: > http://www.mflqualtech.com/canyon-cnp-wf518-platinum-wifi-usb-dongle-603-p.asp), > which uses the Realtek RTL8187L > chipset in it. I have had no problems at all with this dongle - it's > automatically picked up by udev which presents it as wlan0 for me. Off the top of my head, this is the same chipset as the Netgear WG111v3 and the Level One WNC-0305USB that I bought to replace it. From srusson at waitrose.com Sat Jan 23 23:35:47 2010 From: srusson at waitrose.com (Stephen Russon) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:35:47 -0000 Subject: Ubuntu access Message-ID: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the program. Most grateful for any solutions Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.infowares.com/archive/clug/attachments/20100123/a93b52d5/attachment-0002.htm From dom at latter.org Sun Jan 24 10:06:24 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:06:24 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5C0D90.6030502@latter.org> Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions Odd. I assume from the tone of your inquiry that you're a newcomer to Linux and so I'll cover some of the basics. Firstly - Linux / Unix is case sensitive, so if you gave a username of "Stephen" and now you're typing "stephen", you won't get in. Having said that, you probably need to reset the password. You should be able to get into recovery mode - section 8.1 here: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/system_administration_books/ubuntu_starter_guide/ch08.html Once in you'll need a terminal. Look under "Applications -> Accessories". Easiest way to check the username is probably "ls /home". Then reset the password with "passwd stephen" (or whatever it is). Once you've fixed it, boot back into normal mode. You might be tempted to just carry on using recovery mode, but, errr, don't. From paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk Sun Jan 24 23:49:22 2010 From: paul+clug at mansfield.co.uk (Paul) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:49:22 +0000 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> Message-ID: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: > I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard > drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted > these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused > to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the > program. Most grateful for any solutions a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and compare shift-3 with the hash key. From dom at latter.org Mon Jan 25 00:51:28 2010 From: dom at latter.org (dom at latter.org) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:51:28 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu access In-Reply-To: <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> References: <78FEE61CCE8941A48C5066041CB2BDF1@STEPHEN> <4B5CCE72.20902@mansfield.co.uk> Message-ID: <4B5CDD00.5040903@latter.org> Paul wrote: > On 23/01/10 22:35, Stephen Russon wrote: >> I have just installed Ubuntu 9.04 in a separate partition on my hard >> drive. When asked to allocate a username and password I did so and noted >> these down carefully. But when it came to accessing Ubuntu, it refused >> to recognise them. How can I proceed? It is impossible to get into the >> program. Most grateful for any solutions > > a typical problem is when people use the hash key in a password and the > keymaps changes, so you started off in GB and ended up in US or vice > versa; try typing the password in the username box temporarily and > compare shift-3 with the hash key. I tend to avoid "funny characters" entirely for this sort of reason. In fact I reckon 8 characters of lower-case alphanumeric is good enough for most situations, and that making the password longer is just as effective as using capital letters etc. Some maths: 8 x [a-z0-9] = 2.8 x 10^12 8 x [a-zA-Z0-9] = 2.2 x 10^14 9 x [a-z0-9] = 1.0 x 10^14 10 x [a-z0-9] = 3.7 x 10^15