August 2013 - luv-main

iptables-save output using dotted quad netmask rather than CIDR
by Tim Connors 13 Dec '13

13 Dec '13

iptables-save on rhel5 outputs: -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -s 12.3.4.5/255.255.0.0 -p tcp -m tcp -j ACCEPT whereas rhel6 outputs -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -s 12.3.4.5/16 -p tcp -m tcp -j ACCEPT Wanting to normalise iptables-save to one form or the other (preferably using the dotted quad netmask), the best I can come up with is a line by line grep (for optimisation perhaps, since a match wont happen often) for /<number> and then extract the number, pass to cidr2mask, and replace /<number> in that line (this is part of a self contained shell script that will be executed on the fly on another host, so I'd rather not rely on anything that isn't already in RHEL, ie no writing a perl sript myself unless it's a one liner perl -e thing). What flag to iptables-save am I missing where it does this for me? -- Tim Connors

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Cheap GPL router - $11 from MSY
by Andrew Worsley 15 Oct '13

15 Oct '13

Just got what looks to be a pretty good deal on what appears to have GPL version of the code made available. Got this D-Link Modem - hopes weren't high but it appears pretty reasonable 802.11bgn + 8 LAN ports switch + WAN router. I noticed that it contained a "D-LINK GPL Code Statement" with link http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/GPL.asp which turns out to be their GPL web interface which lists masses of products and a download links to source code which includes my DIR-632 (took a little time to find it amongst the massive number of items). I am downloading it now - 185Mb. See what you actually get in that. The modem itself is rather nice - it has most features you could think of (no CLI though, Web interface) and has a built in manual that explains each feature in detail! I suspect they are letting them go at that price because the new 802.11ac modems have arrived. See http://www.msy.com.au/images/ADbanner/eletter/04042013/online/html.html for the original promotion. Anyway thought others might be interested in this and perhaps an example of GPL compliance that seems pretty good... Andrew

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The End of LUV, Inc? An Example of Federalism and Unitary Organisational Structures
by Lev Lafayette 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

In a few weeks, Linux Users of Victoria, Inc., will be holding another Annual General Meeting. But this one is somewhat different to others. At this meeting, the very existence of LUV as an independent organisation may come to an end. A motion is on the agenda that LUV dis-incorporates and merges into Linux Australia, Inc., as a subcommittee of that group. It is an issue which I personally have given some serious thought to over the past several months, and more fleeting consideration over the past few years. LUV is one of the the oldest (since 1993), most active (three speakers per month), and largest (c1500 members) Linux organisations in the world. We have been a mainstay behind such events as Software Freedom Day, install-fests, regional mini-conferences, and of course, our regular beginners workshops and technical talks. All of this, one hastens to add, will not change at all with the proposed dis-incorporation. What will change is that LUV will not be an independent organisation. Our assets, such as they are, will be transferred to Linux Australia, in accordance to the Act governing Incorporated Associations in Victoria. Our income and expenditure will also be legally part of Linux Australia as well, although that body has indicated that there is some room for autonomy in those areas. At the very least, Linux events in Victoria that require funding could go directly to the national body, rather than to the state one which tends to have somewhat more meagre financial resources. An example would be the establishment of more regional chapters. We will be part of a national organisation and will be able to have more direct input into country-wide affairs, including national policy, as they are related to Linux. Our administrative overhead, which it is admitted is not particularly onerous, should also decline. Plus, there are significant economies of scale and of network scope in being part of a larger group. One also hopes that we will see people who have hitherto been more involved in Linux Australia from Victoria, participating in activities of the Victorian subcommittee of LA. Overall however, it must be noted that Linux Australia is a unitary body, not a federal one. Members of the committee of Linux Australia are elected from the membership as a whole, not as nominees from the respective subcommittees and, as subcommittees only exist with the approval of the LA committee, they could be disbanded in part or entirely, at any time. The circumstances that this would arise would indeed be quite extraordinary, but it is certainly something that must be considered. I admit that I am much more in favour of bottom-up, federalist organisations (e.g., a national committee from regional LUGs), rather than those of the unitary model (e.g., a national organisation with local subcommittees). I also acknowledge the substantial benefits that arise through being part of a larger organisations. Whilst Linux Australia is a product of its own history and perhaps does not represent what I consider the most optimal organisational structure, especially for an interest which is primarily the result of of the energy of local volunteer activists. There is of course the possibility that LA may consider changing its organisational structure over time. Still, if this does mean the end of LUV, Inc. we can certainly be very proud of what has been achieved under our name in the past twenty years. LUV was there, from the very beginning of Linux, when a rag-tag team of wild-eyed volunteer coders declared that they could take on the massive, multi-billion dollar proprietary operating systems, by opening the code to all, by making it free to modify and to distribute, and produce something that was technically superior by any meaningful metric. That was truly revolutionary. LUV, Inc.? You're a superstar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_zLBsRYD8w -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GCertPM, MBA mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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Re: The End of LUV, Inc? An Example of Federalism and Unitary Organisational Structures
by Petros 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Hi Luv, to be honest I am sometimes surprised about arguments arising from formal/legal matters. I am a club committee member of a ski club (Melbourne Nordic) with an ancient constitution, printed on a typewriter if I remember correctly. A while ago some legal rules changed (don't ask me for the right term, some Corporation Act or so) To satisfy these legal act some changes are advisable so we may change our constitution to be on a safe side if issues arise (e.g. related to liability, insurance etc) There are some model rules, someone made the effort to tweak them that they become our new constitution and we have an AGM about it in a few weeks time. Really, nobody wants to read this. If you are suffering from insomnia I may sent the constitution to you. It is about the aim of the club, how many people it needs to change a light bulb.. (well, if you read this you're not asleep yet;-) It does not change anything substantial - but still there is an uneasiness in some.. what sinister motives could the committee have to change the constitution? There are none - we want to make it easy to keep the club running and not being caught with an outdated constitution if there is an issue and there is a lawyer looking into it (e.g. insurance companies have plenty of them;-) As far as I understand joining LA and running LUV as a regional informal group is suggested to: - Make life easier (one insurance, one committee in the country that has to suffer the legal stuff is enough, one website for the list..) - Everybody gets counted, LA has more weight advocating Open Source if there are xy members more It does not kill the list, the meetings don't change: They are the heart of the LUV, I think. There are small issues e.g. related to sponsoring but I do not see a problem. I don't think there are "evil LA people" pocketing donations earmarked for LUV. I cannot see that the meetings get overrun by evil Sydneysiders hell-bent to ruin them, I don't think the Queenslanders just wait for the mailing lists moving to a LA server to shut them down. Until now I did not care for the legal structure making up LUV at all, and I don't know how many people really want to read constitutions etc. Honestly, why bother? So just go ahead, I think. But if not - I am not that sad either. The legal structure is the last thing I am worried about. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-announce] Reminder: LUV AGM (3 Sept) and proxies and deadline
by Rohan McLeod 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

Les Kitchen wrote: > > Proxy form follows below. You can copy'n'paste it into your email. > > -- All the best, Les Kitchen (as LUV Secretary). > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > APPENDIX 3 > > FORM OF APPOINTMENT OF PROXY > > I, > _________________________________________________________________________, > > of > _________________________________________________________________________ > > being a member of > > Linux Users of Victoria, Inc. > > appoint > ____________________________________________________________________ > > of > _________________________________________________________________________ Les; I am another who can't make it to "1st Tue meetings due to a clash with the Existentialist Society; so; 1/ is the proxy form asking for my address at the first line commencing "of" ? ; 2/ if for example I was using Lev as my proxy, what should go at the second line commencing "of" ? thanks Rohan McLeod

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Tracking broadband usage
by Colin Fee 31 Aug '13

31 Aug '13

I want to track/monitor/log our home broadband usage, specifically I want to track where the quota is being used e.g. sites, services. I can get usage meters from our ISP (Internode) but these only show an aggregate of how much we've used. I've looked at tools like bandwidthd and cacti and have installed bandwidth to see what it can show me. Is there anything I can install onto my linux server that watch and log what we use when? -- Colin Fee tfeccles(a)gmail.com

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Why I will vote *AGAINST* the dis-incorporation of LUV motion and why I also ask You to do the same.
by Daniel Jitnah 30 Aug '13

30 Aug '13

Why I will vote *AGAINST* the dis-incorporation of LUV motion and why I also ask You to do the same. On 3 September, the LUV AGM will be held. Its Members will be asked to cast their vote on undoubtedly the most important motion ever brought before them in the history of LUV. This motion will ask them to vote on a resolution to: "Dis-incorporate LUV as an incorporated body in the State of Victoria, and as a consequence the activities currently undertaken by LUV will be carried out by a Sub-Committee of Linux Australia (LA)". While the actual wording of the motion may vary, in essence the above is what Members will be asked to vote on. I have decided to vote *AGAINST* this motion, and I ask you to emphatically reject it as well. I explain further below why I believe it should be voted *AGAINST*. Furthermore, I believe that rather than just me voting against, I am also considering moving an alternative motion at the earliest opportunity that could bring substantial gain to all, and that address the reasons advanced in support of the proposed dissolution motion AND at the same time lead to a range of longer term benefits to LUV and LA , and potentially the wider Linux and Open Source Community in Australia. ************ Note that for LUV Members to even get an opportunity to consider and vote on the alternative motion that I am considering, there is no option but to vote *AGAINST* the disincorporation motion, if the latter is presented before my proposed motion. ************ It appears that some of you feel that there is an air of "fait accompli" floating about on the mailing lists about the disincorporation motion. I may respond directly and specifically to this issue in a separate post later, as there are matters which may be considered as important associated to this, and that LUV Members might wish to be made aware of. I am still making up my mind on whether in my capacity of LUV Vice-President it is incumbent upon me to bring these to your attention. It is very far from the truth that this is a "done deal"! I believe that the proposed LUV disincorporaton motion must get an *AGAINST* vote because: 1. It achieves nothing at all and in the long term potentially can cause adverse consequences on Linux and Open Source Community in Victoria and elsewhere. 2. It is bad for LUV Members. 3. Worse, it is bad for LUV as an incorporated body 4. And worse still it is most probably bad for LA in the longer term! Please consider, what you are being asked to vote on: "... disincorporation of LUV, Inc., and to convert Linux Users of Victoria as a subcommittee of Linux Australia, Inc.In the event of winding up, the assets of the association must be disposed in accordance to the provisions of the Act." My understanding is that this move is supposed to: (1). relieve members of the LUV Committee of having to deal with administrative duties and thereby allowing them to concentrate on tasks and activities that are more directly beneficial to LUV Members. (2). bring efficiencies in resource usage and eliminate duplication of some tasks. (3). possibly bring improved access to LA funds for activities and improved financial situation. (4). somehow be good because Victorian Members on the LA Council will be able to be more involved. (1). above, presumes that the Committee members believe that they are burdened by duties that is affecting their ability to carry out activities more directly beneficial to Members. It is even implied that time spent attending to administrative tasks constitute misused time, and that the Committee Member's effort would better redirected to more 'Linuxy' activities. However in the 4 years that I have been a member of the LUV Committee, including 2 years as Vice President, I cannot recall single moment where any action has failed due to any Committee Member being unable to put in the time and effort toward achieving that action because he or she was forced to attend to another administrative task of LUV instead. There is no evidence or even any indication, that Committee Members actions are being held back by administrative burden. There is no reason to believe that if a Committee Member did not have to attend to an administrative task, that Member would have been attending to a 'Linuxy' task instead. Lets remember that LUV Committee Members are volunteers. They bring in skills and values to LUV of their own accord. In my view to even suggest that they are misusing or wasting their time is bordering on insult! I utterly reject the idea that the time, effort and diligence put into his duties by Wen Lin as Treasurer of LUV in the last few years was misused time on his part! And that applies to every other Committee Member who have devoted their time and effort in the past. To me this is *their* contribution to LUV in the manner that they see *they can best serve* the organisation. And I am grateful to everyone of them, and will never attempt to diminish the value of their contribution. I therefore cannot contemplate voting for a motion that devalues their efforts by suggesting that it was misused time. (2). above. address what is essentially an internal organisational issue. There are many ways to address this and disincorporation is certainly NOT the only option! In the last 4 years, the Committee has never had to consider this issue at any length, if ever at all. Its not an issue impeding LUV activities. To suggest that LUV has a problem here that can only be resolved by a disincorporaton is extremely misguided. However I agree that attempting to improve efficiency is a worthy task. This is one of the reasons that I am considering an alternative motion, that can bring improved efficiency while preserving LUV intact as incorporated body and with all the gains that it has made over the time of its existence so far. (3). above, is probably the *most misguided* belief here!!. In fact it puts the resulting LUV-Subcommittee under LA in a substantially much worse situation financially, worse still this Subcommittee is left with NO financial situation at all!! All its assets are transferred to LA!! It has nothing in its own right - ZERO! What's left is a "reassurance" that it will be able to access an amount of money. Who in their right mind will give away their house fully owned by them, to a third party, on the reassurance that they will be able to live in the house, when there is absolutely NO reason why they should leave their house in the first place?? It has been suggested that the LUV-Subcommittee will be able to access more of LA's fund compared to LUV. Indeed one of the funding stream available to LUV at present is the Linux Australia Grant Scheme, the purpose of which is to assist organisations and individuals undetake 'linuxy' or 'fossy' activities and projects. The fact is a Subcommittee of LA cannot access this fund!! It does not meet the criteria to even apply for the fund! *And rightly* so, or else there would be a direct conflict of interest for LA to approve money to itself (as a Subcommittee) from a fund intended to help other organisations and individuals. But currently LUV has full entitlement to this fund. It has in the past received money from it, and indeed as a LUG it probably is in a better position to qualify for this money than other organisations or individual. The LUV-Subcommittee will be disqualified from accessing this fund. (see http://linux.org.au/projects/grants) This leaves the LUV Subcommittee having to rely on internal operating expenses of LA to fund all activities it may wish to carry out, and dependent on the budget policies of the latter. Indeed that is how it should be, as a subcommittee it becomes entirely dependent on operating expenses of its mother organisation to fund its activities. This also means it will have to compete with other Sub-Committees, and allocated funds only at the discretion of the Council as it sees fit. It can only spend funds as the LA Council may allow it to do so. It has no autonomy on its own right, but only reassurances of such. Which brings me to another VERY important consideration! The LA council is only elected for one year. (btw only a few months left for this council to run its course) There is absolutely ZERO guarantee that a future Council will want to honour any "reassurrances" given by the current one. A future Council has every right to have a completely different set of priorities and agenda where it considers that the current subcommittee structure does not meet its aims. It may not consider that the activities carried by a LUV-subcommittee are of any value towards it achieving its mission. It can decide to implement policies at odds with a LUV-Subcommittee. Even worse, it can even be elected on a platform whereby it will review the existing sub-committee structure and replace it with another one, where a LUV-subcommittee may have a very diminished or even no role at all to play. I cannot over emphasise that these are genuine risks be it big or small. This brings me to the sponsorship issue, while the LA Council may give reassurances (fwiw!) that the LUV-Subcommittee will still be able to receive sponsorship as it currently does, what it cannot do is guarantee that the Sponsors will see the same incentive for them to give sponsorship to a Subcommittee of LA, as it currently does to LUV - It is a completely different proposition to give money to a Subcommittee with no legal rights of its own, as it is to give money to a body incorporated under State laws (of Vic)! If instead the Sponsor decides to give the money straight to LA, then the LUV subcommittee has NO reason to claim any right to this money, and it is entirely up to LA how they spend it. Morever there are sources of sponsorship which will likely become out of reach to a sub-committee of LA. LUV in the past has received money from the Victorian Government through Multi- Media Victoria. (eg past Software Freedom Day events) It is hardly conceivable that the Victorian Government would consider giving any sponsorship to a body incorporated in the state of NSW, which LA is. It cannot even give money to a sub-committee, and will have to be to the mother organisation, if it ever did. (4). the view that it will somehow be better because Victorian Members of the LA Council will be able to be more involved, is also fundamentally misguided. I refer to a post to the list by Lev Lafayette where he elaborates on the difference between between a Unitary and Federated organisation. In a Unitary organisation, which LA is, Council members have NO requirement to "look after their constituent" so to say. In fact acting in a way that explicitly benefit a group of people based on the fact that they are regionally closer to them may well be viewed as inappropriate and constitute a conflict of interest. What would one think if the current President of LA who is a Tasmanian took a decision or acted in a way that specifically benefited Tasmanians at the expense of others? I doubt that this would be viewed with favour. Furthermore, there is nothing now that prevents the Victorian members of the LA Council to be more involved in LUV. This is matter for them on how they are able to organise their time. Kathy Reid, the current LA Secretary is already involved in the Geelong Chapter of LUV. A disincorporation of LUV will unlikely change anything in Kathy's ability to attend to Victorian matters. What I have set in the paragraphs above invalidates all the 4 claims proposed in favour of the disincorporation motion. This motion bad for LA. This motion may well lead to a situation detrimental to LA. It creates a precedence (actually it adds to one already created earlier), whereby LUGs or other friendly organisation have their activities taken over by LA Sub-committees. Imagine a situation where all similar organisations from left, right and centre become LA Subcommittees, we end up with LA heavily burdened by the need to support and administer the activities of many Sub-committees! It is highly likely that there will be conflicts arising between the needs of these sub-committees. I cannot see how this can be good for LA or the LUV-Subcommittee. This is why I said at the start, this motion achieves nothing, because we end up in a situation where the LUV-subcommittee can be caughtup in administrative burden higher up the organisation hierarchy, with potentially worse effects on LUV activities than the "supposed admin burden" placed upon its Committee Members now! In fact the LUV-Subcommittee is left at the mercy of a larger administration. Furthermore as alluded to by Les Kitchen in one of his post on the list, it also creates a single point of failure in the Linux Open Source Community, a single centre of decision making or power, whereby a single mistake or poor decision by LA can lead to adverse effects on all of the Linux and Open Source Community in Australia. I realise we are not there, but a disincorporation and convertion to a LA Subcommittee constitute a step in that direction. Thats BAD, very BAD If its bad for LA, how can it be good for a Subcommittee of LA? In fact there is one way that this motion, if passed can bring tangible gains to LA. This is whereby LA, after absorbing LUV, acquiring its assets (ie very modest bank balance), possibly gaining access to LUV's current sponsorship moneys, actually or/and subsequently dissolves the LUV-Subcommittee!! I simply cannot in all justice support the motion of disincorporation of LUV and have explained the main reasons for my decision to vote *AGAINST*. If any of the above resonates with your views, I believe you also will be to also be reject this motion. I hope I have helped you form your opinion on whats being proposed. ..... And I still have not said anything yet about the motion under consideration my me! That will come in a subsequent post. Cheers Daniel. PS: it was a long read, but I don't know if making it shorter would have given this matter the justice it deserves.

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Adding wireless to my network - OpenWRT?
by Jason White 28 Aug '13

28 Aug '13

I've discussed my wireless needs on the list before - I'm thinking that the best solution would just be to buy a device that will take OpenWRT and serve as an 802.11n access point. My network configuration: Desktop Linux workstation with ADSL PCI card installed, also running DHCP, Bind, Postfix and radvd for IPv6 - native IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack connection to Internode and a static Ipv4 address. FreeSWITCH (for VoIP) is running directly on this machine so it isn't behind NAT. Gigabit switch -> printer, SIP phone, laptop on local LAN. Now I want to add 802.11 wireless for phones, tablets, etc., both IPv4 and IPv6. Given previous discussions and my research, I'm considering just buying a device that will take OpenWRT, attaching it to the Gigabit switch and either bridging the wired and wireless networks or routing the packets between separate networks. Hardware suggestions would be welcome, as would any alternative ideas on how best to proceed with this. One option would be the devices that the Buffer Bloat project is recommending - all of the drivers are open.

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Re: Copy files to an audio player and playing order
by Petros 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

From: "David" <bouncingcats(a)gmail.com> > On 27 August 2013 22:48, Peter <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au> wrote: >> >> I have a digital recorder / player, a Sony PCM-M10. >> >> It can take FAT formated Micro SD cards. >> >> I can access them via USB, mount them and copy folders and files. >> >> However, there is one glitch: the order of the files. I call them >> 01_dada.wav, 02_ased.wav etc. ad hope it plays it in that order. > > [..] > >> Any ideas or experiences how to fix it? > > Hi Peter > > I typed "fat directory order" into a search engine and with 5 seconds effort > found this apparently related info: > http://www.murraymoffatt.com/software-problem-0010.html Thanks. I found fatsort there too (see other mail) > I have no additional knowledge to offer you but I thought I might as well > send it to you as you don't mention having done any searching yourself: I searched but did not use the same words. I was not even sure yet what the reason was (just guessed it) > I assume you sent this to luv-main because you are using a linux machine to > copy the files? That page does emphasises other offtopic operating systems > and non-linux filesystems, but it does include a couple of > references to linux utilities and hopefully might provide you other > useful insight into > your problem. I am using Linux (u Ubuntu desktop). The recorder/player came only with a toaster with some scribbling on it ("Microsoft Windows" etc.) It is under my coffee mug now. It was an utility + understanding problem. I was not sure what caused the random playlist order - creation time? Directory order? It seems to be directory order + a MSGLIST.MSF file (created after scanning a SD card using the directory order) The MSGLIST.MSF was created after my first copy in random order (tar -cf - . | tar -xf -C /mnt) and most likely not updated after I copied second time, this time in sorted order. Thanks Peter

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Re: Copy files to an audio player and playing order
by Petros 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

From: "Glenn McIntosh" <neonsignal(a)memepress.org> > On 27/08/13 22:48, Peter wrote: >> for f in `find . -type f`; do cp $f /mnt/$f; done > > Apart from not catering for embedded spaces in filenames, the 'find' > here won't sort the files into a collation order. Sorry, I wanted to pipe it to sort (find . -type f | sort) but forgot to write it down. The white space problem was exactly the reason while I did not start it last night. Too late for thinking;-) > Also, there's a program 'fatsort' in the package repositories which will > do recursive directory sorting on FAT16 and FAT32, though I haven't > tried it myself. It worked but it does not fix it. It looks as my problem is another file found on the SD card, MSGLIST.MSF. http://www.sony.com.au/support/faq/1187263 "MSGLIST.MSF is a file that contains information such as the order of folders, playback order of audio files and recording date and time. If user connects the recorder to the computer, the MSGLIST.MSF files are displayed but do not delete or change these files. If these files are operated, the saved files may be broken or the recorder may not work correctly." Oh well, I guess because my first copy was random it remembers the unsorted list. I deleted the MSGLIST.MSF file and it was recreated. And now, most likely because the FAT entries are sorted, the order is right. So next time: 1. Copy 2. fatsort before disconnecting. Thanks! Peter

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