April 2014 - luv-main

Interface bonding and ADSL
by Toby Corkindale 24 Jun '14

24 Jun '14

Hey all, Does anyone have real-world experience of using linux's interface bonding on public networks? (In the bandwidth-aggregation mode, not the redundancy mode) I was wondering how I could make the following setup work: * Rent a VPS in Melbourne with four IP addresses * Get four (or just two) ADSL connections wired up to home * Have your VPS connect four VPN connections from itself back to each of your home IPs. * Bond all four interfaces together * Create a fifth VPN connection, this time going over the bonded-virtual-interface between VPS and home, and then configure your home server to use that link as the default route? It sounds pretty messy and I'm not sure it'd actually work in practice; the routing tables would be hell to get right. Are there any guides already out there? Cheers, Toby

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Re: Linux PPPoE bridge mode issues - again
by Peter Ross 12 Jun '14

12 Jun '14

From: "James Harper" <james.harper(a)bendigoit.com.au> >> >> I posted last year about a problem I was having with Linux's PPPoE >> functionality in regards to a specific modem. At the time I put it >> down to a dodgy modem and moved on, but now I've hit it on another >> modem, and twice seems more than coincidence. > > You aren't a Telstra customer are you? > > http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/2485wh/telstra_internet_traffic_… As said, I had similar issues - and it is an Optus network. For the case mentioned here, I would go with the commentary on the mentioned page: ITT: The evidence posted just indicates there's a fucked up router somewhere in Telstra (or along the path) that's screwing with large packets, nothing here proves Telstra monitoring. Why it only affects some hosts? Because routing isn't the same for all destinations. Regards Peter

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Nexus tablet choice
by Russell Coker 07 May '14

07 May '14

I'm looking at buying a new tablet. It will mostly be for watching video, Youtube and movies downloaded from the net, but as with most general purpose computers it will get used for lots of other things. The main options I'm considering now are the Google Nexus tablets. The Nexus line seem to have good quality hardware, good specs, and reasonable prices. They also should be easier to root if I want to run Ubuntu or something on them later. For tablets with 16G of RAM the Nexus 7 is $299 and the Nexus 10 is $469. Currently the 32G Nexus 10 is out of stock so I'm mostly comparing the 16G Nexus 7 with the Nexus 10, if I choose the Nexus 7 then I'll think about whether it's worth paying for extra storage (probably will be given that there's no SD card support). Does anyone have any experience with them? What about comparing 10" and 7" tablets generally? Obviously 10" is better for watching movies and a lot better if more than one person is watching. 10" should also be better for blogging. Is the 10" tablet worth the extra $170 and losing the option of more storage (or alternatively waiting for Google to get stock)? https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_16gb_2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_7_(2013_version) https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_10_16GB?id=nexus_10_16gb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_10 Above are the Play Store and Wikipedia pages for the tablets in question. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Disabling Debian/Ubuntu apt archives
by Toby Corkindale 02 May '14

02 May '14

Hi, Linux distros using the apt package management system tend to cache downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives/ If you have many very similar machines set up, then you'll almost certainly have a HTTP proxy cache setup for them to retrieve packages through, to reduce huge duplication of downloads. This essentially obsoletes the /var/cache/apt/archives, though. And when you're running dozens of virtual machines, it'd be nice to avoid storing all these duplicate files. What's the right way to disable it? I see I can adjust the max size and age via the APT::Archives::Max{Age,Size} parameters, but what about just turning it off altogether? Cheers, Toby

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Disabling/bypassing UUID on Ubuntu Trusty
by Carl Turney 30 Apr '14

30 Apr '14

Hi All, Want to disable UUID, and address hardware directly by device and partition specs. Did it on my current system (~ 4 years ago), happy. But see differences in files/contents in Trusty, and want your expert advice, before I start changing things. My knowledge is low. (Barely understand what I'm writing.) Can follow clear simple step-by-step instructions, or grateful for links to same. New system is Gigabyte MB, IntelCore i5 CPU, SATA HDD, dual booting on 64-bit Windoze plus just-released Trusty 64-bit Desktop. Here's what I =would= do... (1) Edit /etc/default/grub to remove the # at the start of line... #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID="true" (2) Edit /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib to comment out the 3 lines starting... if FS_UUID= (etc.) ... but that line doesn't exist in that file. (3) Edit /etc/fstab and change very instance of UUID= (etc.) into the corresponding drive and partition e.g. /dev/sda2 (4) Edit /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume and change UUID=RESUME= (etc.) into the corresponding drive and partition e.g. /dev/sda2 (5) Run update-grub (6) Then re-do all the above each time I do a kernel upgrade. So please: Your advice, keeping to my original goal of disabling/bypassing UUID. What am I forgetting? What am I doing wrong? Thanks VERY much, Carl Turney Bayswater, Vic

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python-iview
by Russell Coker 29 Apr '14

29 Apr '14

Recently python-iview stopped working because the ABC apparently started sending unicode characters where the previous code didn't work. The new python-iview in GIT depends on Version 3+ of Python and the Debian/Wheezy Python build system doesn't seem designed for building that - or at least it's well beyong my Python coding ability. I used the below patch to convert the text in question to plain ASCII and make the program work again (the change to the #! line isn't needed). Note that the ABC doesn't want us to create archives of programs downloaded from their web site. But if you do want to create such archives I can recommend a BTRFS RAID-1 array of two cheap SATA disks for that purpose. 3TB SATA disks are dirt cheap nowadays. The worst of the BTRFS problems I described in my last LUV talk only occur when a filesystem is filled and a 3TB RAID array isn't something you'll fill quickly. --- a/iview-cli +++ b/iview-cli @@ -1,9 +1,10 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python +#!/usr/bin/python from __future__ import print_function import sys, os, getopt import os.path import iview.config +import codecs try: import configparser as ConfigParser # Python 3 @@ -80,7 +81,7 @@ def print_series_items(items, indent=''): url = item['livestream'] else: url = item['url'] - print(indent + item['title'] + '\t(' + url + ')') + print(indent + item['title'].encode('ascii', 'ignore') + '\t(' def print_auth(): config() -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Firefox OS phone - Wireless to PABX?
by Peter Ross 29 Apr '14

29 Apr '14

Hi all, I bought a Firefox phone.. and it does not connect to the Telstra network (Optus works, btw, but I have a Telstra contract at the moment). It works using WLAN. However, I wanted to play with it anyway.. Do you know a way to connect it to a PABX as Asterisk? Regards Peter

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Linux PPPoE bridge mode issues - again
by Toby Corkindale 29 Apr '14

29 Apr '14

Hi, I posted last year about a problem I was having with Linux's PPPoE functionality in regards to a specific modem. At the time I put it down to a dodgy modem and moved on, but now I've hit it on another modem, and twice seems more than coincidence. The problem is that path MTU detection seem to break when the "bad" modems are involved. So the Linux box running pppoe is OK, because it knows the interface has an mtu+mru of 1492, but masqueraded clients do not. You can work around the problem a bit, by having an iptables rule with --clamp-mss-to-pmtu, but it's a kludge.. and importantly, only required for two of these four modems. The other two work just fine *with apparently identical configurations* (ie. LLC / bridged) Can anyone think of a reason for this? The rp-pppoe and other mailing lists offer tantalising hints that I'm not alone, but sadly those threads do not lead to any solutions. Modems that work: * TP-Link TD-8817 (Trendchip chipset) * Billion 7300RA (Trendchip chipset) Modems that don't work: * TP-Link TD-8840T (Trendchip) * Billion 7800NL (Broadcom chipset)

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crash on netgear readynas
by James Harper 28 Apr '14

28 Apr '14

We have a few Netgear ReadyNAS 104's, and they all crash under high iscsi load. They are being used to hold backups from a windows server, and the one I've been working on rarely gets through a single overnight backup. I have ssh'd in and it seems that the iscsi backing store is a file sitting on a btrfs mount. The kernel is 3.0.101, which strikes me as a little old for running btrfs although I guess being an appliance they could well have backported everything from a newer more stable release. Or not, going on how much crashing it's doing. I was planning on using netconsole to see if I could capture its dying gasp, but it's not compiled in and not built as a module. A warranty claim is the obvious answer, but that's always a pain so I'm wondering if it's possible to work around the problem by tweaking some things. Netgear are aware of the problem, and have asked things like how full is it getting so I guess they know about the btrfs limitations relating to running out of space. So far the only solution they have offered is to try the latest beta kernel and do yet another factory reset, which we've done. Some info (abridged): # mount /dev/md127 on /data type btrfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodatasum,space_cache) /dev/md127 on /apps type btrfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodatasum,space_cache) /dev/md127 on /home type btrfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodatasum,space_cache) # uname -a Linux RPCV-NAS1 3.0.101.RN_ARM.1 #1 Thu Mar 6 09:31:05 PST 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux Any hints appreciated! Thanks James

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Re: DVD drive for linux
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 28 Apr '14

28 Apr '14

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 07:52:12PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: >Replacing my venerable CD-ROM with a DVD drive has moved onto the to-do >list. A quick bit of googling suggests that linux compatibility isn't an >issue, and they'll mostly be SATA. Internal drives seem less advertised, >but not excessively scarce. >Is it the case that some makes (e.g. LG) read scratched discs better >than others (e.g. ASUS)? The 3:1 price difference between HP and ASUS >doesn't surprise much, since that's usually the cost of the name plate. From the beginning (many years ago) I have had problems with some DVD drives not reading video DVD's correctly so these days I usually have 2 DVD drives, and LG and either a HP or Pioneer DVD, if the disk wont work on one it will (usually) work on the other. Note: I do not have a TV or infact watch TV at all, I do though uses DVD's for some entertainment, because of this it was worth my while to go to some effort to watch DVD's. Robin Humble said... >region free firmware is the main stumbling block for me. I lived >overseas for quite a while, so I need to play region 1 as well as >region 4 discs. some uk discs too. errrrrrrrrr, lets put it this way......... libdvdcss allows one to watch DVD's from different regions, its a cryptographic cracking system so some distro's (Debian any way) do not package it. For a long time I have sucessfully viewed zone 1, 3 and 4 DVD's using this library. The library is transparent in use if its present a player (eg xine) will use it, if its not present it will of course not use it. Lindsay

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