[12:25] <nealmcb> kshah: `sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix` does simple configurations
[12:25] <kshah> the ubuntu server guide is bringing me through a crazy SMTP authentication config
[12:26] <kshah> i'm messing with ssl keys and whatnot
[12:26] <kshah> I did this before I believe.. (then the server aka laptop died)
[12:27] <kbrooks> kshah, huh? server == lappy? wtf.....
[12:27] <nealmcb> kshah: I have found that supporting email is getting increasingly tiresome over the years.  keeping up in the war on spam et al is a nightmare.  outsourcing to google apps or fastmail can be appealing
[12:28] <kshah> that'll probably be the end solution once things get going
[12:28] <kshah> kbrooks: not my choice
[12:28] <kshah> but it resulted in a proper server being bought
[12:28] <nealmcb> kbrooks: what do you mean?  built-in ups that lasts for hours!!  :-)
[12:29] <kbrooks> nealmcb, ups?
[12:29] <nealmcb> (aka battery)
[12:29] <nealmcb> how long does the UPS on your server last :-)
[12:30] <kbrooks> nealmcb, but laptops are prone to overheating due to their small size
[12:30] <nealmcb> note the smiley faces.  but I bet they are a good choice in some circumstances....
[12:36] <kshah> yeah in mexico
[12:37] <Pyretic> it even has a built in console :)
[01:23] <Anarch> How can I tell whether `cat /proc/cpuinfo` is telling me about 2 physical CPUs or about a hyperthreaded CPU?
[01:23] <Kamping_Kaiser> look for an HT switch
[01:23] <Kamping_Kaiser> *flag
[01:23] <Kamping_Kaiser> iirc
[03:23] <pteague> could there be an issue with trying to install ubuntu server on an intel?
[03:29] <kshah> no bro
[03:30] <justinwray> pteague: Well, it is built for i1368, so doubtful, what sort of error?
[03:30] <kshah> what yous prob?
[03:30] <kshah> r
[03:30] <justinwray> i386* Sorry for the typo
[03:41] <pteague> i keep getting file corruption errors on deb packages when trying to install... the md5sum checks out & i've burned 3 CDs & all gave me the same error, but different deb files... the last i burned at 4x
[03:42] <justinwray> And you do the CD check on boot, which comes back fine?
[03:42] <justinwray> Run memtest on that system?
[03:42] <pteague> cd check? guess not
[03:43] <justinwray> When you boot, you have the option of checking the integrity of the CD.
[03:43] <pteague> k, checking disk
[03:43] <justinwray> Okay.
[03:46] <pteague> console-tools_0.2.3dbs-65ubuntu3_i386.deb failed the md5 checksum... why would the iso pass an md5 check, but then would corrupt the disk in different places when it's burned?
[03:46] <justinwray> Run memtest on that system?
[04:44] <pteague> ok, apparently i can't even burn a the small net installer for debian without it being corrupt
[03:21] <kbrooks> i have a question. i would like to monitor everything (only silently) that is sent over suspect ports. For example, if i type
[03:22] <kbrooks> telnet mail.server.com 25
[03:22] <kbrooks> i would like to see the normal stuff sent by the server, except logged
[03:23] <kbrooks> how would i do this?
[03:24] <soren> tcpdump
[03:25] <kbrooks> soren, What if a user has finished sending spam to the mail server when I run tcpdump?
[03:25] <soren> what?
[03:26] <Kamping_Kaiser> kbrooks, look in the mail server logs?
[03:26] <kbrooks> "suspect ports"
[03:26] <soren> kbrooks: Are you asking if Ubuntu saves all your network traffic so that you can look at it later?
[03:26] <kbrooks> soren, No. It doesn't. I would like it to.
[03:27] <soren> kbrooks: tcpdump
[03:27] <soren> kbrooks: But you need to start it before it does anything..
[03:28] <kbrooks> soren, Does tcpdump log user information like who connected to a particular server?
[03:28] <soren> kbrooks: It logs plain network traffic. You can look at it afterwards (e.g. with wireshark or something).
[03:30] <kbrooks> soren, what about the user info? Please don't evade questions
[03:30] <soren> kbrooks: Why would I be evading questions? I'm trying my best to ask your rather odd questions.
[03:31] <soren> kbrooks: First you call it suspect ports, then it's telnet, then it's spam.. What are you trying to do
[03:31] <soren> ?
[03:31] <soren> kbrooks: I you want answers, you've got to ask proper questions.
[03:32] <kbrooks> soren, port 25 is a suspect port because it can be used to send spam.
[03:32] <soren> kbrooks: Well, I can choose to send nuclear missile launch codes over port 80 if I choose to. That's beside the point.
[03:33] <soren> kbrooks: What are you trying to do?
[03:33] <soren> kbrooks: Please don't evade the question.
[03:33] <soren> :)
[03:35] <kbrooks> soren, monitor specific inbound and outbpund ports  for questionable content, and pinpoint the user who is sending or receiving the content at which port so that  i can enforce rules
[03:35] <soren> kbrooks: You seriously want to sit around and stare at network traffic all day?
[03:36] <kbrooks> soren, No. hence the log request.
[03:36] <infinity> kbrooks: You realise that going from packet filtering to spam filtering is far from trivial, right?
[03:36] <soren> kbrooks: Ok, so you want to log it all day and stare at it all night. That's not much different.
[03:36] <infinity> ie: The contents of individual packets aren't all that interesting.
[03:36] <soren> kbrooks: Is it at all posibble that the question you want to ask is: "How do I avoid spam?"
[03:37] <soren> kbrooks: If so, please ask that instead.
[03:37] <infinity> And knowing when a message begins and ends, when you didn't initiate the connection, is.  Special.
[03:37] <kbrooks> infinity, thats why there is  wireshark.
[03:37] <infinity> Or, "how do I avoid untrusted users sending spam from my machine?"
[03:37] <kbrooks> soren, um, i think i want to ask that yes
[03:38] <infinity> To which the answer should almost surely be "don't let untrusted users use your machine".
[03:38] <infinity> Fighting spam (inbound or outbound) at the packet level seems very much the wrong way to go about things.
[03:38] <soren> kbrooks: Alright. Is this spam you want to avoid coming into your machine or going out from it? That seems to be a bit unclear.
[03:39] <kbrooks> soren, going out from my machine by a user.
[03:39] <soren> kbrooks: Wack him with a stick?
[03:39] <kbrooks> soren, how do i whack him when i don't know if he/she hasnt sent spam?
[03:40] <infinity> (We return to my "why are you allowing untrusted users access to your machine?" question)
[03:40] <kbrooks> because i am doing a free shell/web hosting service.
[03:41] <infinity> Ngh.
[03:41] <infinity> Alright.
[03:41] <soren> Do you use it as a mail server?
[03:41] <infinity> Block 25 outbound from all but the local MTA, forcing all users to send mail via the MTA, and do your spam filtering at the MTA level.
[03:42] <infinity> (filtering, monitoring, logging, whatever)
[03:44] <kbrooks> infinity, i would do that, and i will - in a second - but i don't have a local MTA. i would like one so that I can support checking e-mail via the CLI.
[03:44] <soren> kbrooks: You don't need and MTA to check e-mail from the cli.
[03:44] <soren> kbrooks: And if you don't have an MTA, just block outgoing connections to port 25.
[03:44] <kbrooks> OK.
[03:45] <kbrooks> thank you for breakig down my question earlier. noW, HOW do i block outgoin g connections to port 25?
[03:46] <soren> iptables -I OUTPUT -j DROP -p tcp --dport 25
[03:46] <kbrooks> also, ulimit didnt seem to work to stop fork bombs. i set the ulimit thru /etc/security/limits.conf
[03:46] <kbrooks> and logged out and in
[03:47] <kbrooks> but when i ran :() { : | : &; }; :
[03:47] <kbrooks> the ulimit didnt kick in
[03:47] <soren> In the future, asking questions like: "I want to achieve X. I've thought doing that by doing B and C, but have run into problem D..."   makes everything much easier for everyone.
[03:48] <soren> That would have saved us the first 15 minutes of this conversation :)
[03:48] <infinity> @untrusted hard nproc 20
[03:48] <infinity> ^^ something like that?
[03:49] <kbrooks> infinity, where @untrusted  means?
[03:49] <infinity> kbrooks: A UNIX group that you add your untrusted users to.
[03:49] <infinity> (was just an example)
[03:50] <kbrooks> *                hard    nproc           4000 # i did this, but this doesnt work
[03:50] <infinity> I'm sure it works fine.
[03:50] <infinity> 4000 is a lot of forks.
[03:50] <soren> 4000 is enough for a fork bomb to be quite annoying.
[03:51] <kbrooks> infinity, then why don't  i think it works fine?
[03:51] <infinity> Because it's bringing the machine to its knees before it gets to 4000?
[03:51] <kbrooks> ok.
[03:51] <infinity> Have you ever had 4000 processes runniing on that machine?
[03:51] <kbrooks> no
[03:52] <infinity> Exactly.
[03:52] <infinity> Your users probably don't need more than 10 processes at a time, really. :)
[03:52] <soren> For the kind of users you're looking at, 20 should be plenty.
[03:52] <kbrooks> i set that limit, now i logout and in?
[03:53] <infinity> You don't want that as a global limit, though.
[03:53] <infinity> It'll choke apache and such, as well.
[03:53] <kbrooks> infinity, fair enough....
[03:56] <kbrooks> k good
[03:56] <kbrooks> works.
[04:02] <kbrooks> thanks!
[04:29] <kbrooks> sigh
[04:29] <kbrooks> okay. so in tcpdump, i see something about a IRC server IP
[04:30] <kbrooks> and i get suspicious
[04:30] <kbrooks> so i use netstat and notice that a user is possibly connected to the irc server (only a suspicion so far, dont know yet)
[04:31] <kbrooks> so i attempt to connect to the server and get kicked off bc of clones.
[04:32] <kbrooks> the lines in netstat i'm talking about are
[04:32] <kbrooks> tcp        0      0 192.168.0.101:4424      8.7.233.44:ircd         ESTABLISHED
[04:32] <kbrooks> tcp        0      0 192.168.0.101:3367      ffneural.net:13333      ESTABLISHED
[04:33] <kbrooks> so i type something like, ps aux and notice that the user in question runs a eggdrop
[04:34] <kbrooks> and THEN i sudo as the user, cd to the configuration, read it, and notice that....
[04:35] <kbrooks> the bot is named fswh, and it connects to a hub
[04:35] <kbrooks> and the irc server ip
[04:35] <kbrooks> i dont know what the hub is for, maybe exploits? i dunno.
[04:37] <kbrooks> either way, i suspect abuse, and i will block the ports (except for IRC, which I will disconnect and talk to the irc server admin about) mentioned in the config file
[07:09] <raky> i have to make a decision on whether to install xen or vmware on my LUG server.  its a compaq proliant with 2 P3s and 5x 19.2GB drives with 1 gig ram
[07:11] <raky> i have seen the virt. techniques - para vs. full virt, and of course i'm limited by the server.
[07:12] <raky> i just want to virtualize a linux distro or two
[07:14] <raky> personally, i would choose the vm software that looks like the market will choose, and that's probably vmware, but things change so often
[07:31] <raky> has feisty been fixed for xen and vmware yet?
[07:33] <ivoks> fixed?
[07:33] <ivoks> i would choose xen...
[07:33] <raky> i've seen tutorials on fixing ubuntu for vmware. i didn't know if xen was the same
[07:34] <ivoks> um... what's there to fix?
[07:34] <raky> just like 5 cli edits
[07:34] <raky> for vmware, that is
[07:35] <ivoks> do you have link for that tutorial?
[07:35] <raky> in a bit
[07:38] <raky> sorry, can't find it.  i think the edits were before vmware was in the ubuntu repos
[07:39] <ivoks> vmware isn't in ubuntu repo
[07:39] <raky> ivoks, so for a noob, learning xen is not a whole lot more time consuming than learning vmware?
[07:40] <ivoks> eh... vmware is probably a lot easier for a beginer
[07:40] <raky> i have googled for plenty of tutorials over the past few weeks.  is vmware easier because of the GUI, or the virtualization techniques?
[07:41] <ivoks> it's easier cause of the gui, of course
[07:41] <raky> hehe, of course, ok
[07:42] <raky> i have like 3 real days or 2.5 days worth of hours to get the vmsoftware working.
[07:42] <ivoks> http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-vmware-server-from-canonical-commercial-repository-in-ubuntu-feisty.html
[07:42] <raky> ok, thanks, haha
[07:42] <ivoks> no fixing here
[07:43] <ivoks> i guess you won't be using vi for editing sources.list :D
[07:43] <raky> lol
[07:45] <ivoks> bbl bye
[08:47] <steve____> ok
[08:47] <steve____> something is really, REALLY messed up on my server.
[08:47] <steve____> whenever it boots up, it doesnt have a net connection
[08:47] <steve____> the cat5 is plugged in, its configured for a static ip
[08:48] <steve____> but ifconfig eth0 doesnt show any ip
[08:48] <steve____> /etc/init.d/networking restart doesnt do anything
[08:48] <steve____> it gets an ip if i say ifup eth0
[08:48] <steve____> but its still not connected to the net even then
[08:48] <steve____> it says network is unreachable
[08:48] <steve____> .......
[08:50] <steve____> ok scratch that
[08:50] <steve____> doing ifup eth0 makes it work
[08:50] <steve____> but why doesnt it do that from the start?
[08:51] <steve____> brb
[08:51] <stiv2k> ok
[08:56] <stiv2k> ughhhhhh
[08:56] <stiv2k> anyone here???
[09:02] <stiv2k> ok
[09:02] <stiv2k> sorry my server is going haywire
[09:02] <stiv2k> please help
[09:03] <kbrooks> stiv2k, ask
[09:03] <stiv2k> kbrooks: i asked already
[09:03] <stiv2k> ill ask it again
[09:03] <stiv2k> :P
[09:03] <stiv2k> hokay, so we just had a power outage at my apartment here
[09:04] <stiv2k> and when i booted my server back up, eth0 is down by default
[09:04] <stiv2k> and every tiem when i boot it up
[09:04] <stiv2k> eth0 is down
[09:04] <stiv2k> /etc/init.d/networking restart does nothing
[09:04] <stiv2k> i can only bring it up by saying ifup eth0
[09:04] <stiv2k> but sholdnt it be up when the machine boots
[09:04] <stiv2k> i dont want to have to manually bring it up every time
[09:05] <kbrooks> pastebin your /etc/networking/interfaces file
[09:05] <stiv2k> ok
[09:05] <stiv2k> kbrooks: its only 4 lines
[09:05] <stiv2k> ill paste it here if its ok
[09:05] <kbrooks> ok
[09:05] <kbrooks> go on
[09:05] <stiv2k> well i have these 2
[09:05] <stiv2k> auto lo
[09:05] <stiv2k> iface lo inet loopback
[09:06] <stiv2k> iface eth0 inet static
[09:06] <stiv2k> address 192.168.1.10
[09:06] <stiv2k> netmask 255.255.255.0
[09:06] <stiv2k> gateway 192.168.1.1
[09:06] <kbrooks> stiv2k, notice any differences?
[09:06] <stiv2k> auto eth0 ?
[09:07] <kbrooks> correct
[09:07] <stiv2k> yikes
[09:07] <kbrooks> add that and youre off to go
[09:07] <stiv2k> ok
[09:07] <stiv2k> straight
[09:07] <stiv2k> kbrooks: one more thing im not sure if you can help me w/ this
[09:07] <kbrooks> ask
[09:07] <stiv2k> my bopm wont start with this error
[09:07] <stiv2k> [Sep 01 19:07:47 2007]  MAIN -> Error opening /var/run/bopm/bopm.pid: No such file or directory
[09:09] <ScottK> Does /var/run/bopm exist?
[09:09] <stiv2k> no
[09:09] <kbrooks> stiv2k, create it.
[09:09] <ScottK> mkdir /var/run/bopm and try again
[09:09] <stiv2k> but i was under the impression that it gets created by the program
[09:09] <ScottK> Sort of
[09:09] <ScottK> '/var/run is a tempfs in Ubuntu so it needs to get tested for at every start, not just install
[09:10] <ScottK> Is bopm from the Ubuntu repositories?
[09:10] <stiv2k> oh
[09:10] <stiv2k> um
[09:10] <stiv2k> yeah
[09:10] <ScottK> It's not a tempfs in Debian by default, so a lot of programs miss this.
[09:10] <ScottK> Assuming recreating the dir works, please file a bug against the package.
[09:12] <stiv2k> ok
[09:13] <stiv2k> wtf
[09:13] <stiv2k> it works if i start bopm directly with `sudo bopm -dd`
[09:13] <stiv2k> but it doesnt work if i call the script
[09:13] <stiv2k> sudo /etc/init.d/bopm start
[09:13] <ScottK> Right because the script tries to creat the PID file and can't.  When you call it directly you don't do that.
[09:14] <stiv2k> ScottK: what should i do
[09:14] <ScottK> Did the init script work when you recreated the dir?
[09:14] <stiv2k> i dont know i have no way of looking at the debug output
[09:14] <stiv2k> when using the init script
[09:14] <stiv2k> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4 2007-09-01 15:12 /var/run/bopm/bopm.pid
[09:14] <stiv2k> it exists now though
[09:15] <ScottK> ps -AF|grep bopm and see if it's running
[09:15] <stiv2k> steve@galatea:~$ ps -AF|grep bopm
[09:15] <stiv2k> steve     4701  4589  0   720   748   0 15:15 pts/2    00:00:00 grep bo
[09:15] <stiv2k> pm
[09:17] <kbrooks> bbl
[09:17] <ScottK> look in the PID file for the process number and see if that process is running.
[09:17] <ScottK> OK.  Gotta run for a bit too.
[09:18] <stiv2k> ScottK: it's not
[09:19] <ScottK> That's a separate problem then.  Definitely file a bug on var/run/bopm not getting recreated by the init.
[09:19] <stiv2k> ScottK: file it to who?
[09:19] <ScottK> Not sure how much help I can be beyond that.  I don't even know what bopm is....
[09:19] <ScottK> Launchpad
[09:19] <stiv2k> ScottK: it was working fine before my server lost power
[09:19] <stiv2k> ok
[09:20] <ScottK> Gotta run.
[09:20] <stiv2k> cya
[11:49] <danp> does feisty preseeding support software RAID?