January 2003 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Upgrading 7.2 to 8.1
by Michael Reaume 27 Jan '03

27 Jan '03

Hello from Ireland! I have been following some of the discussions on this site for some time, but much of it is beyond my current skill level. I am quite interested in the alternatives to to the Big M though. However, I do run a file and samba server in 7.2 and would like to move to 8.1 which I have. It seem that it should be pretty straightforward in the documentation. Is there anything special to be aware of in the upgrade? Thanks for any help! Michael Reaume IT Coordinator St. Laurence College Loughlinstown Dublin 18 Ireland Tel: +353 1 2043077

1 0

Cron Problems...
by Administrator 27 Jan '03

27 Jan '03

Hello!!! Can anyone see anything wrong with this as a crontab? File: /var/spool/cron/tabs/root -=============================- 54 23 * * 0-4 squid -k kill 59 23 * * 0-4 /etc/dansguardian/dorename 5 0 * * 1-5 squid -k rotate -=============================- Should kill off squid, the 'dorename' thing renames the access.log and the '-k rotate' restarts logging. In crontab, I don't think squid kills or rotates at all, but manually it works perfectly... Any ideas? Dug Stokes Senior Webmaster Gilberd IS Department E: dug(a)gilberd.com W: www.gilberd.com

3 2

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Yast2 passwords
by Matt Johnson 25 Jan '03

25 Jan '03

--- Derek Harding <derek(a)lagham.uklinux.net> wrote: > It's easiest to create the YAST2 users then delete > their password fields in /etc/shadow, 'cos I don't > thnik YAST2 allows null passwords - _however_ - have > you tried Webmin? With Webmin the users can be > streamed in from a text file, given null passwords > and added to the SMB logins at the same time. I'll give it a go :) Although, we use unencryted (plain text) passwords (gulp again - this is a primary school behind an LEA firewall - I know it's not bombproof) for Samba because the registry hack on the 15 Windows98 boxes seemed less overall admin then adding 600 users with that smbpasswd script. I didn't realise that Webmin could do that bit for you! Have I understood that correctly? I know none of this is ideal. Perhaps I could investigate encrypted passwords if Webmin did that easily? Thanks for the guidance and discussion so far... Off to purchase SuSE 8.1 now and give this a whirl. -- Matt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

1 0

Yast2 passwords
by Matt Johnson 24 Jan '03

24 Jan '03

Some pointers, reassurance or advice please... This effects me putting SuSE as the main file server in a school... I want to use Yast2 (either text or graphical) to add users. With SuSE 7.1 etc, good ol' Yast (1) would let you create a user with no password (gulp). I don't want the children in this _infant_ department to have passwords.... so how can I get Yast2 to except a null password? I'd rather do it in Yast2 then another solution if possible - my reason being I suppose ignorance and fear of the unknown... i.e. that I don't fully understand all the implications for creating users and I *know* and *trust* Yast2 to do it right specifically for a *SuSE* installation. I could use this script or that, or webmin, but does it do it right for *SuSE*? I don't understand MD5 (?), Kerberos etc. I just want to put names into Yast2 and have it do it for me ;) Thanks in advance. -- Matt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

1 0

FW: Open Source in Education Conference 2003
by James Spedding 24 Jan '03

24 Jan '03

With apologies to those on the list who have already got this information, I'd like to post this announcing that the website for the Open Source in Education Conference 2003 is now up and running. http://www.mpowernet.anglia.ac.uk/conference/ Here is some of the information from the site to fill you in on the where and why..... The Conference: A National Conference to explore the use of Open Source software in UK Primary and Secondary Education Institutions. The Aims: * to raise awareness of open source as an alternative solution * to evaluate its suitability for use in schools and, * to examine and learn from the implementation of open source in educational settings. Date: Friday 4th April 2003 (9:25am - 4:30pm). Venue: Danbury Park Conference Centre, Main Road, Danbury, Essex CM3 4AT People from BECTA, the E-Envoy's office and Diana Laurillard (head of E-Learning for DfES) will be there as well as quite a few from this list who have already expressed an interest and put their name down - not to mention Ian, Phil, Roger, Malcolm, Chris Dawkins and others who are actually speaking during the day. On the website you will find the booking form and other relevant information, and please note places are limited. I'm afraid the price has gone up a little since my preliminary announcement (due to increased administration costs) to £79 + VAT. Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone on (01245) 226930 or off-list. Thanks, James

1 0

RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cloning machines
by Chris Puttick 22 Jan '03

22 Jan '03

Ghost has only got as far as understanding Ext2 (and then it comes with a few quid pro quos) and we use Reiser by preference. -----Original Message----- From: Matt Johnson To: SuSe Sent: 1/22/03 11:28 AM Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cloning machines Doesn't Ghost 'do' or 'clone' Linux these days? I maybe way off here, but the original post mentioned Ghost, and I thought I saw that Linux drives were supported on the Ghost packaging I was having a look at. I may be completely wrong. Of course, I assume you need to actually do all this from a Windows install to use Ghost? If I was having to deal with 'geometry', an 'cylinders', and 'probably', I know what I'd do... -- Matt Johnson __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com

2 1

Doesn't get better than this...
by Chris Puttick 22 Jan '03

22 Jan '03

In case you were looking for a little ammunition: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/default.stm

1 0

Cloning machines
by Chris Puttick 22 Jan '03

22 Jan '03

Hi I know I should be able to do this, but many years of using Ghost have made my brain go soft. Can someone talk me through cloning 12 identical machines? I was assuming something like tar, tftp and lilo, but the sites I found on the subject just confused me... Cheers Chris

6 12

RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cloning machines
by Chris Puttick 22 Jan '03

22 Jan '03

Forgot to mention these are laptops (for primary use), so it will have to be over a network, (or from a CD?) -----Original Message----- From: Gary Stainburn To: Phil Driscoll; Chris Puttick; 'suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com' Sent: 1/22/03 9:24 AM Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Cloning machines On Wednesday 22 January 2003 10:10 am, Phil Driscoll wrote: > On Wednesday 22 January 2003 8:48 am, Chris Puttick wrote: > > I know I should be able to do this, but many years of using Ghost have > > made my brain go soft. Can someone talk me through cloning 12 identical > > machines? I was assuming something like tar, tftp and lilo, but the sites > > I found on the subject just confused me... > > I did this yesterday on my own machine when my main hard disk overheated > and started making funny noises - however I had the new and old hard disks > connected to the same machine. > > All I had to do was dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb - although I had to do much > agonising before hitting return just to make sure I was doing the copy in > the correct direction. Note that this takes ages as you copy the entire > disk surface, not just the area covered in files, and the destination drive > has to be at least as big as the source. This also has the problem that if the two drives don't have the same geometry it may not work. Generally if they have the same number of heads and sectors and the cylinders is greater on the target you'll be okay. It does work in other circumstances but it's not guaranteed. It's a case of suck-it-and-see. Also, bear in mind that if the source is mounted at when you're copying, you may end up with an inconsistant target with filesystems needing fscking etc. If you're going to do this, I'd suggest switching to runlevel 1 to close down as many services as possible, and 'sync' before starting. If possible unmount or remount read-only whatever you can. For best results, run your system from a 3rd HD. > > I've not done this over a network, but if I had to, my instinct would be to > boot up a floppy based distribution (maybe keeper?) and arrange things so > that I could see the source drive or a tar.gz image of it somewhere over > the network, and then use the dd command to do the work. I would try and avoid even a modest clone over a network these days. The smallest drive CCL sells is a 30GB disk. Without doing any maths, I would say that even over a 100MB LAN, that's going to take a while, and that's after all the other technical problems. > > However, I'm sure that someone who actually knows what they are doing might > be aware of a better way :) > > Cheers -- Gary Stainburn This email does not contain private or confidential material as it may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com

1 0

Public Display System using web
by Jim Bews 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

We are currently implementing a public display system where web pages from our Suse/Apache server are created as an auto-refreshing circular list. Output is fed from a PC to a series of TV monitors as with many public display systems. As much of this information will be time limited, such as details of lectures, it would be useful to have this based on a database. Any suggestions for this project would be appreciated. Jim Bews - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jim Bews, Computing Officer, School of Chemistry, Purdie Building, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9ST Tel: 01334-463830 Email: j.r.bews(a)st-andrews.ac.uk Fax: 01334-463808 WWW: http://chemistry.st-andrews.ac.uk/staff/jrb/

3 3