Carlos E. R. wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On Wednesday, 2008-10-22 at 20:48 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/22/2008 08:07 PM:

...

...

...

As for "thousands" of syslog entries - that also means cron would be producing thousands of emails.

I don't mean that.

.....

...

...

...

The delivery doesn't have to be by mail - though it could with local delivery. I could be by a message sent to a window or a pop-up.

Certainly not! It would not work for headless machines or text only machines, or machines where the administrator is not logged it.

Indeed. Which is why SWATCH and other syslog watchers can pipe to various destinations - SMS, pager... whatever. It doesn't have to be a pop-up.

The point is to uncouple.

More to the point, use of syslog integrates better with enterprise-level tools that consolidate reporting. I've installed these in banks and telcos; all the syslog gets routed to a central server and a database where it can be sliced and diced and used to produce pretty graphs or management, trend analysis, incident tracking feeds to ITIL .... and much more.

BTDT :-)

But openSUSE is not a big enterprise distro, it is a "user" distro.

Yeah - and every desktop needs Postfix? No. Aside which, what does that mean. OpenSuSe can't run big iron because Novell markets something else? It seems to function fine on large systems.

...

Yes, I think piping syslog into Oracle is heavy stuff, but when you're a bank coordinating an IT staff in the hundreds and need management and tracking tools, this is the kind of thing that gets lapped up.

The issue here is that by not having strong coupling this becomes an option where the user can define where the results go.

But you see, if you "decouple" the requirement or dependency of an smtp server by services such as cron, I could not have my preferred method of having cron mail me.

I don't really care what your preferred method of getting information from cron is. I do care that you THINK that if you decouple them that you can't get mail with Cron? What? Is that a sensible line of reasoning? Should adduser also require postfix because users might need mail?

I don't object to your idea of having it all in the syslog: good for you. But I want it on mail, as it has been for years and years here, so the dependency has to stay, so that you can choose at config time.

Request, if you like, a configuration option for cron output to be sent to syslog or to email, ok, fine; but the dependency can not be broken, because it would force us to have cron output your way.

Your so locked in that it is UNBELIEVABLE. My god. I really need to find a different distro. Unbunuto was too limited. Debian packages suck. Gentoo is impracticable. All I want is a darn laptop to run wmaker, which can use its wifi, get on the net, use open office and play some video. SuSE 9.1 did this in 600megs of space with no postfix. except for the wmaker part, Xandros did this for my eeepc. I don't even have room for Open Office because of the insane co-dependencies. Frankly. you guys have gone nuts. I can't remove openldap, sasl bluetooth, SAMBA and much more

After all, it's just some megabytes more, at worst.

But I fear that such a change would imply many changes to many scripts, so it will not be done - unless perhaps somebody designs and supply it as an alternative package(s) (see buildservice, community repos, etc).

...

...

...

...

...

I really hate all these dependencies that arise out of lack of consideration of alternatives. Then perhaps you should design a distro with those premises >:-) Why? I'm not in the business.

Then select another distro that does it your way :-)

You may have time to try out all the distros; some people are paid to do that. I'm not.

No, I searched around once, I choosed, and I stayed. If I really wanted something I could not find here, I would then see if I could make it myself or look around again for it.

That's how things are.

If I were paid to install Linux for a company with certain "special" requirements, then it would be my job to find and search for it; or I'd have searched beforehand, and charge for that knowledge; or I'd request the company to hire somebody with that knowledge.

openSUSE folks are not paid, either, to tailor the distro to each one preferences! :-)

...

A simple code change uncouples a dependency. This thread started on with people complaining about a number of dependencies. SUSE has got rid of dependencies that other distributions have - why not keep up that good work. Not all dependencies - yours and others - are actually necessary.

SMTP currently is.

...

...

...

Unless we point this out and ask or it, its not going to happen.

Then ask for it officially, in Bugzilla.

Thank you. Where? (Remember, I'm new to SUSE)

For example:

www.opensuse.org --> discover it --> Report a Bug

] Report a Bug ] ] With our open Bugzilla system, you have direct access to further the ] development of openSUSE. ] ] Submitting Bug Reports – Bug Reporting FAQ

One of the options when filling a bug is to classify the "bug" as a feature request.

Read the "Bug Reporting FAQ", feature request is mentioned. There is a feature wishlist page, too.

...

...

...

I say "I'm not in the business" and I mean that. I don't have the time to do the level of re-engineering for an "Anton's Distribution". But if the guys at Novell pay attention and decouple many more things like this we can all benefit.

I don't think that will happen. Fortunately (IMO)! >:-)

I'm a little alarmed by that kind of statement.

:-)

You say you are new to suse; I'm not. I'm sure you know how other distros or Unixes behave better than me, but allow me to say I can guess better than you what suse people will feel about your idea (about smtp).

- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkj/2sQACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XsSgCgllUklngWHuevKUmvbdguxaOA 0PQAnjYTX3LCGzA0Izr/MsvsqDZZ5P/Z =c12u -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 09:16:17AM +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Ruben Safir wrote:

...

I don't really care what your preferred method of getting information from cron is. I do care that you THINK that if you decouple them that you can't get mail with Cron?

What? Is that a sensible line of reasoning? Should adduser also require postfix because users might need mail?

Ruben, why are you so hung up about having an MTA installed on your desktop? It's probably one of the least superfluous packages in an openSUSE install.

Because I don't WANT IT. I DON'T NEED IT. It is a security RISK and I'm tight on hard drive space.

...

All I want is a darn laptop to run wmaker, which can use its wifi, get on the net, use open office and play some video. SuSE 9.1 did this in 600megs of space with no postfix.

We've got a couple of company laptops that do this with 10.1 in about 1000Mbytes (I'm not sure), with postfix installed.

I skipped 10 because of the dan reports and because of Novell, and you can NOT fit all this onto a 2 gig drive, which is just mind numbing. Every package is the kitchen sink and the only stable version of SuSE now is the one that has everything under the sun loaded.

I think you're wasting a lot of time and effort on a completely pointless exercise. If you want to save space, delete emacs (assuming you don't use that).

Emacs isn't on there.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 01:00:48PM -0300, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

Ruben Safir escribió:

...

Should adduser also

...

require postfix because users might need mail?

**sigh** adduser does not invoke a sendmail binary, that's the reason why it doesnt require sendmail !

...

I can't remove openldap, sasl

Used for system authentication methods.

And neither should cron... God, the opensuse develoeprs can be so thick. Ruben

-- "A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. "

Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez said the following on 10/23/2008 12:00 PM:

Ruben Safir escribió:

...

I can't remove openldap, sasl

Used for system authentication methods.

Should read "LDAP can be used for identification & authentication. This requires setting up an LDAP database." If you don't have a a database you just use 'files' such as /etc/passwd, or YP/NIS. See /etc/nsswitch. If you don't run such a database and none of your facilities need to contact such a database .... PAM and such like are 'pluggable'. If you don't include a library in the config then its presence isn't needed. The idea is that someone might come up with a 'pam_eyeball' biometric inn place of a password and that can be plugged in. Its current absence shouldn't be a problem since it isn't in the config. If ldap isn't in the config then it shouldn't be needed. Yes, I understand that tools like 'ls' need to map from the numeric id to the human readable name. See "libacl" --> getpwnam(3) and the use of /etc/nsswitch.conf. Yes if there is a like such as passwd; ldap files I could see that ldap is needed. But if the 'ldap' isn't there? http://quark.humbug.org.au/publications/ldap/system_auth/sage-au/system_auth... http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/ref-guide/s1-ldap-pa... Once again we have the conflict between the needs of an enterprise system with full server support and and IT staff in place, and a simple "user" on a laptop or similar that doesn't have all that infrastructure behind him (or her). PAM is most certainly pluggable. As far as I can tell While my syslog files have things like kdeinit4: nss_ldap: could not search LDAP server - Server is unavailable automount[2813]: bind_ldap_anonymous: lookup(ldap): Unable to bind to the LDAP server: (default), error Can't contact LDAP server (the latter despite there being no ldap in my /etc/nsswitch.conf!) I don't see any corresponding entries for NIS/YP. "Obviously" the NIX/YP lookup has been implemented correctly so that ypbind and ypserv are not dependencies. But 'ldap' is. As far as I can make out it is because there are entries in /etc/pam.d that make ldap 'required' for all common operations. This doesn't make sense. Yes, I can see where this requires ldap for consistency, but why, why, why is ldap configured as a requirement in /etc/pam.d ? What we have is something that Carlos and others are pointing out is a "user" distribution whcih is half - but only half - preconfigired for an 'enterprise'. Simply deleting 'ldap-client' and the ldap libraries on a stand alone single user system such as a laptop or netbook, or for that matter a SOHO or SMB system that doesn't use ldap, will, yes, "break things". You will need to remove the ldap dependency from the entries in /etc/pam.d/* I very strongly suggest that unless openSUSE 11.x (x>0) is going to be positioned as an 'enterprise' product and have installaton/configuration support to match, that the ldap depencey via the /etc/pam.d files be removed. Smaller footprint, fewer messages to syslog. Interestingly enough, I can remove the modl 'pam_ldap' and yast doesn't complain about dependencies, so obviously there is some inconsistency - if 'pam_ldap' is configured into /etc/pam.d then there should be a dependency. -- "Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan." -- Orson Scott Card, -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-ID: On Thursday, 2008-10-23 at 20:07 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

Cristian Rodríguez said the following on 10/23/2008 12:00 PM:

...

Ruben Safir escribió:

...

I can't remove openldap, sasl

Used for system authentication methods.

Should read "LDAP can be used for identification & authentication. This requires setting up an LDAP database." ...

PAM and such like are 'pluggable'. If you don't include a library in the config then its presence isn't needed. The idea is that someone might come up with a 'pam_eyeball' biometric inn place of a password and that can be plugged in. Its current absence shouldn't be a problem since it isn't in the config. If ldap isn't in the config then it shouldn't be needed.

Yes, I see your point.

Yes, I understand that tools like 'ls' need to map from the numeric id to the human readable name. See "libacl" --> getpwnam(3) and the use of /etc/nsswitch.conf. Yes if there is a like such as

passwd; ldap files

I could see that ldap is needed. But if the 'ldap' isn't there?

Maybe the client part is a requirement, and the server part is not. I don't know if both are pulled it as requirements. Let me see... [thinking] ldap will be needed when an optional configuration is included in pam telling it to use ldap. I can see a problem when the ldap libraries are not included, and the user, well, the admin, changes pam configuration and forgets to install ldap. Therefore, it is pulled in as an rpm dependency. I'm guessing, I don't know pam or ldap in detail.

Once again we have the conflict between the needs of an enterprise system with full server support and and IT staff in place, and a simple "user" on a laptop or similar that doesn't have all that infrastructure behind him (or her).

I know of small places that use ldap, even at home.

PAM is most certainly pluggable. As far as I can tell

While my syslog files have things like

kdeinit4: nss_ldap: could not search LDAP server - Server is unavailable automount[2813]: bind_ldap_anonymous: lookup(ldap): Unable to bind to the LDAP server: (default), error Can't contact LDAP server

(the latter despite there being no ldap in my /etc/nsswitch.conf!)

I don't see that error in my logs (and I don't run ldap). You must have some configuration somewhere that makes it think it should contact an ldap server; in kde4 (I seldom use kde) and in automount.

I don't see any corresponding entries for NIS/YP. "Obviously" the NIX/YP lookup has been implemented correctly so that ypbind and ypserv are not dependencies.

But 'ldap' is.

As far as I can make out it is because there are entries in /etc/pam.d that make ldap 'required' for all common operations.

I believe that my config does not have such entries. It is only mentioned in the comentary of "common-auth*": # (e.g., /etc/shadow, LDAP, Kerberos, etc.). The default is to use the # traditional Unix authentication mechanisms. # auth required pam_env.so auth required pam_unix2.so

This doesn't make sense. Yes, I can see where this requires ldap for consistency, but why, why, why is ldap configured as a requirement in /etc/pam.d ?

What we have is something that Carlos and others are pointing out is a "user" distribution whcih is half - but only half - preconfigired for an 'enterprise'.

Simply deleting 'ldap-client' and the ldap libraries on a stand alone single user system such as a laptop or netbook, or for that matter a SOHO or SMB system that doesn't use ldap, will, yes, "break things". You will need to remove the ldap dependency from the entries in /etc/pam.d/*

I'm afraid that simply removing the lines will not affect dependencies. Dependencies are rpms needing (saying the need) another rpms. I think that, in order to remove the ldap rpms correctly you also need to remove the pam modules that use ldap. Perhaps somebody knows how to do this, but after the tone that Mr Ruben Safir is inflicting on the thread, this will develop onto a useless flamewar and you will get few technical responses from the people who may know an answer. Sorry :-( I'm changing the subject line, in the hope of attracting someone who knows more :-)

I very strongly suggest that unless openSUSE 11.x (x>0) is going to be positioned as an 'enterprise' product and have installaton/configuration support to match, that the ldap depencey via the /etc/pam.d files be removed. Smaller footprint, fewer messages to syslog.

I don't have any ldap messsages in my log, going back a year.

Interestingly enough, I can remove the modl 'pam_ldap' and yast doesn't complain about dependencies, so obviously there is some inconsistency - if 'pam_ldap' is configured into /etc/pam.d then there should be a dependency.

You have to uninstall pam_ldap...rpm. I have just tried that in Yast and it doesn't complain (I aborted, I didn't let it do it). But rememember that dependencies do not rely on config files. Try removing (in yast package manager): pam_ldap...rpm yast2-ldap*rpm I just saw a description there for yast2-autofs: yast2-autofs - YaST2 - Module to Create and Manage autofs Entries in LDAP so that module will pull in ldap, too. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkBHssACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WjfACcCbRa/0XARnSKDdLbXQq+MQcY yBUAn1tsgXKF0oW3EF4NRqFijg5/ZiE6 =IOW0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/22/2008 10:00 PM:

But openSUSE is not a big enterprise distro, it is a "user" distro.

So you re saying that this should not be used as a desktop Linux in an enterprise? Can I quote you on that?

But you see, if you "decouple" the requirement or dependency of an smtp server by services such as cron, I could not have my preferred method of having cron mail me.

Why do you conclude that? You statement is only accurate in that cron would not be DIRECTLY mailing you. If you use a tool such as SWATCH or SEC then any syslog event can mail you. Both those tools are smart enough to condense multiple lines down to one 'event'. As it stands, cron can _only_ mail me. It will _always_ mail me. Most of the time I'm not interested. I only want to know if something is wrong. Marcus Ranum, talking about firewalls and IDS, makes the analogy with an umbrella that notifies you about every raindrop that hits it. Having tools like cron mail me when everything is OK is like that. Using tools like SWATCH or SEC lets _me_ decide what I need to be notified of and how I will be notified (mail, sms, pager, phone, popup, whatever ...) Nothing is stopping you from having cron notify you by mail - via syslog. http://www.estpak.ee/~risto/sec/ This thread began about a dependency. There are other dependencies in other threads - bluetooth for example. These is also the issue of the context of the installation. laptops have been cited. Finally there is the situation that is very common where the "user" (you said this was a "user" installation) does not make use of the stem mail facilities but rather reads mail using a web interface such as gmail, or uses something like Thunderbird to read the mail at their ISP via POP or IMAP and uses Thunderbird's own SMTP service to send directly to the ISP. I would imagine this would be quite common with "home" "users" and laptop "users". After all, Postfix is an "enterprise" level MTA. Wietse Venema, its designer and author, intended it as such. While its easier to set up than sendmail, it is a very powerful and capable tool. It is most definitely intended for a enterprise level mail hub (I have been using it for many years as such on my dedicated mail host) and needs a fair bit of consideration to set up correctly. But CRON isn't the only wacky dependency. Have a look at the ldap software you are _required_ to have loaded. Try uninstalling the openldap client or ldap_pam. LDAP is bolted in to a whole pile of things like your printer management, inetd management and http server management. You have to have this even if you don't use LDAP. Now LDAP should be an option, like NIS/YP,that controlled by something like the nsswitch. The whole point of PAM is that its _pluggable_. If you don't plug that module in its never used. Once again I point to other implementations that have figured this out and not been faced with this crazy situation. Failing to install LDAP shouldn't mean that I can't use YAST to configure printers, add users or point my laptop and samba server. Try for yourself. In the software installer do a SEARCH for "ldap" with only "RPM REQUIRES". We get such things as Thunderbird, Adobe reader, cURL, and Kgpg. Try some other values to search for and see what other wacky dependencies you can find. I mention this because LDAP is most certainly an _enterprise_ tool, not one would normally install on a laptop. A single user system, a non-enterprise "user" can get by with the /etc/passwd (&family) file(s). That's what nsswitch is for. If you comment out the "nis" and "ldap" from there, then those facilities never get used. Once again, PAM is pluggable. The SYSLOG model allows you to select whether you want to know about various events. In a "user" setting many of these *MANDATORY* things are pure overhead. Simple "users" will read their mail on the web - that's what the internet is for! Simple users won't set up Samba server but may connect to them. Simple users won't set up DNS servers but will connect to them. Carlos, you seem to want it both ways. You say openSUSE is a "user" system not an enterprise one, but its set up to force the installation of enterprise software that is not appropriate to the context a simple "user". -- We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, April 2, 1957 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Per Jessen said the following on 10/23/2008 04:26 AM:

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

As it stands, cron can _only_ mail me. It will _always_ mail me. Most of the time I'm not interested. I only want to know if something is wrong.

I must be missing the context here - cron can mail anyone in the world, just set MAILTO in the crontab.

You are misreadin the emphasis. It is on "mail" ratehr than "me". As in the mail function is mandatory and implicit. I realise that the destination can be overridden. -- Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. Thomas A. Edison -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 01:39:45PM +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Per Jessen said the following on 10/23/2008 04:26 AM:

...

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

...

As it stands, cron can _only_ mail me. It will _always_ mail me. Most of the time I'm not interested. I only want to know if something is wrong. I must be missing the context here - cron can mail anyone in the world, just set MAILTO in the crontab.

You are misreadin the emphasis. It is on "mail" ratehr than "me".

As in the mail function is mandatory and implicit. I realise that the destination can be overridden.

Err...

It isn't "_always_". Most cron jobs don't generate output except in case of error and cron doesn't normally send empty mails. It only tells you when something is wrong.

It isn't "mandatory". It can be disabled with a line like MAILTO="" in a cron file. Or you can make cron use a completely different reporting tool with the -m option.

And of course individual lines in the crontab can cause it to do something completely different with job output by redirection etc

The only thing I need cron for is to remove the 0 size files created by the UnionFS to rotate logs and run updatedb. I do NOT need it generating spam.

Cheers, Dave

I'm not feeling so cheery. One of the best OS's on earth has been completely destroyed by a bunch of self-rightous pompous asses who just deside EVERYBODY needs a SMTP and LDAP in their life, wether they like it or not and wether it leaves room for usable software on the hard drive or not...like say firefox and openoffice, the gimp and scribble. BTW - I think the ALSA drivers are we bit old by now. Ruben -- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 07:40:46PM -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Ruben Safir [10-23-08 19:35]:

...

I'm not feeling so cheery. One of the best OS's on earth has been completely destroyed by a bunch of self-rightous pompous asses who just deside EVERYBODY needs a SMTP and LDAP in their life, wether they like it or not and wether it leaves room for usable software on the hard drive or not...like say firefox and openoffice, the gimp and scribble.

You *are* related to aaron, right?

Who is Aaron. I'm related to my 6 kids. Ruben

-- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 24 October 2008 03:06, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Ruben Safir [10-23-08 19:56]:

...

Who is Aaron. I'm related to my 6 kids.

I would close the door on you here but then I would be acting the same as you. I pass.

But I believe that Carlos' assessment is very apt.

I have placed you into the file your brother-in-actions occupies.

I did that years ago.. His claims and complaining got to me way back then. For someone that claims to be doing things for open source, I really wish he'd chose another distro. Mike -- Powered by SuSE 10.0 Kernel 2.6.13 X86_64 KDE 3.4 Kmail 1.8 7:20am up 15 days 10:29, 4 users, load average: 2.05, 2.08, 2.08 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan escribió:

You *are* related to aaron, right?

I was wondering the same thing.. posts are written on his "style" (or the lack of it) -- "A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. " Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 07:31:37PM -0400, Ruben Safir wrote:

I'm not feeling so cheery. One of the best OS's on earth has been completely destroyed by a bunch of self-rightous pompous asses who just deside EVERYBODY needs a SMTP and LDAP in their life, wether they like it or not and wether it leaves room for usable software on the hard drive or not...like say firefox and openoffice, the gimp and scribble.

Oh and I forgot the mandatory bluetooth (but no mp3's), samba server, and gnome installation.... Oh and try automounting these days without nautilus.... as my son said the other day, its the BAUM. Also I love the new defaults for mounted drives by root....no user RW access. Pair that with the lack of automounting and the system is just sweet... Ruben

BTW - I think the ALSA drivers are we bit old by now.

Ruben

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software

So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998

http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002

"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"

"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society."

"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."

© Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:31:37 -0400, you wrote:

...

One of the best OS's on earth has been completely destroyed by a bunch of self-rightous pompous asses who just deside EVERYBODY needs a SMTP and LDAP in their life, wether they like it or not and wether it leaves room for usable software on the hard drive or not...

My, you really seem to like being pompous and to blow things out of proportion.

Wether (noun) A castrated sheep or goat, I know he's ranting about unnecessary appendages but that's taking things a bit too far. DC -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2008-10-23 at 03:12 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/22/2008 10:00 PM:

...

But openSUSE is not a big enterprise distro, it is a "user" distro.

So you re saying that this should not be used as a desktop Linux in an enterprise?

Can I quote you on that?

Of course you can. I don't work for, nor speak for, SUSE or Novell in any way - except as a community member, ie, one more of the millions that volunteer work for Linux. openSUSE is the community distro. The enterprise distros are SLES/SLED. See Novell page for more info. And of course you can use openSUSE in any enterprise. It's up to you. In fact, many people do. I have.

As it stands, cron can _only_ mail me. It will _always_ mail me.

Not true.

Having tools like cron mail me when everything is OK is like that. Using tools like SWATCH or SEC lets _me_ decide what I need to be notified of and how I will be notified (mail, sms, pager, phone, popup, whatever ...)

Nothing is stopping you from having cron notify you by mail - via syslog.

Nothing stops you from having syslog notify you - dumped from email :-P This way you do not break SUSE scripts and configurations, nor everybody else's configuration. I do not want to use SWATCH or SEC or NFM or whatever in my systems. I do not need it. Them.

This thread began about a dependency. There are other dependencies in other threads - bluetooth for example.

I know nothing about bluetooth, so I will not comment. In general, I prefer not wasting time removing components. Certainly not components as the MTA.

These is also the issue of the context of the installation. laptops have been cited.

Laptops nowdays have many gigabytes of space. Not an issue anymore.

But CRON isn't the only wacky dependency. Have a look at the ldap software you are _required_ to have loaded. Try uninstalling the openldap client or ldap_pam. LDAP is bolted in to a whole pile of things like your printer management, inetd management and http server management. You have to have this even if you don't use LDAP.

Well, I don't use ldap, but many do. Yast can configure LDAP for users login data. I don't care if it is installed. The point is, the moment a program declares that it can use LDAP, by, for instance, linking to a library function of ldap, then ldap will be pulled in by dependencies. Even if you don't use it. That's the way things work here, with rpm. If you think or know how this can be undone, then perhaps you may tell SUSE packages how to do that. There is a packaging mail list.

Try for yourself. In the software installer do a SEARCH for "ldap" with only "RPM REQUIRES". We get such things as Thunderbird, Adobe reader, cURL, and Kgpg. Try some other values to search for and see what other wacky dependencies you can find.

But of course. If Thunderbird has the ability to search on ldap for addresses, obviously this will link some library for/of ldap... so it depends on it. Again, if you want to convince Novell people of somehow removing that dependency, this is not the place. The devs will most probably not even read this. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkAU5QACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XQzACfS4aV2ocAiylU8MXiVgsSlPw5 RPEAn2ZjEQdfuJBfgBEt2qzkx2+f2KMC =Pd4G -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2008-10-23 at 13:17 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Laptops nowdays have many gigabytes of space. Not an issue anymore.

But netbooks don't! :) Space is still an issue.

Ok... for those, you'd need "openSUSE slick": http://en.opensuse.org/Projects Discontinued Projects MicroSUSE The openSUSE embedded systems building toolkit aims to make creation of custom Linux-based embedded systems effortless. MiniSUSE The openSUSE mini project aims to make creation of small memory openSUSE-based Distribution. SLICK SLICK stands for Suse LIte: Core + Kde, or, if you prefer, Simple LInux: Core + Kde. It was a project to create a lightweight, desktop-oriented, easy-to-use Linux distribution based on openSUSE. It is now developed in mainstream distribution. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkAc3gACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WqngCeMAMuV7KXoi9pEKTjuV3h7Zjs RqQAoJZhFBFpS8K1He1nSJ+EzPZhmRMO =cUNr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2008-10-23 at 19:32 -0400, Ruben Safir wrote:

Carlos is an idiot and has been in my /dev/null file for a long time now.

Now, name calling... Troll! - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkBDpkACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UApwCfQwFeVneDSiTZ2Cqrm03atw5n uUcAn2cW5sPhQIdZL5/OK7bUKbGrJqYT =4LrS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ruben Safir wrote: [snip]

Its worse than that though. If you remove cron a whole cascade of problems crop up.

In the end I downloaded the rpm and querried the files for postfix and ran a script to just remove them by hand.

It's just unbelievable and I can never tell what Yast will do. It wasn't always like this. You used to have more control up to and including 9.3

AFAIR, you were never able to deselect the MTA - unless you forced it.

Every SuSE Desktop host needs a SMTP and the port open? No, obviously they don't.

Ah, yes they do and the MTA will only be listening on localhost:25. There are about a million scripts that depend on being able to use sendmail (the mail delivery utility, not the MTA) for notifying root about all kinds of events. Basically you need sendmail, and only the MTA packages provide that. Second, in order for those mails to be processed, you need an MTA which in turn can deliver them to your inbox, which you can subsequently access with TB or mail or telephathy. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ruben Safir said the following on 10/23/2008 07:46 PM:

...

...

Every SuSE Desktop host needs a SMTP and the port open? No, obviously they don't. Ah, yes they do

Oh no they DON'T and if an OS in my enterprise had to has an SMTP server on every desktop I'd had the security detail scrub every damn machine until that OS was gone.

Damn right! It would put them out of compliance and probably cost a lot in clean-up. It may even force their replacement by Microsoft Windows system! Per, you are being quite ridiculous and outrageous. Hopefully, Per, you man that each machine need to run a mail forwarder OR a local mail delivery agent (that has not SMTP capability) Lets look at the root cause here. Someone was foolish enough to claim that CRON hadn't changed in 40+ years, which is incorrect, but yes, CRON still has a legacy from 40 years ago. It was developed in the teletype era. Back then you might have 30 or 40 users on a single PDP-11. I recall that well, and yes those old 16 bit transistor technology could handle 40 simultaneous users. No virtual memory, perhaps a total of 80G of disk. Good old Bourne shell. No networking. All mail was local, here was no SMTP. What is key here is that the shell check your mail file in /usr/spool/mail (there was no /var back in the 70s and 80s) to see if it had changed. This made sense when you were running a TTY. It still made sense in the 80s when I had a 'glass tty'. Come the era of windows most people don't run shells. Yes there are weird people like us greybeards who can't let go of the command line (or paper tape, nine-tack or disk pack that take two strong me to load). But most users are viewing the system though windows, and of those more and more are staying within a few programs like the web browser and the office tools. These people would never see the notice from CRON. If you look at how Microsoft windows works, and stop for a moment and put your prejudices aside, 'cos a lot that product is well worked out and makes a lot of sense and is very 'usable', notification is by one of two things. For the enterprise, there is the notification, sort-of-like syslog. For the individual there is a notifier pop-up. And for the individual there is not a whole lot of configuration options turning things like LDAP, SMTP ... on and off. Yes, an enterprise workstation might have a different version of Widnes with enterprise outlook (which can't do POP/SMTP and *has* to talk to the enterprise Exchange server), do authentication against an enterprise Active Directory server and so forth. But Windows Home for the Windows "user" has none of that. The "user" doesn't need to know. Windows XP and Vista "Home Edition" have any facilities and one of them is an event scheduler sort-of akin to CRON. (Squint hard.) Since Microsoft Windows assumes you do not have a command line shell open, and pretty much assumes you will do without it, all notification is by a pop-up window. Can you say "event notifier"? Now lets look at Linux. Lets look at an ordinary home user, perhaps a 'one laptop per child' child using Linux rather than Windows, or a netbook purchaser who hasn't returned his netbook and swapped it for one running Windows. He's probably been brainwashed by the GUI environments of Microsoft or Apple and simply wont think of opening an xterm window or hotkeying to a tty screen. So he'll never see a shell. He doesn't expect the system to send out mail messages for errors, e expects popups. The idea of the system needing to know his "internet" mail address is going to make him suspicious. Identity theft? Microsoft Windows never needed this... So CRON sending notifications by email is inapproprite for an enterprice setting where syslog is used to consolidate & monitor events, and inappropriate for a home, SOHO or SMB "user" where a popup notifier is the expectation. Having CRON send mail is just soooo 1980s-ish. BTDT and glad its long past. Lets let go of those old conceptions and limitations. -- I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Per Jessen said the following on 10/24/2008 03:58 AM:

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Per, you are being quite ridiculous and outrageous.

Why? I'm not proposing nor arguing anything new. Honestly, an openSUSE system _needs_ a sendmail binary in order for millions of scripts to work. The binary delivers the mail to the local MTA - if there is no local MTA, those emails are never seen. And that goes for desktops and servers alike. And for Redhat/Debian/Mandriva/Slackware/etc too. I completely fail to see any security issue in having a postfix MTA listening on localhost:25 on a desktop machine.

If you want to make this a security issue then the whole thing of applications sending out alerts by mail is the security issue. In a enterprise setting this is normally handled by a central syslog mechanism for the enterprise and there is some very sophisticated software supporting this. In a "user" setting where there isn't the IT support of larger business the GUI is the thing and as Microsoft has shown and I discuss more fully elsewhere in this thread an on-screen pop-up makes more sense. The ideas behind CRON dates from the seventies and the user at a paper or glass tty running a command line shell. Having the GUI makes those assumptions invalid.

...

Hopefully, Per, you man that each machine need to run a mail forwarder OR a local mail delivery agent (that has not SMTP capability)

Anton, the postfix MTA is set up to do local mail delivery by default. If you want it to do mail forwarding, you only need to configure the relay_host.

I'm perfectly well aware of how to set up Postfix, and, for my sins, sendmail before that. I've been using Postfix for over a decade both on my home system and in large (> 50 server, > 1,000 users) enterprise settings as well as for ISPs. I run it on my own home network on a dedicated mail hub. However before I installed openSUSE none of my non-mail hub machines and in the specific not my laptop or desk workstation ran Postfix, exim, sendmail or other such MTA. Given that there is archaic and inappropriate software in openSUSE that reports via email, the best argument you can make is that there is a need for a mail forwarder, and running openSUSE on a laptop or workstation this should be a lightweight one with a small footprint and no unnecessary functionality. The "small is beautiful" and "do one thing, only one thing and do it well" are not only long standing UNIX adages, they are also good advice from the security point of view, since you raised the matter of security. But more to the point while I *can* configure Postfix, the installation process should configure the mail forwarder. Personally, I still think that Microsoft have demonstrated with their "professional" and "home" editions the way that enterprise-level and personal systems should handle event notification, the former being a syslog analogue and the latter being on-screen po pups to the GUI.

...

So CRON sending notifications by email is inapproprite for an enterprice setting where syslog is used to consolidate & monitor events, and inappropriate for a home, SOHO or SMB "user" where a popup notifier is the expectation. Having CRON send mail is just soooo 1980s-ish.

Anton, I think I'm going to say "troll". No enterprise monitors events via syslog - they are far more likely to use SNMP, HP Openview, BMC Patrol, Tivoli and such tools.

Having worked in IT & Security at large banks and telcos I can assert that syslog *is* a primary central monitoring tool in large corporations. Quite possibly one of many, but do not deny that they are used since you would be calling me and many other people a liar, and I'd object to that. MacKinney's "JOB/SYSLOG" SyslogIT by Pointesoft PacketTrap ManageEngine's EventLog Analyzer, which has facilities for regulatory compliance monitoring and reporting. Prism Systems EventTracker And many products, open soruce and commercial, that route syslog into a database so that other database tools can be used for analysis and reporting. As I hinted above, these tools are being used in response to the pressure from regulatory compliance and to assist in DLP, which is where I encounter them in my "day job".

For those that don't have the infrastructure to support that, email is a better alternative than syslog, IMHO. And of course there are alternatives such as nagios, ganglia et al.

For those that are just running a windowing workstation with no infrastructure at all, the 'one man SOHO/SMB', a pop-up notifier is a better alternative. Most such people simply aren't interested in monitoring their networks using tools like nagios - they aren't geeks, they are users and have specific tasks in mind. -- I thought about being born again, but my mother refused. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/24/2008 08:59 AM:

On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 08:10 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

If you want to make this a security issue then the whole thing of applications sending out alerts by mail is the security issue.

Why?

If the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.

...

In a enterprise setting this is normally handled by a central syslog mechanism for the enterprise and there is some very sophisticated software supporting this.

On some enterprises.

Unhelpful. Can be said about anything, anywhere.

Actually, SNMP is a better method.

I'm not going into that argument, its a pissing contest. Each method has it place and the large organizations I deal with use many on the principle of overlapping fields and defence in depth.

...

In a "user" setting where there isn't the IT support of larger business the GUI is the thing and as Microsoft has shown and I discuss more fully elsewhere in this thread an on-screen pop-up makes more sense.

I object to comparisons to M$.

Object all you want. They have some good stuff, have demonstrated some great ideas and principles and show success. My point here is that they have overcome the command line legacy and even the annoying "GPF" (or 3.8 LPF if you're in Canada or France) problem. If you can't watch too see what they do well and do right you can't learn from them. Do you imagine they are not watching the open source community and learning? CP/M and Jim Patterson's adoption on which PC-DOS was based didn't have a hierarchical file system, didn't have "." and "..", didn't have hidden files ... where do you think Microsoft got all those & much more from?

And I strongly object to having "alerts" popping up in my desktop. That's one of the reasons I dislike microsoft.

One of many. But the point is that if the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on. *YOU* might not like them and *I* can configure my laptop any which way to hell, but *we* have gee blood flowing in our veins, whereas the average user doesn't. I see that large number of netbooks are being returned, the ones running Linux being traded in for ones that run Windows. The average Joe consumer isn't as geeky as us and can't set up all that mail forwarding, ldap, nis all the rest. He's been brainwashed, rightly or wrongly, by Microsoft and for him a pop-up notifier is the right way. Me, I want to run syslog and have swatch "page me" with a SMS message on my cell phone when something critical happens. That's me. YMMV. But to deny the average user a facility just because *you* don't like Microsoft is, I think, a bit arrogant. Its the sort of elitist attitude that will marginalize Linux.

You have a point in that postfix or sendmail could be replaced with a smaller, local delivery only, smtp agent. However, ¿can you actually sugest such a package? Unless there is one, ready made, available and reliable, or you can convince some developper to develop it, I'm afraid the suggestion is useless.

Years ago I ran one up in Perl :-) I've seen a few since then ... lets google, eh?

You can fill a enhancement request on Bugzilla. If you really want that feature, that's the only place Novell listens.

Help me here please with an address.

...

But more to the point while I *can* configure Postfix, the installation process should configure the mail forwarder.

You do not need to configure it at all. The default configuration as installed by openSUSE only listens internally. In fact, maybe you do not need to have the service running.

If there was a local-only delivery agent, yes. But its not about "only listening locally", its about where its delivered. To be meaningful, because its not a pop-up and because Joe AverageUser is running the GUI and not a command line shell, it needs to be forwarded to his email account. The installation/set-up should do that. Then when he reads his mail via Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, whatever, there's his system messages. TaDah!

...

Personally, I still think that Microsoft have demonstrated with their

I object to comparisons to M$.

See above. If you can't learn from them ...

...

Having worked in IT & Security at large banks and telcos I can assert that syslog *is* a primary central monitoring tool in large

I too have worked in telcos, and I have seen mail even in the exchange software. And yes, I have also worked with syslog type of reporting. But remember that telcos and banks are old institutions, the new thing is SNMP.

I recall back in 1989 I met with Marty Shoftstall of PSI in Falls Church. Marty 'invented" SNMP in 1988 (see RFC 1067, 1089, 1157). Marty told me two things. The first was that there was no market for the Internet in Canada, the second was that a SNMP was a mistake. he spent the next three hours elaborating on both of those. He was wrong about the first, as I went on to prove, and for whatever shortcomings SNMP has, and it has a lot, it has been adopted by vendors for the lack of anything else. But to say its a "new thing" or even a "new fashion" is incorrect. I was managing routers and modems at an ISP using SNMP back in 1983/4. Banks and Telcos my be 'old', but they have some of the most extensive and varied networks around.

...

For those that are just running a windowing workstation with no infrastructure at all, the 'one man SOHO/SMB', a pop-up notifier is a better alternative.

Again, I object to pop up notifiers. They are a no-no.

That's your decision and being able to make that decision is important. My point is that we don't ave the ability to make that decision. I don't like pop-ups either and I'm glad that Firefox blocks them! But some people have a different opinion. I want to e able to say "yes, you can have that when you use Linux". The comparison you should object to about Microsoft is that they don't offer alternatives. -- Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later. - Og Mandino -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-ID: On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 10:30 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/24/2008 08:59 AM:

...

On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 08:10 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

If you want to make this a security issue then the whole thing of applications sending out alerts by mail is the security issue.

Why?

If the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.

By "security issue" I, and I guess Per, are talking about what possible dangers you see in letting apps sending alerts by email.

...

...

In a "user" setting where there isn't the IT support of larger business the GUI is the thing and as Microsoft has shown and I discuss more fully elsewhere in this thread an on-screen pop-up makes more sense.

I object to comparisons to M$.

Object all you want. They have some good stuff, have demonstrated some great ideas and principles and show success. My point here is that they have overcome the command line legacy and even the annoying "GPF" (or

Well, I object, I don't take M$ as guiding master, certainly not where Linux is concerned. I like command line. I prefer certain things not to rely on a GUI at all.

...

And I strongly object to having "alerts" popping up in my desktop. That's one of the reasons I dislike microsoft.

One of many. But the point is that if the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.

Oh, they are seen alright. If my job is to see them, I assure you I will see them ASAP. If I'm Joe User, I'll see them when I want to see them, not when the system wants me to see them. Let the system take care of itself and let me sleep!

I see that large number of netbooks are being returned, the ones running Linux being traded in for ones that run Windows. The average Joe consumer isn't as geeky as us and can't set up all that mail forwarding, ldap, nis all the rest. He's been brainwashed, rightly or wrongly, by Microsoft and for him a pop-up notifier is the right way.

Why would he have to configure ldap, nis and all the rest? Or mail forwarding? I haven't. And, as far as I'm concerned, if a user doesn't know how to set up Linux, he should not install Linux >:-P

Me, I want to run syslog and have swatch "page me" with a SMS message on my cell phone when something critical happens. That's me.

YMMV. But to deny the average user a facility just because *you* don't like Microsoft is, I think, a bit arrogant. Its the sort of elitist attitude that will marginalize Linux.

I don't deny him anything, but just don't try to convince me just because M$ does it that way, because them I will be convinced it is a bad thing and we should do the contrary. If you want to be warned by SMS, do so. Many do so with openSUSE the way it is now.

...

You have a point in that postfix or sendmail could be replaced with a smaller, local delivery only, smtp agent. However, ¿can you actually sugest such a package? Unless there is one, ready made, available and reliable, or you can convince some developper to develop it, I'm afraid the suggestion is useless.

Years ago I ran one up in Perl :-) I've seen a few since then ... lets google, eh?

No, I will not google :-P I'm not the person interested in that change. You propose it, you go ahead. ;-)

...

You can fill a enhancement request on Bugzilla. If you really want that feature, that's the only place Novell listens.

Help me here please with an address.

I did already on this thread. Just search for how to report bugs in the wiki.

...

...

But more to the point while I *can* configure Postfix, the installation process should configure the mail forwarder.

You do not need to configure it at all. The default configuration as installed by openSUSE only listens internally. In fact, maybe you do not need to have the service running.

If there was a local-only delivery agent, yes. But its not about "only listening locally", its about where its delivered.

Internal users of the system may use the mail service to send mail anywhere, yes. So? I don't see a problem. Worried they send spam? Then don't give them a computer at all, they could send spam by many other means, if they have access to the computer with an account.

To be meaningful, because its not a pop-up and because Joe AverageUser is running the GUI and not a command line shell, it needs to be forwarded to his email account. The installation/set-up should do that. Then when he reads his mail via Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, whatever, there's his system messages. TaDah!

No, mail is not forwarded. It is stored on his local account. You can set any mail client to read that: some do so by default, some not.

...

...

Personally, I still think that Microsoft have demonstrated with their

I object to comparisons to M$.

See above. If you can't learn from them ...

Not in regard to Linux. We are different and I do not want to do things their way. I didn't migrate to Linux with a lot of personal effort just to dot hings the Microsoft way.

But to say its a "new thing" or even a "new fashion" is incorrect. I was managing routers and modems at an ISP using SNMP back in 1983/4.

It is the "new thing", because on the telcos I worked for, the machine did (does) not even have tcp/ip :-P So we used a kind of syslog, and ciscos and databases and analysis tools. That was my field. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkCJScACgkQtTMYHG2NR9Xm9wCfeZHGS1VJ4pG2G2aDxQcCs9v7 hBMAn3W73q+S5XVFdES1ZrQhCDfQLgeR =AV1U -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 18:00 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/24/2008 03:42 PM:

...

Well, I object, I don't take M$ as guiding master, certainly not where Linux is concerned. I like command line. I prefer certain things not to rely on a GUI at all.

You and me both, Bro', but we've got geekiness in our blood. We don't represent the market.

Are you saying you want Linux and openSUSE reserved for the elite like us?

Not really. :-) In fact, I know of people that have successful installed it on their machine, with no much knowledge of computers or Linux. So things are not so difficult.

...

...

But the point is that if the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.

Oh, they are seen alright.

How? If Joe AverageUser has done a vanilla install and the mail is routed to the localhost, aka /var/spool/mail/joe, and Joe is using Gmail, how is he going to see these mail generated alerts? He's using the GUI not the command line.

What does it matter he doesn't use the command line? Look, if he is reading the email using the webmail interface, obviously he will not see the system email there. But if he uses kmail, evince, thunderbird, etc, then of course he can see system mail on one folder and external email on another.

...

...

I see that large number of netbooks are being returned, the ones running Linux being traded in for ones that run Windows. The average Joe consumer isn't as geeky as us and can't set up all that mail forwarding, ldap, nis all the rest. He's been brainwashed, rightly or wrongly, by Microsoft and for him a pop-up notifier is the right way.

Why would he have to configure ldap, nis and all the rest? Or mail forwarding? I haven't.

That's the point. The vanilla installation, as found out this weekend, expects ldap (see earlier notes in this thread about what I found in /etc/nsswitch and /etc/pam.d/common-*) and if the mail forwarding isn't set up his system generated mail is not going to appear on his Gmail account. The latter will eventually freeze the machine as /var/spool/mail/joe fills up the whole partition. THAT is a security issue.

I don't see it. I don't have ldap configured. Yes, it is installed, but not configured, and it certainly is not running. And yet, I don't get any warning at all about ldap anywhere. And this is the same as it happens on a default installation or people would have complained before. To check further, I have removed the ldap server (which is not installed by default), and I don't see nor expect any warning or error, and certainly no emails filling up. Really, I don't see your problem with ldap! And even less with emails filling up the box: I get none, except from some extra things, not default, that I installed.

...

...

To be meaningful, because its not a pop-up and because Joe AverageUser is running the GUI and not a command line shell, it needs to be forwarded to his email account. The installation/set-up should do that. Then when he reads his mail via Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, whatever, there's his system messages. TaDah!

No, mail is not forwarded. It is stored on his local account. You can set any mail client to read that: some do so by default, some not.

You can; I can, but Joe AverageUser *doesn't* *even* *know* *about* *it*. Its all done without telling him.

THAT is a security problem.

I still don't see it. What security problem? Why can not joe plain user read the system email if he wants to? Or not read it at all? Many don't set it up, just use the default, and nothing happens. And certainly nobody I knows /has/ to forward it to gmail to read it! Of course, if that's the way you want it, you can, of course. You appear to think that there are a lot of system emails sent to joe user on openSUSE. Actually none is sent. Some emails _may_ be sent to the administrator: looking at my system, I haven't got any on years - if we exceptuate from services that I have installed manually and expresely configured to send emails. Those services do not run on any default installation. I don't see what you are worried about, frankly. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkCWoYACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VcegCeLeHDuzZOMLQOfWCmb3AW0TkJ IiQAn3sqYIwbv5bmK6CHqIbLgHjBJ/oY =H/sa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Anton Aylward wrote:

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/24/2008 08:59 AM:

...

You have a point in that postfix or sendmail could be replaced with a smaller, local delivery only, smtp agent. However, ¿can you actually sugest such a package? Unless there is one, ready made, available and reliable, or you can convince some developper to develop it, I'm afraid the suggestion is useless.

A quick google shows up

http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/ Which is still too heavy for what we're talking about!

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/CodeDoc/SMTP-Server/Server.html

This is one of those occasions where google can mislead, software hunting with google is probably not the most effective of strategies, and digging into these results does raise a few questions... http://search.cpan.org/~macgyver/SMTP-Server-1.1/Server.pm is one way to find the above reference on CPAN.. However that was last updated in 1999 and is looking unmaintained with a fairly critical bug outstanding and is therefore probably not a good option... BTW Activestate Perl I believe is the windoze Perl interpreter and stuff which works on Windows cannot be guaranteed to run on Linux and vice versa which is why I initially looked at this a little closer. There are some significant differences between running Perl on doze and *nix, while the core language is OK on both, some useful functionality is missing on doze. Suggesting running a script designed to run on Windows seems a little odd....(BTW this module should be cross-platform). http://search.cpan.org/~guimard/Net-Server-Mail-0.17/lib/Net/Server/Mail/SMT... Is probably a better place to start looking..... For Perl CPAN is usually the best first port of call... (and there is rather a lot of SMTP related stuff on the site )... Python probably has a bundle of stuff somewhere (I am not a Python enthusiast, but I would be surprised there was not a similar repository for the language.. )... Of the system script languages Perl and Python are probably the most mature for this kind of work, (with Bash scripting for system glue one has a very powerful toolkit with either or both of these languages). I would tend to view this scripting capability in this context as more of a testing or training tool than a production server or client tool...

http://smtpd.develooper.com/

This seems to be really intended as a replacement for part of qmail and does not seem to be (completely) standalone or simple..... but there again I know very little about qmail....

I realise perl is not a small footprint but if you are running perl anyway ...

Perl can be quite economic in its footprint (it is really up to the programmer how big this is).... The main issue here would be performance in comparison to compiled code....

The simple loop that is illustrated could be implemented in any number of scripting languages, PHP, Ruby, and isn't mindboggling for C.

PHP hmmm.... stretching a point somewhat... Ruby... not really up to it yet... (these are strongly orientated to web usage and in many ways probably not ideally suited for some system scripting activities). C... why reinvent the wheel?... It is not as if Postfix has a massive footprint, and is particularly difficult to configure or lock down to do this job, (exim and sendmail are a very different story, but exim really addresses a different audience and I get the impression that some people think in terms of exim-like levels of complexity when faced with configuring a SMTP server).... Once you have set up SMTP relay, you have to make certain that the relay is suitably secured so that only those accounts you want to use it can use from the places you say they can use it etc, etc... To gives this capability to a script or other code adds a bit of complexity in any such SMTP server design at the start and some additional processing (and programming and testing work to get right). Postfix is probably as light as you can get without getting something more than a little brain damaged in this context using C (and with utilities such as procmail and spamassassin can be still be very useful even in the local relay only role)....Why make oneself (or others) extra work with little real benefit? Writing a brain damaged script or code for this purpose seems to be just daft! The thing to remember is although the script example is simple as given in the Perl reference, a lot of stuff the module is doing is quite probably not and if you do not really understand what it is doing, one can give oneself (and others) an awful lot of grief.... IMHO this whole issue is a storm in a thimble, and the security issues probably more than a bit overstated (I am a bit of a security freak but I do occasionally find some security related responses as damaging as some of the security issues they are attempting to address and this seems to be one of those occasions).... having a secured local relay on the client is not quite the same thing as having an unsecured or illicit relay which is a frequent issue on M$ workstations that have been botnetted, this is not AFAIK a major linux desktop issue yet. This concern is really a paper tiger.... The Netcat approach in this context is probably safe enough behind a suitable network security configuration used by someone who knows what they are doing, but the thought of letting such a tool loose on some the less knowledgeable elements of userspace for this purpose makes me wince...(and I hope I am correct in believing you are not advocating this...) ... - -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkkC8VcACgkQasN0sSnLmgKulwCeIX5ZYYWzioCKLt9ogVzMMW8O W0kAoJCQpqgeeGNW5Qe4iYbP7gKEkFPz =eICK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 09:58:51AM +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Ruben Safir said the following on 10/23/2008 07:46 PM:

...

...

...

Every SuSE Desktop host needs a SMTP and the port open? No, obviously they don't. Ah, yes they do

Oh no they DON'T and if an OS in my enterprise had to has an SMTP server on every desktop I'd had the security detail scrub every damn machine until that OS was gone.

Damn right! It would put them out of compliance and probably cost a lot in clean-up. It may even force their replacement by Microsoft Windows system!

Per, you are being quite ridiculous and outrageous.

Why? I'm not proposing nor arguing anything new. Honestly, an openSUSE system _needs_ a sendmail binary in order for millions of scripts to work. The binary delivers the mail to the local MTA - if there is no local MTA, those emails are never seen. And that goes for desktops and servers alike. And for Redhat/Debian/Mandriva/Slackware/etc too. I completely fail to see any security issue in having a postfix MTA listening on localhost:25 on a desktop machine.

Yeah - thats what the firewall is for, right? What do you think your sales person does when cron email them an incomprehensable message they can't do anything for? Right -- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ruben Safir wrote:

...

Why? I'm not proposing nor arguing anything new. Honestly, an openSUSE system _needs_ a sendmail binary in order for millions of scripts to work. The binary delivers the mail to the local MTA - if there is no local MTA, those emails are never seen. And that goes for desktops and servers alike. And for Redhat/Debian/Mandriva/Slackware/etc too. I completely fail to see any security issue in having a postfix MTA listening on localhost:25 on a desktop machine.

Yeah - thats what the firewall is for, right?

Exactly.

What do you think your sales person does when cron email them an incomprehensable message they can't do anything for?

Unless this salesperson had set up the cronjob, why would he be getting the email? -- /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ruben Safir writes:

exactly your an idiot. Really, you are. You should make an effort to be less of an idiot.

Ruben, this kind of insults is not acceptable on this mailing list. I ask you to stop this behaviour! I suggest to everybody else to ignore Ruben and this thread for now, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform/openSUSE, aj@suse.de SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

If you look at how Microsoft windows works, and stop for a moment and put your prejudices aside, 'cos a lot that product is well worked out and makes a lot of sense and is very 'usable', notification is by one of two things.

The only caveat here is that I don't want cron hooked up to SMB either. I don't want SAMBA at all on my laptop and if I need it I will install it. I don't want to see cron AT ALL. I just want it to work... Ruben -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Anton Aylward wrote:

Back then you might have 30 or 40 users on a single PDP-11. I recall that well, and yes those old 16 bit transistor technology could handle 40 simultaneous users. No virtual memory, perhaps a total of 80G of disk. Good old Bourne shell. No networking.

Errm, the PDP-11 was TTL integrated circuits http://hampage.hu/pdp-11/1120.html and LSI later. It certainly had networking - it was one of the main targets for interface boards - and there were plenty of glass teletypes by then. I'm not sure what you mean about no virtual memory; I can't think of a machine of that era and before without some kind of virtual memory scheme. Unix ran quite happily!! You're probably thinking of the PDP-8.

Come the era of windows most people don't run shells.

These people would never see the notice from CRON.

I don't know about you but I see my cron mail in the same way as the rest of my mail, using my MUA, Thunderbird in my case. Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 10:03 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

...

These people would never see the notice from CRON.

I don't know about you but I see my cron mail in the same way as the rest of my mail, using my MUA, Thunderbird in my case.

Because you, like me, have some geek in your blood (or you wouldn't be here) and have configured your system to do that. Ordinary Joe consumer, the kind who might buy his netbook at Wal-mart or Sears, should they offer it, isn't a geek. Don't expect him to be able to dig under the hood with a command line. Microsoft have done a very good job of brainwashing the world into expecting everything to "just work" and be configured via a GUI.

Why would we have to get to the command line or under the hood for that? Are you talking about openSUSE, or some old unix? - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkB3zUACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VR/ACfaubESIgSX4Ie0K4C3FI5CIPk fsYAn2b8+VlK1JAtiAjrTtvjIHuvED+e =pRfI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Anton Aylward wrote:

Dave Howorth said the following on 10/24/2008 09:01 AM:

...

Errm, the PDP-11 was TTL integrated circuits http://hampage.hu/pdp-11/1120.html and LSI later.

Back then (1970's) TTL and ICs couldn't handle high current. TTY driver and disk interfaces were transistors, and even the boards that were TTL had a sprinkling of transistors. TTL simply couldn't handle those currents and voltages.

That would depend on whether a current loop or RS-232 interface was used. There were RS-232 transmitter & receiver ICs available back then, though some systems did use discrete transistors for RS-232. The Motorola MC1488 & MC1489 were popular RS-232 transmitter and receiver chips back then. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2008-10-23 at 01:12 -0400, Ruben Safir wrote:

In the end I downloaded the rpm and querried the files for postfix and ran a script to just remove them by hand.

And now you have a broken machine. Suit yourself. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkATAsACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VjBwCfRLwbu0Bq1ofHj1jbmQCkMKpR HiEAn2boIBYpNSkiOXjR/0ZZYKXSS3SJ =noPY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

...

It's just unbelievable and I can never tell what Yast will do.

What "Yast" will do ? hrmmmokay... for your information, Yast itself does not remove, install or upgrade packages.

Uh, I'll bet ya that YaST is one of those dumb computer thingies that will only do what's it's told. -- /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 12:44:33PM -0300, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

Ruben Safir escribió:

...

Its worse than that though. If you remove cron a whole cascade of problems crop up.

Obviously it is complaining that you are messing up your system..

...

It's just unbelievable and I can never tell what Yast will do.

What "Yast" will do ? hrmmmokay... for your information, Yast itself does not remove, install or upgrade packages.

Bullshit. And I rarely use such strong language on a mailing list. Yast completely has ignored my instructions and did fantanctically stupid things that there is no excuse for.

It

...

wasn't always like this. You used to have more control up to and including 9.3

Well, it used to be a lot of more packaging bugs in 9.3 that allowed you to mess^Whave more control of your system...

...

Every SuSE Desktop host needs a SMTP and the port open? No, obviously they don't.

On localhost yes.

Yeah that is the problem. Its not just yast that is broken, it is the whole development team. Hello, are you listening?? YOU DON'T NEED AN SMTP SERVER ON A LAPTOP

-- "A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. "

Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one." © Copyright for the Digital Millennium -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Per Jessen wrote:

Ruben Safir wrote:

...

Bullshit. And I rarely use such strong language on a mailing list. Yast completely has ignored my instructions and did fantanctically stupid things that there is no excuse for.

Ruben, stop ranting and open a bugreport. I doubt if YaST has really ignored your instructions, but you obviously feel strongly about it, so the best way is to log a report.

...

Yeah that is the problem. Its not just yast that is broken, it is the whole development team.

Let's not feed the troll.

Better still make it a wether. DC -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org