red hat

No, this doesn’t mean Ubuntu and Linux are giving up

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Software , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week, Mark Shuttleworth closed the longstanding Ubuntu bug #1, which simply read, “Microsoft has majority market share.” Because Microsoft didn’t lose its market share lead to Ubuntu, or Red Hat, or some other conventional Linux distribution, some people, including John C. Dvorak, are interpreting this as some kind of surrender.

I don’t see it as surrender at all. Microsoft’s dominant position, which seemed invincible in 2004 when Shuttleworth opened that bug, is slipping away. They still dominate PCs, but PCs as we know it are a shrinking part of the overall computing landscape, and the growth is all happening elsewhere.

I have (or at least had) a reputation as a Microsoft hater. That’s a vast oversimplification. I’m not anti-Microsoft. I’m pro-competition. I’m also pro-Amiga, and I’ll go to my grave maintaining that the death of Amiga set the industry back 20 years. I have Windows and Linux boxes at home, my wife has (believe it or not) an Ipad, and at work I’m more comfortable administering Linux than Windows right now, which seems a bit strange, especially considering it’s a Red Hat derivative and I haven’t touched Red Hat in what seems like 400 years.

What Shuttleworth is acknowledging is that we have something other than a duopoly again, for the first time in more than 20 years, and the industry is innovating and interesting again. Read more

Cable connections are the last thing most people check…

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,

Fed up with trying to host a network printer on a Windows 7 box on a mixed network, I broke down and bought a Jetdirect card for my aged HP Laserjet 4100. Don’t worry–used Jetdirect cards are cheap these days. I paid $7 for mine.

Of course I made installing it harder than I needed to. I’m a professional. Don’t try this at home. Read more

Is the Windows firewall safe enough?

Dave Farquhar security , , , , ,

Is the Windows Firewall safe enough? I wish more people would ask that question rather than make assumptions.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard an unsubstantiated statement like “Windows firewall is junk.” I went looking, and the best I could find was this, an editorial that said it doesn’t do enough to address outbound connections, particularly on a program-by-program basis.

OK, point taken. But “enough” is a moving target.

Read more

Shame on you, Medtronic

Dave Farquhar Health, security , , , , , , ,

Insulin pumps marketed by Minneapolis-based Medtronic have a serious, life-threatening security flaw, and the company couldn’t care less.

For these two reasons, this isn’t your typical security flaw, and Medtronic’s response–in 30 years, we’ve ever seen a problem that we know of–is beyond deplorable. Ford’s infamous decision to pay lawsuits rather than fix a deadly flaw in the Pinto comes to mind.
Read more

How I changed servers midstream

Dave Farquhar Apache, Linux, Servers and Networking, Software , , , , , , , ,

When upgrading this site, I replaced the underlying hardware as well. The old server was just a dead end in too many regards to be worth upgrading in place, and besides, being able to run new and old side by side for a time is helpful.

This type of maneuver is routine work for a professional sysadmin. But it’s been at least two years since I’ve done a similar maneuver at all, and at least five years since I did it with Linux.

When I built the new machine, I gave it a unique IP address. Turnkey Linux makes getting an operational LAMP stack trivial, and depending on what you want to run on that stack, you may even be able to get that installed for you too.

Unfortunately for me, the Geeklog migration tool doesn’t seem to work with WordPress 3.0.1. So I had to get WordPress running on my old hardware in order to migrate. I chose WordPress 2.0.11 because the 2.0 branch appeared to be the current branch when Justdave wrote his migration tool, and 2.0.11 ran without complaint on the dated versions of PHP and MySQL that were on my old server.

After importing the content, I used mysqldump to export my databases. Specifically:

mysqldump --opt -u [mysql username] -p [database name, probably wordpress] > wordpress.sql

I should have gzipped the file, but I didn’t.

gzip wordpress.sql

I then connected to the old server via FTP and transferred the file. Use your favorite file transfer method; I happened to have FTP set up for my internal network.

Uncompress the file if you compressed it:

gunzip wordpress.sql.gz

Then restore the file:

mysql -u [mysql username] -p [database name] < wordpress.sql

Or, if the database already exists, like in my case:

mysqlimport -u [uname] -p [database name] wordpress.sql

Then I connected to the webserver via my web browser. WordPress 3.0.1 saw the WordPress 2.0.11 database and informed me that it needed to be upgraded. So I let it do its thing, and a few minutes later, I had a functioning WordPress site with 10 years’ worth of legacy entries.

I messed around with it for a while. Finally, I decided to go live. And at this point, I should have physically moved the new server into its permanent home. I didn’t do that, so now when I decide to move the server, I’m going to have some downtime.

To flip the IP addresses, you need to know where your Linux box stores its IP address. Debian and Ubuntu both store it in /etc/network/interfaces. As far as I can tell, Red Hat and derivatives like CentOS store it in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, but I haven’t used Red Hat or a derivative in a long time, perhaps 2003.

If worse comes to worse, try something like this to determine where it’s stored:

grep -r [ip address] /etc/

I edited the appropriate file on both boxes, changing the IP address while leaving all of the other parameters unchanged.

I then issued the command ifdown eth0 on both machines.

On my new production server, I then issued the command ifup eth0. Depending on the Linux distribution, it might also be necessary to re-issue a default route command. I didn’t have to do that.

Depending on how much Linux/Unix cred you have at stake, you could just do it the Windows way and reboot the box. Or both of them.

Once I was satisfied everything was working, I powered down the old server and celebrated.

Intel inside the Mac–no more question mark

Dave Farquhar Macintosh , , , , , , , , , , ,

OK, it’s official. Intel has conquered one of the last holdouts: Soon you’ll be able to buy a Pentium-powered Mac.

Of course there are lots of questions now.First of all, Apple having problems with its CPU suppliers is nothing new. Apple’s first CPU supplier was a small firm called MOS Technology. You’ve probably never heard of it, but MOS was a subsidiary of a company you may have heard of: Commodore. Commodore, of course, was one of two other companies to release a ready-built home computer about the same time Apple did. The problem was that the Commodore and Apple computers had the same CPU. Commodore, of course, could undercut Apple’s price. And it did. Commodore president Jack Tramiel was an Auschwitz survivor, and Tramiel pretty much assumed his competitors were going to treat him the same way the Nazis did, so he never cut them any breaks either. At least not intentionally.

When other companies released licensed versions of MOS’ 6502 processor, Apple was the biggest customer. Rumor had it that Commodore was hoarding 6502s.

When Motorola released its legendary 68000 CPU, Apple was one of the first companies to sign up, and the first two commercially successful computers to use the m68K were made by Apple. And life was good. Apple wasn’t Motorola’s only customer but it was one of the biggest. Life was good for the better part of a decade, when Intel finally managed to out-muscle the performance of the Motorola 68040. So Apple conspired with Motorola and IBM to come up with something better, and the result was the PowerPC. And life was good again. The PowerPC wasn’t the best chip on the market, but of the two architectures that you could buy at every strip mall on the continent, it was clearly the better of the two.

Over time Apple’s relationship with Motorola cooled, and the relationship with IBM was off again and on again. Intel meanwhile kept trotting out bigger and bigger sledgehammers, and by brute force alone was able to out-muscle the PowerPC. Steve Jobs got creative, but eventually he just ran out of tricks. Switching to Intel in 2006 may or may not be the best option, but it’s just as easy to do now as it’s ever going to be.

So, now there’s the question of whether this will hurt Microsoft or Linux or both. The answer is yes. The real question isn’t whether it will hurt, but how much. As soon as Microsoft loses one sale, it’s hurt. The same goes for Red Hat.

To me, the question hinges on how attached Apple is to its hardware business. Steve Jobs has only said that OS X has been running on Intel in the labs for years. I have never heard him mention whether the hardware was a standard PC clone motherboard, or something of Apple’s design. I suspect he’s avoiding the question.

It would be possible to make OS X run on Apple hardware and only Apple hardware, even if the CPU is a standard Pentium 4 just like Dell uses. And at least at the outset, I expect Apple will do that. Apple may only have 3-5 percent of the market, but it’s 3-5 percent of a really big pie. The company is profitable.

It would also be possible to let Windows run on this hardware. That may be a good idea. Apple still has something to offer that nobody else does: The slick, easy to use and stable OS X, but on top of that, you can boot into Windows to play games or whatever. It makes Apple hardware worth paying a premium to get.

If Apple chooses to let OS X run on anything and everything, it hurts Linux and Windows more, but it probably hurts Apple too. There’s a lot of hardware out there, and a lot of it isn’t any good. Apple probably doesn’t want that support nightmare.

I think this will narrow the gigahertz gap and, consequently, the speed gap. I think it will help Apple’s marketshare, especially if they allow Windows to run on the hardware. I don’t see it having a devestating effect on any other operating system though. It will hurt marginal PC manufacturers before it hurts software companies.

Darl\’s getting a blog…

Dave Farquhar Software , , , ,

For those of you who don’t know, SCO is tired of Groklaw and setting up its own blog, prosco.net (not yet active; it goes live Nov. 1) to provide a counterpoint.

SCO, for the uninitiated, is a software company turned litigation company whose lawsuits against the likes of IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Daimler Chrysler and Autozone aren’t doing well.SCO says they’re going to answer questions from the public. I have a few questions they can answer.

Their stock was trading at or around $50 a share during the past year, but the share price is currently near $3. What are they going to do about their dwindling stock price?

Is SCO in danger of being delisted?

What sources of revenue does SCO have?

Is Darl McBride buying or selling SCO stock right now?

When SCO goes out of business next year, what company will Darl McBride and his friends go to? I still owe about $10,000 on my Honda and I’m realizing now that if I had shorted $5,000 worth of SCO stock a year ago, I would have nearly doubled my money by now. Investment opportunities like that don’t come along every day, so I’d like to find the next one.

Can I see a line of the code that IBM stole? One line would suffice. I would prefer it not include the strings “#include” and “stdio.h”.

Why November 1? Why tease us? Why not just start writing and then publicize it? That’s what I did, and I get lots of traffic. Surely not as much as SCO does though. I’m sure the traffic they receive from disgruntled sysadmins redirecting Nimda and similar requests to www.sco.com dwarfs mine. And Yahoo’s.

Easy and secure remote Linux/Unix file transfers with SCP

Dave Farquhar Linux , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes you need to transfer files between Linux boxes, or between a Linux box and some other box, and setting up Samba or some other form of network file system may not be practical (maybe you only need to transfer a couple of files, or maybe it’s just a one-time thing) or possible (maybe there’s a firewall involved).
Well, you should already have SSH installed on your Linux boxes so you can remotely log in and administer them. On Debian, apt-get install ssh sshd. If you’re running distro based on Red Hat or UnitedLinux, you may have a little investigative work to do. (I’d help you, but I haven’t run anything but Debian for 2 or 3 years.)

The cool thing about SSH is that it not only does remote login, but it will also do remote file transfer. And unlike FTP, you don’t have to stumble around with a clumsy interface.

If you want to transfer files from a Windows box, just install PuTTY. I just downloaded the 240K PSCP.EXE file and copied it into my Windows directory. That way I don’t have to mess with paths, and it’s always available. Make sure you’re downloading the right version for your CPU. The Windows NT Alpha version won’t run on your Intel/AMD/VIA CPU. Incidentally, Putty.exe is a very good Telnet/SSH client and a must-have if you’re ever connecting remotely to Unix/Linux machines from Windows.

SSH includes a command called SCP. SCP works almost like the standard Unix CP command. All you to do access a remote file is append a username, followed by the @ sign, and the IP address of the remote server. SCP will then prompt you for a password.

Let’s say I want to move a file from my Linux workstation to my webserver:

scp logo.jpg root@192.168.1.2:/var/www/images

SCP will prompt me for my password. After I enter it, it’ll copy the file, including a nice progress bar and an ETA.

On a Windows machine with PuTTY installed, simply substitute the command pscp for scp.

I can copy the other way too:

scp root@192.168.1.2:/var/www/index.php .

This command will grab a file from my webserver and drop it in the current working directory.

To speed up the transfers, add the -C switch, which turns on compression.

SCP is more secure than any other means of file transfer, it’s probably easier (since you already need SSH anyway), and since it’ll do data compression, it’s probably faster too.

FTE – a DOS-style editor for Linux

Dave Farquhar Linux , , ,

I don’t remember what I was looking for, but I found another DOS-style editor for Linux and Unix.

FTE is another editor that harkens back to the look of the typical DOS app of about 10 years ago, similar to SETEDIT. For casual editing, either program will do very nicely, and provide a look and feel comparable to the editor that came with DOS 5 and 6.

I’ve always liked SETEDIT, but it suffers from the same identity crisis as emacs. Is it an editor? An MP3 player? A desk calculator? All of the above? And while it’s workable over a remote terminal connection, it’s not as snappy as I’d like.

FTE is a little sluggish from afar but faster. I like how it gives me the ability to have multiple files open and deal with large blocks of text, and continue to use the same key sequences I’ve known and been using since early high school. Its syntax highlighting is definitely a nice feature. It takes that feature a bit further than SETEDIT. For example, it highlights the corresponding closing bracket when you move over the opening one.

FTE’s main advantage is that it’s already bundled with some distributions. There’s a Debian project page for it. And a Google search turns up anectotal evidence that it comes in recent versions of Suse, Red Hat and Mandrake as well. If you’re a DOS veteran who’s not enamored with vi or emacs, FTE’s probably worth a look.

For what it’s worth, I typically use nano, but FTE is definitely a whole lot more powerful.

Who wants to build an MP3 jukebox when you can go shopping?

Dave Farquhar General , ,

I was going to cannibalize a computer to turn into a Linux-based MP3 jukebox–I figure get the OS up and going on it and figure out later what software to run on it. It’ll take me a while to get the sound card and wireless NIC working in it, I’m sure. Especially in Debian. If it turns out to be too much of a struggle, I can cave and run Red Hat or SuSE on it since they’re likely to just autodetect the stuff. And then I’ll be a Linux wimp, yeah, but hey, I’ll be a Linux wimp with a really cool sound system.
I ended up going to the store. A couple of stores. I needed vitamins and shampoo and fabric softener. It was really weird hearing “A Letter to Elise” by The Cure as background muzak in Kmart. Not that I was complaining.

I also wanted that Plumb CD I asked about yesterday. I could have saved some money by ordering it online, but I was impatient. It had a once-in-a-lifetime song on it and I wanted it. It was a longshot but I looked. Nope, no Plumb at Kmart. Just Newsboys and DC Talk–the kind of stuff my post-college girlfriend Rachel tried to get me into in 1997. I know a lot of people like them but I just couldn’t get into them.

I guess for me it was a good sign. As far as secular music goes, if it’s sold at Kmart I probably don’t like it. So I should probably expect the same for contemporary Christian music too.

Best Bait-n-Switch had it. So I got it, hopped in the car, put it in the CD player, and turned the volume up a bit. Maybe it’s just how my brain is wired, or what’s been on my mind lately, but “Real” just resonates. To me, it’s an instant classic, like “Day After Day” by Badfinger or “If You Leave” by OMD or “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division.

I’d tell you about the rest of the album but I’ve had that one song on repeat play for most of the night. I think the last time I did that was six years ago with “Want” by The Cure–which turned out to be a smart move, since there wasn’t much else listenable on that particular record.