From mp at rawbw.com Sat Sep 3 17:12:27 2005 From: mp at rawbw.com (Michael Paoli) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 17:12:27 -0700 Subject: [buug] Miscellaneous stuff (2005-09-01 BUUG meeting, etc.) Message-ID: <1125792747.431a3beb5515a@webmail.rawbw.com> Some random bits from the 2005-09-01 BUUG meeting, and related stuff: Some stuff we discussed: LINUX and live CDs For those not as acquainted with installing LINUX, and interested in installing it or checking it out a bit, Ubuntu Linux http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ and Knoppix http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html may be good places to start. With a "live CD", one can boot and run it form CD-ROM, without installing it. This is particularly handy for checking it out, seeing how well it supports one's hardware, and without need to alter one's hard drive contents. Ubuntu has both a "live CD" and an "install CD", so one can check out the live CD, and if things seem to work well and one likes it, one can then use the "install CD" to install it onto the hard drive - with same hardware detection and support, etc., so such an install should work quite similar to what one can effectively test and preview on the "live CD". Knoppix is much more "live CD" oriented, though it does offer a hard drive installation option (script/program) on the CD. Both Ubuntu and Knoppix are Debian http://www.debian.org/ based distributions. Debian is very well supported, and generally quite highly recommended (it's also certainly my favorite) but it may not be the easiest starting point. Backups - various things discussed, including: tar(1) cpio(1) pax(1) dd(1) bacula http://www.bacula.org/ amanda http://www.amanda.org/ Is there an open source solution for hot backups of NTFS filesystems that includes not only all the data, but all the metadata (e.g. all the NTFS ACL and related information)? If not, are there sufficient open source solutions/components to feasibly construct such a solution (e.g. are there Perl modules that know how to read and write NTFS ACL information)? I haven't looked at open source live/hot NTFS backups much, but quick check via google does find items such as: http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2002-April/041706.html On the matter of backups, we mentioned some things we don't like. Here's a little demonstration of something I mentioned I don't like about tar(1). Most notably, one obtains a rather non-intuitive result - if a file has multiple hard links, and one subsequently restores a non-first occurrence of the link from the tar archive, the action of tar is to create the link, not to restore file data. Example: $ ls $ echo old > a $ ln a b $ ls -ion a b 110128 -rw------- 2 1003 4 Sep 2 20:51 a 110128 -rw------- 2 1003 4 Sep 2 20:51 b $ cat b old $ tar -cf tar a b $ rm b $ ls a tar $ echo new > a $ cat a new $ tar -xf tar b $ ls -ion a b 110128 -rw------- 2 1003 4 Sep 2 20:52 a 110128 -rw------- 2 1003 4 Sep 2 20:52 b $ cat b new cpio(1) doesn't have this particular "issue": $ rm a b tar $ echo old > a $ ln a b $ cat b old $ ls -d [ab] | cpio -o -H newc > cpio 1 block $ rm b $ echo new > a $ cpio -im -H newc b < cpio 1 block $ cat b old $ cat a new $ Essentially, with cpio(1), when multiple hard links on a file are backed up in an archive, all those that are restored at the same time will be linked and will contain the data that was backed up, but will not be linked to pathnames that are not extracted but that were the same inode (an additional hard link) when the cpio archive was created. Perhaps just my opinion :-), but I consider the cpio(1) behavior to be the more expected and appropriate behavior (satisfies principle of "least surprise", etc.). Also mentioned, GNU tar can do some semi-intelligent handling of sparse files. It would seem the only common (as in supplied with the operating system) means of getting sparse files precisely right, is by dd or one of the dump(8) family of commands. GNU tar(1) Example: $ rm * $ dd if=/dev/null of=allsparse bs=1024 seek=1024 0+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes transferred in 0.000044 seconds (0 bytes/sec) $ dd if=/dev/zero of=notsparse bs=1024 count=1024 1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out 1048576 bytes transferred in 0.020337 seconds (51560078 bytes/sec) $ dd if=/dev/null of=semisparse bs=1024 seek=512; dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count= 512 >>semisparse 0+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes transferred in 0.000894 seconds (0 bytes/sec) 512+0 records in 512+0 records out 524288 bytes transferred in 0.010161 seconds (51598060 bytes/sec) $ ls -ons total 1536 0 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:26 allsparse 1024 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:26 notsparse 512 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:28 semisparse $ tar --sparse -cf tar *sparse $ rm *sparse $ tar --sparse -xf tar $ ls -ons *sparse 0 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:26 allsparse 1024 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:26 notsparse 0 -rw------- 1 1003 1048576 Sep 2 21:28 semisparse We also discussed some "intellectual property" political, law (copyright, trade secret, patent) and cultural stuff, "public domain", etc., and even including some rather early history of copyright law in Britain. Question was asked about jobs in open source. I mentioned there may be some stuff in various User Groups' lists/archives (e.g. http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk-balug.org/ ). I know for example, I think when relatively recently (a few months back) a presentation was done by xensource (www.xensource.com), and if I recall correctly, they had opening(s) (may have been primarily for kernel hackers). Some User Groups also have lists specifically related to jobs/employment. Starting here: http://linuxmafia.com/bale/ and drilling down into the various sites and their archives/lists might be useful. Note also that sometimes stuff will be mentioned at a LUG meeting, and not make it to the LUG's list(s), so making at least some meetings, and expanding contacts can be useful. Lists and/or meetings can be useful for announcing opening(s) and/or availability (current or upcoming). Note that various User Groups may had different policies/procedures on what should/shouldn't be posted/announced when/where/how, etc. Stuff like Craig's List http://www.craigslist.org/ and various professional associations/groups, e.g.: Usenix http://www.usenix.org/ SAGE http://www.sage.org/ http://www.icca-sfba.org/ may also be useful. From mp at rawbw.com Sun Sep 4 08:34:44 2005 From: mp at rawbw.com (Michael Paoli) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 08:34:44 -0700 Subject: [buug] I've updated my web pages a bit ... Message-ID: <1125848084.431b1414f1ff6@webmail.rawbw.com> Nothing absurdly exciting, but does include some user group related updates. In no particular order: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Logical Volume Manager (LVM) & Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG) ........................................................................ Some of the LVM materials from the 2005-05-17 BALUG presentation: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/linux/lvm/balug/ have been updated/tweaked, most notably: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/linux/lvm/balug/P.S.html I may eventually add yet more LVM material, but at least some of it may be more suitable for an "epilogue" page, and/or additional supplemental materials (e.g. I've also got audio and photos from the meeting courtesy of Xavier and Death Owl, but don't yet have convenient space for hosting those larger materials). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Perl & Oakland Perl Mongers ........................................................................ My Perl page has been relocated: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/perl/ and (yippie!) I'm also spending more time recently writing some stuff in Perl again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bay Area Debian (BAD) ........................................................................ Some things have been added/expanded and/or moved around a bit, e.g. if one's looking for: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/unix/BAD/bad.xcf.bz2 that was referenced on: http://bad.debian.net/list/2003-December/002356.html that can now be found: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/linux/bad/2003-12-10-bad.xcf.bz2 it's also more findable, e.g. now via: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/linux/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Berkeley Unix User Group (BUUG) ........................................................................ I do have a UNIX page once again: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/unix/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And my home page - at least for now ........................................................................ And starting point from which most of that useful stuff can be found: http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/ From mp at rawbw.com Mon Sep 5 09:46:14 2005 From: mp at rawbw.com (Michael Paoli) Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 09:46:14 -0700 Subject: [buug] BUUG list & archives not working Message-ID: <1125938774.431c765664efe@webmail.rawbw.com> Could you check on the buug list (buug at weak.org) - as far as I can tell it doesn't seem to be working. Nothing's shown in the archives more recent than 2005-08-25, and multiple messages sent to the list since that date also apparently haven't gone out to the list. Thanks for your attention to this. From jammer at weak.org Tue Sep 6 07:52:02 2005 From: jammer at weak.org (Jon McClintock) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 07:52:02 -0700 Subject: [buug] BUUG list & archives not working In-Reply-To: <1125938774.431c765664efe@webmail.rawbw.com> References: <1125938774.431c765664efe@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20050906145202.GI1299@weak.org> On Mon, Sep 05, 2005 at 09:46:14AM -0700, Michael Paoli wrote: > Could you check on the buug list (buug at weak.org) - as far as I can tell it > doesn't seem to be working. Nothing's shown in the archives more > recent than 2005-08-25, and multiple messages sent to the list since that > date also apparently haven't gone out to the list. Yeap, OOM killer killed mailman, and I was out camping in the desert. It should be up again now. I think this box needs more RAM; ever since I spun up ClamAV, it's been choking a lot. -Jon