Systems/Network Administrators

Zip drive

I checked the report of a broken zip drive in the OS cluster, and found that it actually was a non-functioning hardware eject button. Using the software eject function works, though.

Performance problems

Our performance problems can probably be traced back to a bad disk.

I noticed that the hdparm benchmarks I was running were taking far longer than they were supposed. After having hdparm terminate in a core dump, I used dmesg to look at the kernel ring logs, and noticed these:

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112384
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112384
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112386
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112386
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112388
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112388
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112390
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112390
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112392
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112392
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112394
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112394
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112396
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112396
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=112398, sector=112398
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 112398

I'd say replacing the disk is in order.

installation

I was working with Skylar on instlling FreeBSD on aclprime.We went through configuration and network stuff.

We worked on nfs,nis, dhcp,ports,rc.conf

Red Hat 9

I've upgraded the ENI lab to Red Hat 9, and have created a new image (ENI-20030917). No complaints so far, but then again no one has been using them either.

SpamAssassin

I have configured SpamAssassin and MIMEDefang to run on quark.

The first step is to ensure that Sendmail is compiled with milter support. Since quark already had milter support, I skipped that step.

Next, I put the following line in /etc/quark.cs.earlham.edu.mc:

INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`mimedefang', `S=unix:/var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock, F=T, T=S:5m;R:5m')

I then configured MIMEDefang (which calls SpamAssassin) in /usr/local/etc/mimedefang.

The startup of MIMEDefang can be complex, so here's how to do it:

1. Fire up the SpamAssassin daemon with this command:

spamd -a -d -c

2. Start up MIMEDefang with this command:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/rc.mimedefang start

Wait a few seconds for MIMEDefang to start up before proceeding.

3. Start up sendmail with these two commands:

sendmail -bd
sendmail -Ac -qp5m

If MIMEDefang needs a new configuration, you should use

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/rc.mimedefang reload

rather than restarting it, because sendmail depends on being able to bind
to a socket that MIMEDefang creates. If you do need to restart MIMEDefang,
it looks like the most reliable way of doing that is to stop MIMEDefang and
sendmail, start MIMEDefang, and then start sendmail.

New Moveable Type Theme

I have gotten a better-looking theme working in Moveable Type. It turns out you have to edit the index.html template, rather than create your own. Credit goes to ECS for the template.

ProFTPd

I have upgraded ProFTPd in response to an X-Force team security report.

Sendmail

Due to a buffer overflow bug in Sendmail, I have upgraded quark from 8.12.3 (ancient history) to 8.12.10.

I used /usr/src/contrib to do the upgrade, which involved moving the 8.12.10 source tree around until it matched the 8.12.3 source tree.

You can read the security report here.

OpenSSH

A buffer overflow vulnerability in OpenSSH has been found. I have upgraded all of our systems to OpenSSH 3.7.1p2.

FreeBSD has some pecularities in its placement of configuration files and keys. Either make symlinks from /usr/local/etc to /usr/local/etc/ssh or /etc/ssh, or set the --sysconfdir manually during configuration.

Some problems were also experienced with the GNOME front-end to OpenSSH. Having never seen it used or discovered an actual purpose for it, I deinstalled it on the affected machines (RH7.3 and RH8).

Links to the security vulernabilities are available here.

Acrobat Reader

I upgraded Acrobat Reader via RPM from 4.0 to 5.07.