HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ziggy@r-node.gts.org (Adrian Buss  Sys-Op)
Subject: Re: Horror Stories UNIX Admin!
Organization: R-node Public Access UNIX Information System (416-249-5366)
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 17:30:55 GMT

In article <1hffshINN8ju@matt.ksu.ksu.edu> probreak@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (James Michael Chacon) writes:
>amdunn@mongrel.UUCP (Andrew M. Dunn) writes:
>
>>In article <BzqF81.7EH@trc.amoco.com> zcjm0f@wwnv67.hou.amoco.com (CJohn Mace) writes:
>>>
>>>its ok to post the stories.  :-)
>>>
>>>if someone wants to complain about the size costing them money, then they
>>>should probably buy a faster modem...
>
>>Well, excuuuuuse me.
>
>>I guess AMOCO provides your modem, and pays for a faster one.  The rest
>>of the world isn't so lucky that they can use their employer's cash to
>>pay for their NetNews reading.
>
>
>
>>Andy
>
>It's your choice I beleive to receive news and therefore pay for it.
>
>If you don't want to pay for it, don't subscribe.....

Hmmm what say we collect up Ooooh say a terra byte of gifs up and mail
them to this guy.  I wants to pay for them I think :)

regrards

ziggy
>
-- 
ziggy@r-node.pci.on.ca  <--- New and impoved fastest route :) USE IT!!
ziggy@r-node.gts.org         | Have you rubbed noses with an Eskimo today??
ziggy@zooid.guild.org        | My inability to spell and gramatize are no
adrian@skypod.guild.org      | reflection on the GENERAL CANADIAN intelligence!!
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: chris@castlab.uucp (Christian)
Subject: Re: How to write a "turnin" utility??
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Distribution: world 
Date: 29 Dec 92 01:54:18 CST

In article <1992Dec28.213900.14908@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> dave@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Dave Pottinger) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I'm relatively new to Unix sys admin stuff and have run into some
>problems with what should be a simple little "turnin" project.
>Basically, we want to be able to have students "turnin" files from their
>directory to some place designated by each instructor that will then be
>accessible only to that instructor/grader (for obvious reasons).  These
>instructors do not have superuser privs.  I've used this command on
>other machines, but am not really sure where to begin learning how to
>implement one on ours.  C?  Scripts (ugh)?  Any info would be greatly
>appreciated.  Thanks.
>

There is the script idea. SetUID on the script to that of a user that
has write access to the directory, and have the script copy the file name
specified to that directory. 

how about:

# /bin/csh
cp %1 /usr/home/instructors/directory/

save that as an executeable only file, put it where everyone can get at it,
setuid to the appropriate user that has access to that directory, and the
student then goes and runs the thing, and specifies the name of the file
to plopped in the directory. Then give read/write access to the instructors
for that directory.

For different instructors you could, for example, make a version for each
course (turnin320, etc.) that copies the file to a directory designated for 
cs320, etc.

Dunno if that helps...

-Chris
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: mike@meiko.com (Mike Stok)
Subject: Re: How do you back up a terabyte?
Organization: Meiko Scientific Corp.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:02:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.232752.10974@mole-end.matawan.nj.us> mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us writes:
>In article <herman.724556613@phage>, herman@nosc.mil (John W. Herman) writes:
>> twl10@ccc.amdahl.com (Tom Littauer) writes:
> 
>> >In article <1992Dec16.161430.1109@cc.ic.ac.uk> cmaae47@imperial.ac.uk writes:
>> >>In article <ericw.724459057@hobbes>, ericw@hobbes.amd.com (Eric Wedaa) writes:
>> >>- The subject says it all.  "How do you back up a terabyte?"
> 
>> Paper tape.  There is a company which advertizes the ability to back up
>> 1 terabyte to a paper tape real.  Honest
>
>Someone check me--that would be about a 100 giga-inch reel, no?  About
>1.6 million miles of paper tape?
>
>I don't mean to suggest that this is ridiculous; perhaps that company
>plans to start just _one_ such backup?

Check out Digital Paper from ICI Dataproducts in the UK, I think there
are a couple of Canadian companies selling Digital Paper based backup
systems.  I seem to remember it's a write once medium as flexible as
tape but with phenomenal bit density, written & read with a laser.

... of course I could be wrong :-) ...

Mike
--
The "usual disclaimers" apply.    |
Mike Stok                         |
mike@meiko.com                    |
Meiko tel: (617) 890 7676         |
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: john@iastate.edu (John Hascall)
Subject: Re: How to write a "turnin" utility??
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:01:53 GMT

chris@castlab.uucp (Christian) writes:
}dave@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Dave Pottinger) writes:
}>I'm relatively new to Unix sys admin stuff and have run into some
}>problems with what should be a simple little "turnin" project.

}how about:  [SetUID script]

}# /bin/csh
}cp %1 /usr/home/instructors/directory/

That's the basic idea, but it needs some work....
Consider:

   What if two students both call their program "proj1" (or whatever)?
   Boom, one of them gets clobbered.

A further refinement:

#!/bin/sh
/bin/cp $1 /home/instructor/turnin/$USER.$1

others are no doubt possible.  Actually, given the known horrors of setuid
scripts it should really be a program (or god forbid, Perl, the APL of scripts)
to be safe.

John
-- 
John Hascall                   ``An ill-chosen word is the fool's messenger.''
Systems Software Engineer
Project Vincent
Iowa State University Computation Center  +  Ames, IA  50011  +  515/294-9551
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us
Subject: Re: How do you back up a terabyte?
Summary: gigainches
Organization: :
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 23:27:52 GMT

In article <herman.724556613@phage>, herman@nosc.mil (John W. Herman) writes:
> twl10@ccc.amdahl.com (Tom Littauer) writes:
 
> >In article <1992Dec16.161430.1109@cc.ic.ac.uk> cmaae47@imperial.ac.uk writes:
> >>In article <ericw.724459057@hobbes>, ericw@hobbes.amd.com (Eric Wedaa) writes:
> >>- 
> >>- The subject says it all.  "How do you back up a terabyte?"
> >>
> >>With great care.
 
> Paper tape.  There is a company which advertizes the ability to back up
> 1 terabyte to a paper tape real.  Honest

Someone check me--that would be about a 100 giga-inch reel, no?  About
1.6 million miles of paper tape?

I don't mean to suggest that this is ridiculous; perhaps that company
plans to start just _one_ such backup?
-- 
 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile

 mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Keeping up with HW and SW technology? Possible?
Date: 1 Jan 1993 08:06:11 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: gandalf.think.com

In article <1992Dec31.170925.7351@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu> johnj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu (John A. Johnston) writes:
>If we remain status-quo, and hold off on our hardware migration, we
>basically would lose up to 1/2 year of the actual useful life of the LX
>workstation (where buying a workstation near the beginning of it's
>product life increases by that much, how far down the road it will be
>"state of the art") and lose more of any useful re-sale value of the
>Sparc 1's, as they grow further behind.

You're assuming that you'll eventually upgrade to LX's.  However, I suspect
that by the time you're ready to upgrade to Solaris 2.1, there will be an
even newer workstation available (new models seem to come out every 6-12
months these days).  So you'll still be able to upgrade to a product at the
beginning of its life cycle.

In general, trying to optimize stuff like this is a no-win situation.
Consider the contrary problem of someone who never buys anything, because
there's always something better coming "real soon now".  In an industry
that moves as rapidly as ours, you're generally winning if you get hardware
for which maintenance is still available :-)
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
From: zhangd@acf3.NYU.EDU (zhangd)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Hi, there:
Date: 3 Jan 93 23:23:00 GMT
Organization: New York University


Hi, there:

When I am doing backup of a user filesystem at midnight, I prefer to umount the filesystem
and then mount readonly thereafter. However, the filesystem is often unmountable 
because of "device busy" error!  The point is somebody uses open files on it via NFS
and I can't detect and close them all.  Although I logout all current users on UNIX, those
users on PC can still have open files via PC-NFS.  I believe this is a quite common
dilemma for most sysadmin.

Questions:
1. how dangerous to backup a partition ( dump ) with some file opening on it?  
   could this only corrupt those files or the whole filesystem in some special case?

2. if there is a way to find out all opening files on a partition and close them forcefully? ( mount, showmount...)

3. Could  other backup commands ( like TAR ) handle this situation better?


Thanks very much!


James Han
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.sys.sun.admin
From: cohen@quartz.ciw.edu (Ronald Cohen)
Subject: named question--how do you turn off console messages?
Date: 22 Dec 92 17:07:07 GMT
Organization: Geophysical Laboratory, CIW
Followup-To: comp.unix.admin


On a Sun running 4.1.1 I get many messages to the console from
in.named every time the nameserver is queried.  Does anyone know
how to turn this off?  Thanks,
-- 
Ronald Cohen
Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington
5251 Broad Branch Rd., N.W.,  Washington, D.C. 20015
From: dave@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Dave Pottinger)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: How to write a "turnin" utility??
Date: 28 Dec 92 21:39:00 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona

Hi,

I'm relatively new to Unix sys admin stuff and have run into some
problems with what should be a simple little "turnin" project.
Basically, we want to be able to have students "turnin" files from their
directory to some place designated by each instructor that will then be
accessible only to that instructor/grader (for obvious reasons).  These
instructors do not have superuser privs.  I've used this command on
other machines, but am not really sure where to begin learning how to
implement one on ours.  C?  Scripts (ugh)?  Any info would be greatly
appreciated.  Thanks.

dave
--
**** the musings of Dave C. Pottinger:  dave@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu ****
*  "All we can do now is pray,    *  "You're perfect, yes, it's true,   *
*   but we haven't thought of any *   But without me, you're only you." *
*   Gods yet." --Joel from MST3K  *  -- "MidLife Crisis"  Faith No More *
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: How to write a "turnin" utility??
Date: 30 Dec 1992 00:38:03 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center and Reptile Farm
NNTP-Posting-Host: grissom.larc.nasa.gov

In article <0291H&pdqb@atlantis.psu.edu> barr@pop.psu.edu (David Barr) writes:
>
>	That's the first time I've ever heard someone call email "secure".
>Evidently our definitions of "secure" differ.
>
>	A mail solution can be trivially spoofed.

It's possible very easily for someone to turn in an assignment under another
person's name, but this isn't a problem (since it's easy enough for two
people colluding to do this anyway).  But, it's very difficult for anyone
to see the assignments of others, or assignments which he himself has turned
in, and this is the most important security factor. 

It's possible for mail to be spoofed, but it doesn't benefit the students
trying to cheat to do so.
--scott
From: chodges@nswc-wo.nswc.navy.mil (Christopher Hodges)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Horror Stories UNIX Admin!
Date: 24 Dec 92 17:50:12 GMT
Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center

Of course, post them again, please!  Considering the savings in productive 
time that would otherwise be lost, these postings not only far outweigh the
cost of their retrieval, they might even be considered a Valuable National
Resource!  I feel I've saved myself and my systems from irreperable damage
and the hostility of hundreds of users (all of this in the future, of
course) by reading and passing these postings to other sys administrators.

Besides, they ARE a hoot to read.  Thank you.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: trant@shire.corp.sgi.com (Ken Trant)
Subject: Re: How to write a "turnin" utility??
Reply-To: trant@sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc. Server Technologies
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 17:39:36 GMT

 I would not suggest a SetUID script simply because of the security
issues. I wonder also if the files students turn in must be secure,
you wouldn't want one student reviewing the work of other in order 
to generate their own code. So you must make sure that once the file
is delivered it is not accessible by others. 

 Does your system allow you to give away files?, not all do. Some
basics then would be 
chmod 400 $1
mv $1 $SecureDir/$1.$$  #use PID so name is unique
chown Teacher ${SecureDir}/$1.$$

 I would then send email to $Teacher to acknowledge delivery of the
code.

 And I would use Perl.

  Happy Holidays
-- 
 -----
 Ken Trant <trant@sgi.com>     / I think that I shall never see
 Senior Systems Administrator / A billboard lovely as a tree
 Information Services,       / Indeed, unless the billboards fall
 Silicon Graphics, Inc      / I'll never see a tree at all
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: Dean.Roth <Dean.Roth@mixcom.mixcom.com>
Subject: password migration to new system
Organization: Milwaukee Internet Xchange BBS, Milwaukee, WI U.S.A.
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1993 00:29:49 GMT


I am planning to move from SCO to Dell UNIX.
I'd like to move the user accounts, including passwords.
Is it possible to automate the creation of the accounts
on the Dell (Sys V r4) system?  I don't want to manually
recreate many passwords. Thank you.

Dean
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: stuckey@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Anthony J. Stuckey)
Subject: Re: rlogin - how to pass data to
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 14:33:58 GMT
Keywords: rlogin

walker@uunet!fdls!agdept (Walker) writes:

[ discussion of setup deleted ]

>As far as I can tell, environmental variables on the host are not passed to
>the remote machine during the rlogin process.  So, I'm seeking advice from
>the net on how to get data about which data base application to select
>passed to the remote login. 

	well, mail to you bounced.

	The first thing that came to my mind was to set up an RSH across that
cats the name of the database to a file which can be run at the end of
login.
--
Anthony J. Stuckey		stuckey@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu

"And if you frisbee-throw a universe where does it go?"
             Turquoise, Steve Blunt.
From: dbc@cyclone.larc.nasa.gov (Dave Cavitt)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Xrn
Date: 24 Dec 1992 00:30:31 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cyclone.larc.nasa.gov

Where can I get the 6.1.5 version of xrn?

I compiled 6.1.7beta on my Convex and the program doesn't
behave properly. Does anyone know of or have xrn running
on a Convex?


Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: david@marie.stat.uga.edu (David Gundlach)
Subject: Re: How to move a filesytem?
Summary: why mess with cd and ()?
Keywords: dump restore subshell shell pipe
Organization: UGA Statistics Department
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 23:38:59 GMT

And then in <1992Dec26.004056.18264@siemens.com>, aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri) said...
% 
% dump 0f - /dev/roldfilesystem | (cd /newfilesystem ; restore rf -)

One thing I haven't yet figured out is why folks keep insisting on
dumping to a subshell that then cds and restores.  Instead, why not
try
	:-D> cd /newfilesystem
	:-D> (insert any commands, including du or df or ls, that you wish)
	:-D> dump 0f - /dev/roldsystem | restore rf -

or even, more simply

	:-D> dump 0f - /partition/path/name | restore rf -

dump will happily (unlike tar, which requires the -C flag) make things
look as though you were in that directory to start with, since dump
just grabs whole partitions.

% 
% ======================================================================8--<
% 
CAVEAT: This is the behavior of dump and restore under SunOS, so it
may not be the same for you.  My bet would be that it would, but you
can't hold me responsible for anything-- not even the weather. :-)


:-D
--
David Gundlach				david@marie.stat.uga.edu
System Support and Integration		david@rolf.stat.uga.edu
UGA Statistics				david@castor.cs.uga.edu
University of Georgia			david@groucho.dev.uga.edu
706/542-3289 or 706/542-5232		BITNET: statuga@uga

"I think, therefore I am wrong." -- 	me


Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: zcjm0f@wwnv67.hou.amoco.com (CJohn Mace)
Subject: Re: Horror Stories UNIX Admin!
Organization: Amoco Production
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:48:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.195049.13809@ultb.isc.rit.edu> axi0349@ultb.rit.edu () writes:
>In <1992Dec23.095132.1@vax.sonoma.edu> mccalld@vax.sonoma.edu writes:
>>Please repost the Horror stories!
>>thanks
>
>I'd love to, especially since I have had some additions since the last
>posting.  However, I've had a couple complaints that I should not be
>posting stuff like the Horror Story Summary to the net because it's
>not a FAQ and it's too big.  Granted these complaints were from a couple
>of people who pay long distance connect charges for their newsfeeds, but
>I understand budget problems.  I know I have enough of my own.
>
>Basically, what I'm looking for is an overwhelming response telling me
>it's ok to post this to the net, or a suggestion of an ftp site where
>I could upload it.  I don't know if there's a special section for
>comp.unix.admin on existing sites (ie. wuarchive).  Of course, this
>creates a problem for people without ftp access (there's always ftpmail).
>I'm leaning toward reposting the whole thing on a monthly basis, but I'm
>pretty flexible.

its ok to post the stories.  :-)

if someone wants to complain about the size costing them money, then they
should probably buy a faster modem...

>
>So, I'm asking everyone to mail me holiday greetings and tell me their
>opinion on the subject (please put "re: horror stories" in the subject field).
>I will summarize to the net.  If you have any additional stories to add,
>send those too!
>
>Happy Holidays!
>
>-Anatoly Ivasyuk (axi0349@ultb.isc.rit.edu)
> maintainer of the Unofficial Unix Administration Horror Stories Summary
>-- 
>  Anatoly Ivasyuk @ Computer Science House @ Rochester Institute of Technology
>   anatoly@nick.csh.rit.edu || axi0349@ultb.rit.edu || axi0349@ritvax.rit.edu
>
>                  You say you haven't heard of CSH?  You will...


Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: kemp@uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu (John Kemp)
Subject: TAPE DRIVE ALLOC SCHEME NEEDED
Organization: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 20:42:09 GMT

We have a DAT tape drive and a lot of different people
need to use it.  Is there a good PD allocation program
for this kind of device.  Ideally, we want them to 
"mount" the device, and at that time, give a maximum
time of usage, a general description of what they are
doing...

The program must change protections on the device in 
order to insure against other from reading or writing
to it while another user has it locked out.  

I can't believe someone else hasn't already written
these programs/scripts.  Any suggestions are greatly
appreciated.

JohnKemp@uiuc.eud
kemp@uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu
--------  john kemp            (  (  )_  internet - johnkemp@uiuc.edu
  -----                       (  (   __)   
   ---    univ of illinois   (_ (   __)    bitnet - {uunet,convex}
   --     dept of atmos sci  .(____).               !uiucuxc!uiatma!kemp
   -      105 s gregory ave    ...          phone - (217) 333-6881
    -     urbana, il 61801    ...             fax - (217) 244-4393
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Best method for filesystem copy?
From: wongm@latcs1.lat.oz.au (M.C. Wong)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 12:24:50 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <BzJ2v5.Asr@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us> mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes:
>In article <BzEwnr.LCC@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> anthis@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Mike Anthis) writes:
>>In article <BzEBKA.GBG@dcs.ed.ac.uk> paul@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Anderson) writes:
>>>Take a look at Elizabeth Zwicky's paper on "torture-testing backup programs"
>>
>>Would someone please send me a reference for this paper?
>
>Likewise, is the paper available electronically anywhere?
>
>-- 
>Marc Unangst, N8VRH         | "Of course, in order to understand this you
>mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   |  have to remember that the nucleus of the atom
>                            |  is squishy."
>                            |    -W. Scheider, from a Physics lecture

Hi,
  I am interested in getting a copy as well, electronically if possible.
Many thanks in advance!

- wongm@latcs1.lat.oz.au
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.questions
Subject: showing working dirs of each users
From: wongm@latcs1.lat.oz.au (M.C. Wong)
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 08:27:46 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

Hi,
  I wonder if there is any utility that shows which working dir each
  of the users are in, much like the finger and w command but also shows
  where they are. Thank you !!

  - wongm

Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: How to move a filesytem?
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 00:42:23 GMT

>I always use -p option to the second tar, so that permissions and
>ownerships are set correctly.  According to the man page, not using the
>-p option will cause the files to be restored with the current umask,
>and setUID and stickey information are also preserved.

Most of the tars that I've seen default to p when run as root.

I suggest not using a - with tar -- I haven't seen a tar that *needs* -
in front of its keys, but have seen at least one that won't take it.
-- 

======================================================================8--<
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: How to move a filesytem?
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 00:40:56 GMT

>Copy the files without changing dates or permissions:

># find . -print | cpio -pdum /users_new

Uhhh, why not just use dump/restore?

dump 0f - /dev/roldfilesystem | (cd /newfilesystem ; restore rf -)

-- 

======================================================================8--<
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.programmer,comp.unix.wizards,comp.sys.sun.admin
From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt)
Subject: Re: revisited, determining if anyone else is logged on
Organization: Gordon Burditt
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 17:14:57 GMT

>>> I can forge mail.
>> Yes, but if the user *replies* to the mail, you're either going to
>> (a) get found out, or (b) the reply will bounce and clue them in...
>
>I got news for you...lots of users won't clue in even if you put a big
>banner up there "THIS LETTER IS FORGED".  I'm postmaster for McRCIM,

As postmaster of my own site, I've received a number of very polite
replies thanking "MAILER-DAEMON" for the message about bounced mail,
as if they believed it was a person.  I've also gotten a couple of
messages to root complaining about that rude guy, "MAILER-DAEMON"
reading his mail and worse, not fixing the address and passing it on.
(I remember one of the addresses involved; it had so many !'s, %'s,
and @'s in it it was hopeless.  And I never did figure out why it
arrived at my site in the first place.)

						Gordon L. Burditt
						sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin