HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: DAT tape compatability (DEC <-> SGI)
Keywords: DAT, DEC, Ultrix, SGI, Indigo, IRIX
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 00:20:54 GMT

In <1992Oct14.141615.20144@eurotherm.co.uk> mt00@eurotherm.co.uk (Martin Tomes) writes:
| flint@cs.curtin.edu.au (Daniel Baldoni) writes:
| >Recently, a friend of mine asked if we could provide a transfer service
| >for her.  She had a couple of very large TIFF images (approx 16Mb each)

| We had problems with DAT tapes on Interactive UNIX because the SCSI
| block size was set differently on the two machines.  An mt -v -f /dev/whatever
| showed one a 512 bytes and the other at 1024.  I used mt -f /dev/whatever -b 2
| to set the 512 to 1024 and all was well.  This might be your problem.

Are you sure you are thinking of DAT and not 8mm (Exabyte)?  I've
never seen anybody default (ship) DAT to 1024 byte blocks on a fixed
block tape (you could certainly set it that way, even on an SGI,
I just don't know why anyone would do so).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: mark@coombs.anu.edu.au (Mark)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Secure login with chroot: What files
Date: 16 Oct 92 03:38:23 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2
Organisation: Wassat?!

david@aim1.aztec.co.za (David Mason) writes:

>I'm setting up semi-public logins on our office machine, to allow
>people to login and read news and use e-mail.  I've hit on the idea
>of forcing a chroot in login, and making a public filesystem where
>the guest users can have free range.  To do this, one puts a *
>as the login shell in /etc/passwd, and gives the new root directory
>in the home directory field (see man login).  login is then re-executed
>after the chroot.

>Can anybody give me a list of the essential files I need to get this going.
>i.e.  what libraries are login, passwd, sh, ls, vi etc using, and what files
>do they have to have.  The system is Dell SVR4 Issue 2.2.  I'd
>be pleased to here from anybody else who has pulled this off.

>On the security side, is this technique secure?  Are users really locked
>in to a chroot file system?  I have found rksh is not a satisfactory
>environment, as it is extremely frustrating for a capable user who can't
>move around within his own directory.  Anyway, vi can break rksh.

>-- 
>David Mason, Unix system support.

You too huh :). I set a system up like this late last year on a HP9000/320
running HPUX 7.0. It had about 100 people or so using it regularly for email,
IRC and talk etc. Instead of the '*' shell method above I had a suid shell that
did the chroot explicitly, suid'd to the user and then ran either csh, sh or
tcsh as a login shell.

As for files, well I just had enough space to put in a duplicate /bin,
/usr/bin and /dev and a few other things. Basically a cut down unix down a
tree. One thing I overlooked for a while was mknod'ing a /dev/tty in the area.
I created the pty's, a kmem, mem, null and any other devices they'd need.

The beauty of the seperate shell is you can have individual setting for users
if you wish. Some for instance requested they be denied IRC access for study
reasons so that was easily accomplished.

I of course didnt have cc or any unnecessary suid's in the structure for 
security reasons, but some enterprising users found ways of bringing in a
binary or two. It's usually easy to spot tho.

Security is fine as the chroot works as it should. Sendmail can be a problem
if it's not a newer secure one. It sits in the real environment when run as
a daemon. Just watch what suid's you give them. File permissions are of course
somethign to be extra careful about.

Your major draw back is CPU and disk space. People all want on the new machine
and in my case the 68020 was only just able to cope.

It doesnt exist anymore, except in legend but it was heaps of fun.
Contact me if you would like some pointers/help.

Mark
markm@rmit.edu.au
mark@gnu.ai.mit.edu
From: eb@felix.Sublink.Org (Enrico Badella)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: SOftware distribution and configuration control in a mixed environment.
Date: 13 Oct 92 07:15:58 GMT
Organization: Soft*Star s.r.l, Torino, Italy

Hello,

I've been just put in charge of a large network composed mainly of
DOS and OS/2 PCs with LANManager, some MACs, a couple of VAXs and finally
some good old Unix machines; one of these is equipped with HP OpenView.
This machine also acts as a server to all the PCs and is in a protected
environment.

What I must do is find a way to supervise and keep under control mainly
those damn PC because thier users tend to mess up the configurations
(CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) and load different type of junk.
For this purpose I'm looking for ideas on how I could check the configuration
of my PC at boot time and eventually replace the bad configuration
on the fly downloading it from the the reference machine.

I have been told there is some object in the MIT Athena project that does
this. If this is true can someone tell me the name and if it is covered
by export restrictions like kerberos?

Thank you.

-- 
Enrico Badella				Internet: eb@felix.sublink.org
Soft*Star s.r.l.			          eb@icnucevx.cnuce.cnr.it
Via Camburzano 9			Phone:    +39-11-746092
10143 Torino, ITALY			Fax:      +39-11-746487
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: lam@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Ken Lam)
Subject: Re: Teaching System Administration (was "Re: temparary superuser")
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 17:26:27 GMT

pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg) writes:

>I've been getting some requests to develop an introductory systems
>administration course here at the college. There's no lack of material,
>but I'm really puzzled for what to do for the "hands on" part. We have
>one UNIX machine, an AT&T 6386, that is the host for all our C and UNIX
>courses, our email link and our Usenet link to the outside world. Do I
>dare let students do *anything* on such a machine?

Do you have any 386/486s?  If you do, then you can really get some hands on
experience installing and using either LINUX or 386BSD.  Both are non
commercial available thru ftp and can easily used to give a unix admin course.

Ken
	
--
Ken Lam                                                     (803)-884-7615 (H)
System Administrator--JOVE Project @ NASA                   (803)-792-4969 (W)
Senior Systems Consultant--Integrated Technical Systems     (803)-792-5446(FAX)
Network Support--Dept of Biometry @ Medical Univ. of S.C.   lam@jove.cofc.edu
LAN Administrator--Dept of Biology/Geology @ CofCharleston  lam@sparky.musc.edu
From: geek+@CMU.EDU (Brian E. Gallew)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: How to delete hard link to a directory?
Date: 15 Oct 92 11:28:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.serQNbC00VB9A1=OFV
	<1992Oct11.124058.6070@osnbe.Olivetti.ch>
Organization: Administrative Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Having actually done this before, ther is one rather simple, but ugly
way that I know of.  First get the inode number with an ls -i.  Then
use clri on the inode.  Finally, unmount the filesystem and fsck it to
fix up the counts.  Thsi is even uglier on the root filesystem :-(

                                  -Brian

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Are they dead?"                                                      |
| "Does it matter?"                                                     |
|   - Pugsley and Wednesday in "The Addams Family."                     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: simon@lia.di.epfl.ch (Simon Leinen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: xargs (was: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !)
Date: 13 Oct 92 13:13:39 GMT
	<FISCHER.92Oct12004045@steiner.iesd.auc.dk> <168.28180@incc.com>
Organization: DI-LIA -- Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
In-reply-to: jerry@incc.com's message of 12 Oct 92 20:58:53 GMT
X-Md4-Signature: 6707152e00ac2bec96670e3b531b9186

In article <168.28180@incc.com> jerry@incc.com (Jerry Rocteur) writes:

    - xargs is not on all systems

Yeah, well, neither is find I assume.  And there's always GNU xargs...

    - xargs places file names one after each other <whatever file1
      file...  which means you can have trouble with large file lists
      as all files will not be acted upon

Xargs should split the list into reasonable chunks and execute the
command multiple times if necessary.

    - the big advantage with xargs of course is that it runs the
      command once, unlike exec which is one file at a time.

(see above).

A problem with find ... -print | xargs ... is that it has trouble with
filenames containing whitespace.  GNU find/xargs have options to use
ASCII NUL as the separator, which is much safer (since it is difficult
to create files with NULs in their names).
-- 
Simon.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Subject: Re: How to write a make dependency to remote rcs code
Organization: Twin Sun, Inc
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 00:45:05 GMT

jeff@BofA.COM (Jeff Tate) writes:

>Can I construct a makefile that, when run from the ~Project directory, will
>check out rcs files that are not already locally present?

RCSDIR = /usr/rcs/Project/xx/yy/zz
SOURCES = a.c b.c c.h d.y et cetera

$(SOURCES) :
	co $@ $(RCSDIR)/$@,v
From: jcm@coombs.anu.edu.au (J. McPherson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:14:00 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2

A few months ago in comp.sys.hp, someone posted about their repairs to an
HP 7x0, after a new sysadmin had just started work. They {the new
person} had been looking throught the file system to try to make some
space, saw /dev and the mainly 0 length files therein. Next command was "rm
-f /dev/*" and they wondered why they couldn't login ;)

I think the result was that the new person was sent on a sysamin's
course a.s.a.p.

;)

JC
--


   Internet: clement@arp.anu.edu.au
		jcm@coombs.anu.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg)
Subject: Re: Teaching System Administration (was "Re: temparary superuser")
Organization: The College On The Other Side Of Route One
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 17:45:48 GMT

In article <Bvv745.8Kt@news.cso.uiuc.edu> lam@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Ken Lam) writes:
=pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg) writes:
=
=>I've been getting some requests to develop an introductory systems
=>administration course here at the college. There's no lack of material,
=>but I'm really puzzled for what to do for the "hands on" part. We have
=>one UNIX machine, an AT&T 6386, that is the host for all our C and UNIX
=>courses, our email link and our Usenet link to the outside world. Do I
=>dare let students do *anything* on such a machine?
=
=Do you have any 386/486s?

None that can be spared to be UNIX-only machines.

=If you do, then you can really get some hands on
=experience installing and using either LINUX or 386BSD.  Both are non
=commercial available thru ftp and can easily used to give a unix admin course.

Hmmm...a 386SX costs about $1500 and I'd need 20 or $30,000 to start the
lab. That's pretty expensive for a free UNIX! ;-)
From: hirai@cc.swarthmore.edu (Eiji Hirai)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:35:50 GMT
Organization: Information Services, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA

ericw@hobbes.amd.com (Eric Wedaa) writes:
> 	-NEVER use 'rm <any pattern>', use rm -i <any pattern>' instead.

4:33pm,gingko,[~]% echo $version
tcsh 6.02.00 (Cornell) 92/05/15 options 8b,nls,dl,al,dir
4:34pm,gingko,[~]% set rmstar
4:34pm,gingko,[~]% rm *
Do you really want to delete all files? [n/y] n
4:34pm,gingko,[~]% 

> 	-Set up your prompt to do a `pwd` everytime you cd.

4:34pm,gingko,[~]% echo "$prompt"
%@,%m,[%~]% 
4:34pm,gingko,[~]% 

--
hirai@cc.swarthmore.edu (Eiji Hirai)    :     :    :   :  : :: ::: :::: :::::
Unix Geek for Swarthmore College        :     :    :   :  : :: ::: :::: :::::
Information Services, Swarthmore, PA, US.       Copyright 1992 by Eiji Hirai.
I don't speak for Swarthmore College.                    All Rights Reserved.
Xref: sparky comp.unix.admin:5514 alt.folklore.computers:15028
From: lingnau@math.uni-frankfurt.de (Anselm Lingnau)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 12 Oct 92 09:02:13 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Frankfurt/Main, Dept. of Mathematics

In article <1992Oct10.010412.3448@waggen.twuug.com>, broberts@waggen.twuug.com
(Bill Roberts) writes:

> My most interesting in the reguard was when I deleted "/dev/null".  Of
> course it was soon recreated as a "regular file", then permission problems
> started to show up.

Years ago when I was working in the Graphics Workshop at Edinburgh University,
we used to have a small UNIX machine for testing. The machine wasn't used too
much, so nobody bothered to set up user accounts, and so everybody was running
as root all the time. Now one of the chaps who used to come in was fond of
reading fortunes (/usr/games/fortune having been removed from the University's
real machines along with all the other games). Guess what happened when the
machine said

# fortune
fortune: write error on /dev/null --- please empty the bit bucket

Quite a lot of stuff wouldn't work after the chap was done with the machine
for the day. You bet we put up proper accounts after that!

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau .................................. lingnau@math.uni-frankfurt.de
[Sendmail] can do just about anything.  Its main problem is that it can do just
about anything.		      --- Chris Lewis, *UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ*
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.programmer
From: jeff@BofA.COM (Jeff Tate)
Subject: How to write a make dependency to remote rcs code
Organization: Bank of America, Capital Products, RMTG #5906
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 21:51:10 GMT

I have my project trees set up as:

	~rcs/Project/xx/yy/zz/file.c,v
	~Project/src/MAIN/xx/yy/zz/file.c

Can I construct a makefile that, when run from the ~Project directory, will
check out rcs files that are not already locally present?

Thanx


-- 

  +------------------------------------------------------------------+
  +  Jeff Tate                            Voice:  (415) 622 0890     +
  +  Manager, RMP Systems                 Fax:    (415) 622 2892     +
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: jarocki@dvorak.amd.com (John Jarocki)
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 21:12:44 GMT

In article <ericw.718908214@hobbes> ericw@hobbes.amd.com (Eric Wedaa) writes:
>
>The moral(s) of the story here:
[Eric's "Guidebook to Being a Good Paranoid UNIX Sysadmin" Deleted]
>
>>>>Ericw
>(Paranoia is a "Good Thing" when you can really muck things up!)
>--
>Eric Wedaa  -  eric.wedaa@amd.com | Two more kinds of lies...
>{ames apple uunet}!amd!ericw      |     Release Dates, and Benchmarks
>Advanced Micro Devices, M/S 167 PO Box 3453 Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3453
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Eric,

You left out an important one:
  - Never hand out directions on "how to" do some sysadmin task
    until the directions have been tested thoroughly.
	- Corollary:  Just because it works one one flavor
	  on *nix says nothing about the others. '-}
	- Corollary:  This goes for changes to rc.local (and
	  other such "vital" scripties.

--
________________________________________________________________________
 John Jarocki         System Engineer/Administrator
 _______
 \____  |Advanced     CAD Technology & Systems
 /|   | |Micro        5204 E. Ben White M/S 553
| |___| |Devices      Austin, Texas 78741
|____/ \|

``The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to
  insure the unhindered development of the individual.''
                                       -- Albert Einstein
---------john.jarocki@amd.com voice:512-462-4098 fax:512-462-5156-------
-- 
John Jarocki - john.jarocki@amd.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg)
Subject: Teaching System Administration (was "Re: temparary superuser")
Organization: The College On The Other Side Of Route One
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:45:50 GMT

I've been getting some requests to develop an introductory systems
administration course here at the college. There's no lack of material,
but I'm really puzzled for what to do for the "hands on" part. We have
one UNIX machine, an AT&T 6386, that is the host for all our C and UNIX
courses, our email link and our Usenet link to the outside world. Do I
dare let students do *anything* on such a machine?

Thanks,
Pete
From: rob@wzv.win.tue.nl (Rob J. Nauta)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:27:52 GMT
Organization: None

mfraioli@grebyn.com (Marc Fraioli) writes:

>Well, here's a good one for you:

> I was happily churning along developing something on a Sun workstation,
>and was getting a number of annoying permission denieds from trying to
>write into a directory heirarchy that I didn't own.  Getting tired of
>that, I decided to set the permissions on that subtree to 777 while I
>was working, so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

At my previous employer, the sysadmin would create new user accounts by
hand by editing the passwd file, create a home dir, put some files in
it, and chown '*' and '.*' to that new user. Thus, /home/machine
was also chowned ('.*' also matches '..'). It was quite handy to see
who was added last, but after a while i slipped him the hint to
chown '.[a-z]*' which works much better of course.

But the stories told now are more folklore than real horror. Having read
2 Stephen Kings this weekend I beg everyone to tell more interesting
stories, about demons, the system clock running backwards, old files
reappearing etc !

Rob
-- 
/-----------------------------------------------\	Never		   ,==.
| Rob J. Nauta, UNIX computer security expert.	| 	 Apologize,	  /@  |
| rob@wzv.win.tue.nl, Phone: +31-40-837549	| 	  Never		 /_  <
| Feel free to email me for free advice		|	   Explain.	=" `g'
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com (Alan Rollow - Alan's Home for Wayward Tumbleweeds.)
Subject: Re: How do I stop an annoying user?
Reply-To: alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com (Alan Rollow - Alan's Home for Wayward Tumbleweeds.)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:38:20 GMT


In article <1992Oct14.150655.6487@zoo.bt.co.uk>, gah@zoo.bt.co.uk (Geoff Hopson) writes:
>
>A little help from you system admin men is required.
>
>I am suffering with a user who keeps logging onto my machine and
>playing around. Short of giving him a good kick up the arse, is 
>there anything I can do to prevent him logging on.

Some things to try.

1.  Ask him to stop.
2.  If you work for the same company, ask his manager to ask him
    to stop.
3.  Arrange to have his employeement terminated if he continues.
 
>This user has 
>been on a Sun system administrators course, and has been told 
>various ways of logging onto other peoples machines. Our system 
>manager says there is no way to stop a determined user.

Military level security should be able to keep him from logging.
That unfortunately will probably a locked room and guard with
M16 (or other automatic weapon) to keep unauthorized people out.
Military level software security should take care of non-physical
threats.

>There must be a way to stop him.

Try threat of #3 after making sure you can actually pull it off.
Some companies consider mis-use of the company's computer resources
to be a firing offense.

>He has been logged on as a root user, 
>on as me, etc etc. I have tried .rhosts, /etc/hosts.equiv, 
>passwd entries, all to no avail.

This definately sounds like unethical and unprofessional behaviour.
Definately give #3 a try...

>
>I assume I will need a script or program of some description. Hints, tips and general advice gratefully received.
>
>Please e-mail.
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>"Annoyed"
>
--
Alan Rollow				alan@nabeth.cxo.dec.com

Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.sys5.r3
From: alan@ernest.dseg.ti.com (Alan Edmonds)
Subject: Re: Where to get Printer Filters?
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc. - Plano, Tx
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:21:37 GMT

In article <1bmhsdINNvn@uwm.edu> peter@miller.cs.uwm.edu (Peter J Diaz de Leon) writes:
>I am in the process of setting up out ISC V3.01 Unix
>system to use lpr and lpd. However, ISC does not come
>with any printer filters for Postscript printers, or
>Laser Jets or serial printers. Basicly ISC doesn't come
>with any of the neccessary filters.Does anybody know where
>I can get my hands on some filters?

Ask archie for psf (Postscript Filter).  Works great here.  It
even has an example printcap with about 12 printers for different
effects (2-up, landscape, etc).

I can mail it to you if you can't find it.  I think the
latest version is 3. The archives might call it psf3.

-- 
Alan Edmonds                                     Texas Instruments, Inc.
I don't speak for TI; TI doesn't speak for me    M/S 8515
Work phone: (214)575-6427                        6620 Chase Oaks Blvd.
Email: edmonds@lobby.ti.com                      Plano, Texas  75023
From: jh@cadre.com (Joe Hartley)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Floppy Disk Labels
Date: 8 Oct 92 12:48:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: fripp.1992Oct8.124858.14864
Reply-To: jh@cadre.com
Organization: Cadre Technologies, Inc.

In article 12778@unet.net.com, jrs@zippy.unet.com (John Switzer Frame 3.0) writes:
>I think it was Persoft Communications who shipped their software with a
>take-off on the typical disk jacket that showed all the things that you 
>shouldn't do to a disk (expose to heat, magnetic fields, touch the disk 
>with your fingers, etc.). The Persoft jacket, though, included pictures of
>someone eating a disk, putting it in the toaster, etc. This was back in 
>1985 or 1986. 

Elephant Memory (remember them?) used to simply have a warning on their
5 1/4" diskettes that simply said "Don't touch the shiny parts."  This
was sufficient for 99% of users, and no amount of warnings would help
the other 1% anyway!  :-)

---
===============================================================================
Joe Hartley          | jh@cadre.com  -  Whenever you find that you are on the
Cadre Technologies   | side of the majority, it is time to reform. - M. Twain
222 Richmond St.     | --------------------------------------------------------
Providence, RI 02903 | Overman 1st Class - the Kilgore Trout Memorial Clench
(401) 351-5950 x266  |            of the Church of the SubGenius  
===============================================================================
Xref: sparky comp.unix.admin:5703 comp.sys.sun.admin:7311