|
|
|
Last Week Next Week Insights Index Daynotes.com Email: tom@syroidmanor.com
It's been a busy, hectic week. Sorry, but I'be been so caught up in reading documentation and making "napkin sketches I didn't even realize I hadn't posted anything here since Wednesday.
Thursday my boss kicked over my apple cart by informing me (well, actually, he asked and I said OK) I'd be flying to New York the second week of June. Unplanned, but what the heck. Life is rather unplanned, no? I'll be going out to configure two new servers and set up the network infrastructure. Joy and rapture.
I continue to tinker with CVS on a daily basis. I'm learning lots and learning I have lots to learn. While there's a ton of documentation around on CVS, in order to grasp the concepts and functionality behind the commands, you have to sit down and experiment. I lost count of the number of repositories I've created and ultimately deleted over the course of the last two weeks. I can tell you two things I've discovered about CVS. One, it's unwieldy for some things. It handles text and configuration files with aplomb. Binary files are another story. You can put binary files in CVS, but you have to ensure you do so correctly. While pretty much rules out CVS for story my home directory. Again, it can be done, and several people have written on the subject, but it's not worth the fuss involved. It's a lot easier to 'rsync' changes to a backup server and reverse the process when needed. Two, implementing a good, functional CVS repository takes a lot of thought as far as structure goes. Structure can be changed at a later date, but it's a pain. It's a lot easier to "measure thrice and cut once".
I've spent the whole day entertaining my kids (hot tub at a friends, park, local fair, lunch, etc) and I'm beat. I'm going to call it a night.
It's going to be another warm one. It's already in the low 20's, almost no wind, and even at 8am the air felt "heavy".
I fixed my network configuration / routing problems last night after a brief chat with the good Mr. Bilbrey. Turns out the easiest solution is the one most often overlooked (at least by the person doing the looking). The only time I use eth0 (internal 10/100) is when wireless is not working for whatever reason. So I simply reconfigured /etc/conf.d/net, removed all the alias stuff, and set both eth0 and eth1 to use the same IP/gateway. I then dropped eth0 from the default system init. My wireless card starts as eth1, using a static IP of 192.168.1.8. This satisfies the NFS authentication mechanisms on Hydras. Routing works as advertised. If my wireless dies, I can simply drop eth1 and start eth0 without presenting any conflicts. Clean, neat, and simple. I like simple solutions.
Our power went out this morning. I wasn't sure if the UPS on Hydras would hold out, but it did :=)
07:36AM up 393 days, 13:39, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
Turns out the "mail configuration" issue I referred to yesterday had nothing to do with configuration or Mulberry. Mulberry was telling the truth -- my Inbox was empty. Not filtered, not adjusted from a configuration perspective. Empty. The 20-or-so messages I had stored there are gone. Outlook Express took it upon itself to delete them. I guess I don't need say I'm very pissed about that. I didn't lose anything I'd consider "life threatening" -- just a handful of messages I was keeping around for either follow-up, because there was something in the contents I wanted for reference, and a couple I hadn't responded to yet cuz I was mulling on a response. Just the same, it's the principle. What Outlook Express did is, to me, the ultimate software evil: Deleting something -- anything -- without my express consent.
I continue to fine-tune my "CVS Home" implementation. Some of the process is simply learning the nuances of CVS; some is thinking through which files and directories I want to track, and adding the appropriate entries to .cvsignore.
And I'm getting better with age ;-) I got wireless running under Gentoo in just under 20 minutes this weekend. I initially planned to use the wlan-ng driver, but the card manager insisted on using orinoco_cs. OK. Whatever. I can now report the sporadic nature of the orinoco_cs drivers under Red Hat 9 are a Red Hat 9 problem. I've had wireless up for three days now, and it's yet to quit or otherwise cease to function. I have one niggling problem with my current configuration, however, and so far a solution has eluded me. Any insight you can shed on the matter is appreciated. Keep in mind that we're talking Gentoo here, which might differ from -- for example -- Red Hat's init process.
When I boot the machine, eth0 starts and the PCMCIA socket is initialized. My wireless card is setup as eth1, plus I have an alias configured to map the eth0's static IP (192.168.1.8) as eth1:0 (for authentication to my NFS mounts; eth1 uses DHCP). After the network interfaces are initialized, the system starts the local network service, followed by nfsmount. Both fail. The message is: "No route to host". I can resolve this by logging in and typing:
route add -host 192.168.1.12 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev eth1:0 #<-- Hydras for the NFS mounts route add -net 192.168.1.0 gw 192.168.1.1 dev eth1 /etc/init.d/netmount restart /etc/init.d/nfsmount start
The resultant routing table looks like so:
phaedrus root # route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface hydras.syroidma 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.255 UGH 0 0 0 eth1 hydras.syroidma 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.255 UGH 0 0 0 eth1 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 loopback localhost 255.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 lo default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1 default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 1 0 0 eth0
Three questions: One, where can I put the above commands so the correct routing info is in place before the network mount commands? Two, why is the above "route add -net" command necessary? Three, why the duplicate "Destination: hydras" entries?
It was hot yesterday, but it was also pretty breezy so the heat was tolerable. I put the "swamp boat" in the door of my office, however, just to make sure nothing melted down. The "swamp boat" is a large stainless steel fan I bought a few years ago. I call it that because it sounds just like one of those Florida swamp boats when it's running. Serves the purpose though. Not only does it keep my office cool, but it provides for a nice breeze when you're watching TV -- not that I get to watch a lot of TV these days...
Yes, it's been a little hectic around here with Leah away. Landon's at the age where he's curious about everything, and as a result, tends to get into a lot of mischief. Danielle gets into her share of mischief too, but at 8 she's a little more pre-meditated in her efforts. Plus there's a ton of yardwork to do this time of year, and of course there's the inevitable weekend household chores -- laundry, dusting, vacuuming, ya-da and ya-da. Sheesh. Wears me out just writing about it.
<rant> Damn Microsoft products all to hell. Saturday I had a friend over and I was showing him how to use the new scanner he recently purchased. So I plugged it into Leah's box (it's USB), ran the configuration disc, and demonstrated how to scan something and save it to a file. He then wanted to know how to email the file to someone. Given he uses Outlook Express, I fired up the program and configured it to access my IMAP server. I then sent the file to himself, retrieved it, and showed my friend how to access the attachment, rotate it, etc, etc. I never gave things a second thought. Until I fired up Mulberry to check email yesterday. Outlook Express messed with my server-side IMAP configuration. I order to fix the problem, I have to kill all the accounts I've got set up in Mulberry, recreate them, and reconfigure things again as I had them. Bah. I didn't have the time or inclination to fix the problem yesterday; it's on my TODO list for today. Double Bah.</rant>
CVS'ing my home directory is coming along quite nicely. I did an initial checkin/commit of the home tree from my laptop yesterday, then created a user account on Thumper and checked out the repository to test the functionality. Works splendidly. Now I just have to refine the contents of the repository. I don't use KDE on all my systems, so I don't need or want to keep a copy of .kde in CVS. Nor do I need to store X's temporary files there. So I need to fine tune the dials somewhat before I can use CVS on a daily basis. Close. Once I get everything hammered down, I'll write a short HOWTO and post it here.
Better run. Landon's disappeared off my radar screen, which probably means he's into something he shouldn't be.
Cheers.
Send questions or comments about this site to
webmaster@syroidmanor.com.
Copyright © 1998-2003 Tom Syroid. All Rights Reserved
