This item is for system problems.  If something on Grex isn't working 
right (line noise on a modem, weird behavior from a program, etc.), 
this is the place to announce it.  Except for security holes.  If you 
find a hole in system security, mail information about it to "staff".

293 responses total.

why isn't gate the default editor in bbs?

Grex has been very slow this afternoon in Lynx and opening Pine--
well, I don't know if it will fully open Pine now. I see
/temp: write failed, file system is full.

Well, here's why:
> Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
> /dev/sd2f              62863   56587       0   100%    /tmp
> 
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 dcbri0   wheel    47194112 Dec 23 13:37
0x660x690x6C0x650x0x0x37 > -rwxr-xr-x   1 dcbri0   wheel       27148 Dec 23
13:18 @@@@^@^@^^@^@^@^^^^@@@@^^^^^@@@@@@@ > -rwxr-xr-x   1 dcbri0   wheel      
   26 Dec 23 13:28 B78Hjsjh63^JksI.87Hjsh780Ds > -rwxr-xr-x   1 dcbri0   wheel 
     22540 Dec 23 13:19 ^@^^@^hjjjHkLsk%0x92%0x6BH^^hsJShUhskL.^@ > drwxr-xr-x 
 2 dcbri0   wheel         512 Dec 23 13:18 ______0_I_hate_you_admin >
drwxr-xr-x   2 dcbri0   wheel         512 Dec 23 13:18 ______1_FUCK_YOU_ADMIN >
drwxr-xr-x   2 dcbri0   wheel         512 Dec 23 13:18
______2_Your_server_will_DIE > drwxr-xr-x   2 dcbri0   wheel         512 Dec 23
13:18 ______3_Why_I_am_doing_it > drwxr-xr-x   2 dcbri0   wheel         512 Dec
23 13:18 ______4_Because_you_had_destroyed_my_filez > -rw-r--r--   1 dcbri0  
wheel           0 Dec 23 14:09 sh11700

Just some jerk doing what comes naturally.

Gate isn't the default editor in bbs because bbs is at least a decade
older and people have written many different "ultimate response editors"
since.  Are you sure this is a "system problem"?

Gate isn't the hardwired default editor in Picospan.  It is, however, set in
all the default .cfonce files that are created when people take out accounts
on Grex.

I just made a new account, and there wasn't a .cfonce file.

hmmm, I just made *another* account, and there was a .cfonce.
never mind me, thanks.

I just sent a message to staff about grex not accepting telnet sessions.  ssh
is working.

I'm telnetted in; I don't know what you're seeing.  (I can't SSH from this
system; it only does SSH2.)

I telnetted in the past half hour.

jane% !tel
telnet cyberspace.org
Trying 216.93.104.34...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
jane% date
Mon Dec 24 15:19:29 EST 2001
jane%

gelinas   ttyp4    coll.staff.itd.u Mon Dec 24 15:05   still logged in

so it's been about 20 minutes that it hasn't been working.  For me, anyway.

I just tested telnet, and I got a connection refused, too

do you guys run a standalone telnetd?  inetd?

there are some telnetd's running, but no inetd, nor what appears to be 
a standalone telnetd.

I'm ssh'ed in.

I've always heard that they run inetd  (I've not actually looked at the
startup scripts, though. ;)  These kinds of reports are generally followed
by, "I kicked inetd".

is /var/adm/messages supposed to be empty?
maybe it's been moved to the unreadable /var/log

telnet is working again.  (Determined by testing. ;)

sharing is such a joy this season - 
   
voyager.net in east lansing seems in the right spirit, but really guys:
  
 who
tpryan   ttyqb    Dec 25 12:18 (216.93.104.37)
keesan   ttyu7    Dec 25 11:57 (216.93.104.37)
davel    ttyu8    Dec 25 12:30 (216.93.104.37)
rglass   ttyub    Dec 25 12:25 (216.93.104.37)
newuser  ttyp0    Dec 22 14:20 (as3-37.poznan.di)

  
(i left newuwer in there cause it was stuck out in the cold three 
days ago)
  
the other four _seem_ to have quite a lan in their wan! 
  
is there something i dont' know about (rhetorical, rhetorical, ok?)

hey ts, those are the dialins, I bet.

What is the language of Shell scripts? And how is the sintax of the shell
scripts? I have used some UNIX commands, but they are not run. what is it
wrong?

Hi, Gestway !.  There is a separate item for asking questions about how to
use grex (15 or 16?).     Welcome to the grex conferences.  (I have been
chatting with gestway for a while and exchanging emails.  He is a student at
a university in Indonesia, good at both computers and English.)

Grex's telnetd is launched by inetd, which periodically croaks for unknown
reasons.  There is a system daemon that automatically restarts inetd within
8 minutes after it dies.  The restart is done by "robocop" a daemon who's
primary purpose is to kill users who use excessive memory or processes (mostly
various types of fork bombs) and to kill any processes that users leave
running in background after logging off.  It does a number of other
housekeeping chores too.  So generally if ssh works and telnet doesn't, then
waiting a bit should fix things.

"8 minutes".  Thanks, I'll try to remember that. :)

Does ssh tie in to the waiting list mechanism?  Is there anyone putting any
thought into developing that if not?  What about upgrading to ssh v2?

If there is a queue, ssh fails to assign a pseudo-tty.  (or is that just if
the queue is full?)

Marcus is working on sshd upgrades.  It turns out to be hard to make it queue.
It was possible to make it mostly-fail if there is a queue, so it can't
readily be used to bypass the queue.  I believe he is working on improving
this situation, and on upgrading to a more recent release.  So currently ssh
is only semi-supported on Grex.  Actually, staff members pretty much always
connect with ssh, but if the queue is full we can ssh to one of Grex's other
servers, which don't have queues, and from there to Grex (the queue only
applies to users connecting from outside the cyberspace.org domain).

This response has been erased.

Grex will snicker at you?

I wonder what the issues are?  Seems like if you just insert a queue check
after the authentication but before forking the shell, and only fork the shell
after the queue countdown program exits, it would do the trick.

Hmm...would the UseLogin option to sshd help with implementing that?  I 
only have a vague idea how this works, though.

I don't see that UseLogin is supported in the ssh v2 config file.  Probably
a ripe target for security holes.  However, it would appear that the
"Subsystem" mechanism (used to implement sftp) might be usable in this
respect.

The network time protocol service is not working on Grex at the moment, and
the time is off by some 30 seconds into the future.

Re #25:  It doesn't use reverse lookup.  It knows what IP numbers Grex owns.

A friend of mine is having loads of trouble emailing me because his email
path goes through "pacbell-dot-something."  He said grex has a policy of
not receiving email from this server. What's up with that???

You probably should email Marcus about it, Katie.  At a guess it's a friendly
home for spam or something of that sort.

re #14: only if you've been cracked or it's just been rotated.  however
        for all i know grex logs elsewhere and that file is never larger.

That seems likely, since that file was last updated in 1997.

Yes, /var/log/messages is where that lives.

You already know that Comcast changed all their customer's email addresses,
discontinued usenet news service, discontinued allowing multiple email
addresses, increased prices, and mailed out a CD to all their customers that
"eases the transition" by installing lots of irrelevant software, sticks
Comcast's name all over your desktop, and hoses your system configuration.

For additional fun, they've installed a proxy web server that filters out
Grex.  So Comcast customers can not access Grex's web pages now.

Valerie has spent about an hour and half on the phone with them trying to
convince them that there was a problem.  She ran out of time and hand to hang
up on the them without success.  If anyone more annoying and persistant wants
to call Comcast, that would be OK with us.

Oops, I missed few:  Comcast also supplied instruction to their customers
who were paying for static IP addresses for how to "maintain their
connectivity".  The instructions reconfigure your computer to use a
dynamic IP.  They have a typo in the IP address of one of their two DNS
servers.  The correct addresses turn out to both be on the same subnet,
largely nullifying the utility of having two.

In otherwords, the entire new Comcast network was thrown together overnight
by a bunch of people who had barely any idea what they were doing.

You think it took them that long?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss