Grex Helpers Conference

Item 115: Grex System Problems Item

Entered by i on Sun Dec 22 19:44:04 2002:

174 new of 251 responses total.


#78 of 251 by keesan on Sun Jan 12 00:24:52 2003:

The 'cannot deliver' was for a mail sent to keesan@grex.org Friday - I seem
to have deleted that info.  Are other people not receiving mail sent to them
at grex on Friday?


#79 of 251 by gelinas on Sun Jan 12 01:19:04 2003:

(Kerberised telnet *does* fix the "password is sent in plaintext" problem:
the telnet connection is encrypted end to end, before the "login" prompt
is sent, usually.  The password _may_ have to be decrypted at the other
end, just as it is in ssh, but that's a local configuration issue: with
ticket forwarding, the password isn't needed at the far end.)


#80 of 251 by gull on Sun Jan 12 03:44:01 2003:

Before we could turn off telnet we'd have to fix the password expiry problem
(doesn't work with ssh -- you simply can't log in) and either eliminate the
queue or make it work with ssh.  Making ssh set the MAIL variable correctly
would be nice, too.


#81 of 251 by mvpel on Mon Jan 13 06:51:59 2003:

When is an upgrade of SSH from the insecure protocol of version 1 to version
2 planned?  Also, I get this from my OpenSSH:

caladan$ ssh -1 grex.cyberspace.org
Warning: Server lies about size of server public key: actual size is 767 bits
vs. announced 768.
Warning: This may be due to an old implementation of ssh.


#82 of 251 by fitz on Mon Jan 13 10:29:00 2003:

Is this a problem?  My session on the agora ended with this message.  The
interrupt command didn't work.
________________________________________


#3 of 14: by The Accidental Purist (other) on Thu, Jan  9, 2003 (18:46):
 He's translating for his friends, the literacy-impaired.

#4 of 14: by S M (mynxcat) on Thu, Jan  9, 2003 (18:59):
 aaah. That makes sense

Press Spacebar for more, q to quitshTerminated
: 2726 Terminated

> 
>  


#83 of 251 by naftee on Mon Jan 13 15:21:57 2003:

RE:76 You can use SSHDOS for DOS, of sourceforge.net


#84 of 251 by gull on Mon Jan 13 23:07:41 2003:

Pine bombed out on me earlier with this message:
ld.so: call to undefined procedure _sigpause from 0xef785528


#85 of 251 by keesan on Tue Jan 14 02:11:25 2003:

I get that as many as three times a day when I try to send with Pine.


#86 of 251 by keesan on Tue Jan 14 19:19:35 2003:

Today someone phoned and asked if I had received email sent yesterday (way
under 70K) and I had not, nor have I ever received two test emails sent from
myself at a free webmail account to keesan@grex.org and keesan@cyberspace.org
two days ago.  I asked them both to change their settings to wait longer
before timing out - what is the proper terminology for this?


#87 of 251 by davel on Wed Jan 15 01:44:22 2003:

Dialin doesn't seem to be working - I get fast, funny-sounding busy signals.
Dialing 5041, for what it's worth.



#88 of 251 by aruba on Wed Jan 15 03:38:30 2003:

I'm dialed in now, and it seems OK.


#89 of 251 by hash on Thu Jan 16 21:18:01 2003:

is someone going to answer the question about SSH Protocol Version 2?
I too am wondering why grex is still using version 1 only.


#90 of 251 by russ on Fri Jan 17 02:59:45 2003:

Sometimes when logging in and typing ahead, login tells me
"You cannot change L$0" and gets my loginid wrong.


#91 of 251 by gull on Fri Jan 17 14:53:48 2003:

I think this happens to me if I backspace one too many times at the
login prompt.


#92 of 251 by other on Fri Jan 17 16:15:43 2003:

and to me if i accidentally pinky the tabkey


#93 of 251 by krj on Fri Jan 17 21:15:27 2003:

Polytarp, and other ids originating from the same address as polytarp,
is flooding crap into party and rendering it unusable. 

Other ids include "tabs" and "jimt".


#94 of 251 by naftee on Sat Jan 18 03:56:16 2003:

"Rendering it unusable"?  Assuming it doesn't crash party (which I doubt it
would) haven't you heard of the :ignore command?


#95 of 251 by mynxcat on Sat Jan 18 04:25:14 2003:

This response has been erased.



#96 of 251 by remmers on Sat Jan 18 12:55:20 2003:

The fact that there are defenses against rudeness is no excuse for
rudeness.


#97 of 251 by tpryan on Sat Jan 18 14:13:18 2003:

        Good line, John.  It should be on a bumper sticker or coffee cup.


#98 of 251 by polytarp on Sat Jan 18 15:28:31 2003:

This response has been erased.



#99 of 251 by other on Sat Jan 18 15:50:51 2003:

Wow.  You are a major asshole!  Happy?


#100 of 251 by russ on Sat Jan 18 18:14:39 2003:

If polytarp is causing problems, why not drop packets from
his ISP's netblock and/or complain to his ISP?


#101 of 251 by polytarp on Sat Jan 18 19:27:41 2003:

other, if that bored you, remember that the only ones who get bored are those
who are boring.


#102 of 251 by gull on Sat Jan 18 19:59:25 2003:

Re #98: That was pointless.

Re #100: Blocking anyone's netblock should be a last resort, since it
can affect innocent parties who happen to use the same ISP.


#103 of 251 by russ on Sat Jan 18 23:34:17 2003:

If the problems do not cease, I suggest we pursue civil or criminal
penalties against polytarp.  See this:

http://www.cleveland.com/tech/plaindealer/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fbusiness%2F10
4288693631280.xml


#104 of 251 by jep on Sat Jan 18 23:54:57 2003:

Polytarp is in Canada.  Even if he was in Washtenaw County, Grex 
doesn't have the resources to sue him.  Ignore him.


#105 of 251 by tonster on Sun Jan 19 01:11:53 2003:

why does nooone do anything to prevent people from being affected by 
polytarps shit?  Block his IP!  You don't need to block his netblock.  
scribble that stupid response above with the contents of 
the /etc/passwd file.  Why waste the bandwidth to download all that 
shit when you're using backtalk or picospan?  I really don't understand 
why grex staff lets it continue.  Grex is slow enough as it is.


#106 of 251 by polytarp on Sun Jan 19 02:06:33 2003:

fag.


#107 of 251 by russ on Sun Jan 19 02:21:29 2003:

Re #102:  It would only be necessary to block the netblock until
the ISP or criminal authorities had taken action against the abuser.


#108 of 251 by mcnally on Sun Jan 19 02:22:55 2003:

 re #105:  Staff could block his IP but if he's determined to be an obnoxious
 twit (and all evidence indicates that he is..) he'd just come in from another
 IP.  And they could scribble his response, but that will just encourage him
 to post it again, and again..  


#109 of 251 by polytarp on Sun Jan 19 02:23:28 2003:

fag.


#110 of 251 by tonster on Sun Jan 19 02:53:28 2003:

resp:108: Then scribble it again.  after a few hours, he'll stop.  
he'll also quickly run out of IP's to access grex from.


#111 of 251 by jiffer on Sun Jan 19 05:19:06 2003:

If you ignore him (which you are not, thus he gets the attention he so
desires) he may eventually stop and/ or go away.  Think of him as a
misbehaving 2 year old.


#112 of 251 by polytarp on Sun Jan 19 05:21:58 2003:

hehe.  look at yourself, jiffer.


#113 of 251 by other on Sun Jan 19 14:20:55 2003:

Frankly, I think of a misbehaving 2 year old as having more intelligence.


#114 of 251 by keesan on Tue Jan 28 22:46:03 2003:

Lynx won't access sites - just keeps waiting for something to happen.


#115 of 251 by other on Tue Jan 28 22:59:11 2003:

I was dialed in a while ago, and it looked like Grex's internet 
connection died when most of the users simultaneously ceased to be logged 
in.


#116 of 251 by krokus on Tue Jan 28 23:40:35 2003:

I am unable to telnet in from work, which I have done in the past.

Right now, I'm telnetting to m-nut, then here from there.  I have been
able to telnet here directly in the past, but this is the first time
I have tried in probably a month or more.


#117 of 251 by keesan on Tue Jan 28 23:47:31 2003:

Lynx works again now.


#118 of 251 by mynxcat on Wed Jan 29 15:20:07 2003:

This response has been erased.



#119 of 251 by gelinas on Wed Jan 29 22:34:48 2003:

I think it's still a network problem.  Although there is a bit of a load right
now:

} Respond, pass, forget, quit, or ? for more options? !uptime
}   5:33pm  up 28 days,  7:32,  37 users,  load average: 12.98, 11.40, 11.11


#120 of 251 by russ on Thu Jan 30 02:12:40 2003:

Possible DNS problem:  a correspondent reports that he cannot
reach grex.org.  I have no difficulty, but maybe parts of the
network discriminate against Dotster-registered domains.


#121 of 251 by gelinas on Thu Jan 30 02:16:59 2003:

Could also be that the .org registry is moving from Networking Solutions
to Public Interest Registry (PIR).  Things were supposed to be up and
stable by last night, but who knows?


#122 of 251 by krokus on Thu Jan 30 04:31:16 2003:

I tried telnetting from work, directly to the IP.  that didn't work.


#123 of 251 by gelinas on Thu Jan 30 04:33:23 2003:

In that case, use traceroute to find out where the packets are dropping.
We've been seeing network problems off and on for a while.


#124 of 251 by russ on Thu Jan 30 04:47:09 2003:

More info I was sent by my correspondent (though he does say
that he can *ping* grex.org):

whois grex.org @whois.crsnic.net
[whois.crsnic.net]

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

No match for "GREX.ORG".

>>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:32:40 EST <<<


#125 of 251 by gelinas on Thu Jan 30 04:58:06 2003:

Well, "whois -h whois.networksolutions.com grex.org" returns the right
information.


#126 of 251 by gelinas on Thu Jan 30 05:25:24 2003:

Well, I tried a whois against whois.crsnic.net and discovered that your
correspondent missed some vital information.  Here is what I got:

} coll% \whois -h whois.crsnic.net grex.org
} 
} Whois Server Version 1.3
} 
} Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
} with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
} for detailed information.
} 
} No match for "GREX.ORG".
} 
} >>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:32:40 EST <<<
} 
} The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and
} Registrars.
} 
} coll%

That last little bit explains a lot.


#127 of 251 by tsty on Thu Jan 30 08:38:38 2003:

no   .orgs


#128 of 251 by gull on Thu Jan 30 14:15:39 2003:

Heh.


#129 of 251 by aruba on Fri Jan 31 17:04:21 2003:

If someone has trouble accessing grex.org, have them try cyberspace.org
instead and report if that works.  Since they're on different registrars,
that will tell us if it's a registrar problem or something else.


#130 of 251 by hash on Fri Jan 31 19:31:35 2003:

control of all .orgs has moved to a central source... no?


#131 of 251 by gull on Fri Jan 31 21:26:35 2003:

The database was always maintained by a central source, but that central
source just changed.

This doesn't affect the fact that there are multiple *registrars* you can
buy .org domains from.


#132 of 251 by carson on Fri Jan 31 21:50:57 2003:

(one of the ttys appears to be stuck.)

  4:49pm  up 30 days,  6:48,  57 users,  load average: 5.51, 6.03, 7.08
User     tty       login@  idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
dimitar  ttyp0     3:14pm  1:30     15      2  -bash 
jackv20  ttyp0     1:02am  1:30     15      2  -bash 



#133 of 251 by gelinas on Sat Feb 1 00:34:44 2003:

I mentioned this in the 'bummed' item, but maybe it belongs here, too:

ssh doesn't get the 'birthday' part of the motd.


#134 of 251 by polytarp on Sat Feb 1 03:30:21 2003:

JUST USE TELNET!


#135 of 251 by keesan on Sat Feb 1 03:36:53 2003:

I have used the Change program (a few months ago) to put polytarp on my do
not write/tel/chat/talk list but I still get tels.  Why?


#136 of 251 by polytarp on Sat Feb 1 03:39:11 2003:

It was a talk request, keesan.


#137 of 251 by keesan on Sat Feb 1 23:40:20 2003:

The change program said it was changing my .login file.  I don't see polytarp
anywhere in the file.


#138 of 251 by remmers on Sat Feb 1 23:52:57 2003:

Then the change program misspoke.  What it changes is your .cfonce
file.


#139 of 251 by mdw on Sun Feb 2 00:40:21 2003:

"whois" doesn't know about "cyberspace.org" either; the message at the
end does not mention .ORG (as noted in #126).  DNS does know about grex.org.
This also works:
        whois -h whois.pir.org grex.org
(but it's amazingly slow.  Too many spammers harvesting contact info?)


#140 of 251 by janc on Sun Feb 2 02:50:49 2003:

Re: 133
  I think if you put "cat /usr/local/lib/motd.birthday" into your
.login file (assuming csh) then you will see the motd.birthday file
even when sshing in.  However, you'll then probably see it twice when
telnetting in.


#141 of 251 by aruba on Sun Feb 2 03:58:50 2003:

Is there a way I can see the "You have New Mail" message when using ssh?


#142 of 251 by gull on Sun Feb 2 21:38:39 2003:

"whois.geektools.com" works as a whois host for almost all registrars and
TLDs. (Not *quite* all -- there are a few that they can't support for one
reason or another.)


#143 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 00:11:34 2003:

After reading mail with Pine (today and yesterday) I was told No conf. when
I typed bbs or even bbs agora.  I then typed q, bbs (same message) and then
j agora.  Is this a new feature or did I do something odd?


#144 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 00:48:25 2003:

Also before getting into bbs 'I don't understand mart. Type HELP for help.'
(This was before the (no conf) appeared onscreen.  Confusing and possibly
other people are completely lost.  


#145 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 02:50:14 2003:

My twit filter is no longer working now.  I checked .cfonce and polytarp is
still listed there.  I would suspect my own fault except for the no conf
problem at the same time.  Or is some other file of mine messed up too?


#146 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 06:02:53 2003:

Might I have messed up .cfonce when I was removing all the redundant copies
of a twit filter?  Anyone want to look at it for me, please? 


#147 of 251 by polytarp on Mon Feb 3 06:38:45 2003:

HAHA!  I can talk to you keesan!


#148 of 251 by remmers on Mon Feb 3 12:11:57 2003:

Re #146:  Yes, you need to fix your .cfonce, where you apparently got some
inappropriate line-wrapping when you edited it.  The following two lines
should be just one:

  # responses entered by users: jp2 polytarp realpoly gizmo sarkhel loperbd
  mart

The fact that "mart" is by itself on a line explains the message about it.
The following two lines should also be one:

  define pager "twit jp2 polytarp realpoly gizmo sarkhel loperbd mart | less
  -dE -P 'Press Spacebar for more, or q to quit'



#149 of 251 by davel on Mon Feb 3 14:48:59 2003:

(The first of those pairs is just a comment, but for the second you need (in
joining them) a blank between "less" and "-dE".)


#150 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 20:16:28 2003:

Thanks, this explains the 'I don't understand mart'.  It still does not
explain why my twit filter is not eliminating tels from people on the twit
list.


#151 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 3 20:20:10 2003:

I tried to edit .cfonce with pico.  I put things on one line but pico wraps
them onto two.  Can I disable line wrap with pico?  Do I need to learn vi to
fix .cfonce?  I could put a # in front of mart but that does not fix the
problem o f the line starting with -dE.


#152 of 251 by remmers on Mon Feb 3 20:47:11 2003:

I'm not a pico user, so I don't know if linewrap can be disabled.

Re #150:  Twit lists in .cfonce control only what Picospan shows you.
They have nothing to do with tels.  For that, you need to enable
a .nowrite file.  See !man write.


#153 of 251 by aruba on Mon Feb 3 21:10:30 2003:

To disable word-wrap in pico, use "pico -w -t".  Well, probably you just
need the w, but I use both and it works.


#154 of 251 by hash on Mon Feb 3 23:23:43 2003:

-t is nice because it puts pico in 'tool' mode which is better for novice
users.


#155 of 251 by keesan on Tue Feb 4 00:38:58 2003:

The change program which modified .cfonce (but said it was modifying .login)
also said it was changing write permissions for tel talk etc.  Someone might
want to modify the change program.  I will check out pico -w -t.


#156 of 251 by keesan on Tue Feb 4 00:40:30 2003:

My .cfonce has been fixed with pico -w -t.  What did the -t do?  I was able
to remove the CR/LF or whatever it was that was breaking up one line into two.


#157 of 251 by gelinas on Tue Feb 4 01:10:11 2003:

I wonder if a quotation mark is also missing from that last line.


#158 of 251 by keesan on Tue Feb 4 03:34:33 2003:

If so where should I restore it to?  Everything seems to work anyway.


#159 of 251 by gelinas on Tue Feb 4 03:41:04 2003:

Probably at the very end of the line, as in the lines just before it.

In general, quotation marks come in pairs.


#160 of 251 by carson on Tue Feb 4 12:20:02 2003:

(ttyp0 appears to still be stuck in wtmp.)

  7:04am  up 33 days, 21:03,  44 users,  load average: 11.46, 12.04, 12.16
User     tty       login@  idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
carson   ttyp0     7:04am            9      3  w 
mullen   ttyp0     1:51am            9      3  w 



#161 of 251 by remmers on Tue Feb 4 13:48:30 2003:

Re #159:  Picospan is forgiving about a missing close-quote at the end
of a line.


#162 of 251 by keesan on Tue Feb 4 17:26:53 2003:

I will refrain from fixing what works even if it is not perfect.  I am afraid
of causing more problems by adding back the quotation mark.


#163 of 251 by aruba on Tue Feb 4 20:39:30 2003:

I believe -t makes pico exit and save when you hit ^X, whereas without it
you get those two annoying prompts asking if you *really* want to save and
if you *really* want to exit.


#164 of 251 by davel on Wed Feb 5 14:14:36 2003:

That's right.  Except s/annoying/outrageously annoying & confusing/


#165 of 251 by krokus on Fri Feb 7 15:45:27 2003:

When connecting with ssh, the screen clears itself after motd, doesn't
display the Last login or mail status, and starts the cleared screen
with the Erase info.


#166 of 251 by mynxcat on Fri Feb 7 15:56:08 2003:

This response has been erased.



#167 of 251 by goose on Fri Feb 7 16:05:51 2003:

It still happens when I use PuTTY.


#168 of 251 by gull on Fri Feb 7 16:36:32 2003:

That happens to me with TeraTerm, regardless of how I connect.  I think
Grex sends a terminal reset command right before doing the Erase stuff.

I have .hushlogin set anyway, because I prefer to diff the motd so I
only have to read the changes, not the whole thing every time.


#169 of 251 by krokus on Sat Feb 8 15:12:16 2003:

I'm using putty for my ssh sessions, and NetTerm for telnet sessions.
I have no prolbems when using NetTerm.  I guess I'll have to see how
I can get Grex to stop sending a reset, if that's what it's doing.


#170 of 251 by krokus on Sun Feb 9 22:29:28 2003:

The whole systems seems to be having issues, or is at least losing
most/all connections.


#171 of 251 by mcnally on Sun Feb 9 22:34:36 2003:

My ssh connection has been dropped several times today, ditto for telnet.
Generally within a few minutes of my connecting, the session will seem to
freeze, with characters I type evidently not reaching whatever program I'm
in at the time.  About a minute or so later my ssh client (putty) gives up
the ghost and declares the connection terminated.

If I ping grex from a command prompt window while my putty session is
frozen, packets seem to be getting through at least as far as grex.org.
Is anyone else experiencing this or should I be looking for explanations
on my end first?


#172 of 251 by gull on Sun Feb 9 22:37:52 2003:

ssh and web access has been very erratic for me today.  I'm dialed in right
now, but earlier that wasn't working, either.


#173 of 251 by cmcgee on Sun Feb 9 22:41:23 2003:

I've had problems with telnet and ssh in the past couple hours.


#174 of 251 by keesan on Sun Feb 9 23:01:24 2003:

I could not dial or telnet in just now.  Using backtalk (6 pm).


#175 of 251 by jmsaul on Sun Feb 9 23:12:02 2003:

I'm in via SSH right now.


#176 of 251 by keesan on Sun Feb 9 23:18:14 2003:

Now I was able to telnet (17 min after my first five attempts).


#177 of 251 by aruba on Sun Feb 9 23:43:06 2003:

I got dumped earlier today too.


#178 of 251 by gelinas on Mon Feb 10 00:16:10 2003:

Generally, I use traceroute when I notice problems like those described
above, and, generally, I see that packets are being dropped between
voyager and grex.  Here is an excerpt from the results of a such test
from right now:

} 10  rback0.flnt.mi.voyager.net (216.93.15.210)  56 ms  51 ms  51 ms
} 11  cyberspacecomm.flnt.mi.voyager.net (216.93.107.238)  113 ms  63 ms  65 ms
} 12  grex.cyberspace.org (216.93.104.34)  65 ms  59 ms  67 ms

It's right after hop 10 I see trouble.

Earlier today, I noticed such things, when I was logged in (via ssh)
between 14:56 and 15:38.  I guess my ssh client was more tolerant,
because I did not lose my connection.


#179 of 251 by davel on Mon Feb 10 02:06:18 2003:

Earlier, I was dialed in & telnetted out (Grex is the only ISP I've got),
and kept getting hung up (um, frozen, not disconnected - if I pressed ^]
I got immediate response from telnet).  A bit later, Jon was on (dialed in)
and kept getting disconnected.  The fact that dialins were disconnected
at that point suggests something local to Grex, but possibly in the
network connection to the termserver.


#180 of 251 by jhudson on Mon Feb 10 20:27:44 2003:

I'm getting something similar now.
Telnet connections need 1 minute to login prompt.
Backtalk slogs rather badly too.
Normal (non-cgi) HTTP is fine.


#181 of 251 by keesan on Sat Feb 22 16:27:32 2003:

Pine keeps dumping me when I try to send a mail (several times a week):
ld.so call to undefined procedure _sigpause from 0xef785528


#182 of 251 by russ on Mon Feb 24 00:10:49 2003:

Grex took over 140 seconds to give a login prompt.


#183 of 251 by gelinas on Mon Feb 24 00:47:26 2003:

DNS for grex.org isn't working.  Both dns.gibbard and grex.cyberspace
fail:

        res_send to server dns.gibbard.org  209.142.209.52: Connection
                refused

and

        res_send to server grex.cyberspace.org  216.93.104.34: Connection
                timed out


#184 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 24 00:50:21 2003:

I gave up dialing in but could telnet.  Took a bit of a wait.


#185 of 251 by keesan on Mon Feb 24 01:30:39 2003:

This time I waited a couple of minutes and could dial in.


#186 of 251 by russ on Mon Feb 24 02:28:43 2003:

This response has been erased.



#187 of 251 by russ on Mon Feb 24 02:29:12 2003:

It took over 2 minutes to get a login prompt.  Again.

I've finally got the lowdown on the mail errors cited above:

> 250 grex.cyberspace.org Hello [209.142.229.137], pleased to meet you
> mail from: nobody@nowhere.net
> 250 nobody@nowhere.net... Sender ok
> rcpt to: russ@cyberspace.org
> 553 russ@cyberspace.org... One generation passeth away, and another
> generation c
> ometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
> data
> 503 Need RCPT (recipient)
> rcpt to: russ
> 553 russ... One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but
> the 
> earth abideth for ever.

WTF does THAT mean?


#188 of 251 by other on Mon Feb 24 02:53:16 2003:

You've somehow fallen afoul of mdw's bible-quoting trouble filter.


#189 of 251 by gull on Mon Feb 24 04:22:35 2003:

I don't know which filter that is.  I know replies I send to a mailing list
I'm on sometimes run afoul of the 'my skin is black upon me' filter if I
don't remove excess spaces from the subject line.


#190 of 251 by tsty on Mon Feb 24 07:49:21 2003:

 a bible filter is rather refreshing!
  
able to get through with cyberspace.org bt not with grex.org.


#191 of 251 by davel on Mon Feb 24 12:40:59 2003:

The Bible quotes mean that Marcus's filtering thinks it's spam.  You may be
able to get more specific info on what triggered this from him.


#192 of 251 by davel on Mon Feb 24 12:46:13 2003:

... though (whatever it is) I doubt you'll have any luck getting him to change
it to let your mail through; it's probably keeping lots of real spam from
people.

Hmm.  The headers you cite would suggest that there's a problem with the russ
account itself, not with other contents of the message.  ("would suggest"
meaning "suggest to me", & I'm not particularly up on this stuff.)


#193 of 251 by russ on Mon Feb 24 22:33:13 2003:

Re #192:  My correspondent got that last error from a telnet session
to the smtp port; that may have triggered the spam-trap.  However,
it wouldn't account for spurious mailbox-full indications (which may
actually be mail-filesystem full - I don't know).


#194 of 251 by mdw on Tue Feb 25 04:16:16 2003:

"One generation passeth away"... indicates a failure to follow certain
basic parts of RFC 822.  I wasn't patient enough to find Russ's
attempts, but I found a spammer using
ntsaga007231.saga.nt.adsl.ppp.infoweb.ne.jp and
adsl-65-71-169-27.dsl.tpkaks.swbell.net who ran afoul of this trying to
send spam to russ.

Most of the spam checks (including this one) don't care which grex
mailbox is named.  There is one check for "generic" mailboxes -- ie,
outside machines supplying a RFC 823 To: field of "you@grex.org" and so
forth.  Note even this check isn't looking at the forward path where the
mail will actually be sent, it's looking to see if spammers have used a
generic "somewhere at the realm in question" -- and this is no longer so
common since most people have caught on to this.

The "mailbox is full" message is separate logic (well, as separate as it
can be given it's one big monolithic program).  It will be generated if
and only if your loginid is named in /var/adm/badmail .  A better way to
check to see if your mailbox is full is to say
        !umailck
In addition to seeing if you're on the list, this can actually take you
off the list if you were on it, but have managed to free up enough
mailbox space to receive more mail.  If your mailbox is full when you
log in, login will spit out a message that includes information on how
to run umailck.  There is also an automatic process that will remove you
from /var/adm/badmail if you free up space, but forget how to run
umailck .


#195 of 251 by scott on Sun Mar 2 20:13:19 2003:

Grex was down for several hours - apparently a power blip last night tripped
up our UPS (plans to replace the batteries are in the works).


#196 of 251 by aruba on Sun Mar 2 21:23:53 2003:

Do you mean the UPS failed to work, Scott?


#197 of 251 by keesan on Sun Mar 2 21:46:09 2003:

Several of our clocks were blinking '4:45' this morning around 7:00.


#198 of 251 by scott on Sun Mar 2 22:09:15 2003:

I don't know exactly what the UPS does, but the last few reboots have required
power-cycling the UPS because it was stuck in some kind of fault mode.  There
was some kind of power blip last night; I heard both my UPSs go off but none
of my clocks were affected.


#199 of 251 by rksjr on Sun Mar 2 22:12:40 2003:

Currently entering:

    lynx, g http://www.cyberspace.org

yields:

    Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.


#200 of 251 by remmers on Sun Mar 2 22:17:17 2003:

Can't connect to any remote host.  The proxy server might not be
running.  If I knew how to start it, I would.


#201 of 251 by keesan on Mon Mar 3 16:16:34 2003:

RK, if you use Lynx frequently and want a backup for it, contact me.
This sort of proxy server problem has occurred before at grex.


#202 of 251 by rksjr on Mon Mar 3 22:35:55 2003:

Re. #201: Thank you. I'll keep your offer in mind.


#203 of 251 by cross on Mon Mar 3 22:38:36 2003:

This response has been erased.



#204 of 251 by scott on Tue Mar 4 03:02:41 2003:

Seems like apply a patch would be somewhat easier.


#205 of 251 by cross on Tue Mar 4 04:32:12 2003:

This response has been erased.



#206 of 251 by other on Tue Mar 4 07:41:57 2003:

All versions since 5.79 are affected.  What version are we running?


#207 of 251 by other on Tue Mar 4 07:46:51 2003:

        X-Force has demonstrated that this vulnerability is exploitable in 
real-world conditions on production Sendmail installations. This 
vulnerability is readily exploitable on x86 architecture systems, and may 
be exploitable on others as well.

     Protection mechanisms such as implementation of a non-executable 
stack do not  offer any protection from exploitation of this 
vulnerability. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability does not 
generate any log entries.

http://www.iss.net/issEn/delivery/xforce/alertdetail.jsp?oid=21950


#208 of 251 by gull on Tue Mar 4 14:15:24 2003:

Re #206: Unless they've set sendmail up to lie about its version in its
connection banner (a good idea, IMHO), you can find that out yourself
pretty easily.


#209 of 251 by cross on Tue Mar 4 16:31:39 2003:

This response has been erased.



#210 of 251 by gull on Tue Mar 4 17:03:51 2003:

Incidentally, it appears this isn't exploitable on some systems.  It
depends on how the binary is structured, so it may vary from build to build.


#211 of 251 by gull on Tue Mar 4 17:07:49 2003:

I've always wondered a little if postfix is really more secure, or just
less common (and hence under less scrutiny.)  I'm always a little
suspicious of claims of (in)security based on the number of *discovered*
bugs.


#212 of 251 by cross on Tue Mar 4 21:09:45 2003:

This response has been erased.



#213 of 251 by jhudson on Tue Mar 4 22:49:14 2003:

I'm going to get a good laugh when somebody tries to exploit that
bug against us! I don't think very many hackers can write
SunOS shellcode.


#214 of 251 by cross on Tue Mar 4 23:34:57 2003:

This response has been erased.



#215 of 251 by tsty on Thu Mar 6 08:35:33 2003:

script-kiddies suck.


#216 of 251 by dpc on Thu Mar 6 14:49:45 2003:

So is it correct to assume that the widely-reported bug
in sendmail doesn't affect us?


#217 of 251 by cross on Fri Mar 7 07:25:08 2003:

This response has been erased.



#218 of 251 by saizen on Fri Mar 7 08:35:45 2003:

i am trying to work with centering but it seems i need the glib library 1.2
or more new... Some body could renove it? it's very important for me.
Saizen


#219 of 251 by dpc on Fri Mar 7 21:45:59 2003:

Dan, I drew my conclusion because no staff has said otherwise,
and because staff has already hacked sendmail.  Plus, no outside
crazies have seized root.  I hope.   8-)



#220 of 251 by cross on Sat Mar 8 03:46:53 2003:

This response has been erased.



#221 of 251 by gull on Mon Mar 10 03:32:38 2003:

It hasn't been patched with the 'official' patch yet, at very least.  So
it's probably vulnerable.

AFAIK there's no working exploit for this on SunOS (or any other OS)
yet, not that anyone should be reassured much by that.


#222 of 251 by jep on Mon Mar 10 17:34:56 2003:

Backtalk isn't responding but telnet is working fine.


#223 of 251 by mynxcat on Mon Mar 10 19:50:28 2003:

This response has been erased.



#224 of 251 by remmers on Mon Mar 10 21:02:33 2003:

Web server was probably down for some reason.


#225 of 251 by gull on Tue Mar 11 01:30:47 2003:

Incidentally, if you haven't already, you might want to email staff about
the sendmail thing.  They tend to read email a lot more often than they read
this item.


#226 of 251 by goose on Wed Mar 12 00:04:26 2003:

I tried the Backtalk interface today, and could not get the Abelone(sp?)
one to work, it just sat there.


#227 of 251 by jhudson on Thu Mar 13 16:44:22 2003:

They all just sit there for a while. Be patient. This screen took
2min to come up.


#228 of 251 by mynxcat on Thu Mar 13 18:59:54 2003:

This response has been erased.



#229 of 251 by russ on Fri Mar 14 02:44:29 2003:

Re #228:  That may not be Grex, it might be your browser (or web
proxy server) timing out more quickly than Grex responds.


#230 of 251 by mynxcat on Fri Mar 14 15:00:40 2003:

This response has been erased.



#231 of 251 by russ on Fri Mar 14 23:20:30 2003:

Almost no mail has been delivered today.  Something's wrong.


#232 of 251 by gull on Sat Mar 15 01:20:37 2003:

I've gotten a fair amount of mail.  About as much as I normally expect,
anyway.



#233 of 251 by davel on Sat Mar 15 01:35:28 2003:

Same here.


#234 of 251 by krokus on Sat Mar 15 21:55:06 2003:

The putty screen is still clearing, right after motd.  Hence, I can't
ready motd, nor the new mail alert.


#235 of 251 by anderyn on Sat Mar 15 22:05:42 2003:

No mail here today either.


#236 of 251 by gelinas on Sun Mar 16 00:11:37 2003:

krokus, take a look at your termtype.  I've seen something like that with
vs100, I think it is.  I have to set my xterm's termtype to vt100 when
connecting to grex.


#237 of 251 by gull on Sun Mar 16 00:52:30 2003:

My screen has always cleared after login.


#238 of 251 by remmers on Sun Mar 16 02:52:11 2003:

One could make 'motd' the last line of one's .login or .profile.


#239 of 251 by krokus on Sun Mar 16 03:37:08 2003:

re 236
I can't change the emulation, as such. PuTTY only allows you to change
certain aspects of the intereaction.

re 238
That was something I tried, but motd is displayed by the system, along
with the new mail status, prior to the .login or .profile.  (I know,
it can be displayed again.)


#240 of 251 by russ on Sun Mar 16 04:20:02 2003:

Re #234:  I believe that some tset or other commands clear the screen;
check your .login file for things you don't need.


#241 of 251 by gull on Sun Mar 16 05:13:09 2003:

I have .hushlogin set to prevent the motd from being displayed during
login.  The reason is I have a script in my .profile that diffs the motd
against what it was last time I logged in and displays just the changes.


#242 of 251 by remmers on Sun Mar 16 13:31:39 2003:

By the way, are you aware that the motd displayed by the system
on login, and by the motd command, displays more than just the
contents of the file /etc/motd?


#243 of 251 by gull on Sun Mar 16 17:27:31 2003:

I wasn't.  Why is that?


#244 of 251 by carson on Sun Mar 16 19:06:54 2003:

(are you aware that, if using a ssh client, the system does *not*
display more than the contents of /etc/motd?)  ;)


#245 of 251 by remmers on Sun Mar 16 21:25:38 2003:

(Yeah, I recently became aware of that.  I'm hoping that's
a problem that magically goes away when Grex moves to new
hardware and a modern, well-supported OS.)

Re #243:  I imagine it's so that parts of the login message
can be generated automatically without collisions.  For
example, the birthday part of the motd is in
/usr/local/lib/motd.birthday.  This file is regenerated
daily by a program that scans the birthday database and
selects people whose birthday matches the current date.
It would be unfortunate if the program wrote directly to
/etc/motd at the same time somebody was editing /etc/motd
manually.


#246 of 251 by gull on Mon Mar 17 13:41:32 2003:

For what it's worth, yesterday morning my IDS at work logged what
appeared to be an attempt to exploit the sendmail vulnerability
mentioned earlier in this message.  Unfortunately I didn't have full
logging turned on, so I can't say whether it had any shellcode attached
or whether the goal was just to crash sendmail on vulnerable servers.


#247 of 251 by keesan on Mon Mar 17 23:20:23 2003:

I dialed in and was told (twice)  Unable to find your tty (ttyu1) in uutmp
file.  What does this mean and what stupid thing did I do that caused it?
Bbs works anyway.


#248 of 251 by russ on Wed Mar 19 00:20:34 2003:

Mail still cannot be sent from wwnet.com to Grex.

It appears that Grex is applying an unreasonably strict definition
of what constitutes "legitimate conduct".  Shutting off spammers
is one thing; cutting ourselves off from major ISPs is quite another.


#249 of 251 by goose on Fri Mar 21 15:49:53 2003:

The ssh daemon must have died.  I can telnet in, but not ssh.


#250 of 251 by jhudson on Fri Mar 21 17:33:37 2003:

$ ps -ax | grep sshd
 1045 ?  IW    0:05 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 1293 ?  S     1:44 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 2212 ?  IW    0:04 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 2763 ?  IW    0:05 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 3372 ?  IW    0:03 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 3569 ?  IW    0:02 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 3664 ?  IW    0:02 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 3989 ?  S     0:05 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
23951 ?  S     2:08 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
26686 ?  IW    0:26 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
27290 ?  IW    0:08 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
27652 ?  IW    0:12 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
28254 ?  IW    0:21 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
28434 ?  S     0:08 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
28706 ?  IW    0:09 /usr/local/libexec/sshd
 4292 qc S     0:00 grep sshd
$

It is running now.


#251 of 251 by tonster on Sat Mar 22 03:49:28 2003:

resp:250: not necessarily.  That output doesn't tell me if the main sshd
daemon is running or not.  All of those could very well just be user
sessions, and the main daemon could be dead so no new sessions could
start.


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