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Even though my Penguin Shell activity has dropped off by 60%, my Linux time at work continues on at the steady pace I love.

I spent the day on Wednesday configuring a new server for the shop. Actually, it's an old server and the story of the reconfiguration only enhances some of the statements I've made in previous issues. Specifically, that Linux can be used - when configured properly - to bring new life to old machines.

The primary file server for the shop is an old Dell, a 166 PI with 16 Mb RAM. Now imagine how slow this machine had become when serving huge computer aided design files to the engineers and machinists in the shop. Literally, the design story of the company resided on this machine. I wrote a few months ago about the torturous backup process I went through with this box, just trying to assure we'd have all the 'scope designs available.

A few days ago, I flat gave up trying to catch up the updates for the server. It was a Red Hat 6.2 install that had been frightfully neglected over the past few years. Since my most recent full backup, I've been keeping incremental backups, so I felt pretty good that the critical data was preserved. So, I made the decision to move all the data from the old 6.2 box to the 8.0 machine (1.6 Ghz Intel, 60 Gb hard drive, 256 Mb RAM) machine under my desk. Up to this point, it's been my development machine at work, but is fully capable of handling multiple chores.

I started a file transfer from the old machine to the new at 9:00 am on Thursday of last week. By 2:15, all the files on the old server also resided on the new. Then, of course, other pressing items took priority. I wasn't able to get back to the server transfer until Tuesday.

When I did, the first order of business was to set up the Windows machines - all running 2000 Pro - to access the new server. Samba took care of that in pretty short order. Of course, being the lazy IT guy I am (as in "work smart, not hard"), I took a quick shortcut to the Samba configuration. Given that I had a good configuration on the old server, I simply transferred it via ssh to the new. It took roughly fifteen minutes to connect all the Windows boxes to the new server and give everyone read and write access to the shared directory. By the end of the day on Tuesday, everyone in the shop was working from the new server - just a bunch faster.

Wednesday was rebuild day. I'd taken in a copy of Red Hat 8.0 for that purpose. However, when I gave some thought to the physical limitations of the old server, Red Hat made less sense. Honestly, it was really just much, much more than I needed in the new configuration, and was probably more than the box could handle. With the installation of an old 16 Mb RAM stick from the spare parts drawer at home, I took a different approach with the reconfiguration.

I can tell you - I have fallen in love all over again with Debian. There's just nothing quite like a two-floppy install to bring a warm sense of accomplishment. I slid in the floppies, configured the network card and installed the base system without a hitch, following Steve Waterman's Debian install guide, as published here. With a bare bones install, the old Dell took a refreshing breath then sprinted off on what promises to be a marathon of service in the shop. Using apt, I installed only what I needed for the new purpose - apache, mysql, python, Zope, and a few other assorted utilities and tools. No X, no multimedia, no fancy-schmancy stuff - just a straight-up web development box to build and maintain a new optics-oriented site for our company.

I had so much fun with the install that one simply wasn't enough. Cerebrum, our trusty test box for the distro reviews, got a new interior, as well, when I got home from work. It's now running Debian Woody with KDE and a few other nice trappings.

There's power in that little Penguin, my friends. And not just computing power. The satisfaction of a custom job done well and efficiently is powerful stuff, too.

See you on Tuesday.

Happy just sittin' here in my tux,              
Tony Steidler-Dennison       

GnomeTWEAK

URPMI

A few weeks ago, I was all abuzz about the Red Hat apt port. I noted that since it handled rpms, it should theoretically work with all rpm-based distros. I'll hold to that position. However, I've found out in the meantime that Mandrake has a similar tool of its own - URPMI.

URPMI is similar to apt in that it downloads packages including dependencies for the requested package. It installs the rpms just as the Red Hat apt version does. In fact, it has much the same functionality as both rpm and apt for removing, comparing and verifying packages.

If you're Mandrake system is complete with URPMI, but you've never used it, here's the syntax that will get you going:

urpmi [options] [package_names | rpm_files]

Like apt, URPMI keeps a local list of available packages. You can easily update this list with the command:

urpmi.update

The options for urpmi include:

• --auto :: install all dependencies without further prompting
• --auto-select :: automatically select all currently installed packages with available upgrades
• --force :: eliminates interactive prompts by assuming "yes" to all questions
• --X :: use the X interface
• --fuzzy :: will return packages with similar names rather than exact names
• --best-output :: use X interface if available, text mode if not
• --test :: test installation of a package without actually installing
• -v :: verbose mode

This is but a short list of the options for URMPI. Check the man page in your Mandrake distro for full details.

Everyone, it seems, is moving toward an online update, install and dependency-checking application. Debian and Red Hat-based systems have apt. Gentoo has emerge. And Mandrake's new tool, URPMI, is as good as it gets.

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GnomeSCRIPT

Relevant Backups
Scribbled by Daniel Foote

Hello!

I've thought lots about this, and whether or not I should send it... but hey, I can't lose anything?

I have a file server, naturally running Linux (RedHat 7.1), for my internal network. The main hard drive is 20GB, and that stores all my files. I was looking at a suitable backup solution for 7-10GB of data on the drive. So I bought another hard drive of the same size. Now I have a script that copies the relevant parts of the first hard drive to the second. The second hard drive is set to 5 minute sleep time, so it doesn't use much power. Also, the second hard drive is in a removable bay. Maybe not the best backup solution, but it works.

Now initially my script was pretty basic -- it just copied the files from one directory to the next. I did run cp with the -u (update) option so it only copies the newer or non-existent files.

But soon I realized that my script had a problem: older files, which were deleted from the base directories, would not be removed in the backup directories. So I modified my script to account for this.

Here is what it looks like now. (This is a cut down version. The whole script does this multiple times for different directories, and also backs up other things, like the MySQL database.)

#!/bin/sh

# Mount the backup drive (only mounted when needed)
mount /backup

# Copy the home directories (where my files are),
# Recursively, update, verbose.
cp -Ruv /home/* /backup/home

# Change dir...
cd /home

# Make a list of all the files in the base directory...
tree -fi > /tmp/temp_dirlist_start

# Now do the same list for the backed up dir.
cd /backup/home
tree -fi > /tmp/temp_dirlist_end

# Now do the magic: diff, grep, sed, cut, sed, sed, sed, xargs rm.
diff /tmp/temp_dirlist_start /tmp/temp_dirlist_end | grep \> | \
sed -e 's/>/ /g' | cut --characters=3- | sed -e 's/\ /\\ /g' | \
sed -e '$D' | sed -e "s/'/\\\\'/g" | xargs rm -v

# Clean up...
rm -f /tmp/temp_dirlist_start /tmp/temp_dirlist_end

# Unmount
umount /backup

Now that nice long line does the following things:
- Displays the differences between the two files. (diff)
- The lines of files that only exist in the backup are marked with a '>', so grep shows only those lines.
- The sed (s/>/ /g) replaces the '>' with a space.
- Cut (--characters=3-) leaves only the information from the third character in each line onwards.
- sed (s/\ /\\ /g) replaces spaces with escaped spaces (so " " becomes "\ ")
- sed ($D) deletes (D) the last line ($).
- sed (s/'/\\\\'/g) changes any "'" into "\'", which otherwise confused xargs.
- xargs splits up the results into lines, and calls "rm -v" repeatedly with arguments as each line of text.
- rm -v removes the files, showing you what was being deleted. (or not)
I've been using this script for a month now, and it works very well. About the only thing it doesn't do is remove directories - but I wasn't about to make "rm -v" into "rm -rf"! More thought might be required on that one.

Maybe this script will be useful to someone.

Keep up the good work with Penguin Shell and other projects!

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GnomeCORE

Get your favorite Linux flavor on CD: Pick your favorite Linux flavor and get it on CD for as low as $1.95. Find Linux gear, books, and software for Linux at Linux Central . Check out the selection today!

Having spent most of the day yesterday setting up a GUI-less networked machine, it seems a good time to talk for a few about establishing your network connection from the command line. The tools available in Linux make it reasonably simple. As you might have guessed, I prefer setting a basic network configuration sans the pretty windows. It's quicker and easily as powerful.

I'll assume you've got a working ethernet module, either in a loadable or compiled-in state. The tools for configuring the network connection consist primarily of two: ifconfig and route. You will, of course, need to be logged in as root.

A little pre-configuration information gather will go a long way when setting up your connection. The info you'll need is:

• Your IP address
• Your subnet mask
• Your gateway
• (Optional) Your broadcast address

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 up

This command, kicked off by ifconfig, brings your eth0 interface to life. As you can see, it's pretty simple, provided you have the right data to start from.

Now, you need to add a route to the default gateway. In the case of this setup, the command is:

route add default gw 192.168.1.1 eth0

Again, pretty simple with the right information.

ifconfig and route offer many options. The man pages for either provide the full details. And, I should note that these particular command deal only with making a connection on an internal network. You'll remember from a previous GnomeCORE article that 192.x.x.x addresses establish a Class C network - a LAN in most cases. In that case, the broadcast address will only vary from the gateway (or other network addresses) in the final octet, or group of numbers.

Quick network setup. It's easy with the command line tools that are at the core of Linux.

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GnomeFILE

CDLoop 3.0.4

http://www.cbrunzema.de/software.html#cdloop

"CDloop is an audio CD player with special looping capabilities, intended for musicians who want to analyze or play along to parts of a CD. The boundaries of the looped area on the CD can be adjusted in small steps, and cdloop can pause before repeating the loop again so you 'stay in the groove'. You can save your loop boundaries as bookmarks. It runs under Linux/X11 with guile-gtk."

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GnomeVOICE

MozillaQuest
Scribbled by Adam

"Hi Tony. I've been a Lockergnome fan since almost the beginning and have always pushed and told many people as possible about the great work and information you guys all provide. Keep up the great work.

"Saying that though I read your recent issue of Lockergnome Penguin Shell (02.11.2003) and was majorly disappointed at the end. The mention of MozillaQuest.com. I'm sorry to say but that site is not worthy of mentioning and I'm not the only one saying this. There not knowledge in any area what so ever. Most of what they say is lies and inaccurate facts. Most developers, fans and those at MozillaNews.org constantly protest that site due to it's lack of knowledge, facts and ultimately the truth.

"We all have our opinions but it's the facts that stand out here.. I would strongly advise in checking into this legitimate of this site supposed news releases and recommend MozillaNews.org instead.

"I was just shocked to see something in a Lockergnome newsletter that was far from the truth and not a legitimate quality resource.

"Anyways.. that's my two cents. Keep the great work up!"

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GnomeCLICK

The Linux Show

http://www.thelinuxshow.com/

This is the place to be on Tuesday nights at 9:00 pm EST for the best Linux discussion going. Hosted by Jeff Gerhardt, Kevin Hill, Arne Flores, Doc Searls, and Russell Pavlicek, The Linux Show has more than enough open source experience to go around. And if you don't make it to the live broadcast of the show? All shows are archived with the most recent linked from the front page. Formats for listening include Real, mp3 and ogg. With a great lineup of hosts and guests, The Linux Show should be a weekly listen for anyone interested in the Penguin.

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