Alan Wylie's Web Site

Thu, 2016-03-03

More hints on unmounting a filesystem: permalink
(previously) 
# ls -l /dev/mapper/
# dmsetup ls
# dmsetup info loop0p2
# dmsetup remove loop0p2
# losetup -a
# losetup -d loop0
# umount /mnt/tmp

Thu, 2016-02-04

Windows Security Applications (2007-12) permalink
(updated for Malwarebytes, 2016-02-04) When working with friend's PCs, here are some applications I install:

Tue, 2016-01-05

Hints on running a well-configured outgoing mail server. permalink
  1. If you do not have a static IP address, use your ISP's mail relay (smarthost).

  2. Make sure that there is a reverse DNS (PTR) record for your IP address. Make sure that it is not generic (e.g. wylie.me.uk, rather than client-12-34-56-78.adsl.example.org). You will need to contact your ISP to do this. (See RFC1912 section 2.1)

    Make sure that doing a PTR lookup, then doing an A lookup on that domain name gives the original IP address, e.g. 

    $ host 82.68.155.89
89.155.68.82.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer wylie.me.uk.
$ host wylie.me.uk
wylie.me.uk has address 82.68.155.89

  3. Get your ISP to SWIP your IP allocation, so that a whois lookup shows that it is allocated to you.

  4. Make sure that your ISP has not listed your IP address as dynamic with any DNSBL, e.g. dul.dnsbl.sorbs.net. If necessary, get your ISP to contact the DNSBL maintainers and ask for your IP address to be delisted.

  5. Make sure that your HELO/EHLO string is a FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name), e.g. "wylie.me.uk", rather than "NTSERVER", as required by RFC 2821 section 4.1.1.1
Further reading (This was originally written in 2006, some of these links may be out of date, I'm afraid):
SORBS
Spamhaus reverse DNS
Spamhaus Dynamic IP lists
Yahoo mail help
AOL Technical Standards for E-mail Delivery
AOL Reverse DNS
Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group Sender Best Communications Practices

Sun, 2015-03-08

If you get errors trying to nfsmount your root partition during a PXE boot permalink 
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.
VFS: Cannot open root device "nfs" or unknown-block(2,0): error -6
Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available
partitions:
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(2,0)
try adding "nfsvers=3" to your kernel command line 
LABEL alan
  KERNEL alan/bzImage
  APPEND root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.21.1:/work/netboot/alan/nfsroot,nfsvers=3 \
         ip=dhcp nfsrootdebug vga=0x323 netconsole=@192.168.21.201/,@192.168.21.2/

Thu, 2014-11-20

Gentoo, bash, xmalloc errors permalink
In Gentoo, after turning on the bash use-flag "mem-scramble", I got emerge errors for icu and nmap:
bash: xmalloc: shell.c:1596: cannot allocate 10 bytes (0 bytes allocated)

Fri, 2013-11-08

Just to try and g**gleb*mb it: permalink
Link to a friend's NHS Anti Smoking Campaign

Mon, 2013-03-18

About me: permalink
I'm a computer hacker (in the original meaning of the word), a caver, a fell-walker, and cyclist.

mail me at alan@wylie.me.uk

Note that sending unsolicited marketing e-mail to an individual in the UK is an offence under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and that the collection and processing of personal information is regulated by the Data Protection Act.

alan

Mon, 2013-02-18

Contact Me permalink

Please note that sending unsolicited marketing e-mail to an individual in the UK is an offence under Section 22 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/22/made

If you are having difficulty e-mailing me, perhaps because of my anti-spam defenses, use this form (See also Hints on running a well-configured outgoing mail server )

Please enter the text "spammers are scum" in this field:



Your Name:


Your Email:


Your Message:



Wed, 2012-12-19

Xmas links permalink
UWFRA SARDA BPC Gaping Gill Titan Titan Titan Titan

Sat, 2011-12-24

Captain Brown's Experience on board the barque Robert Hine permalink
My brother David has scanned in and OCR'd a pamphlet my Great^2 Grandfather published entitled Captain Brown's Experience on board the barque Robert Hine

Thu, 2011-11-10

Found, at the summit of Puig des Tossals Verts, Mallorca, on Wednesday 9th November 2011. permalink

A Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ18 Camera

Contact me for the contents of the SD card and the return of the camera.

Sun, 2010-08-22

Lateral Cleft, Jingling Pot permalink
Photos

Thu, 2010-05-06

Confusing Apache error message permalink

If you get the following error message:

[crit] [client 10.0.0.1] (13)Permission denied: /foo/bar/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable, referer: http://example.org/

check that the permissions on the directory enable the web server user to read/access it, to fix it do something like:

find <dir> -type d | xargs chown <apache user>
find <dir> -type d | xargs chmod u+rx

Fri, 2010-02-26

I'm looking for a job. permalink

(Updated April 2010)
I've found a new job.

Sun, 2010-01-31

Links permalink

Weather maps

Some organisations I belong to:
The Vibram Mountaineering Club
The Karabiner Mountaineering Club
The Astronomy Centre

My excellent ISP: Zen Internet

A very nice Bed and Breakfast in Coniston:
Oaklands Guest House

And some of my favourite websites:
News:
Slashdot
SANS - Internet Storm Center
The Register
Linux Weekly News
ADSLguide
Cryptome
MelonFarmers
National Secular Society

Anti-Spam
RFC-Ignorant
The Spamhaus Project

Linux
ROCK Linux
Gentoo Linux

Comics
XKCD
Abstruse Goose
User Friendly
Dilbert
UNSPEAKABLE VAULT (Of Doom)
The Joy of Tech
Irregular Webcomic!
Questionable Content
Something Positive
Freefall
Full Frontal Nerdity

Misc
Astronomy Picture of the Day

Tue, 2010-01-05

Unsolicited Bulk Commercial e-mail from Janglemail / Blurbjangle permalink

Full story here

Thu, 2009-12-31

umount: /mnt/tmp: device is busy permalink

If you are trying to unmount a device, you get the error "device is busy", but lsof/fuser don't show any process holding the device open, it could be that a file on the device is associated with a loop device.

try 

# losetup -a
/dev/loop/0: [0821]:25280514 (image) offset=55273881600
# losetup  -d /dev/loop0 
# umount /mnt/tmp

Sat, 2009-12-05

Laser-Scan Fastrak permalink

Laser-Scan Fastrak

A photo of the Laser-Scan Fastrak display and digitiser, circa 1985. Click to enlarge.

Sat, 2009-11-28

The Hine Line of Maryport permalink
Here are some scans from the Magazine "Sea Breezes", September 1959

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7

Briar Holme
Briar Holme Memorial
Henry Scholefield
Myrtle Holme
Rydal Holme Painting
Rydal Holme
Rydal Holme Officers

Sun, 2009-11-15

Mallorca photographs permalink
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday