First “long” ride of the year.

The 70 mile ride went off with out a hitch, well for the three
that actually did it it went without a hitch. Though with hindsight
the choice of route was a bit harsh. Four big hills (that is big for
Surrey) took a lot out of riders this early in the year. Though the
ability to skip sections and re-group was used to great effect
reducing the hills and the total distance for one rider.

While cold and especially as we descended Little Switzerland, icy,
the day was spectacular. A clear day near perfect cycling conditions
and a good breakfast at the Lucky Duck in Shere made for a perfect
start to the day.

Next week is the Redmon Reliability run which we have done for the
last few years and can be challenging if you join the faster groups.

Tags topic:[cycling] topic:[molesey bbt]

Tomorrows Ride

Tomorrow is the first of the planned Molesey
BBT “escalator” rides where on the last Sunday of the
month we do a longer ride. Each month the ride gets longer starting
in January with a 70 mile ride. My original plan was to go to the
Devils
Punch Bowl but that is an out and back ride with no opportunity
for riders to cut bits out if the going gets tough.

An alternative 70 miler, with the advantage that it is a loop
offering those who don’t want to do the distance or can’t keep up the
opportunity to cut bits out is:

Molesey -> Esher ->
Oxshot -> Letherhead -> Headley -> Little
Switzerland ->
Box hill zig zags -> Betchworth -> Newdigate -> Rusper ->

Clarks Green -> Ockley -> Forset Green -> Ewhurst ->
Shere -> East
Clandon -> Ockham -> Cobham -> Esher ->
Molesey.

In particular the loop down through Little
Switzerland and up Box Hill is very optional all be it a bit of a
laugh. Also if you go via Holmbury St Mary instead of via Ockley that
cuts out the hill into Shere and a few miles to get you to the Cafe a
bit quicker.

I doubt we will be back by 12 even with a 7:30 start.

Tags: topic:[cycling] topic:[molesey bbt]

OpenSolaris Appliances

The OpenSolaris Appliances community is a go! So now it is time to start building some kit.

First step will be to get some consensus on which motherboards to base this around. I suspect there is also going to be some discussion around what appliances we want to build.

I want to build something that is not dissimilar in function to a Cobalt Qube 3 pro, except OpenSolaris as the base OS rather than Linux. In particular using ZFS to allow snapshots to be widely used and greater confidence in the integrity of the data.

My starting list of services would be:

• Web Server




• Mail Server, SMTP and IMAP




• NAS server SMB and NFS




• Print Server




• Firewall




• Nameserver DNS and LDAP




• DHCP Server

Tags: topic:[opensolaris] topic:[solaris] topic:[appliances]

It’s Official! The biggest annual sporting event is coming to London

I’m over the moon, the widely leaked reports that the 2007 Tour de France will start in London and the first stage will be in Kent. The exact route will be announced in February.

Now if some enterprising cycle event organiser can arrange for an L’Etape style ride of Stage one the week before I’m signing up!

Looks like I will be taking the day off on the First Stage to see the stars ride by. I expect I will not be alone.

Tags: topic:[Tour De France] topic:[cycling]

X11 forwarding 101

I got asked this today:

After I su to root how can I forward an X session over
ssh?

This actually hits a huge bug bear of
mine, that of people using the xhost command to open up the X
server. That is bad but if those same people also have root access
well that is just the end. You don’t need to open all of X to get
this to work. Here is the shell function I use to achieve this:

function xroot

{

xauth extract ${1:-${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/.Xauthority} :${DISPLAY#*:} && \

echo export DISPLAY=:${DISPLAY#*:}  && \

echo export XAUTHORITY=${1:-${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/.Xauthority}

}

This assumes you are using MIT-MAGIC-COOKEI-1 authentication, I
dabbled with the SUN-RPC authentication but that requires a fully
integrated name space. All the shell function does is use the xauth
command to copy the record for the current display from my
.Xauthority file into /tmp and then echo the DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY
variables so that they can easily be cut and pasted. It does this as
typically my .Xauthority file is on an NFS mounted home directory
that root can not access.

So here it is in action:

Sun Microsystems Inc.   SunOS 5.11      snv_30  October 2007

: estale.eu FSS 1 $; xroot

export DISPLAY=:30.0

export XAUTHORITY=/tmp/cg13442/636397/.Xauthority

: estale.eu FSS 2 $; su – kroot

Password:

Sun Microsystems Inc.   SunOS 5.11      snv_30  October 2007

estale <kroot> # export DISPLAY=:30.0

estale <kroot> # export XAUTHORITY=/tmp/cg13442/636397/.Xauthority

estale <kroot> # set -o vi

estale <kroot> # xterm -e sleep 10

estale <kroot> #

There is more that the shell function
could to to verify that the file it chooses for the .Xauthority is
safe, but I don’t need that as I have TMPDIR set to be a directory
that no one else has access to.

Tags: topic:[XAUTHORITY] topic:[X11]
topic:[ssh] topic:[Solaris]

Slightly hilly ride

We set off to ride bits of the route of the Redmon Reliability run
which takes place in a fortnight. Six left Molesey heading for Epson
but one dropped off the back and then took a wrong turn and was lost,
despite someone riding back to the turning. On being reduced to five
we regrouped for a cup of tea in Epson and then climbed onto the
Downs. Then over Headley heath where one rider turned back leaving
four.

We descended through little Switzerland and past Ryker’s Cafe
where I was shouted at by none other than the rider we had lost. Back
being 5 riders through Dorking and up Coldharbour then down via
Holbury St Mary to Abinger and then Shere for breakfast.

From here we went home the usual route via Cobham.

Stats:

Distance	61.6 Miles
Average Speed	14.3mph

Next week is supposed to be the first of the escalating last
Sunday of the month runs, starting at 70 miles, my plan it to go to
the Devil’s punch bowl, with a new earlier start time of 7:30am

Tags: topic:[cycling] topic:[molesey bbt]

Srange code in ftpd.c if your password begins with a minus

A colleague of mine had a call from a customer who claimed that if their password began with a ‘-’ they could login fine bug could not use ftp(1). Now no sniggering at the back about using sftp(1).

So a few seconds with the source leads me to here and these lines of code in ftpd.c:

if (*passwd == ‘-’)

passwd++;

Now this just smacks of some bizarre UNIX folklore from the dim and distant past, I suspect passing the password on a command line (yuck) but have no idea what it is.

If you know or have a plausible or amusing theory let me know.

Nice simple work around, if your password begins with a “-” enter two “-” at instead of one. Actually using sftp(1) is a much better workaround.

Tags: topic:[solaris] topic:[ftp] topic:[password]

Envy and the winter tool kit

Today
I scored two firsts.

1. I envied the owner of a deck chair.

   
   

2. I envied the owner of a tricycle. (It is just possible as a
   young child this has happened before but I don’t recall it).

   
   

I am of course talking about Alec’s
Trice
which arrived today.

It brings me to the topic of my winter tool kit, since despite
Alec’s best preparations the chain link tool he had was about as much
use as a chocolate tea pot. Luckily I had ridden to work, ok that was
not lucky but just what I do, but I had my winter tool kit which
contains everything pictured.

Starting at the top left we have a spare folding tyre. I carry
this since in the dark it is often impossible to find the thing that
has caused the puncture in the tyre so it is easier just to swap
tyres and sort it out when you get home.

Moving clockwise we have the very excellent Var
tyre lever. Helps fitting as well as removing the tyre.

Then two lengths of chain joined in a circle with those excellent
SRAM
powerlinks, despite the fact that I have not mastered the knack
of opening them. This is more than enough to solve any road side
problems with the chain.

Next I have a Topeak
Alien multi-tool. This is the tool of the day as it actually has
a chain tool that works and works well. I have version one of the
tool which you can no longer get. I have found it excellent, the
blade has been a great help to break the ice on the cycle lockers
when cold.

The I have some cable ties, as I have said
before these are just so useful when things have gone pear
shaped.

Finally an inner tube. I actually carry three.

Not shown is the pump which is on the bike and is a Zefal
HPX, accept no substitute.

Tags: topic:[cycling] topic:[tools]

Another Pot hole and the difficulties of reporting it.

Another pot hole reported to Surrey CC. This time the web site claims that the problem has already been reported but how it comes to the conclusion I don’t know, and it does not give a reference. I’ve emailed them to find out. If they have some clever software that can understand the free text I write and match it with an existing report that is very interesting, but if that is the case it should give you the reference number.

My last report apparently I entered my email address incorrectly. They found the report and mailed me back.

Anyway back to the hole:

There is a hole on the Molesey bound side of Molesey Road between
Rydens Road and Field Common Lane which is a danger to cyclists travelling along that road.

Tags: topic:[Pot Hole] topic:[Surrey Pot hole] topic:[cycling]

Good Morning Build 31

Another build.

: enoexec.eu FSS 1 $; uname -a
SunOS enoexec 5.11 snv_31 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire
: enoexec.eu FSS 2 $;

This one still contains bug 6368386 Updated P2 xserver/font Some fonts have disappeared. which is a huge pain as reading HTML email
which I dispise but still get is close to impossible.

(I just tried to preview this post and all the italics that are supposed to be there were not visable so this could end up looking like anything.)

Tags: topic:[Solaris] topic:[OpenSolaris] topic:[good morning build]