From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 00:29:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA15224 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 00:29:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA15217 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 00:29:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id AAA29274; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 00:28:59 -0700 (PDT) To: Giao Nguyen cc: Wes Peters , Greg Lehey , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DNS vs. GUI? (was: Microsoft brainrot...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 28 Sep 1997 05:36:55 -0000." <19970928053655.29651@functional.com> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 00:28:59 -0700 Message-ID: <29270.875431739@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I don't want to sound like an HCI weenie because I'm not. HOWEVER, the > closer you bring these two things together the better life will be. I > for one, would *love* to see GUI utilities for administration of FreeBSD > boxes out there. Would I use it? Not unless I had too. These tools > should exist for those who are new to get up to speed, not meant as > *the* interface for the guru's to use. We can finally get rid of that > ridiculous argument of "Windows makes it so much easier ... " And I don't think that anyone here would argue with that essential sentiment. As several people have already noted, this entire discussion is really nothing new. The general topic of "how to put a friendly face on UNIX for beginners" has been a topic of considerable debate for almost as long as UNIX has been around. They were certainly discussing it in 1982, when I first encountered UNIX, and I'm almost certain that people occasionally came into Ken's office at Bell Labs and made whiny comments about his poor choices of command names even earlier than that. :-) It always comes down to the technology, basically, and no one can quite seem to agree on the right framework for this or even where to put the scaffolding. Some would argue, for example, that all the relevant UNIX commands should be taught to understand certain standardized command-line arguments, like "--describe-yourself" or "--use-front-end". Your front-end mechanics are correspondingly simplified since all the subsystems you need to talk to know how to deal with the concept of an abstract user interface and life is generally good for the naive user. Another school of thought thinks that the first idea is absolutely stupid and that you should have an interface layer instead which acts as a "shim" between some funky UNIX utility and it's arcane specialized configuration files and your UI, providing a much more abstract interface to the front-end code. Yet another school of thought thinks the first two groups must be smoking hashish since nobody in their right minds would attempt to unify such a wide range of dissimilar utilities that way and trying to wallpaper a 60ft oak tree would make as much sense. Only a unified configuration database which all utilities respect will do the job. To further complicate matters, you also have numerous failures at this littering the landscape, putting the fear of god into those last few souls who would dare to tread the same minefields. Unixware, SCO, AIX, HP/UX - all have had "GUI administration tools" which either sucked beyond measure or have only just recently subsided to suction levels considered tolerable by their users. I've also played with what some of the Linux distributions have come up with so far and, frankly, they all have a whole long way left to go too. It's an not easy one, "this little task." So, now that I've totally demoralized you on this topic, let me try and give you some idea as to where we might still go from here. :-) Mike Smith has done some pretty nifty unifying work on his "Juliet" utility - essentially a "meta-configuration server" which will supply a local or remote machine with a nice, unified picture of various bits of system data such as the contents of /etc/resolv.conf or /etc/rc.conf. Juliet views such icky "real world" files very abstractly, importing and exporting their contents through handlers which can be dynamically loaded into Juliet, potentially teaching it about new configuration files on the fly (want to have your Samba server configurable via Juliet? Just write an appropriate handler for smb.conf files and register the properties appropriately so that they're visible (I'm also hoping that I'm not massacring this description too badly and, if so, that Mike will correct me :-). This is a good example of the kind of relevant technology which could be taken into very interesting directions if only someone would perhaps *comment* on it one of these times when Mike asks (again) for feedback. ;) Sometimes even having the technology isn't enough (though it sure helps), you also need to have the will to use it! Check out: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/mailing-lists/archive/1997/freebsd-config/* For more discussion on this tool and some of the ramifications of its use. I believe there's also a pointer to the actual sources for it somewhere in there. :-) Another interesting area of exploration is the WEB based approach, some of which has already been done in prototype form by Wouter de Boer of Holland - he calls it "FreEasy" and, while it's certainly not finished or all that secure to use (it requires that a copy of the Apache web server run as root, probably not a popular scenario with most admins! :), it's certainly an interesting look at what is possible and perhaps can provide inspiration for other efforts. There's a copy sitting in ftp://hub.freebsd.org/incoming/FreEasy-0.2.tar.gz which should be reasonably up-to-date. Someone also recently posted something to freebsd-isp talking about an "ISP box of choice" or some such which seemed to have as its software goals something along much the same lines - an HTML front-end to just about everything useful - and they're certainly not the only ones to contemplate this. So I guess it really comes down to in the end is this: What do we have the will to do and what practical (e.g. existing or truly implementable) technologies can we use to do it with? Answer those two questions and you'll accomplish far more than a simple re-hash of the whole GUI-for-UNIX debate which we've had at least 50 times in these FreeBSD mailing lists. ;-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 02:25:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id CAA21654 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:25:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from andrsn.stanford.edu (root@andrsn.Stanford.EDU [36.33.0.163]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id CAA21647 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:25:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (andrsn@localhost.stanford.edu [127.0.0.1]) by andrsn.stanford.edu (8.8.7/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA17801; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:15:26 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:15:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Annelise Anderson Reply-To: Annelise Anderson To: Sean Eric Fagan cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709280254.TAA20632@kithrup.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 27 Sep 1997, Sean Eric Fagan wrote: > Of course, what Terry is talking about is having a common utility to do the > disk partitioning, install menus, etc., and have a "script" for each > particular need. There are numerous examples of existing utilities to do > this, in commercial OSes. > > "The experienced user will know what to do." > > Most people don't need all that information; most people just need to set up > a fairly standard configuration. That's what the "friendly" tools are for. > And the files are still editable for the people who know what they are > doing, and what they want. My view is that configuration tools (and perhaps a menu of such tools) are very useful and would make FreeBSD more readily accessible to relatively new users. The problem with configuration utilities, whether they are GUI or text-based, is that they put a barrier between the user and the system, so that one may never really know what's going on. Actually Microsoft is not the worst in this; IBM is worse. And I personally think that one reason (probably not the main one) for the failure of OS/2 is that you can use that system indefinitely without getting any idea of how it's put together, where things are, what file to look at to find out what you did to it when you clicked on some tab and chose an option. This veil of ignorance between the user/administrator and what's really going on is not good, because when the GUI tool doesn't work, you don't know where to go or what to do. Eric Pearce's _Windows NT_ in a Nutshell (O'Reilly, of course) has 90 pages on "Using the Command Line," and he says in the intro that "I am a firm believer in the command line. The promise of GUIs being easier to use always seems to break down when you start doing something really complicated." Already there are posting in questions-freebsd and on Usenet revealing that if sysinstall doesn't work to add new packages, the users have no idea what to do. So for FreeBSD, rather than Microsoft Whatever, I think the config tools should educate as well as make things easy. DNS via GUI may be a hard case--to represent the underlying structure graphically. But consider a simpler situation--adduser. One runs adduser and in its 2.2-STABLE manifestation, it offers (once only) an opportunity to select defaults. It doesn't say where these defaults are being stored, or offer the information that this file can be edited later. It doesn't explain that a valid shell has to be in /etc/shells (would you like to look at /etc/shells?), even though ksh is offered as an option, and ksh neither comes with the system nor is it installed on my computer. It doesn't ask me if I'd like an opportunity to edit the defaults in the future with adduser or whether I never want to see this stuff again. (A really new user is probably going to get something wrong the first time.) I would think that a good approach would be to create various configuration utilities that can be called up with some command that lists them all, and if called up in text mode indicates which ones can only be run only from X, and may use different interfaces. But their use should lead the user to a greater understanding of what's going on underneath....so that the utility, whether GUI or text-based, doesn't have to be perfect and cover everything.... Annelise From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 07:05:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA02458 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 07:05:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shale.csir.co.za (shale.csir.co.za [146.64.46.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA02449 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 07:05:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from reg@localhost) by shale.csir.co.za (8.8.7/8.8.6) id QAA03077; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:01:30 +0200 (SAT) Message-ID: <19970928160128.65314@shale.csir.co.za> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:01:28 +0200 From: Jeremy Lea To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Round and round (was: DNS vs. GUI? (was: Microsoft brainrot...)) References: <19970928053655.29651@functional.com> <29270.875431739@time.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81 In-Reply-To: <29270.875431739@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 12:28:59AM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 12:28:59AM -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > So I guess it really comes down to in the end is this: What do we have > the will to do and what practical (e.g. existing or truly > implementable) technologies can we use to do it with? Answer those > two questions and you'll accomplish far more than a simple re-hash of > the whole GUI-for-UNIX debate which we've had at least 50 times in > these FreeBSD mailing lists. ;-) Having been mostly lurking on these lists for a while now, it would seem to me that we need some sort of frequently raised issues (FRI) document. There are a number of topics that seem to have a life of their own, and a number of things which people keep raising (especially Terry ;). Although it would have to be a minimum of work... This posting of yours would be a really good start for a "GUI vs Command line" topic. "NT vs Unix", "FreeBSD vs Linux", "FS layering" and "perl/TCL" are others. We could list all of the peoples views, based on a cut and paste from e-mail into an HTML page (or even Docboook, but that might be a bit more work). Then we put a introduction on the top. These debates always seem to "end" with someone saying "You're all missing the point... the real issue is..." so we put a nice summary of what people consider the real issues at the bottom, along with a "What can I do?" section, much like your posting. Then when someone comes with a FRI, you point them at the web page and then let them submit their comments... or if they've now changed their minds, diffs against their last comments. Just an idea... in theory it would save a lot of e-mail, but then so do FAQ's, in theory. -Jeremy -- .sig.gz From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 08:54:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA10045 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 08:54:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from konnections.com (mail.konnections.com [207.173.185.11]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA10039; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 08:54:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from castle (ip185-198.konnections.com [207.173.185.198]) by konnections.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) with SMTP id JAA04139; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:50:42 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <342E7B01.5952@konnections.com> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:42:57 -0600 From: Mike Allison Reply-To: mallison@konnections.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Smith CC: Michael Smith , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Argh References: <199709250933.TAA01033@word.smith.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Sounds to me like more smart than lucky. Just goes to show that if you notify a few people early, you can sometimes get things back before they disappear for good. Had you waited till wednesday to notify the laptop folks, they probably wouldn't have been able to help... -Mike Mike Smith wrote: > I faxed the local laptop-parts people on Monday, and > Tuesday morning got a call about someone trying to locate said > components. > I don't deserve to be this lucky. 8) > > mike From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 09:01:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA10305 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:01:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA10299 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:01:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA06626; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 01:28:46 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709281558.BAA06626@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: mallison@konnections.com cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Argh In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:42:57 CST." <342E7B01.5952@konnections.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 01:28:43 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Sounds to me like more smart than lucky. Just goes to show that if you > notify a few people early, you can sometimes get things back before they > disappear for good. Had you waited till wednesday to notify the laptop > folks, they probably wouldn't have been able to help... Hmm. Smarter would have prevented the whole thing IMHO. Anyway, just for amusement value; I got a call this afternoon from the CIB - they have another laptop identical to mine that they just recovered with a pile of stolen goods late last week, and they were wanting my list of Toshiba spare parts dealers so they could ring around and see if it had been reported. I wonder if there's any money in contracting as a finder? 8) mike From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 12:53:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA19684 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 12:53:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA19679 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 12:53:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 195 on Sun, 28 Sep 1997 19:52:45 GMT; id TAA00195 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA00632; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:22:57 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:22:56 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com>; from Greg Lehey on Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 10:19:41AM +0930 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Greg Lehey shared with us: > (following up to -chat) > On Sat, Sep 27, 1997 at 09:27:02PM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > >> Why do it if the basic nameserver setup takes about 10 minutes? (No, > >> not the caching-only server, this one only takes a couple of minutes.) > > > > Each. Time. > > How do you find out your configuration with this horrible, > complicated, you-only-see-as-much-at-a-time-as-I-want-to-show- > you-and-make-sure-you-keep-alternating-from-keyboard-to-mouse Motif > application once you have entered your initial configuration? You know, a rowing boat has a far more clear interface than a 747. You pull the oars, the thing moves. Nothing is hidden behind knobs and sliders and flashing lights. But which do you prefer to cross the Atlantic? Not everyone is a pilot and still you might want to get to the other side. User interfaces _have_ developed since the introduction of the CRT, which basically still is the level that Unix is at. At the moment, when we're talking about user interfaces, we're talking about a display, a mouse and a keyboard. We don't use sound and the mouse doesn't give feedback about what's happening on the screen. With this set, the most easy interface we have isn't a command line that you could run over a teletype (like anybody would still use that), it isn't all those dialog boxes of Windows, it's the browser (Jordan already pointed towards a link). That's the big ommision of Java. With Java, you can write applications like we already had in the mid eighties. You can put an applet in a browser, but it doesn't really interact with the rest of the page. JavaScript is better at this - though the implemention is far from ideal. (Note that a browser is also ultimately customizable.) If you look at Joe Sixpack with his little PC and some of MS's operating systems, setting the thing up is fairly easy. If you use off-the-shelve parts, setting up Windows 95 is within reach of most people. But the trouble start when he wants to connect to his ISP. Why does he have to setup name servers and gateways and mail servers and proxy servers and god knows what, when the only things that really matter are perhaps the phone number (when you don't have a direct connection) and some means of authorisation? He isn't going to call another ISP and there's just the line between him and the ISP. There's only _one_ possible mail server, _one_ possible proxy server, etc. The answer is, because there's a reciprocal relationship between the ease of programming and the ease of using an application. The easier an application is to use, the more difficult it is to write. The ideal way of administrating a network would be to have a graphical representation of it, with lines indication connections. You really shouldn't have to worry about things like DNS, TCP/IP, or whatever. Let the computer decide that for itself. Like I said, it's hard (and now I'm using an understatement) to implement. If you have limited resources like FreeBSD, you'll keep to the easiest implementation. If you have more than enough resources and criminally high profits like our friends in Redmond, WA, you can make a nice attempt at a GUI. Watch out for Windows 98, where browser and desktop are one (if I understand it well). It could well be a first step into the direction that user interfaces are heading. - Peter P.S. Speaking of cars, now _that's_ a user interface that really sucks. To get it moving, you release one pedal with your foot while pushing another one down. If you want to stop, you push down a third pedal and, at the right time, also push down the first. If you don't do it right, your cars stops and you have to restart it. Couldn't they have invented something less braindead in the last 100 years? A sidestick and drive-by-wire? (I know, planes and motorcycles have an even more stupid UI.) From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 13:28:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA20990 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:28:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA20984 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:28:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id NAA03917; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:27:52 -0700 (PDT) To: Peter Korsten cc: FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:22:56 +0200." <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:27:51 -0700 Message-ID: <3912.875478471@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > to restart it. Couldn't they have invented something less > braindead in the last 100 years? A sidestick and drive-by-wire? > (I know, planes and motorcycles have an even more stupid UI.) Mercedes has a couple of concept cars which do exactly that, actually. Initial tests have been promising, but I think that the learning curve is going to be too steep for them to ever actually field such cars in earnest. Can you imagine, for example, the typical 50 year old doctor's wife, her new Mercedes a gift from her husband, trying to suddenly come to grips with a new drive-by-wire system? Just judging by the folks I see driving such cars around on the road, they wouldn't have a clue as to how to deal with such high-tech wizardry and the penalty for making mistakes with a new automotive interface is pretty high. With a computer, the worst that can happen is that it crashes and you reboot it. With a car, it crashes and you go to the hospital or the morgue. ;-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 14:42:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA24680 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:42:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zeus.xtalwind.net (xtal36.xtalwind.net [205.160.242.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA24675 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:42:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (zeus.xtalwind.net [127.0.0.1]) by zeus.xtalwind.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA16205; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:41:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:41:37 -0400 (EDT) From: jack X-Sender: jack@zeus.xtalwind.net To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <3912.875478471@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > mistakes with a new automotive interface is pretty high. With a > computer, the worst that can happen is that it crashes and you reboot > it. With a car, it crashes and you go to the hospital or the > morgue. ;-) In the case of the car, can you say `natural selection'? :) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack O'Neill Finger jacko@diamond.xtalwind.net or jack@xtalwind.net http://www.xtalwind.net/~jacko/pubpgp.html #include for my PGP key. PGP Key fingerprint = F6 C4 E6 D4 2F 15 A7 67 FD 09 E9 3C 5F CC EB CD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 15:42:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA27713 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:42:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from usr07.primenet.com (tlambert@usr07.primenet.com [206.165.6.207]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA27707 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:42:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr07.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA17788; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:41:42 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199709282241.PAA17788@usr07.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:41:42 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Sep 28, 97 10:19:41 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> Writing a Motif-based program would take a tremenduous amount of time. > > > > If you make it grammar-based, you write it once, and it works for a > > crudload of command line configurators that know how to be run over > > pipes. Like disk partition tools, install tools, etc.. > > Correct. But why? Two words: "code reuse". So I can have one grammar-using tool written in Motif, another written in ncurses, and another in JAVA that can all operate against the same command line tools. If someone wants perl-based and tcl-based tools as well, then *they* can write them. 8-). > >> Why do it if the basic nameserver setup takes about 10 minutes? (No, > >> not the caching-only server, this one only takes a couple of minutes.) > > > > Each. Time. > > How do you find out your configuration with this horrible, > complicated, you-only-see-as-much-at-a-time-as-I-want-to-show- > you-and-make-sure-you-keep-alternating-from-keyboard-to-mouse Motif > application once you have entered your initial configuration? 1) Use one of the other UI front ends (the one you prefer of Motif). 2) Use the command line tool directly. It's capable of running interactively (like VMS command line tools), as a "one event" command line (like UNIX command line tools), as a grammar engine on the end of a pipe (for the UI's), etc.. So you can even batch 10,000 user adds still. 3) Edit the files on which the command line tool operates, like you do today. Get erroneous data because you weren't limited to only valid values by a command line tool or UI obeying the grammar dictated by the command line tool. Your choice, really. Use the scope and the laser sight, or turn off the laser sight and trust the scope to refuse to image your foot as a target, or turn off both, close your eyes, and plug away at your foot. 8-). > > Speak for yourself. 99.99% of the computer users in the world prefer > > that type of interface -- which is why they are MS users instead of UNIX > > users. > > Wrong on both counts. 99.99% of the computer users in the world don't > understand the question -- which is why they are MS users instead of > UNIX. In fact, I'm very surprised to find you defending this > position. The only position I'm defending is "make something people would want to buy" instead of "make something people would want to buy, if only they knew better". > > > UNIX users are, as a class, intellectual elitists who don't > > undertand that the average I.Q. is 100 because that is how a 100 I.Q. > > is defined. And as a class, they are unprepared to make the necessary > > allowances. There's a good reason a moron can run Microsoft OS's: so > > that that morons won't be too intimidated to buy them. > > Well, again I'd say wrong on both counts. Morons can't run > Microsoft's OSs. Even people of normal intelligence (whom I think I > can understand quite well) feel intimidated by them. That's not to > say, of course, that they don't feel intimidated by UNIX as well. Well, welcome to the future, then, because you're labelling 75% of people as uneployable at McDonald's when they move to touch-screen based Windows CE cash registers (just like the touchscreen based Windows CE stations that an AirBus A320 uses for non-flight-critical systems). > > Normal mortals don't like TCP/IP because it bears no resemblance to > > reality. I don't have to name my car to remember where I parked it. > > What's your license plate, Terry? Custom plates attract cops. Just like bumper stickers, red paint, and to a lesser degree, white paint. Sort of like TCP/IP attracts configuration errors. Given a choice between something that I have to plug it in and then pound on it to make it work vs. something I just have to lug it in to make it work, guess which one I'd choose. I suppose you could argue that my plate's a tiny bit custom, in that it's an environmental plate. I pay an extra $25/year for it, which I can then deduct off my state income taxes. I do it not because I'm particularly supportive of environmental causes, but because it allows me to exercise $25 more explicit control over where my tax money goes. I exercise that control to avoid losing it. > > This may be intentional laxity. In their opinion, you are supposed > > to buy an NT server and configure WINS naming instead of DNS. > > Make up your mind what you're arguing. It's a perfect logical opinion for them to hold. Regardless, it's easier to configure DNS on NT than it is on FreeBSD. I can give you complete instructions in a page and a half for it. Or you can hit 'F1' any time uring the DNS setup. Can you do the same for FreeBSD? > Then why don't you do it and import the configuration to your UNIX > box? I'd like to see it, if only to pick holes in it. How do you set > up a HINFO RR? Under "Advanced..." > An ISDN RR? A variant reverse record? I assume your cache timeout everywhere is now one second, right? > To be fair, I think that O'Reilly's DNS book is too confusing. TCP/IP > Network administration will give you more info that any Microsoft toy > config tool can. Yes. But if people wanted "the real thing" instead of "toys", cars with automatic transmissions wouldn't sell (before the inevitable question, yes, my car has a standard transmission). > > For something designed by a bunch of bonifide computer scientists, > > you'd think they would be able to grasp the concept of putting > > configuration databases in third normal form. 8-|. > > Who are you talking about here? A bunch of bonifide computer scientists. ;-). Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 15:44:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA27834 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:44:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dumbwinter.ecomotor.it (mod5.logic.it [195.120.151.21] (may be forged)) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA27787 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:43:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 2319 invoked by uid 1000); 28 Sep 1997 22:42:50 -0000 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:42:49 +0200 (MET DST) From: Marco Molteni X-Sender: molter@dumbwinter.ecomotor.it To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: my first jump Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Howdy all! I just have to share this with somebody, and hope to find someone in the same mood ;-) Two years ago I served in the italian paratroops, and jumped the military way: 500 meters high (REALLY LOW!), round canopy with static line, no canopy control, no brakes. This weekend I did my first 3 jumps with a wing canopy from 1200 meters (still static line). Guys, it is GREAT. It is FANTASTIC. You feel extremely good. If anyone has wondered about skydiving, well, I have only a thing to say: GO AND DO IT! Marco "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 16:11:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA29387 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:11:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA29378 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:11:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id IAA11561; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:41:00 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19970929084100.32679@lemis.com> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:41:00 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Mike Smith Cc: mallison@konnections.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Argh References: <342E7B01.5952@konnections.com> <199709281558.BAA06626@word.smith.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199709281558.BAA06626@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 01:28:43AM +0930 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 01:28:43AM +0930, Mike Smith wrote: >> Sounds to me like more smart than lucky. Just goes to show that if you >> notify a few people early, you can sometimes get things back before they >> disappear for good. Had you waited till wednesday to notify the laptop >> folks, they probably wouldn't have been able to help... > > Hmm. Smarter would have prevented the whole thing IMHO. > > Anyway, just for amusement value; I got a call this afternoon from the > CIB - they have another laptop identical to mine that they just > recovered with a pile of stolen goods late last week, and they were > wanting my list of Toshiba spare parts dealers so they could ring > around and see if it had been reported. > > I wonder if there's any money in contracting as a finder? 8) It didn't include your pod, did it? Greg From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 17:21:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA03196 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:21:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA03191 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:21:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 23791 on Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:21:11 GMT; id AAA23791 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA00442; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:14:51 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970929021451.28241@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:14:51 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl>; from Peter Korsten on Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 04:22:56PM +0200 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Peter Korsten (hey, that's me!) shared with us: > > Watch out for Windows 98, where browser and desktop are one (if I > understand it well). It could well be a first step into the direction > that user interfaces are heading. I took the liberty to download MS Internet Explorer 4.0 and Active Desktop today. OK, so it killed my personal background image and I can't find it anymore, but for the rest: wow. I really don't know what to think about it. It's as customizable as you'd ever want, far more than anything I've ever seen with any OS before. You can create a HTML page for your desktop and for any single folder (directory). That HTML code, BTW, is horribly complicated. I doubt that you'll be able to understand it without using FrontPage (well, that figures). Consider it, having a JavaScript application run when you open a folder... Knowing Microsoft, I wouldn't invest too much time in devising all kinds of user interfaces based on TCL, Java or Motif, to keep up with them. A GUI still is a good idea (networking, for instance, is scattered over several files in /etc), but I guess it's browsers from now on, brought to us in the usual gentle MS way. - Peter From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 17:44:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA04412 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:44:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA04405 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:44:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id KAA12129; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:13:27 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19970929101327.45644@lemis.com> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:13:27 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Terry Lambert Cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <199709282241.PAA17788@usr07.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199709282241.PAA17788@usr07.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 10:41:42PM +0000 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 10:41:42PM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: >>>> Why do it if the basic nameserver setup takes about 10 minutes? (No, >>>> not the caching-only server, this one only takes a couple of minutes.) >>> >>> Each. Time. >> >> How do you find out your configuration with this horrible, >> complicated, you-only-see-as-much-at-a-time-as-I-want-to-show- >> you-and-make-sure-you-keep-alternating-from-keyboard-to-mouse Motif >> application once you have entered your initial configuration? > > 1) Use one of the other UI front ends (the one you prefer of > Motif). > > 2) Use the command line tool directly. It's capable of running > interactively (like VMS command line tools), as a "one event" > command line (like UNIX command line tools), as a grammar > engine on the end of a pipe (for the UI's), etc.. So you can > even batch 10,000 user adds still. > > 3) Edit the files on which the command line tool operates, like > you do today. Get erroneous data because you weren't limited > to only valid values by a command line tool or UI obeying the > grammar dictated by the command line tool. Well, 3 sounds almost right. But if you mention erroneous data there, you should mention the corresponding ways to get erroneous data with the other possibilities. A couple of months ago, I was teaching a UNIX class in China. The "terminals" in the classroom were PCs running Microsoft. They had lots of trouble setting up telnet sessions to the UNIX box, and I tried to help them. Each machine seemed to have its own warts, and I couldn't find an easy way to verify the dribs and drabs of information hidden behind all those artificially small windows. After about an hour on one particular machine, I finally located the text-mode file which one particular part of the configuration editor (for want of a more appropriate term) had updated. I found the bug immediately, despite lack of knowledge: it had been introduced by the configuration editor. For some reason, the editor presents IP addresses in square brackets: [192.109.197.137]. I didn't know why, so I removed them. The editor didn't complain, and it didn't update the screen, but it placed *one* bracket in the config file: [192.109.197.139. >From this incident, I extrapolate: 1. Having lots of tiny windows, all different, doesn't obviate the necessity for syntax. 2. Front ends of any kind may help when you know what you're doing, but if you have trouble it still makes sense to have a text config file you can look at. 3. The quality of GUI programming is inadequate to actually make things easier. >>> Speak for yourself. 99.99% of the computer users in the world prefer >>> that type of interface -- which is why they are MS users instead of UNIX >>> users. >> >> Wrong on both counts. 99.99% of the computer users in the world don't >> understand the question -- which is why they are MS users instead of >> UNIX. In fact, I'm very surprised to find you defending this >> position. > > The only position I'm defending is "make something people would want > to buy" instead of "make something people would want to buy, if only > they knew better". I don't think that people "want to buy" Microsoft. They buy it because of marketing, not because of any technical advantage. >>> UNIX users are, as a class, intellectual elitists who don't >>> undertand that the average I.Q. is 100 because that is how a 100 I.Q. >>> is defined. And as a class, they are unprepared to make the necessary >>> allowances. There's a good reason a moron can run Microsoft OS's: so >>> that that morons won't be too intimidated to buy them. >> >> Well, again I'd say wrong on both counts. Morons can't run >> Microsoft's OSs. Even people of normal intelligence (whom I think I >> can understand quite well) feel intimidated by them. That's not to >> say, of course, that they don't feel intimidated by UNIX as well. > > Well, welcome to the future, then, because you're labelling 75% of > people as uneployable at McDonald's when they move to touch-screen > based Windows CE cash registers (just like the touchscreen based Windows > CE stations that an AirBus A320 uses for non-flight-critical systems). There's a difference between running the OS and running an application. What would be the difference to the situation if this application were running on touch-screen based FreeBSD cash registers or stations? >>> This may be intentional laxity. In their opinion, you are supposed >>> to buy an NT server and configure WINS naming instead of DNS. >> >> Make up your mind what you're arguing. > > It's a perfect logical opinion for them to hold. > > Regardless, it's easier to configure DNS on NT than it is on FreeBSD. > I can give you complete instructions in a page and a half for it. That's half a page more than my instructions for FreeBSD. > Or you can hit 'F1' any time uring the DNS setup. Can you do the > same for FreeBSD? Sure. I can hit any key I want. But why would I want to take my fingers off the keyboard? >> Then why don't you do it and import the configuration to your UNIX >> box? I'd like to see it, if only to pick holes in it. How do you set >> up a HINFO RR? > > Under "Advanced..." Is it available. >> An ISDN RR? > > A variant reverse record? RR stands for "resource record". It's the basic unit of information in DNS. > I assume your cache timeout everywhere is now one second, right? I don't know, do you? But I don't think you understood the question. Greg From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 22:27:24 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA17678 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:27:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from usr08.primenet.com (tlambert@usr08.primenet.com [206.165.6.208]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA17671 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:27:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr08.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA16066; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:27:05 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199709290527.WAA16066@usr08.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 05:27:04 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <19970929101327.45644@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Sep 29, 97 10:13:27 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Well, 3 sounds almost right. But if you mention erroneous data there, > you should mention the corresponding ways to get erroneous data with > the other possibilities. I should make a distinction between "syntactically invalid" vs. "gramatically" invalid, in that case, to disarm your argument. > After about an hour on one particular machine, I finally located the > text-mode file which one particular part of the configuration editor > (for want of a more appropriate term) had updated. I found the bug > immediately, despite lack of knowledge: it had been introduced by the > configuration editor. This is why you were the teacher instead of the student: you were capable of problem solving already, and you were there to teach the students how to think more than anything else (IMO, that is the highest goal of a teacher, and has been my primary goal each time I've taught). > 1. Having lots of tiny windows, all different, doesn't obviate the > necessity for syntax. Yes. See my distinction above. > 2. Front ends of any kind may help when you know what you're doing, > but if you have trouble it still makes sense to have a text config > file you can look at. Your front end was broken in how it acted on the file; it introduced a syntax error, which should not have been possible for it to do; but I agree with the sentiment. > 3. The quality of GUI programming is inadequate to actually make > things easier. I disagree. This depends *entirely* on the quality of the UI programmer; it's a sad fact that many companies assign the UI tasks to new hires instead of experienced profesionals. I blame poor industry practice for your conclusion. I deny that there exists a problem so dificult that it can not eventually be solved. > > The only position I'm defending is "make something people would want > > to buy" instead of "make something people would want to buy, if only > > they knew better". > > I don't think that people "want to buy" Microsoft. They buy it > because of marketing, not because of any technical advantage. A wise man once provided the following definition of "zealot": Someone who knows what God would do, if only God were in posession of all the facts. This works for any type of religious zealotry, including OS or editor zealotry. In that context, the position I'm taking above is expedient, not religious. Sort of an agnostic pragmatism about "take a sample of what people are doing, then draw conclusions based on the sample data". 8-). [ ... embedded applications ... ] > There's a difference between running the OS and running an > application. What would be the difference to the situation if this > application were running on touch-screen based FreeBSD cash registers > or stations? I'm glad you asked. 8-). The difference would be that when an application crashed, you could restart it without restarting the system, because there are some resources that Windows does not track, and some memory regions that it does not protect. > > It's a perfect logical opinion for them to hold. > > > > Regardless, it's easier to configure DNS on NT than it is on FreeBSD. > > I can give you complete instructions in a page and a half for it. > > That's half a page more than my instructions for FreeBSD. > > > Or you can hit 'F1' any time uring the DNS setup. Can you do the > > same for FreeBSD? > > Sure. I can hit any key I want. But why would I want to take my > fingers off the keyboard? F1 is on the keyboard. 8-). And the instructions aren't necessary in the NT case; they are there for people who fail to grasp the obvious. > >> An ISDN RR? > > > > A variant reverse record? > > RR stands for "resource record". It's the basic unit of information > in DNS. > > > I assume your cache timeout everywhere is now one second, right? > > I don't know, do you? But I don't think you understood the question. I did. The point was that, given the current state of affairs with cache timeouts, it would do no good to assign an RR based on who called in on your transient point-to-point virtual cirvuit connection. So either "ISDN" was a red herring, or you want something that you can't have at this point in time anyway without an allocated IP address that belongs to the caller at all times. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 22:28:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA17766 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:28:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA17759 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:28:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id XAA22463; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:35:31 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:35:31 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709290535.XAA22463@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Greg Lehey CC: chat@freebsd.org, mike@smith.net.au, sef@kithrup.com Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <19970928160530.00335@lemis.com> References: <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210.kithrup.freebsd.chat@lemis.com> <199709280254.TAA20632@kithrup.com> <19970928160530.00335@lemis.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Greg Lehey writes: > DNS is a different matter. I don't see how you can change the fact > that there's a lot of repetitive information in there. If you have > 100 systems, and you have to change the IP address, your choices are: But isn't repetitive information something computers are supposed to be *good* at? So, design a system that lets the computer handle the redundancy and the user simply handle the unique parts. For instance: > 1. With a GUI, I contend that you have to go in and change each one > individually. Sure, it's possible to write a GUI which will > handle this example, but each such example has to be programmed > individually. > > 2. With the current config file mechanism, you just go in with an > editor and do a block change. If you mean existing GUIs, this is certainly true. As I suggested earlier, a well-crafted GUI would eliminate most, or perhaps all, of this. For instance, if you change your network address, with the existing system you have to do a search and replace. With the mickey soft GUI, you have to click on every host and change it's IP address manually. With the idealized, designed-by-Wes GUI tool, you simply change the network address for the domain and all of the hosts in that domain 'inherit' the new information. If any of them conflict, i.e. you're changing from a class b to class c network and some host addresses are > 255, the tool warns you and displays the now-flawed hosts in a manner that signifies they are no longer working. (Grey them out, put a red circle-slash over them, whatever.) Don't forget that as you identify problems, it is possible to work out visually intuitive solutions to them. Microsoft obviously cannot be bothered to do this, but we can. Please, keep the comments and problems coming. This could develop into a killer FreeBSD sales point. We often tout the capabilities of FreeBSD as an internet server, but have made *no* strides making it *the* internet server to have, because it is the easiest to setup and maintain. I strongly believe a few really well thought out tools to configure and monitor a FreeBSD-based server will go a long ways towards getting magazine editors, etc. to tell everyone "FreeBSD is the one to get." And Mike, if we can hook up with SEF's compatriot, I'd like to take a stab at this. He is interested in turning out such a tool using Tk, so your Tcl experience may pay off here. I've learned a little about Tcl, and want to learn more about Tk, and would very much like to do design work on this tool. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 22:41:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA18505 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:41:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA18498 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:41:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id XAA22472; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:49:58 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:49:58 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709290549.XAA22472@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Peter Korsten CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> References: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Peter Korsten writes: > P.S. Speaking of cars, now _that's_ a user interface that really > sucks. To get it moving, you release one pedal with your foot > while pushing another one down. If you want to stop, you push > down a third pedal and, at the right time, also push down the > first. If you don't do it right, your cars stops and you have > to restart it. Couldn't they have invented something less > braindead in the last 100 years? A sidestick and drive-by-wire? > (I know, planes and motorcycles have an even more stupid UI.) Yeah, this is called letting the technology bleed through the UI. Tognazzini railed on this a lot in his first book; he give the analogy of a hotel lobby. If you walked into a hotel to encounter the greasy workings of the elevator shafts, laundry, and kitches, you'd probably run right back into the street. Instead, you typically encounter a large open space (which deadens sound) and quite, attractive people to help you on your way to your room. Computer interfaces *should* be like this also; the ugly underlying guts should not bleed through into the user interface. Common users shouldn't have to know the format of an ISDN RR, or an HINFO RR, they should just be able to specify that this computer is a "FreeStation 233" running "FreeBSD 2.2.5", and that mail bound for it should be sent to "mail.freenix.com." -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 22:47:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA18897 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:47:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au ([203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA18890 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:47:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00459; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:14:16 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709290544.PAA00459@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Wes Peters cc: Greg Lehey , chat@freebsd.org, mike@smith.net.au, sef@kithrup.com Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:35:31 CST." <199709290535.XAA22463@obie.softweyr.ml.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:14:14 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > existing system you have to do a search and replace. With the mickey > soft GUI, you have to click on every host and change it's IP address > manually. With the idealized, designed-by-Wes GUI tool, you simply > change the network address for the domain and all of the hosts in that > domain 'inherit' the new information. If any of them conflict, > i.e. you're changing from a class b to class c network and some host > addresses are > 255, the tool warns you and displays the now-flawed > hosts in a manner that signifies they are no longer working. (Grey them > out, put a red circle-slash over them, whatever.) ... and of course because the tool is able to talk to these hosts as well, it has previously verified that it has authorisation to change their addresses and will reconfigure them on the fly as part of the commit operation which brings the new DNS stuff online. Juliet's transaction management isn't that good yet, unfortunately, but it's pretty close. (ie. This *can* be done, and it's Not That Hard.) > Don't forget that as you identify problems, it is possible to work out > visually intuitive solutions to them. Microsoft obviously cannot be > bothered to do this, but we can. I think, from looking at the MS stuff, that part of their problem is that the configuration UI is developed by the same people that wrote the code that it configures, thus there is no crossing of domains to do intuitive things. > And Mike, if we can hook up with SEF's compatriot, I'd like to take a > stab at this. He is interested in turning out such a tool using Tk, so > your Tcl experience may pay off here. I've learned a little about Tcl, > and want to learn more about Tk, and would very much like to do design > work on this tool. Sure. I/we really need some push to move this along, and a consumer for Juliet (ie. Romeo) would help immensely. You can grab the current state of play with it from ftp://smith.net.au/FreeBSD/juliet.tar.gz; note that you'll want to read the code to work it out, and please ask questions about it because I just haven't got enough of the design down in words yet. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 22:51:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA19063 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:51:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA19056 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 22:51:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id AAA22484; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:00:46 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:00:46 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709290600.AAA22484@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Peter Korsten CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <19970929021451.28241@grendel.IAEhv.nl> References: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> <19970929021451.28241@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Peter Korsten writes: > Knowing Microsoft, I wouldn't invest too much time in devising > all kinds of user interfaces based on TCL, Java or Motif, to > keep up with them. A GUI still is a good idea (networking, for > instance, is scattered over several files in /etc), but I guess > it's browsers from now on, brought to us in the usual gentle MS > way. Hey, I release my first web-based interface before they did, let's not start crediting Bill with designed the WWW as well. ;^) If you think about it, having a WWW-driver user interface makes a lot of sense for those of us pushing "alternative" programming environments. If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on their desktop? This is not to say this is an easy row to hoe: the iStation user interface took 3-4 engineers, a full-time web designer, and the skills of the entire graphic arts deparment at Dayna several months to complete. We have a custom server, Java code, JavaScript code, and hundreds of hours of test time in this, and it's barely started yet! Still, the idea of configuring your high-flying FreeBSD do-everything server from Pocket Explorer via IrDA tickles me. ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 23:00:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA19594 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:00:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gratis.grondar.za (gratis.grondar.za [196.7.18.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA19584 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:00:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (McmdQxPEnZx1OQxQ2JGcsQapcQeSfsED@greenpeace.grondar.za [196.7.18.132]) by gratis.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA16919; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:01:19 +0200 (SAT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (dNJFWrrOjifZzynHNMp352OoYKlItvop@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by greenpeace.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA04336; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:01:56 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199709290601.IAA04336@greenpeace.grondar.za> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Marco Molteni cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:01:56 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Heh heh! I did my 400th skydive in January this year :-) Welcome. You are one of the few, now... M Marco Molteni wrote: > Howdy all! > > I just have to share this with somebody, and hope to find someone in > the same mood ;-) > > Two years ago I served in the italian paratroops, and jumped the > military way: 500 meters high (REALLY LOW!), round canopy with > static line, no canopy control, no brakes. > > This weekend I did my first 3 jumps with a wing canopy from 1200 > meters (still static line). > > Guys, it is GREAT. It is FANTASTIC. You feel extremely good. If > anyone has wondered about skydiving, well, I have only a thing to > say: GO AND DO IT! > > Marco > "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" > > -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 23:19:11 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA20702 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:19:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (root@mexico.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.253]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA20669 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:19:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (brasil.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.33]) by mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id IAA27192 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:19:03 +0200 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.6/brasil-1.2) with UUCP id IAA22692 for chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:18:31 +0200 Received: (from roberto@localhost) by keltia.freenix.fr (8.8.7/keltia-2.10/nospam) id IAA23170; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:07:58 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970929080758.59972@keltia.freenix.fr> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:07:58 +0200 From: Ollivier Robert To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 In-Reply-To: ; from Marco Molteni on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 12:42:49AM +0200 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk According to Marco Molteni: > This weekend I did my first 3 jumps with a wing canopy from 1200 > meters (still static line). Wait till you'll do free fall (is there a better translation ?), that even better ! > Guys, it is GREAT. It is FANTASTIC. You feel extremely good. If > anyone has wondered about skydiving, well, I have only a thing to > say: GO AND DO IT! Seconded. -- Ollivier ROBERT -=- FreeBSD: There are no limits -=- roberto@keltia.freenix.fr FreeBSD keltia.freenix.fr 3.0-CURRENT #35: Sun Sep 21 19:28:07 CEST 1997 From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 28 23:59:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA23030 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:59:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gratis.grondar.za (gratis.grondar.za [196.7.18.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA23025 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 1997 23:59:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (MHIsZMnWhGrBljoDaaL9BjRjrIw201lg@greenpeace.grondar.za [196.7.18.132]) by gratis.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA17075; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:00:14 +0200 (SAT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (qn2dRIuaqyADxIwmO4PFpn8pY6VDugii@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by greenpeace.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA26654; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:00:49 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199709290700.JAA26654@greenpeace.grondar.za> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Ollivier Robert cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:00:48 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Ollivier Robert wrote: > > Guys, it is GREAT. It is FANTASTIC. You feel extremely good. If > > anyone has wondered about skydiving, well, I have only a thing to > > say: GO AND DO IT! > > Seconded. You a skydiver also? I thought Rod and I were the only ones so far ? :-) M -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 00:09:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA23528 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA23520 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:09:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id QAA13989; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:39:26 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19970929163926.38164@lemis.com> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:39:26 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Terry Lambert Cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970929101327.45644@lemis.com> <199709290527.WAA16066@usr08.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199709290527.WAA16066@usr08.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 05:27:04AM +0000 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk This is running out of substance. On Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 05:27:04AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > I deny that there exists a problem so dificult that it can not > eventually be solved. OK. I'll buy that. When it's solved. >>>> An ISDN RR? >>> >>> A variant reverse record? >> >> RR stands for "resource record". It's the basic unit of information >> in DNS. >> >>> I assume your cache timeout everywhere is now one second, right? >> >> I don't know, do you? But I don't think you understood the question. > > I did. The point was that, given the current state of affairs with > cache timeouts, it would do no good to assign an RR based on who called > in on your transient point-to-point virtual cirvuit connection. Ah, now I understand. That's not what the ISDN records are for. They're to specify your phone number, rather the way the A records specify your IP address. > So either "ISDN" was a red herring, or you want something that you > can't have at this point in time anyway without an allocated IP > address that belongs to the caller at all times. No, it was a misunderstanding. Greg From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 03:19:58 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA02615 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 03:19:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (root@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA02605 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 03:19:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from panke.panke.de (anonymous214.ppp.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.214]) by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA28751; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:13:56 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from wosch@localhost) by panke.panke.de (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA00706; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:35:13 +0200 (MET DST) To: Annelise Anderson Cc: Sean Eric Fagan , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: From: Wolfram Schneider Date: 29 Sep 1997 11:35:11 +0200 In-Reply-To: Annelise Anderson's message of Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:15:25 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Lines: 18 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Annelise Anderson writes: > But consider a simpler situation--adduser. One runs adduser and in > its 2.2-STABLE manifestation, it offers (once only) an opportunity > to select defaults. It doesn't say where these defaults are being > stored, or offer the information that this file can be edited later. > It doesn't explain that a valid shell has to be in /etc/shells (would > you like to look at /etc/shells?), even though ksh is offered as an > option, and ksh neither comes with the system nor is it installed > on my computer. Adduser offers ksh only if ksh was installed in /bin, /usr/bin, or /usr/local/bin. Adduser was a hack, not a well designed and documented tool. Until now nobody had the time to rewrite adduser. -- Wolfram Schneider http://www.apfel.de/~wosch/ From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 06:21:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA09748 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 06:21:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id GAA09738 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 06:21:00 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Received: forwarded by SMTP 1.5.2. Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:24:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: Annelise Anderson cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Annelise Anderson wrote: > My view is that configuration tools (and perhaps a menu of such tools) > are very useful and would make FreeBSD more readily accessible to > relatively new users. > > The problem with configuration utilities, whether they are GUI or > text-based, is that they put a barrier between the user and the > system, so that one may never really know what's going on. > > Actually Microsoft is not the worst in this; IBM is worse. And I > personally think that one reason (probably not the main one) for the > failure of OS/2 is that you can use that system indefinitely without > getting any idea of how it's put together, where things are, what file > to look at to find out what you did to it when you clicked on some > tab and chose an option. > > This veil of ignorance between the user/administrator and what's > really going on is not good, because when the GUI tool doesn't work, > you don't know where to go or what to do. The problem is that users don't understand that in OS/2, -EVERYTHING- on the desktop is a pointer to an object. I recently reinstalled OS/2 on my machine for no particular reason, and got back into it. I really like using OS/2, and can't understand how IBM managed to blunder that badly. They had a 6 month head start, name recognition, a superior product, and lots of money. Some marketing director somewhere is burning in hell. In the end, we come back to the point that computers are not tv sets, no matter how badly MS wants us to think of them as such. They are complex devices that are not only interactive, but can do multiple things simultaneously. Even in Win95 does this poorly, it still does it, and has some complexity to it. Users in general will refuse to learn anything about their computers unless forced to at gunpoint (which really pisses me off somedays). When I worked for a CS dept., I ran into this attitude there among students. How the hell does a CS student plan on getting a degree in a computer field without actually learning about a computer? What's worse is that some of them manage. The grad students were worse than the undergrads. Anyway, enough ranting for now. Jamie Bowden System Administrator, iTRiBE.net Abusenet: The Misinformation Superhighway From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 07:35:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA14022 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:35:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dilbert.hq.functional.com (grail@dilbert.hq.functional.com [128.173.245.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA14016 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:35:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from grail@localhost) by dilbert.hq.functional.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA17838; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:35:29 GMT Message-ID: <19970929133529.58334@functional.com> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:35:29 +0000 From: Giao Nguyen To: Jamie Bowden Cc: Annelise Anderson , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.79 In-Reply-To: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net>; from Jamie Bowden on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 09:24:04AM -0400 X-Saying: Maniacal laughter is the best medicine. Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jamie Bowden said: > off somedays). When I worked for a CS dept., I ran into this attitude > there among students. How the hell does a CS student plan on getting a > degree in a computer field without actually learning about a computer? I ask myself the same question. The CS students that I deal with give me a good scare when I think that they'll be graduating in a year or so. A young gentlement was asking me about how to implement a queue. Now mind, you, for a lower level student this should not be a difficult concept. For a junior in computer science (and one of the brighter ones I might add), it's a difficult concept for me to fathom this. Of course, the department is standardizing on NT. Why? Probably parental pressure about how their children a) can't play any games or b) can't find a word processor for Unix. Though I usually find it amusing to discuss concepts of operating systems. When I mention processes, I usually get blank stares ..... > What's worse is that some of them manage. The grad students were worse > than the undergrads. Anyway, enough ranting for now. Agreed. Scary isn't it? Blind leading the blind. -- Giao Nguyen From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 07:41:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA14337 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:41:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA14331 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:41:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id IAA22977; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:50:14 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:50:14 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709291450.IAA22977@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Sean Eric Fagan CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) Newsgroups: kithrup.freebsd.chat In-Reply-To: <199709290627.XAA24556@kithrup.com> References: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <19970928162256.26698@grendel.IAEhv.nl> <199709290549.XAA22472.kithrup.freebsd.chat@obie.softweyr.ml.org> <199709290627.XAA24556@kithrup.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Sean Eric Fagan writes: > But you could, I think, do something with DHCP, whereby the host says what > it is to the DHCP server, while it's negotiationg an address... And then > the DHCP server could use the BIND 8.* stuff to update the DNS info... > > That'd be interesting. This is pretty much what the Internet Station does. It was somewhat simpler for us, though, since we developed our own tiny DNS server, and have shared-memory access to it's cache of hosts, the DHCP server can easily add and remove hostnames and addresses. Another approach would be to have your configuration tool generate DNS and DHCP server configurations, and have all of your clients use DHCP. Then, anytime you modify the domain, the worst case would be to have all of the machines on the network do a DHCP release and renew. > I still don't know what an ISDN RR is, though ;). The ISDN phone number for the host. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 07:45:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA14546 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:45:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA14541 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:45:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id IAA22986; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:55:59 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:55:59 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709291455.IAA22986@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Will be in San Jose... Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Fellow FreeBSDers: I'm going to be in San Jose for the Embedded Systems Conference this week (Mon-Fri). If any FreeBSDers out there would like to get together I'd really like to meet some of you. I'll be staying at the Executive Inn Suites in San Jose, 408.281.8700. It looks like right now I have Tuesday and Thursday night open, but there is so much to do there (Malibu Gran Prix, those great flight simulators at SGI) that I'll only have one night open. Call me at the hotel and leave a message if you cook something up. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 08:24:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA16338 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:24:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA16331 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 08:24:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA00645; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:51:03 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709291521.AAA00645@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Wes Peters cc: Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:00:46 CST." <199709290600.AAA22484@obie.softweyr.ml.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:50:59 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into > their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better > configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on > their desktop? Wes: Stop Right Here. If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work under a browser. If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give this idea the wide berth it will deserve. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 11:10:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA27182 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:10:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA27174; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:10:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from East.Sun.COM ([129.148.1.241]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id LAA02227; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:09:56 -0700 Received: from suneast.East.Sun.COM by East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id OAA03610; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:09:52 -0400 Received: from compound.east.sun.com by suneast.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA18167; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:09:52 -0400 Received: (from alk@localhost) by compound.east.sun.com (8.8.7/8.7.3) id NAA25663; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:14:04 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:14:04 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM Message-Id: <199709291814.NAA25663@compound.east.sun.com> From: Tony Kimball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Face: O9M"E%K;(f-Go/XDxL+pCxI5*gr[=FN@Y`cl1.Tn To: tom@sdf.com Cc: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM, michaelv@MindBender.serv.net, freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas References: <199709291505.KAA25150@compound.east.sun.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.14 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Quoth Tom on Mon, 29 September: : > And we all know that Intel has had no major Pentium or PPro bugs? : : Nothing that affected FreeBSD anyhow, and FreeBSD uses a wide variety of : features. Well, a lot of FreeBSD systems are used to perform division, for example. I'd call that a much more serious problem than occasional make world failures. More likely to kill someone, for example. But this should probably go to chat. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 11:24:24 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA28254 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:24:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from piggy.mdstud.chalmers.se (root@piggy.mdstud.chalmers.se [129.16.234.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA28248 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:24:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hallgren.se (ip181119.student.gu.se [130.241.181.119]) by piggy.mdstud.chalmers.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA16312 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:24:16 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <342FF248.167EB0E7@mdstud.chalmers.se> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:24:08 +0200 From: Tommy Hallgren Organization: FreeBSD X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.1-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Funny interview with Mr Gates Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi! http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html This is an interview with Bill Gates. A really absurd one. :-) Gates: Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year. FOCUS: Hm, a couple of million dollars? Gates: 500 million dollars a year. We take every one of these phone calls and classify them. That's the input we use to do the next version. So it's like the worlds biggest feedback loop. People call in - we decide what to do on it. Do you want to know what percentage of those phonecalls relates to bugs in the software? Less than one percent. FOCUS: So people call in to say "Hey listen, I would love to have this and that feature"? Gates: Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get advice on how to do a certain thing with the software. That's the primary thing. We could have you sit and listen to these phone calls. There are millions and millions of them. It really isn't statistically significant. Sit in and listen to Win 95 calls, sit in and listen to Word calls, and wait, just wait for weeks and weeks for someone to call in and say "Oh, I found a bug in this thing". ... Read the entire page. Mvh: Tommy From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 11:53:32 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA00116 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:53:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.210.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA00110 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:53:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tom by misery.sdf.com with smtp (Exim 1.71 #1) id 0xFkvx-0001AJ-00; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:52:41 -0700 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:52:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom To: Tony Kimball cc: michaelv@MindBender.serv.net, freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: <199709291814.NAA25663@compound.east.sun.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Tony Kimball wrote: > Quoth Tom on Mon, 29 September: > > : > And we all know that Intel has had no major Pentium or PPro bugs? > : > : Nothing that affected FreeBSD anyhow, and FreeBSD uses a wide variety of > : features. > > Well, a lot of FreeBSD systems are used to perform division, for example. The Pentium division bug was fixed long ago. And Intel gave free replacements to everyone. > I'd call that a much more serious problem than occasional make world > failures. More likely to kill someone, for example. But this should > probably go to chat. What? The "make world" problems were VERY serious. Simple operations in gcc were being preformed incorrectly sometimes, causing core dumps. Such failures appeared in all kinds of other software as well. Tom From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 12:20:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA01816 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:20:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA01808 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:20:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from East.Sun.COM ([129.148.1.241]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id MAA17734; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:16:12 -0700 Received: from suneast.East.Sun.COM by East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id PAA12358; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:16:09 -0400 Received: from compound.east.sun.com by suneast.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA20579; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:16:07 -0400 Received: (from alk@localhost) by compound.east.sun.com (8.8.7/8.7.3) id OAA25886; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:20:20 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:20:20 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM Message-Id: <199709291920.OAA25886@compound.east.sun.com> From: Tony Kimball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Face: O9M"E%K;(f-Go/XDxL+pCxI5*gr[=FN@Y`cl1.Tn To: tom@sdf.com Cc: michaelv@MindBender.serv.net, freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas References: <199709291814.NAA25663@compound.east.sun.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.14 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Quoth Tom on Mon, 29 September: : : The Pentium division bug was fixed long ago. And Intel gave free : replacements to everyone. Yes. Similarly, by all reports, the K6 bug is fixed, and free replacements are available. I have to wonder whether Intel would have offered the free replacements if the division bug had not been so well publicized, but can only speculate and/or compare past vendor behaviour. : What? The "make world" problems were VERY serious. Simple operations : in gcc were being preformed incorrectly sometimes, causing core dumps. : Such failures appeared in all kinds of other software as well. Well, not all kinds. I understand that the various flavors of Windows are not known to demonstrate the bug. Seriousness in real-world terms means loss of life/limb/property. Wasted time is one form of partial loss of life, and certainly having to type 'make world' again is a waste of time, but a floating-point error in an embedded system could crash your airliner or slam your missile into a hospital. Again, relatively weighting the seriousness of the bugs in practice, I'd have to say that the major losses incurred in each case were those of the manufacturer. Certainly Intel lost more money on the division bug, but then they made more on the sales in the first place. The whole issue seems pretty subjective/hypothetical: No actual airliners ever used a pentium in a critical component to my knowledge, or if they did (hah!), they didn't crash because of it, thankfully. Of course an integer error is not intrinsically less likely to cause a control failure than a floating-point error, in favor of your point. I guess the issue is kind of like benchmarking -- unless you benchmark performance against your specific application, results are unreliable; similarly, correctness. Since are larger proportion of the Pentium user base (DOS/Windows users) were affected by the division bug, one might reasonably chose to argue on those grounds that the division bug was more serious. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 12:46:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA03534 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:46:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kithrup.com (kithrup.com [205.179.156.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA03462 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:45:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from sef@localhost) by kithrup.com (8.8.5/8.6.6) id MAA15652; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:45:06 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:45:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Sean Eric Fagan Message-Id: <199709291945.MAA15652@kithrup.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Funny interview with Mr Gates In-Reply-To: <342FF248.167EB0E7.kithrup.freebsd.chat@mdstud.chalmers.se> Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd. Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article <342FF248.167EB0E7.kithrup.freebsd.chat@mdstud.chalmers.se> you write: >Gates: Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get >advice on how to do a certain thing >with the software. I have called uSoft three times. The first time was about Windows NT -- networking did not work, after I installed it. After spending nearly an hour on the phone to their 900 number, I was told to manually install an ethernet driver from the CD-ROM. That fixed it. The second and third times were both about Win95. When I installed win95, it would not work on the network, *and* would not recognize my CD-ROM drive off of the SCSi card (adaptec 2940U). After an hour or so on the phone for the CD-ROM problem, I had no help from them. I asked elsewhere, and ended up installing a later driver from Adaptec's ftp site. That caused it to work -- it seems that Win95 was not using the 2940 as a SCSI card, but just as a generic disk (i.e., BIOS support). Aftrer an hour on the phone for the network problem, I had no help from them (and paid for it, too *grumble*). It turns out the problem *there* was that I needed to disable auto media-select for the driver; once I did that, it worked. (And then I ftp'd the SCSI driver as stated above.) All three of those were calls "to get advice on how to do a certain thing with the software." I would not necessarily classify them as bugs; I would call them "installation issues" or "problems." So... I can believe the figures. I think that describing them that way is extremely misleading -- it makes it sound like most people are calling up to ask how they can do something unusual with the software (e.g., "How can I get Word 6 to print page numbers alternatively in roman and arabic numerals?"), when I was just trying to find out how to get it to work with features they had heavily advertised it as having. I suspect that most of the support that WC does for FreeBSD are similar -- installation issues, mostly, or how to make it work with specific hardware. But Jordan would know more about that than I would. Reply to me, or to the list, but not both, please. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 14:07:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA09893 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:07:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ppp7258.on.sympatico.ca (ppp7241.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.249.209]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA09883 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:06:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (tim@localhost) by ppp7258.on.sympatico.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA00333; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:04:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:04:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek Reply-To: ac199@hwcn.org To: Jamie Bowden cc: Annelise Anderson , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Jamie Bowden wrote: > off somedays). When I worked for a CS dept., I ran into this attitude > there among students. How the hell does a CS student plan on getting a > degree in a computer field without actually learning about a computer? Hmm. If the source to one's computer is locked away, it can be difficult to actually learn anything... -- tIM...HOEk OPTIMIZATION: the process of using many one-letter variables names hoping that the resultant code will run faster. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 14:42:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA12190 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:42:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ppp7258.on.sympatico.ca (ppp7241.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.249.209]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA12176 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:42:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (tim@localhost) by ppp7258.on.sympatico.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA00387; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:41:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:41:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek Reply-To: ac199@hwcn.org To: Tommy Hallgren cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Funny interview with Mr Gates In-Reply-To: <342FF248.167EB0E7@mdstud.chalmers.se> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Tommy Hallgren wrote: > This is an interview with Bill Gates. A really absurd one. :-) > > > Gates: Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year. If MS admitted to making a release which is essentially a "bugfix" release, they would hardly get away with charging any money for it... -- tIM...HOEk OPTIMIZATION: the process of using many one-letter variables names hoping that the resultant code will run faster. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 15:45:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA15804 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:45:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from usr09.primenet.com (tlambert@usr09.primenet.com [206.165.6.209]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA15799 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:45:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr09.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA17209; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:44:37 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199709292244.PAA17209@usr09.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:44:36 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <19970929163926.38164@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Sep 29, 97 04:39:26 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I did. The point was that, given the current state of affairs with > > cache timeouts, it would do no good to assign an RR based on who called > > in on your transient point-to-point virtual cirvuit connection. > > Ah, now I understand. That's not what the ISDN records are for. > They're to specify your phone number, rather the way the A records > specify your IP address. Ah, now I understand. Whoever invented them hasn't read RFC 1101. 8-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 16:24:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA17671 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:24:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA17649 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:23:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 9571 on Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:23:52 GMT; id XAA09571 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA00597; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:15:56 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970930011555.61645@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:15:55 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <199709290600.AAA22484@obie.softweyr.ml.org> <199709291521.AAA00645@word.smith.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <199709291521.AAA00645@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 12:50:59AM +0930 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike Smith shared with us: > > If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into > > their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better > > configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on > > their desktop? > > Wes: Stop Right Here. > > If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an > adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other > thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work > under a browser. > > If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give > this idea the wide berth it will deserve. In that case, this idea isn't the only thing that's going to be ditched... Because you have to be the equivalent of God on Unix to get some administrating done (and don't disagree with me on that one, we all know that only root should do a 'make world'), doesn't make the idea of a browser interface a bad one. (Note that on NT, you don't have to be God, but you still have to be the Messiah. God lives in Redmond and has glasses.) I bet that there's some kind of authorization process imaginable, with one-time keys and such stuff. The thing I have in mind, is a server-based page-interpreter like Active Server Pages (I'm writing one during office hours) that talks to an ODBC data source. Actually, this is a very general approach that can be put to other uses. You need far less CGI programming, once you have such a tool, that's why I'm writing one. I know that there are already such applications, also for FreeBSD. I'm just convinced that I'm better at it. The ODBC data source would be a daemon, running as UID 0, that administers the various files in /etc and elsewhere, showing itself as some kind of database - which the collection of scattered files really is, actually. So what we need is said daemon, which should also work over networks, plus a collection of 'extended HTML' files. No big deal, right? - Peter From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 16:24:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA17698 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:24:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA17655 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:24:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 9568 on Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:23:50 GMT; id XAA09568 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA00530; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:40:17 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970930004017.44751@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:40:17 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <199709291321.JAA22447@gatekeeper.itribe.net>; from Jamie Bowden on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 09:24:04AM -0400 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Can't these FreeBSD-lists reply to themselves? It's quite a PITA that everyone including the pope is in the 'Cc:' field, just to get 'chat@freebsd.org' there. Noone seems to bother to edit their headers. It's stupid that I receive many mails twice. Jamie Bowden shared with us (and he didn't edit his headers): > > When I worked for a CS dept., I ran into this attitude > there among students. How the hell does a CS student plan on getting a > degree in a computer field without actually learning about a computer? > What's worse is that some of them manage. The grad students were worse > than the undergrads. Anyway, enough ranting for now. Don't put off on computer science this way. Actually, the more appropiate term would be computing science. On the Eindhoven University of Technology, there's a very theo- retical approach toward towards CS. In essence, a mathematical problem can be rewritten - using boolean algebra and other logical mathematics - into an algorithm. Also, you have to be able to actually mathematically prove the correctness of that algorithm. Of course, in everyday life we won't be giving proof of our programs. But it marks the approach that CS takes. You're more of a designer than an actual programmer. There are other people that are better in that, like, well, us. You don't need a computer in the designing phase. And if you study Mathematics of Programming - a friend of mine can call himself a doctor now on that subject - you don't need a computer at all. In fact, it's a very interesting area that he got his degree in, but it's hard to explain what it is about. Mostly because I don't really understand it. Remember: many people can write code. Few people really know how to program. Too bad I didn't finish my education there. Now I'm a hacker, just like the rest of you. :) - Peter From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 19:00:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA24651 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:00:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu (brnstnd@pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA24614 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:59:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu by pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id UAA04881; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:39:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: (devnull@localhost) by melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id UAA27996; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:39:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:39:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199709300039.UAA27996@melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: "Joel N. Weber II" To: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl CC: chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: <19970930004017.44751@grendel.IAEhv.nl> (message from Peter Korsten on Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:40:17 +0200) Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) x-url: http://www.red-bean.com/~nemo x-attribution: nemo x-foobar: No program done by a hacker will work unless he is on the system. Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk You're more of a designer than an actual programmer. There are other people that are better in that, like, well, us. You don't need a computer in the designing phase. I don't think that computer science necissarily teaches good design, either. At least, none of the computer courses at my high school seem to teach it adaquately. You can't learn the principals involved in writing a big program from looking at toy problems that are no longer than a hundred lines each. It's sort of silly watching a teacher explain how to break Pascal programs of 50 lines into several procedures. For a program that short, you can't see the value of procedures. When you're writing a 15000 line program, you start to see the use of breaking up a program like that. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 19:23:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA25812 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:23:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA25807 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:23:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA02242; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:50:18 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709300220.LAA02242@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Peter Korsten cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:15:55 +0200." <19970930011555.61645@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:50:17 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Mike Smith shared with us: > > > If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into > > > their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better > > > configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on > > > their desktop? > > > > Wes: Stop Right Here. > > > > If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an > > adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other > > thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work > > under a browser. > > > > If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give > > this idea the wide berth it will deserve. > > In that case, this idea isn't the only thing that's going to be > ditched... No, you totally fail to understand the point I am making. [... much obvious implementation crap elided ...] > So what we need is said daemon, which should also work over networks, > plus a collection of 'extended HTML' files. No big deal, right? That's got nothing to do with it. What has to exist is an adequately secure channel whereby the administrator can connect to the system(s) in question without risking compromise. This has to include geek-in-the-middle attacks, password/ cookie sniffing, spoofing etc. At this point in time, I'm not convinced that browser technology is there yet; I'm merely asking Wes (because his employer is actually doing things) if he has any good ideas. By contrast, implementing the backend is relatively trivial. Easily the largest hurdle is designing the interface, once you are sure of your security. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 19:38:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA26588 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:38:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from earth.mat.net (root@earth.mat.net [206.246.122.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA26575 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:37:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Journey2.mat.net (journey2.mat.net [206.246.122.116]) by earth.mat.net (8.8.7/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA02125; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:37:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:37:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey X-Sender: chuckr@Journey2.mat.net To: "Joel N. Weber II" cc: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709300039.UAA27996@melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Joel N. Weber II wrote: > You're more of a designer > than an actual programmer. There are other people that are better > in that, like, well, us. You don't need a computer in the designing > phase. > > I don't think that computer science necissarily teaches good design, > either. At high school level, you'd be right. Not so at a good university, tho. Data structures (one course I'm presently taking) is all about design. Same is true of the operating systems course I took. In fact, if there's one big glaring hole that exists in university classes here, it's style; students are discouraged from reading each other's code, and there is no emphasis on asking students to read anyone else's code (such as some the the freely available code in FreeBSD). I think that reading some of the code in FreeBSD would teach good style, something that is sadly lacking in many students. Course, that just makes me look better. > > At least, none of the computer courses at my high school seem to teach > it adaquately. You can't learn the principals involved in writing a big > program from looking at toy problems that are no longer than a hundred > lines each. It's sort of silly watching a teacher explain how to break > Pascal programs of 50 lines into several procedures. For a program that > short, you can't see the value of procedures. When you're writing a > 15000 line program, you start to see the use of breaking up a program > like that. > > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 21:03:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA29829 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 21:03:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.210.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA29823 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 21:03:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tom by misery.sdf.com with smtp (Exim 1.71 #1) id 0xFtUk-0001Mp-00; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 21:01:10 -0700 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 21:01:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom To: Tony Kimball cc: michaelv@MindBender.serv.net, freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: <199709291920.OAA25886@compound.east.sun.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Tony Kimball wrote: > Quoth Tom on Mon, 29 September: > : > : The Pentium division bug was fixed long ago. And Intel gave free > : replacements to everyone. > > Yes. Similarly, by all reports, the K6 bug is fixed, and free > replacements are available. I have to wonder whether Intel would have > offered the free replacements if the division bug had not been so well > publicized, but can only speculate and/or compare past vendor > behaviour. Yes, but you have to apply for each replacement. Replacements for known broken versions are not automatic. > : What? The "make world" problems were VERY serious. Simple operations > : in gcc were being preformed incorrectly sometimes, causing core dumps. > : Such failures appeared in all kinds of other software as well. > > Well, not all kinds. I understand that the various flavors of Windows > are not known to demonstrate the bug. Seriousness in real-world terms I don't know about that. Application errors and GPFs are much more common on K6 CPUs, from experience. Why? I can't say. But the fact that gcc dumps core randomly on the same CPU makes wonder if it the same problem. Win95 hardly provides detailed error reports. > means loss of life/limb/property. Wasted time is one form of partial > loss of life, and certainly having to type 'make world' again is a > waste of time, but a floating-point error in an embedded system could Waste of time? A little more than that. A make world would NOT EVER complete on such a CPU. DG has demonstrated this bug, and described it to the list. He has a K6 that will not complete a make world ever. At the time, he could not even return it. > crash your airliner or slam your missile into a hospital. Again, > relatively weighting the seriousness of the bugs in practice, I'd have > to say that the major losses incurred in each case were those of the > manufacturer. Certainly Intel lost more money on the division bug, > but then they made more on the sales in the first place. The whole > issue seems pretty subjective/hypothetical: No actual airliners ever > used a pentium in a critical component to my knowledge, or if they did Hmmm, I remember a componet of flight control gear on a boeing airliner used Intel CPUs. I think they could have still been using 486 processors, because the design lead period was so long. This was a while back. I read it in a design case study in a journal somewhere. Tom From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 22:03:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA02828 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:03:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from MindBender.serv.net (mindbender.serv.net [205.153.153.98]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA02821 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:03:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost.HeadCandy.com (localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1]) by MindBender.serv.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA12579; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:03:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709300503.WAA12579@MindBender.serv.net> X-Authentication-Warning: MindBender.serv.net: localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Tom cc: Tony Kimball , freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 29 Sep 97 21:01:08 -0700. Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:03:03 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [...] >> means loss of life/limb/property. Wasted time is one form of partial >> loss of life, and certainly having to type 'make world' again is a >> waste of time, but a floating-point error in an embedded system could > Waste of time? A little more than that. A make world would NOT EVER >complete on such a CPU. DG has demonstrated this bug, and described it to >the list. He has a K6 that will not complete a make world ever. At the >time, he could not even return it. It's important to remember that sig-11's and other such failures during make worlds are not the problem, but the symptom that there are serious problems. The build errors show up there because it's highly visible. What you don't see for every visible failure are potentially incorrect opcodes being written to object files, potential mis-fetched VM pages resulting in panics or crashes, possibly only after seriously corrupting a database or your filesystem, or other such creeping- death problems. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net Contract software development for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Unix. Windows NT and Unix server development in C++ and C. --< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >-- NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3, Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32... NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 22:36:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA04231 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:36:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from implode.root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA04220 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:36:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from implode.root.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by implode.root.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA09648; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:37:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709300537.WAA09648@implode.root.com> To: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" cc: Tom , Tony Kimball , freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:03:03 PDT." <199709300503.WAA12579@MindBender.serv.net> From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:37:55 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Waste of time? A little more than that. A make world would NOT EVER >>complete on such a CPU. DG has demonstrated this bug, and described it to >>the list. He has a K6 that will not complete a make world ever. At the >>time, he could not even return it. Incidently, AMD did replace the CPU recently and the problems I was having are completely gone now. I've run about 20 "make world"s on it without any problems. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 29 23:23:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA05936 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:23:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.210.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id XAA05931 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:23:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tom by misery.sdf.com with smtp (Exim 1.71 #1) id 0xFvi0-0001Pj-00; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:23:00 -0700 Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:22:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom To: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" cc: Tony Kimball , freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: <199709300503.WAA12579@MindBender.serv.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com wrote: > [...] > >> means loss of life/limb/property. Wasted time is one form of partial > >> loss of life, and certainly having to type 'make world' again is a > >> waste of time, but a floating-point error in an embedded system could > > > Waste of time? A little more than that. A make world would NOT EVER > >complete on such a CPU. DG has demonstrated this bug, and described it to > >the list. He has a K6 that will not complete a make world ever. At the > >time, he could not even return it. > > It's important to remember that sig-11's and other such failures > during make worlds are not the problem, but the symptom that there are > serious problems. > > The build errors show up there because it's highly visible. What you > don't see for every visible failure are potentially incorrect opcodes > being written to object files, potential mis-fetched VM pages > resulting in panics or crashes, possibly only after seriously > corrupting a database or your filesystem, or other such creeping- > death problems. Yes, I was just thinking about that. If gcc is randomly dying on older K6 processors, is it actually producing correct object code when it doesn't crash? AMD and Cyrix scare me. Intel's true competition is DEC, Motorola/IBM, Sparc, and MIPS. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net > Contract software development for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Unix. > Windows NT and Unix server development in C++ and C. > > --< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >-- > NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3, > Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32... > NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others... > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 00:59:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA10957 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:59:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dumbwinter.ecomotor.it (mod1.logic.it [195.120.151.17] (may be forged)) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id AAA10949 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:58:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 498 invoked by uid 1000); 30 Sep 1997 07:58:34 -0000 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:58:33 +0200 (MET DST) From: Marco Molteni X-Sender: molter@dumbwinter.ecomotor.it To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: my first jump In-Reply-To: <19970928195157.61447@toth.hq.ferg.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Heh heh heh, I was completely *sure* that FreeBSD people are not normal ;-) so, at least, there are 3 jumpers and one pilot around... > From: Branson Matheson > > Heh .. my current passion is learning to "drive" the airplane. I > should complete my VFR pilots lic around christmas... and I cannot > wait. It isn't the same as jumping ( and I hope I never have to > learn that part whilst flying my plane ;-) But I do love it. Why not? It could be the occasion to learn a new sport ;-) > From: Mark Murray > > Heh heh! > > I did my 400th skydive in January this year :-) > > Welcome. You are one of the few, now... Thanks Mark :-) (What? only 400? ;-) > From: Ollivier Robert > > According to Marco Molteni: > > > This weekend I did my first 3 jumps with a wing canopy from 1200 > > meters (still static line). > > Wait till you'll do free fall (is there a better translation ?), > that even better ! Yes, freefall. I'm eager, and also a bit scared ;-) And then relative work, freestyle, ... Wow! (Yes, I know, I know, I need years to learn ;-) Marco Molteni Computer Science student at the Universita' degli studi di Milano, Italy. "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 01:13:27 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA12014 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:13:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shale.csir.co.za (shale.csir.co.za [146.64.46.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA12008 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 01:13:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from reg@localhost) by shale.csir.co.za (8.8.7/8.8.6) id KAA07070; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:07:12 +0200 (SAT) Message-ID: <19970930100711.04631@shale.csir.co.za> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:07:11 +0200 From: Jeremy Lea To: Mike Smith Cc: Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970930011555.61645@grendel.IAEhv.nl> <199709300220.LAA02242@word.smith.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81 In-Reply-To: <199709300220.LAA02242@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 11:50:17AM +0930 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 11:50:17AM +0930, Mike Smith wrote: > > Mike Smith shared with us: > > > Wes: Stop Right Here. > > > > > > If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an > > > adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other > > > thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work > > > under a browser. > > > > > > If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give > > > this idea the wide berth it will deserve. > > What has to exist is an adequately secure channel whereby the > administrator can connect to the system(s) in question without risking > compromise. This has to include geek-in-the-middle attacks, password/ > cookie sniffing, spoofing etc. > > At this point in time, I'm not convinced that browser technology is > there yet; I'm merely asking Wes (because his employer is actually > doing things) if he has any good ideas. > > By contrast, implementing the backend is relatively trivial. Easily > the largest hurdle is designing the interface, once you are sure of > your security. How about something like this... I've haven't put much thought into it, but it's based on some ideas I've had for a large distributed database that I'm currently working on: Use signature signing in PGP (or similar). You (root@foo.bar) generate a set of PGP keys for foo, and then proceed to sign the public keys of say joe@foo.bar (your own account) and admin@bar. These are your trusted administrators (you could implement a hierarchy and groups and access rights etc. to various services etc.). Within a Java application, attached to your administrative web pages via Javascript, admin@bar could communicate with the server on foo.bar, asking for it's configuration options etc. which it then present in the browser. The admin changes these options, and they are passed back to the Java applet which generates the necessary magic to sent back to the server, and signs it with the admin@bar's secret key (which must be on the browsers machine). The server, running as root@foo.bar, can then verify that the signed magic is from the admin@bar, since it has a copy of admin@bar's public key, and it knows that that public key is real because it has signed it. It can therefore verify that the magic comes from admin@bar, and proceeds to process it and apply it to the config files. This also has the advantage that it doesn't require a network connection. You could design things in such a way that the communication occurred over e-mail, by sending a request for, say, a DNS host add form, which is mailed back, and then mail the reply. You could also get the Java applet to encrypt the magic so that only root@foo.bar could understand it. Also you could have root@foo.bar sign and/or encrypt all communication to admin@bar, preventing people from "administering" masqueraded machines. A little thought says the primary weakness is that root@foo.bar's secret key must be available to it in some open form, along with admin@bar's at various times in the Java applet, and if they can be stolen then you have a hole. But this is a known attack on PGP (and family), and if you are having this kind of data snooped then you have probably already lost the battle. You could also have the machines in a hierarchy, such that they didn't all have to sign the public keys of the admins, but would trust any magic signed by an admin approved by root@bar. I don't know anything about NIS, and not much about the other crypto schemes for network passwords, and how much help they would be in implementing this. Also I'm not sure on the legal issues around the various public key crypto schemes. Just a sketch, I hope that I managed to get this across. Obviously there are a lot of details which would have to be sorted out. As you said, the interface and the server details are the hard parts. -Jeremy -- | "I could be anything I wanted to, but one things true --+-- Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna hold the world in my hand | Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna build a promised land | But that's, that's alright, OK with me..." -Audio Adrenaline From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 02:07:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id CAA14815 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 02:07:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from csnet.cs.technion.ac.il (csnet.cs.technion.ac.il [132.68.32.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id CAA14777 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 02:07:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from csd.csa (csd [132.68.32.8]) by csnet.cs.technion.ac.il (8.6.11/8.6.10) with ESMTP id LAA06334; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:07:10 +0200 Received: from localhost by csd.csa (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA11973; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:07:19 +0200 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:07:19 +0200 (IST) From: Nadav Eiron X-Sender: nadav@csd To: Marco Molteni cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Marco Molteni wrote: > Heh heh heh, > I was completely *sure* that FreeBSD people are not normal ;-) > so, at least, there are 3 jumpers and one pilot around... > > > From: Branson Matheson > > > > Heh .. my current passion is learning to "drive" the airplane. I > > should complete my VFR pilots lic around christmas... and I cannot > > wait. It isn't the same as jumping ( and I hope I never have to > > learn that part whilst flying my plane ;-) But I do love it. > > Why not? It could be the occasion to learn a new sport ;-) > Well, I hope to have my private pilot's license in a month (weather permitting :-( ). And as the saying with pilots goes: Why jump off of a perfectly running airplane? > > > From: Mark Murray > > > > Heh heh! > > > > I did my 400th skydive in January this year :-) > > > > Welcome. You are one of the few, now... > > Thanks Mark :-) (What? only 400? ;-) > > > > From: Ollivier Robert > > > > According to Marco Molteni: > > > > > This weekend I did my first 3 jumps with a wing canopy from 1200 > > > meters (still static line). > > > > Wait till you'll do free fall (is there a better translation ?), > > that even better ! > > Yes, freefall. I'm eager, and also a bit scared ;-) > And then relative work, freestyle, ... > Wow! (Yes, I know, I know, I need years to learn ;-) > > > Marco Molteni > Computer Science student at the Universita' degli studi di Milano, Italy. > "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" > > > Nadav From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 02:47:33 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id CAA16738 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 02:47:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (Haldjas.folklore.ee [193.40.6.121]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id CAA16730 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 02:47:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (haldjas.folklore.ee [172.17.2.1] (may be forged)) by haldjas.folklore.ee (8.8.6/8.8.4) with SMTP id MAA24379; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:37:36 +0300 (EEST) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:37:36 +0300 (EEST) From: Narvi To: Mike Smith cc: Wes Peters , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709291521.AAA00645@word.smith.net.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Mike Smith wrote: > > If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into > > their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better > > configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on > > their desktop? > > Wes: Stop Right Here. > > If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an > adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other Couldn't kerberos be used for that purpose? Sander There is no love, no good, no happiness and no future - all these are just illusions. > thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work > under a browser. > > If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give > this idea the wide berth it will deserve. > > mike > > From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 05:27:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA22569 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 05:27:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA22564 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 05:27:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id OAA22862; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:26:34 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:26:34 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199709301226.OAA22862@bitbox.follo.net> From: Eivind Eklund To: Jeremy Lea CC: mike@smith.net.au, peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Jeremy Lea's message of Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:07:11 +0200 Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970930011555.61645@grendel.IAEhv.nl> <199709300220.LAA02242@word.smith.net.au> <19970930100711.04631@shale.csir.co.za> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [Jeremy Lea] > A little thought says the primary weakness is that root@foo.bar's secret key > must be available to it in some open form, along with admin@bar's at various > times in the Java applet, and if they can be stolen then you have a hole. > But this is a known attack on PGP (and family), and if you are having this > kind of data snooped then you have probably already lost the battle. I dislike this part of it intensely, because PGP keys are usually more permanent entities than passwords. A malicious Java applet could get hold of my key, and probably also the rest of my files (given that it had access to get at the key). Mike are creating an infrastructure that hopefully will make many people create modules, thus making this a glaring hole. I'd much rather send my root password (over SSL) - that way, I can at least use S/Key. However, if we're going to use Java anyway, there are lots of crypto we could use - but will this be the easiest way of implementing the interface? Eivind. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 06:11:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA24425 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 06:11:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA24418 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 06:11:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA00501; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:37:18 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709301307.WAA00501@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Jeremy Lea cc: Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:07:11 +0200." <19970930100711.04631@shale.csir.co.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:37:16 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > What has to exist is an adequately secure channel whereby the > > administrator can connect to the system(s) in question without risking > > compromise. This has to include geek-in-the-middle attacks, password/ > > cookie sniffing, spoofing etc. ... > How about something like this... I've haven't put much thought into it, but > it's based on some ideas I've had for a large distributed database that I'm > currently working on: [... rampant over-the-top all-singing-and-dancing Java-PGP monstrosity elided ...] Heck, I think that says it all. Look; all these ideas have great technical merit, but no commonsense. Stop and think for a few seconds about what actually has to be achieved in order to make this model work. Visualise how your design would be used in a few different situations, eg. : - Single user at home. - Server in busy ISP application. - Development workstation. - Large corp/tertiary network. Also consider that whatever the interface, it has to work with a textmode browser (ie. lynx). > Use signature signing in PGP (or similar). You (root@foo.bar) generate a set > of PGP keys for foo, and then proceed to sign the public keys of say > joe@foo.bar (your own account) and admin@bar. These are your trusted > administrators (you could implement a hierarchy and groups and access rights > etc. to various services etc.). Too complicated to be the only security model. What's PGP? "Fred the new admin needs to to XYZ, how do we give him permission?" > Within a Java application, attached to your administrative web pages via > Javascript, How do we do this? Why does it have to be (ack, spit) Java? > admin@bar could communicate with the server on foo.bar, asking > for it's configuration options etc. which it then present in the browser. > The admin changes these options, and they are passed back to the Java applet > which generates the necessary magic to sent back to the server, and signs it > with the admin@bar's secret key (which must be on the browsers machine). So you can't just use a vanilla browser anyway; it has to have Java and enough security holes to run PGP on the local system? I don't buy it. > This also has the advantage that it doesn't require a network connection. > You could design things in such a way that the communication occurred over > e-mail, by sending a request for, say, a DNS host add form, which is mailed > back, and then mail the reply. This is nice, but basically mandates Netscape for forms-enabled email. > Just a sketch, I hope that I managed to get this across. Obviously there are > a lot of details which would have to be sorted out. As you said, the > interface and the server details are the hard parts. TBH, even a not-terribly-wonderful encrypted channel between the browser and server would be the *only* way that I would accept a browser as an adequate interface. By contrast, the proposed Tcl application method wins in that : - It can use any stream encryption for client/server comms (eg. ssh) - Tcl is portable to most *nixlike systems, Win32 and the Mac. - Client-side processing and dynamic interaction are implicit. On the downside, it's a lot more work. So if we can avoid it, that'd be Just Wonderful. Keep brainstorming. If you can get past these sort of objections, we all win. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 06:13:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA24524 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 06:13:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA24509 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 06:13:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA00520; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:39:35 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199709301309.WAA00520@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Eivind Eklund cc: Jeremy Lea , mike@smith.net.au, peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:26:34 +0200." <199709301226.OAA22862@bitbox.follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:39:33 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I'd much rather send my root password (over SSL) - that way, I can at > least use S/Key. What's the smallest available secure HTTP server you know of? Anyone? > However, if we're going to use Java anyway, there are lots of crypto > we could use - but will this be the easiest way of implementing the > interface? IMHO Java may be a lose, unless we can come up with a 'legacy' interface for the terminal addicts and people with non-Java browsers. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 08:53:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA03038 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:53:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA03025; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:53:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from East.Sun.COM ([129.148.1.241]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id IAA01973; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:53:23 -0700 Received: from suneast.East.Sun.COM by East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id LAA28972; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:53:10 -0400 Received: from compound.east.sun.com by suneast.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA12163; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:53:10 -0400 Received: (from alk@localhost) by compound.east.sun.com (8.8.7/8.7.3) id KAA29056; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:57:42 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:57:42 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM Message-Id: <199709301557.KAA29056@compound.east.sun.com> From: Tony Kimball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Face: O9M"E%K;(f-Go/XDxL+pCxI5*gr[=FN@Y`cl1.Tn To: jfarmer@sabre.goldsword.com Cc: freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas References: <199709301257.IAA25348@sabre.goldsword.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.14 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Quoth John T. Farmer on Tue, 30 September: : : That I don't know off the top of my head. I suspect that you're : correct & they all are using patented sockets. [moved to chat] The fault for that would lie squarely on the shoulders of the patent office. Obviousness is *supposed* to be a prima facie criterion for denial of patent. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 09:23:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA04749 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:23:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gratis.grondar.za (gratis.grondar.za [196.7.18.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA04742 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:23:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (8H4TcgChni7UIshtFReEwJVMI0tSGmB2@greenpeace.grondar.za [196.7.18.132]) by gratis.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA20068; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:23:25 +0200 (SAT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (q1r1r0OhhCO069F6QwJVam9AXd9j1jdD@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by greenpeace.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA25013; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:23:24 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199709301623.SAA25013@greenpeace.grondar.za> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Marco Molteni cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:23:23 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Marco Molteni wrote: > > From: Mark Murray > > Welcome. You are one of the few, now... > > Thanks Mark :-) (What? only 400? ;-) Er - I am paraplegic. Gimme a break ! M -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 11:03:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA10442 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:03:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA10436 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:03:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 12151 on Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:03:11 GMT; id SAA12151 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA00553; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:23:44 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970930192344.25916@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:23:44 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970930100711.04631@shale.csir.co.za> <199709301307.WAA00501@word.smith.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <199709301307.WAA00501@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 10:37:16PM +0930 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike Smith shared with us: > > [the discussion was about GUI's and browsers] > > Also consider that whatever the interface, it has to work with a > textmode browser (ie. lynx). Aren't you the guy who said I was totally failing to get the point you were making? We began with graphical user interfaces. Then we got to implementing those in a browser (which I think is the user interface of at least the near future). And now you want a fallback to - yes - a text interface. And also one for browsers that don't support Java. Talking about missing the point. We already _have_ a text interface. If you want to use a kermit client over a 75 baud barbed wire in upper Mongolia, please go ahead. But no IT professional in his right mind uses a monitor less than 17" on a fast workstation. For any imaginable system on the market, there is Netscape. Netscape has Java. If even you would use Internet Explorer on a 386 with Windows 3.1 to administer a FreeBSD server, I really don't care. Noone cares about browsers that don't support Java or graphics. I make a living writing software for web sites and these issues are _not_ taken into consideration. > Keep brainstorming. If you can get past these sort of objections, we > all win. Perhaps I'm a bit bitter here, but stepping out into the light might help at times. At out firm, the balance is clearly shifting from FreeBSD towards NT. We're programmers and NT is more suited for development than FreeBSD. Let me keep it at that, we don't need another NT-vs-Unix discussion. It's not something I particulary like, this shift, but it's something that I notice. If issues like security and backwards compatibility with text terminals and serial interfaces keep standing in the way of developments like this, it's a lost battle. The thing will be secure in the end. It just doesn't have to be right away. Make a beta release, with a larger-than-life disclaimer that the thing is not finished and not at all secure. "FreeBSD hereby blah blah own fault blah blah asked for it blah blah go away." MS does it with about all of their new products and everybody is very anxious to try them. Maybe you would get some exposure with it, or support from other communities like *BSD or Linux. Just make the darn thing. Or support it, at least in spirit, even if it isn't 100% secure or compatible. There's a firm making billions of dollars with stuff that isn't secure nor compatible. - Peter P.S. I'm going to adjust my mail filter in a short while, so if people start receiving 'message refused' messages from me, that's because you sent it to the list as well as to me. Editting your headers solves the problem. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 11:03:29 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA10459 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA10451 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:03:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 12155 on Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:03:14 GMT; id SAA12155 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA00575; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:40:17 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970930194016.61484@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:40:17 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <19970930004017.44751@grendel.IAEhv.nl> <199709300039.UAA27996@melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <199709300039.UAA27996@melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu>; from Joel N. Weber II on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 08:39:05PM -0400 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Joel N. Weber II shared with us: > You're more of a designer > than an actual programmer. There are other people that are better > in that, like, well, us. You don't need a computer in the designing > phase. > > I don't think that computer science necissarily teaches good design, > either. > > At least, none of the computer courses at my high school seem to teach > it adaquately. You can't learn the principals involved in writing a big > program from looking at toy problems that are no longer than a hundred > lines each. It's sort of silly watching a teacher explain how to break > Pascal programs of 50 lines into several procedures. For a program that > short, you can't see the value of procedures. When you're writing a > 15000 line program, you start to see the use of breaking up a program > like that. That's why I want to call it 'computing science' instead of 'computer science'. The problems in a 15000 lines program are not more difficult than those in a 150 line program. It's just more of them. The problems I'm talking about are more mathematical problems than 'how do I tell my 747 not to drop down' or something similar. But any real-world problem can be abstracted to one or several mathe- matical problem. Of course, you need a sound foundation for large projects, but it's more important how you organize your data and the associated methods (yes, I like object-oriented programming) that how you do so with actual code. Like Edsger W. Dijkstra once said: "data structures + algorithms = programming". (Please shoot me if I misquoted him.) - Peter From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 12:06:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA14206 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:06:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA14184 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:06:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709301906.PAA29715@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Received: forwarded by SMTP 1.5.2. Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:09:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709301309.WAA00520@word.smith.net.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Mike Smith wrote: > > > > I'd much rather send my root password (over SSL) - that way, I can at > > least use S/Key. > > What's the smallest available secure HTTP server you know of? Anyone? > > > However, if we're going to use Java anyway, there are lots of crypto > > we could use - but will this be the easiest way of implementing the > > interface? > > IMHO Java may be a lose, unless we can come up with a 'legacy' > interface for the terminal addicts and people with non-Java browsers. > > mike > > If you can support lynx, you can support anything. I would make that the LCD mark. Lynx is apparently gaining nice features while retaining its X independence. Jamie Bowden System Administrator, iTRiBE.net Abusenet: The Misinformation Superhighway From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 12:21:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA15213 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:21:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from po2.glue.umd.edu (root@po2.glue.umd.edu [129.2.128.45]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA15200 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:21:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from stochastic.eng.umd.edu (crb@stochastic.eng.umd.edu [129.2.98.139]) by po2.glue.umd.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA28131; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:21:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (crb@localhost) by stochastic.eng.umd.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA03560; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:20:52 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: stochastic.eng.umd.edu: crb owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:20:52 -0400 (EDT) From: "Christopher R. Bowman" X-Sender: crb@stochastic.eng.umd.edu To: Tony Kimball cc: jfarmer@sabre.goldsword.com, freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: <199709301557.KAA29056@compound.east.sun.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tony Kimball wrote: > Quoth John T. Farmer on Tue, 30 September: > : > : That I don't know off the top of my head. I suspect that you're > : correct & they all are using patented sockets. > > [moved to chat] > > The fault for that would lie squarely on the shoulders of the patent > office. Obviousness is *supposed* to be a prima facie criterion for > denial of patent. I hate to add only a meet to to any conversation, but in this case, I really think that we have ignored this criterion for patents far to long, and that our patent office ought to be more strigent that it has in recent years with regard to granting patents that are obvious. I will grant complete lack of knowledge of the backround of patent examiners but it almost appear that the people examining the patents are complete lay-people with no computer backround. --------- Christopher R. Bowman crb@Glue.umd.edu My home page From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 13:07:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA18490 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (root@mexico.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.253]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA18476 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:06:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (brasil.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.33]) by mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id WAA02768 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:06:46 +0200 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.6/brasil-1.2) with UUCP id WAA27855 for chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:06:12 +0200 Received: (from roberto@localhost) by keltia.freenix.fr (8.8.7/keltia-2.10/nospam) id VAA29944; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:26:12 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19970930212612.33207@keltia.freenix.fr> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:26:12 +0200 From: Ollivier Robert To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump References: <199709290700.JAA26654@greenpeace.grondar.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 In-Reply-To: <199709290700.JAA26654@greenpeace.grondar.za>; from Mark Murray on Mon, Sep 29, 1997 at 09:00:48AM +0200 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk According to Mark Murray: > You a skydiver also? I thought Rod and I were the only ones so far ? :-) I haven't jumped for a few years but I really liked it. I should find more time and do it again... Who has a few 48-hours days to give me please ? -- Ollivier ROBERT -=- FreeBSD: There are no limits -=- roberto@keltia.freenix.fr FreeBSD keltia.freenix.fr 3.0-CURRENT #35: Sun Sep 21 19:28:07 CEST 1997 From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 14:27:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA23037 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:27:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rvc1.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de (isdn064.stuttgart.netsurf.de [194.195.220.255]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA23031 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:27:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from helbig@localhost) by rvc1.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de (8.8.7/8.8.5) id XAA02081; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:27:11 +0200 (MET DST) From: Wolfgang Helbig Message-Id: <199709302127.XAA02081@rvc1.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de> Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <19970930194016.61484@grendel.IAEhv.nl> from Peter Korsten at "Sep 30, 97 07:40:17 pm" To: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl (Peter Korsten) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:27:11 +0200 (MET DST) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL30 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Like Edsger W. Dijkstra once said: "data structures + algorithms = > programming". (Please shoot me if I misquoted him.) Penggggg! You are quoting a title from one of Niclas Wirth's books, which usually have much more bugs than Dikstra's method of developing a program would let you make. Wolfgang From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 14:49:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA24162 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:49:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from math.berkeley.edu (math.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.183.94]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA24157 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:49:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from dan@localhost) by math.berkeley.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA12717; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:48:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:48:10 -0700 (PDT) From: dan@math.berkeley.edu (Dan Strick) Message-Id: <199709302148.OAA12717@math.berkeley.edu> To: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas Cc: freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The fault for that would lie squarely on the shoulders of the patent > office. Obviousness is *supposed* to be a prima facie criterion for > denial of patent. The patent office has a very high tolerance for obviousness and lack of innovation. It often functions more to suppress competition in the marketplace than it does to foster innovation. Dan Strick dan@math.berkeley.edu From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 15:07:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA25053 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:07:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA25024 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:07:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from East.Sun.COM ([129.148.1.241]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id PAA21748; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 15:07:11 -0700 Received: from suneast.East.Sun.COM by East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id SAA07920; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:06:54 -0400 Received: from compound.east.sun.com by suneast.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id SAA24068; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:06:54 -0400 Received: (from alk@localhost) by compound.east.sun.com (8.8.7/8.7.3) id RAA00363; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:11:32 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:11:32 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM Message-Id: <199709302211.RAA00363@compound.east.sun.com> From: Tony Kimball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Face: O9M"E%K;(f-Go/XDxL+pCxI5*gr[=FN@Y`cl1.Tn To: dan@math.berkeley.edu Cc: freebsd-chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas References: <199709302148.OAA12717@math.berkeley.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.33 under 19.14 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Quoth Dan Strick on Tue, 30 September: : > The fault for that would lie squarely on the shoulders of the patent : > office. Obviousness is *supposed* to be a prima facie criterion for : > denial of patent. : : The patent office has a very high tolerance for obviousness and lack : of innovation. It often functions more to suppress competition in the : marketplace than it does to foster innovation. I think there are two possibilities: Incompetence or conspiracy, where conspiracy is taken not in the sense of organized planned intent of manipulation, but rather in the sense of an ad hoc cabal of agents in positions of public trust who exploit that trust on behalf of a constituency or a personal interest. The problem this represents to the free development community is quite serious, in either case, at least for software. I don't have any solutions, either. The best I can propose is that free developers should invent as much as possible, establishing prior art. Unfortunately, there is so much infrastructure to build that the potential for invention is largely redirected... The problem this represents to society as a whole, in terms of its effect in retarding technological advance, isn't really a freebsd topic at all, but I can easily imagine that many of the readers would support an effort to correct it by enforcing more stringent requirements on patent grants. It seems there is hardly a day that goes by without my reading something in an industry rag or usenet regarding new legal controls being placed in order to protect the interests of creators of intellectual property (an oxymoron in itself, by my ethical standards) against the interests of information freedom activists (which I believe to be approximately coequal to the interest of the species!) International trade and copyright agreements, industrial intellectual property trusts, expansions of the patent domain, reductions in the public domain... I get mad/ill thinking about it. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 17:07:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA02155 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:07:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA02148 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:07:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA02444; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 09:34:16 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710010004.JAA02444@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Peter Korsten cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:23:44 +0200." <19970930192344.25916@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 09:34:13 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Mike Smith shared with us: > > > > [the discussion was about GUI's and browsers] > > > > Also consider that whatever the interface, it has to work with a > > textmode browser (ie. lynx). > > Aren't you the guy who said I was totally failing to get the point > you were making? Yup. You're still doing a good job of it. 8) Please remember that we've been over all this territory before. I'm happy to rehash it so that you understand the situation, and desperate to hear something new. > We began with graphical user interfaces. Then we got to implementing > those in a browser (which I think is the user interface of at least > the near future). > > And now you want a fallback to - yes - a text interface. And also > one for browsers that don't support Java. Talking about missing > the point. No, again you're not quite picking it up. HTTP using a browser is a convenient technique for providing a remote management interface. Such a thing is highly desirable. However, there is a not insubstantial text-mode-only group of users, whose desire to be able to use such a tool is valid. In some cases, these will be single-system users not running X, in others we may be talking embedded systems, or hardware with remote consoles; there are plenty of valid reasons for not having a graphical console available, and this is no excuse for not having a management interface. Implementation resources are *LIMITED*. This means we can, at most, afford to attempt to develop and maintain *ONE* interface and set of tools. To make this viable, we need to hit as large a target group as possible. If we build a monstrosity that needs client-side Java, local PGP and (by the flavour of recent proposals) an administration guru just to set up and maintain it, nobody will use it. The development effort will be wasted. So, I'll say it again; what we need is an interface which abstracts the content of the configuration information from its form. This will give us a foundation which will make implementing CM frontends much easier. Then, if we want to target a web-based interface, we should pursue something secure and browser-neutral purely as a conservation of effort and resources. If, once the backend is done, a party of enthusiastic beanheads wanted to write a browser-specific buzzword-positive frontend to it, Nobody Would Complain. Hell, I'd use the damn thing. We'd love it. But suggesting that that's the only way to go is a big ask. > Noone cares about browsers that don't support Java or graphics. > I make a living writing software for web sites and these issues > are _not_ taken into consideration. Your first sentence would have more credibility in the absence of the second. 8) Just stop for a moment and consider this: If this hypothetical tool _works_, we will want to use it for *everything*. This includes installation. If we are to support single-system installs, ie. non-networked machines, we have to supply the browser as part of the install. Neither FreeBSD Inc. nor Walnut Creek can ship Netscape, the only Java-capable browser for FreeBSD, due to Netscape Inc.'s prohibitive licensing restrictions. How many more ways should I put it? The lowest common denominator is an 80x25 cursor-addressable terminal. We *must* support this in a usable fashion. I don't think that your 'no professional uses anything less than a 17" monitor on anything' sentinment is likely to be terribly popular. 8) > Just make the darn thing. Or support it, at least in spirit, even > if it isn't 100% secure or compatible. There's a firm making billions > of dollars with stuff that isn't secure nor compatible. Sure. Just step up and keep helping. You may have noticed we don't have the billions that you alluded to; instead our wealth (and sometimes desperation) is the support of volunteers like yourself. > P.S. I'm going to adjust my mail filter in a short while, so if > people start receiving 'message refused' messages from me, > that's because you sent it to the list as well as to me. > Editting your headers solves the problem. It's easier just to filter incoming duplicates, and more civilised to boot. We can't tell which lists you're subscribed to. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 17:23:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA03078 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:23:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA03060 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:23:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id IAA12381; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:52:46 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19971001085245.07273@lemis.com> Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:52:45 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: jbryant@tfs.net Cc: Simon Shapiro , FreeBSD Chat Subject: Emacs (Was: Good Lord, Commercial Linux) References: <199709302249.RAA02920@argus.tfs.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199709302249.RAA02920@argus.tfs.net>; from Jim Bryant on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 05:49:28PM -0500 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Following up to -chat On Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 05:49:28PM -0500, Jim Bryant wrote: > In reply: >> Also, you ommited vi :-) > > simon, this is where i draw the line... vi is pure unadulterated > evil. EMACS is the only true editor :^] > > Emacs makes the sun shine. > Emacs makes the birds sing. > Emacs makes the grass grow green. > > [just stating fact, not trying to start a holy war] Emacs makes your disks rattle? Greg From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 17:38:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA03975 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:38:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from onyx.atipa.com (user21246@ns.atipa.com [208.128.22.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA03970 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:37:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail-queue invoked by uid 1018); 1 Oct 1997 00:42:14 -0000 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:42:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Atipa X-Sender: freebsd@dot.ishiboo.com To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Good Databases / Anyone familiar with Kubl? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi All, I've been poking around this topic a bit more, and I am very impressed with the design and features of a "full feature client-server relational DBMS" called Kubl. It is designed for Linux, but it appears to be linux-emulation friendly. This looks like a great product. Anyone used it or heard remarks so far? The URL is http://www.kubl.com (check the FAQ). TIA, Kevin > > IS there a decent SQL-based database for FreeBSD? (I do NOT want to hear > > anyone say mSQL... because it is slow as hell and featureless). > > > > We just dropped a bunch of cash on Informix's Online Workgroup Server for > > Sparc becauses I could not find any professional quality database for > > FreeBSD. What is PostgreSQL? Sounds interesting... > > > Speed is definitely a must, along with some nice features, like > > variable-length strings, BLOB support, nice CLI interface, professional > > support, and most importantly reliability. It will be used as a primary > > database for inventory tracking (about 400-2000 parts / day, each > > individually trackable w/ serial number), invoicing, warranty, etc., so it > > MUST work reliably. > From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 18:15:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA06280 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:15:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from earth.mat.net (root@earth.mat.net [206.246.122.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA06273 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:15:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Journey2.mat.net (journey2.mat.net [206.246.122.116]) by earth.mat.net (8.8.7/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA08623; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:13:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:13:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey X-Sender: chuckr@Journey2.mat.net To: Mike Smith cc: Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199710010004.JAA02444@word.smith.net.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Mike Smith wrote: > However, there is a not insubstantial text-mode-only group of users, > whose desire to be able to use such a tool is valid. In some cases, > these will be single-system users not running X, in others we may be > talking embedded systems, or hardware with remote consoles; there are > plenty of valid reasons for not having a graphical console available, > and this is no excuse for not having a management interface. > > Implementation resources are *LIMITED*. This means we can, at most, > afford to attempt to develop and maintain *ONE* interface and set of > tools. I've considered some of this. Mike's right on many points. > To make this viable, we need to hit as large a target group as > possible. If we build a monstrosity that needs client-side Java, local > PGP and (by the flavour of recent proposals) an administration guru > just to set up and maintain it, nobody will use it. The development > effort will be wasted. > > So, I'll say it again; what we need is an interface which abstracts the > content of the configuration information from its form. This will give > us a foundation which will make implementing CM frontends much easier. How about considering the security problems and interface thing separately? I keep on thinking that something like skip (the encrypted IP channel) would make the security problem go away, wouldn't it? Doing something based upon HTTP means that you'd get character mode and browser inerfaces for free, essentially. Is this also true? I want to see if these questions can be ansswered separately, Mike, so that the area of the problem can be cut down. If one of the above isn't true, I'll go back to it. You're right on keeping any answer small enough to be reasonably packageable. I think that doing it via java cuts out a character mode interface, and shouldn't be absolutely needed. I would think a good perl script, and a web server would do, wouldn't it? Is there any likelihood you see of being able to do the job without a web server? The only other possibility that I see is tcl/tk, which is very multiplatform now, and freely available. I don't see a character mode interface for it, tho. I agree it's a good thing to have, but I kinda wonder if the group that runs character mode doesn't intersect largely with the group of lo level hackers who will turn up their noses at any gui based system console anyhow. AM I right so far? I'm just trying to catch up with you. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 19:30:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA10075 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:30:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA10070 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:30:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id TAA11395; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:29:54 -0700 (PDT) To: Chuck Robey cc: Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:13:14 EDT." Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:29:54 -0700 Message-ID: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Doing something based upon HTTP means that you'd get character mode and > browser inerfaces for free, essentially. Is this also true? I want to > see if these questions can be ansswered separately, Mike, so that the area > of the problem can be cut down. I don't mean to speak for Mike, but I still don't think that everyone's quite getting the point that Mike or I have been trying to make here. We have a big engineering task: How to front-end a wide variety of system installation and administration tasks so that the user isn't stuck trying to figure out how to use arcane commands like disklabel, newfs or pkg_add if they really don't want to. I think we're all in general agreement on the size and shape of the problem space. So, in the spirit of progress, someone like Mike here tries from time to time to break the stalemate on this task by attempting to divide the problem space into more finite chunks, the very first chunk generally coming up as "What's the interface going to look like given our various constraints on size, allowable external dependencies, etc?" And this is where we've consistently bogged down in the past. We couldn't agree on how to handle the interface, the pack quickly dividing into HTML advocates who cite the browser as the ultimate GUI etch-a-sketch (and heck, that it is) and minimalists who really really want their serial console installations at various cold and drafty co-location sites to be no more miserable than necessary. This time, Mike tried a new tack in pushing the discussing more towards his Juliet spec and settling more of the "base questions", like "what's the new packaging API going to look like?" or "how will the system be extensible for highly custom installations?" but it seems that, inevitably, we're back at the "What's the interface going to look like?" question again. Resistance Is Futile, you WILL discuss the user interface technology. ;-) Seriously, it would be nice if we could just forget about the stupid GUI technology for a bit here and focus on the underlying *UI independent* technologies like Juliet so that we can make some actual progress without getting locked into this debate again before we're even out of the starting gate. Heck, if you really want a brief and just summary of our UI interface options that's pretty easy to do since there are only 3: 1. A complete homebrew generic curses / graphical toolkit which is intelligent enough to switch UIs depending on the kind of display available to the user. 2. Something so disgustingly turbo-CUI that even running it in CUI mode in an xterm window is considered acceptably usable by the graphics display users. 3. HTML, lynx & netscape providing the "generic UI" component. Option #1 we've been evaluating for a long time and, frankly, every available option examined to date has turned out to suck in some unusably extreme way. Unless someone's hiding God's generic UI toolkit somewhere and just hasn't shown it to us yet, I don't see much hope for this option. Option #2 seems to be TurboVision (ports/devel/tvision) and only TurboVision, the only problem with that so far being the fact that most of us don't like to write in C++ and TurboVision is quite thoroughly wedded to that language. Someone was contemplating a TCL API to it, something which would reduce the pain considerably for us C/TCL programmers out here, but I think he wisely ran away for awhile. ;) Seriously, I'm not sure how this option is going to pan out but it's the only entry in its column, so we should probably at least look at it. ;-) Option #3 is to somehow use a mini-embedable web server, a stripped-down Apache or some other server framework to create a system which can be driven entirely from a reasonably capable HTML browser. This approach has already been taken by various parties with reasonably mixed results - some of their interfaces seem quite usable and others are just plain ugly. The security implications in each case are not clear (I rather suspect that the lion's share of such interfaces currently run with very little security and assume a trusted communications path, e.g. no sniffing). So, now that I've gone and summarized what I feel to be the only possibly UI options, which one do I think would be best for us? How the hell should I know? What I do know is that all 3 of these approaches have one thing in common: They all need to bang on your system's configuration. Think about it. :-) We need to step away from the interface question for a bit and just focus on creating mechanisms for solving the following problems: o Proper installation *with audit trail* of all software on the system - this requires the merging of "packages" and "distributions" into a common distribution package. o Proper abstraction of the system's configuration metadata along with authentication mechanisms flexible enough to allow for individual permissions on the data. Your UI, be it web or Tk based, would simply be one of many potential clients of such a configuration server. o Creation of an installation and configuration *framework* vs the monolithic utility we have now. Such a framework would allow vendors to drop their own installation procedures into the system for more seamless integration of their various tools and also allow us to extend "setup" more modularly as time and enthusiasm allow. Setting up samba or apache or any such fancy utility should involve little more than running its installation "applet" inside the installer's framework, said framework providing a rich library of methods for querying the user for specific information, doing authentication, talking to the configuration server, etc. Any of these 3 problems can not only be solved in a UI-neutral fashion, they *should* be since it leaves the door open for us to follow whatever the next trend is in 3D interfaces or something ("Oh man, what do you mean I can't just walk through FreeBSD's install with my TurboVR goggles and my dataglove? Everyone else's installer does! You guys are lame!" :-). Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 20:13:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA11576 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:13:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ppp6573.on.sympatico.ca (ppp6573.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.208.165]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA11568 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:13:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (tim@localhost) by ppp6573.on.sympatico.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id XAA00234; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:12:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:12:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek Reply-To: ac199@hwcn.org To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: Chuck Robey , Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > man, what do you mean I can't just walk through FreeBSD's install with > my TurboVR goggles and my dataglove? Everyone else's installer does! > You guys are lame!" :-). Image of a nice naked hdd and someone wielding a virtual machete, partitioning the beast... ;-) This could get ugly! -- tIM...HOEk OPTIMIZATION: the process of using many one-letter variables names hoping that the resultant code will run faster. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 21:37:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA15361 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:37:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from earth.mat.net (root@earth.mat.net [206.246.122.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA15352 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:37:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Journey2.mat.net (journey2.mat.net [206.246.122.116]) by earth.mat.net (8.8.7/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA26479; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:36:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:36:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey X-Sender: chuckr@Journey2.mat.net To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > So, now that I've gone and summarized what I feel to be the only > possibly UI options, which one do I think would be best for us? How > the hell should I know? What I do know is that all 3 of these > approaches have one thing in common: They all need to bang on your > system's configuration. > > Think about it. :-) > > We need to step away from the interface question for a bit and > just focus on creating mechanisms for solving the following > problems: > > o Proper installation *with audit trail* of all software > on the system - this requires the merging of "packages" > and "distributions" into a common distribution package. OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer version of a package. port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1. A later pkg_delete of A.1 will wipe out A.2's functionality. Do you have any other complaints on our present packaging mechanism? I'm going to start archiving this info, just on this thread. > > o Proper abstraction of the system's configuration metadata > along with authentication mechanisms flexible enough to allow > for individual permissions on the data. Your UI, be it web or > Tk based, would simply be one of many potential clients of > such a configuration server. > > o Creation of an installation and configuration *framework* > vs the monolithic utility we have now. Such a framework would > allow vendors to drop their own installation procedures into > the system for more seamless integration of their various tools > and also allow us to extend "setup" more modularly as time and > enthusiasm allow. Setting up samba or apache or any such > fancy utility should involve little more than running its > installation "applet" inside the installer's framework, > said framework providing a rich library of methods for > querying the user for specific information, doing > authentication, talking to the configuration server, etc. Seems like you're asking for the package tools to be able to do the pkg install, then automatically run specified scripts/programs that the writer installed in place in the package, to do the setup. Right? That's all I see here, and not a big stretch. > Any of these 3 problems can not only be solved in a UI-neutral > fashion, they *should* be since it leaves the door open for us to > follow whatever the next trend is in 3D interfaces or something ("Oh > man, what do you mean I can't just walk through FreeBSD's install with > my TurboVR goggles and my dataglove? Everyone else's installer does! > You guys are lame!" :-). OK, I agree. In fact, it should be ininitally capable of operating with no gui whatsover, right? Then the gui can be added in later? I don't think the core functionality of getting the partitions built, and the base downloaded/installed, can be done in a package mode. I would want that still to be a bootstrapping type thing. Disagree? I'm not saying that the same things done in initial install would be left uncovered later. I would want bootstrapping operations to cover partitioning, but I'd still want a partitioning script available later, for changes. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 22:04:29 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA16615 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:04:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA16610 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:04:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA14954; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:04:02 -0700 (PDT) To: Chuck Robey cc: Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 00:36:13 EDT." Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:04:02 -0700 Message-ID: <14950.875682242@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports > packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of There are only two current distribution formats that I know of - the "package", e.g. a specialized tarball and a "distribution", e.g. an ordinary tarball that's been split into pieces. These two need to be unified, is what I'm saying. > Do you have any other complaints on our present packaging mechanism? Oh, I have loads. ;-) But that's an entirely different thread, and I've actually noted all of this in great detail in the past. Might have to search the mail archives a bit to find the exact references. > Seems like you're asking for the package tools to be able to do the pkg > install, then automatically run specified scripts/programs that the writer > installed in place in the package, to do the setup. Right? That's all I > see here, and not a big stretch. Uh, no, I'm talking about something considerably more complex than that. I'm talking about an entire API for doing "packagy" things, up to and including "generic user interaction" (e.g. I make an outcall from the package installer to "get this yes-or-no confirmation" and that turns into different types of UI interaction depending on what the users' capability at the time is) - our failure to do that at the moment is why certain packages do bad bad things when you try and add them from sysinstall's package installer. :-( Needless to say, proper "registration" of files would also be handled through this API so that you didn't have the version-smashing problem you mentioned. Again, I'm *not* just talking about calling pkg_add from scripts - I'm talking about taking the functionality of pkg_add and putting it into a library so that any utility which wishes to provide an "execution harness" for a package's extraction can easily do so. > I don't think the core functionality of getting the partitions built, and > the base downloaded/installed, can be done in a package mode. I would > want that still to be a bootstrapping type thing. Disagree? Actually, there's no reason whatsoever why those sorts of operations couldn't be done from a package. ;-) It probably wouldn't be a typical case, but many of those function would be available to packages operating in a highly privileged mode. Stop thinking of them so much as packages and more as "canned procedures", only one potential operation in which being the addition or replacement of files on the system. Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 22:54:57 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA19172 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kithrup.com (kithrup.com [205.179.156.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA19166 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from sef@localhost) by kithrup.com (8.8.5/8.6.6) id WAA21894; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Sean Eric Fagan Message-Id: <199710010554.WAA21894@kithrup.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Reply-To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: References: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd. Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article you write: >OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports >packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of >the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer >version of a package. port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply >writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1. A later pkg_delete of A.1 >will wipe out A.2's functionality. This is something I do at work -- making sure that it is possible to upgrade the OS without having to shut down. (There's a reboot to get to the new kernel, of course.) This is *hard*. Mainly because nobody bothers writing support for it ;). When you do this kind of ugprade, you want to make sure that any configuration local configuration changes are propogated to the new version; you want to remove any old files that are obsolesced (you can just remove any non-modified-configuration file, if you want instead); and you need to then install the new versions. You also then have to deal with any dependencies that the old package had, or possibly packages that depended on the old package (since these dependencies might not hold true for the new package). Lastly, in our case at work, we should deal with files that are in multiple packages. (Consider /usr/lib/libfoo.a, which when the OS was installed, was in the 'core' package; later, however, the 'dcore' package installed its own version of libfoo.a, so now the file either belongs to the 'dcore' package, or to both the 'core' and 'dcore' package; now what happens when you remove the 'dcore' package? The 'core' package? What happens when you replace either but not both package?) I did, btw, suggest to Jordan, a while back, that all the "distributions" should be treated as packages. I don't know if he remembers :). >> o Creation of an installation and configuration *framework* >> vs the monolithic utility we have now. As I said before... various commercial OSes have this kind of thing. SysVr4.0, for example, lets you drop in menu items and scripts, so the whole thing is integrated. (I'm not saying this is terribly *good*, mind you ;).) As other people have suggested, whatever is done, I'd like to be able to do via command line, sysinstall type interface, text browser, or graphical browser or interface. I personally think the way to do that is to have an API for the utilities -- something like SMTP or NNTP, I think. (Not socket based, but two-way pipe. Terry gave an example of this about two or three years ago, I think.) Note that the interface is seperate from a way to deal with files and packages. They're just jumped together in this message by accident ;). This doesn't mean that everything has to accept only the same commands -- an 'add user' program is going to have some different requirements from a 'add package'. But there should be a common interface, so that the 'add user' utility and the 'add package' utility can all use the same GUI wrapper. If that makes sense. >OK, I agree. In fact, it should be ininitally capable of operating with >no gui whatsover, right? Then the gui can be added in later? See my statement above :). Reply to me, or the list, but not both, please. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 23:27:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA21298 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:27:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA21189 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:26:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.gsoft.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00723; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:53:33 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710010623.PAA00723@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Chuck Robey cc: Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:13:14 -0400." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 15:53:33 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > So, I'll say it again; what we need is an interface which abstracts the > > content of the configuration information from its form. This will give > > us a foundation which will make implementing CM frontends much easier. > > How about considering the security problems and interface thing > separately? I keep on thinking that something like skip (the encrypted IP > channel) would make the security problem go away, wouldn't it? I *am* considering the two separately. The abstraction interface is just that; it abstracts however the system components are configured into a logical interface layer. The issue with security is that if you want to manage the system remotely you have to make this interface layer accessible, and given that it effectively gives you total control over the system it's imperative that you be able to secure the interface. SKIP is just another way of getting a secure pipe; ssh is pretty good at that too, and in fact sufficiently good that combined with a plain text password it'd be enough. To use ssh for this you'd have to run it in port-mirror mode, where it forwarded a local-access-only port off the to-be-configured system to the UI-hosting system. You could offer this as the "enhanced security" mode and the no-encryption alternative as the "basic security" mode. The major downside with this is that ssh for win32 and the Mac costs not insubstantial money (about US$100 a seat IIRC), and I don't know if this would be acceptable. It's also less than perfect in that on a multiuser UI-hosting system it'd be possible to try to bruteforce your way in. Still, if people will buy this, and the US govt doesn't pass the threatened legislation outlawing even vaguely secure crypto, then this is a viable technique. Comments? > Doing something based upon HTTP means that you'd get character mode and > browser inerfaces for free, essentially. Is this also true? I want to > see if these questions can be ansswered separately, Mike, so that the area > of the problem can be cut down. That depends. Peter's proposal mandates a graphical browser and heavy Java. I don't like that as the LCD, but yes, a well-engineered set of pages would allow for any browser to drive the stuff. I *know* we have plenty of HTML studs here that would be up to coding this sort of thing, and much of it could be actively generated anyway. > If one of the above isn't true, I'll go back to it. You're right on > keeping any answer small enough to be reasonably packageable. I think > that doing it via java cuts out a character mode interface, and shouldn't > be absolutely needed. I would think a good perl script, and a web server > would do, wouldn't it? Is there any likelihood you see of being able to > do the job without a web server? A small embedded server would do the job just fine. We could use one of the Berkley-compatible ones bolted into a Tcl interpreter (eg.) to get a smooth interface to the config abstraction as well as all the server-side smarts necessary. (or Perl, or a binary, or whatever) > The only other possibility that I see is tcl/tk, which is very > multiplatform now, and freely available. I don't see a character mode > interface for it, tho. I agree it's a good thing to have, but I kinda > wonder if the group that runs character mode doesn't intersect largely > with the group of lo level hackers who will turn up their noses at any gui > based system console anyhow. I can see this being somewhat of a possibility. If we can improve the ease of getting X up on a new system, this is a very ripe alternative. > Am I right so far? I'm just trying to catch up with you. Prettymuch there. I'd *really* like to know what people think about using ssh in port-mirror mode to achieve the secure comms. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 23:38:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA22304 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:38:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xmission.com (mail.xmission.com [198.60.22.22]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id XAA22293 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:38:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [199.104.124.49] [199.104.124.49] by mail.xmission.com with smtp (Exim 1.62 #4) id 0xGIQe-0002HT-00; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:38:39 -0600 Message-ID: <34320C04.5DB5@xmission.com> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 01:38:28 -0700 From: Wes Peters Reply-To: softweyr@xmission.com Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Smith CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <199709291521.AAA00645@word.smith.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike Smith wrote: > > > If we're trying to convince people to put a FreeBSD based server into > > their existing Win95 (or Mac, or whatever) environment, what better > > configuration vehicle can we give them, than the machine already on > > their desktop? > > Wes: Stop Right Here. > > If you can come up with a security model that makes this viable on an > adequately large scale, I will *happily* abandon almost any other > thought I might have of using any other interface and happily work > under a browser. > > If not, and I'm not convinced one way or another, then we have to give > this idea the wide berth it will deserve. OK, I'm working on this. (Got the old 486sx laptop fired up here in San Hoser, and am slaving away on FreeBSD work as we speak. ;^) I've been developing the prototype for the next generation of my embedded web server on FreeBSD ;^) where it is working pretty well. I'm willing to throw this in, if I can convince you (all-inclusive you here) that it will be sufficiently secure. I can think of a couple of ways to insure this, but it won't be completely painless. I believe most security-enabled broswers support SSL communications for "secure" documents. They also support extended, and *extenable* authentication protocols, a number of which might be acceptable in conjunction with SSL. The part I'm not certain of is the interaction with Lynx, which I feel is a necessity for our situation. Another need is a simple local communications path, so we can use Lynx to setup the machine via the console, VGA or serial. Perhaps a UNIX-domain socket would suffice, or even a FIFO. Adding "acceptable" users to the UI is quite complex, as well. You would have to start with a default of "allow any local user" to connect, and (hopefully) automagically promote that to "allow this specific local user" to connect *very* quickly. Comments or suggestions? I'm all ears. ;^) Wes From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 30 23:54:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA23303 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:54:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA23296 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:54:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.gsoft.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA00865; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 16:20:47 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710010650.QAA00865@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: softweyr@xmission.com cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 01:38:28 MST." <34320C04.5DB5@xmission.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 16:20:47 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > OK, I'm working on this. (Got the old 486sx laptop fired up here in San > Hoser, and am slaving away on FreeBSD work as we speak. ;^) Good to hear. 8) > I've been developing the prototype for the next generation of my > embedded > web server on FreeBSD ;^) where it is working pretty well. I'm willing > to throw this in, if I can convince you (all-inclusive you here) that it > will be sufficiently secure. I can think of a couple of ways to insure > this, but it won't be completely painless. How do you feel about adding source-IP-based access control? That and a local sshd in port-forwarding mode would just about do it. > I believe most security-enabled broswers support SSL communications for > "secure" documents. They also support extended, and *extenable* > authentication protocols, a number of which might be acceptable in > conjunction with SSL. SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it unsuitable. > The part I'm not certain of is the interaction > with Lynx, which I feel is a necessity for our situation. Another > need is a simple local communications > path, so we can use Lynx to setup the machine via the console, VGA or > serial. Perhaps a UNIX-domain socket would suffice, or even a FIFO. What's wrong with an ordinary socket talking to the loopback address? > Adding "acceptable" users to the UI is quite complex, as well. You > would have to start with a default of "allow any local user" to connect, > and (hopefully) automagically promote that to "allow this specific local > user" to connect *very* quickly. When first started, the system should be in "virgin" mode. The first user to connect to it is granted full access rights. These can then be granted out to new users as they are defined. Think of the grant model from SQL. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 00:09:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA23979 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:09:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA23966 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:09:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.gsoft.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA00938; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 16:35:59 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710010705.QAA00938@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Chuck Robey cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , Mike Smith , Peter Korsten , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 00:36:13 -0400." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 16:35:58 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > o Proper installation *with audit trail* of all software > > on the system - this requires the merging of "packages" > > and "distributions" into a common distribution package. > > OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports > packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of > the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer > version of a package. port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply > writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1. A later pkg_delete of A.1 > will wipe out A.2's functionality. This is pretty fundamental, yes. > Do you have any other complaints on our present packaging mechanism? Not being able to roll back a new package to the previous version if the new one sucks. Not being able to identify what's changed from the original install of a package. > Seems like you're asking for the package tools to be able to do the pkg > install, then automatically run specified scripts/programs that the writer > installed in place in the package, to do the setup. Right? That's all I > see here, and not a big stretch. Turn the whole model on its head. A package will come with a script which runs its installation. This script will have access to a substantial API which does the actual "work" of installation, with the general idea that the script coming with the package knows about the package, whilst the API and its configuration knows about the system. The interaction between these two is thus responsible for make the one work with the other. > I don't think the core functionality of getting the partitions built, and > the base downloaded/installed, can be done in a package mode. I would > want that still to be a bootstrapping type thing. Disagree? Partitioning is the job of the general-purpose partitioning tool. Once you have the database for the package tool initialised, *everything* from then on in is package-like. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 03:57:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA05989 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 03:57:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bagpuss.visint.co.uk (bagpuss.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA05979 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 03:57:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dylan.visint.co.uk (dylan.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.180]) by bagpuss.visint.co.uk (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA23921; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 11:57:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 11:57:59 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Microsofts amazing website Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I thought Microsoft were supposed to have a UNIX (solaris I suppose?) version of Internet Explorer available by now.. No such (un)luck. Anyway, just went to their website and filled in some of their exciting forms [seems they cater well to paper-pushing types =) ], and I just thought I'd share this... --- From www.microsoft.com : The following errors were found: We need your address in order to respect your wishes not to receive unsolicited mail. We need your address in order to respect your wishes not to receive unsolicited third party offers. --- Well, I suppose this'll be some JDBC thing featuring JET, with "rushmore" technology, tested as the fastest database in the world.. Seems pretty slow and mismanaged to me.. Well, made my day a bit better. -- Steve Roome - Vision Interactive Ltd. Tel:+44(0)117 9730597 Home:+44(0)976 241342 WWW: http://dylan.visint.co.uk/ From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 04:37:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA07756 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:37:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bagpuss.visint.co.uk (bagpuss.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA07745 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:37:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dylan.visint.co.uk (dylan.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.180]) by bagpuss.visint.co.uk (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA24439; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 12:36:45 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 12:37:26 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome To: Mark Murray cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump In-Reply-To: <199709290700.JAA26654@greenpeace.grondar.za> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Mark Murray wrote: > Ollivier Robert wrote: > > > Guys, it is GREAT. It is FANTASTIC. You feel extremely good. If > > > anyone has wondered about skydiving, well, I have only a thing to > > > say: GO AND DO IT! > > > > Seconded. > > You a skydiver also? I thought Rod and I were the only ones so far ? :-) I've done four jumps of the Advanced Freefall course, but the weather here in the UK is poor. =( So I don't count as a skydiver really, but I've had my 3 minutes or so of freefall, and as soon as I can afford it, I should be taking a trip to Florida to get skydiving sorted out at last. -- Steve Roome - Vision Interactive Ltd. Tel:+44(0)117 9730597 Home:+44(0)976 241342 WWW: http://dylan.visint.co.uk/ From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 04:47:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA08066 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:47:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA08057 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:47:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA20107; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 13:47:03 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 13:47:03 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199710011147.NAA20107@bitbox.follo.net> From: Eivind Eklund To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Sean Eric Fagan's message of Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> <199710010554.WAA21894@kithrup.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [Chuck Robey] >> OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports >> packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of >> the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer >> version of a package. port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply >> writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1. A later pkg_delete of A.1 >> will wipe out A.2's functionality. [Sean Eric Fagan] > This is something I do at work -- making sure that it is possible to upgrade > the OS without having to shut down. (There's a reboot to get to the new > kernel, of course.) > This is *hard*. Mainly because nobody bothers writing support for it ;). [long list of requirements for packages deleted] Doesn't RPM already deal with much of this? An entire book (over 500 pages) is available on the design of RPM - and they've been kind enough to also put it online at http://www.rpm.org (there is a link from the front page). It would be a pity to just ignore all the work that has already been done; at least we should be able to snarf the good parts of their design, if it isn't good enough to use directly. Eivind. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 04:55:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA08561 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:55:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA08550 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:55:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id NAA20125; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 13:54:27 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 13:54:27 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199710011154.NAA20125@bitbox.follo.net> From: Eivind Eklund To: Mike Smith CC: softweyr@xmission.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Mike Smith's message of Wed, 01 Oct 1997 16:20:47 +0930 Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <34320C04.5DB5@xmission.com> <199710010650.QAA00865@word.smith.net.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > > > > OK, I'm working on this. (Got the old 486sx laptop fired up here in San > > Hoser, and am slaving away on FreeBSD work as we speak. ;^) > > Good to hear. 8) > > > I've been developing the prototype for the next generation of my > > embedded > > web server on FreeBSD ;^) where it is working pretty well. I'm willing > > to throw this in, if I can convince you (all-inclusive you here) that it > > will be sufficiently secure. I can think of a couple of ways to insure > > this, but it won't be completely painless. > > How do you feel about adding source-IP-based access control? That and > a local sshd in port-forwarding mode would just about do it. I'd like to support SSL, too, as Windows users has to do quite a bit of work to get hold of SSH (unless a freeware port has come along - I've not looked at SSH for Windows for a while). It isn't the ultimate priority, but it would make it much easier. (Especially if those pesky export-restrictions fall over and die). > SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not > exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it > unsuitable. SSLeay isn't too much subject to this; it was developed outside the US. We'd need it integrated in a web-server, though, and I don't know how the state of Apache-SSL is (Stronghold works just fine for my job, so I haven't looked at the freeware side of this). Eivind. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 05:19:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA09597 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 05:19:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gratis.grondar.za (gratis.grondar.za [196.7.18.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA09590 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 05:19:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (Djacr1PRQueyu6JL1VjkgymXvFm+Xq4U@greenpeace.grondar.za [196.7.18.132]) by gratis.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA21860; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:19:54 +0200 (SAT) Received: from greenpeace.grondar.za (TSoW70gwHTJmTRiGmS8jTtL8xaV0wUcr@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by greenpeace.grondar.za (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA04387; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:19:41 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199710011219.OAA04387@greenpeace.grondar.za> To: Stephen Roome cc: Mark Murray , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 14:19:40 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Stephen Roome wrote: > I've done four jumps of the Advanced Freefall course, but the weather here > in the UK is poor. =( British weather :-( :-( :-(. > So I don't count as a skydiver really, but I've had my 3 minutes or so of > freefall, and as soon as I can afford it, I should be taking a trip to > Florida to get skydiving sorted out at last. Ayone who falls out of an aeroplane for fun more than once is a skydiver! When I did jump 400, I passed through 4 hours of freefall :-) M -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 05:43:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA10955 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 05:43:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA10930 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 05:42:46 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199710011243.IAA03581@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Received: forwarded by SMTP 1.5.2. Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:45:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199710010554.WAA21894@kithrup.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Sean Eric Fagan wrote: > In article you write: > >OK. You mean this (I guess, from above) that this includes the ports > >packages. One shortcoming of ports is that the packages aren't aware of > >the sensitivities involved in upgrading from one version to a newer > >version of a package. port A, when going from version A.1 to A.2, simply > >writes a new package, A.2, right besides A.1. A later pkg_delete of A.1 > >will wipe out A.2's functionality. > > This is something I do at work -- making sure that it is possible to upgrade > the OS without having to shut down. (There's a reboot to get to the new > kernel, of course.) > > This is *hard*. Mainly because nobody bothers writing support for it ;). The way I deal with this is something borrowed from someone else (of course). My /usr/local is full of /usr/local/foo-1.1, whith foo-1.1 having it's bin, sbin, etc, lib, etc. /usr/local/bin is full of softlinks to /usr/local/foo-1.1/bin/*, /usr/local/lib to /usr/local/foo-1.1/lib/*. When I compile and install a new version of foo, it gets installed to /usr/local/foo-2.0. I still have my original intact, and only need update the softlinks to update the program from a user standpoint. And of course, we also borrowed the perl script that was written to do all this. It's not perfect, but I don't have the problem of having unknown files from random software laying around. Jamie Bowden System Administrator, iTRiBE.net Abusenet: The Misinformation Superhighway From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 06:28:04 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA12927 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 06:28:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shale.csir.co.za (shale.csir.co.za [146.64.46.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA12879 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 06:27:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from reg@localhost) by shale.csir.co.za (8.8.7/8.8.6) id PAA10676; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:21:34 +0200 (SAT) Message-ID: <19971001152131.36386@shale.csir.co.za> Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:21:32 +0200 From: Jeremy Lea To: Mike Smith Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Security and authentication References: <19970930100711.04631@shale.csir.co.za> <199709301307.WAA00501@word.smith.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81 In-Reply-To: <199709301307.WAA00501@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 10:37:16PM +0930 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike, I'm going to pretty much ignore your reply and all the others under it and try this again... The thread drift on this topic is horrible. *Please* people, can we try and say on one topic. In six generations of messages this has moved from "I want a GUI to configure DNS" to "generic package installation tools". To provide some focus, this is how I see things: A system has a number of administrative phases: - Initial installation/configuration - Package/user/hardware installation/configuration - Configuration tweaking These require a authentication and security layer to ensure that all actions can be taken. It is this layer I want to deal with. If you want to deal with anything else in the above list *change the subject line*. Problem statement: "How do you verify that user X can perform administrative function Y on machine Z." We have three players here: X - A person/entity. Could be a user of the system, could be some other user with power over the system, could be someone supplying software (like FreeBSD). Y - An administrative function. A meta-function which changes the way that the system performs it's real functions. This could range from a disklabelling to changing the icon enlightenment uses to indicate the GIMP ;). Z - A computer system. Hardware, running kernel and processes. Current status: Rights are based on user:group combinations and file access rights. Users can change any administrative settings they want if they own the configuration files, or have group access rights to these files. Users with access to a special uid 0 (root) can access everything and change all of the files. User X must have an account on machine Z to change Y. [NIS and company should allow network based rather than machine based logins as I understand them? I also just pulled the XSSO spec from your web page to have a look at that...] Problems: 1. Coarse grained implementation. There are really only three levels of security: root, group, user. In practice root access is required for most non-trivial administrative tasks. User X must have a uid on machine Z. They might also have to know the password for root, and belong to specific group W. Outside users/entities cannot be trusted. 2. Network security. Can the pipe to the machine (of whatever form) be trusted. Normally no, it can be sniffed, snooped, spoofed and all sorts of other nasty things. 3. Configuration for all of the functions related to Y is normally granted by providing access to Y. User X is trusted to not play with other functions. [Please list any other problems...] Ideal solution: Machine Z has some fine grained method of determining if the function Y is permitted by user X, without relying on the security of the channel. Proposal: User X and machine Z are the only two fixed entities in this puzzle. Function Y is very variable. Therefore, anchor X and Z by giving them a fixed, unchangeable identity. Do this through providing each with a verifiable signature. This is provided the first time that user X becomes known, and upon the initial installation of machine Z. Organise these signatures into webs of trust. Trust no one but yourself. Machine Z is a dumb thing, it can be tortured into revealing it's signature. User X will put up a fight (three to four days of being chained to a Windows95 machine ;), therefore assume X can always be trusted, but make sure that Z hasn't been won over. When you create Z's identity, make the creator (ie the machines owner) sign it's identify, to verify it is real, and make Z check it's identity at any point where it may have been changed. Let X do their own thing, by encrypting their identity. Z keeps a record of all functions Y (either in plain text files, or what have you) and the functions are grouped and have a hierarchy of access inheritance, like say oh, a file system. Access is only granted to one user (say A). User X submits a change Y to Z, via a channel of some form or by editing the file directly. Z looks and sees that X is not A who is the only user having rights. So Z asks the question "Does A trust X to make this change?". Z looks to see if A has signed X's identity, and if so, performs the change. A is only trusted because A's identity is signed by Z. Machine Z, might also not maintain it's own access hierarchy. It may trust another machine (like it's NIS master server S) to provide it with a set of trusted relationships. It would then trust any identity signed by S, because S had signed it's identity. You could also implement groups, by having Z sign group identity B and having B sign X's key. This would give you finer control over access. OK, enough theory. Notice that I haven't mentioned anything about PGP or any other product or language. It is using "public key encryption", some of which is patented and has usage limitations. This is a model for developing a "web of trust" between machines and users. It is a security model. It has nothing to do with the channels of communication or the information being transfered. This is something that could (well I believe) could be implemented through the framework of Unix user:group access control and a YP/NIS like system, to do general authentication and access control. It also could provide a mechanism whereby a PGP public key (say for an entity named FreeBSD, Inc ;) verified by user A was registered with machine Z and then anything sign by PGP with that public key was allowed A's access rights. Like oh, say a package. Now for some practical stuff. On Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 10:37:16PM +0930, Mike Smith wrote: > Look; all these ideas have great technical merit, but no commonsense. > Stop and think for a few seconds about what actually has to be > achieved in order to make this model work. Visualise how your design > would be used in a few different situations, e.. : > > - Single user at home. User installs FreeBSD, which creates machines public and private keys, protected by root password. User proceeds to create an account for themselves which automatically generates a public and private key for the user (protected by their password). The install also created users and groups (looks in /usr/src/etc), which are admin accounts and protected by an admin password. User logs in as admin and signs their own public key as group admin. They're a old fashioned kinda guy and don't like these "browser" things, so they edit the config files with vi. The kernel looks and says: hey these files are owned by the admin group, does the admin group trust X? yes. admin has signed X's public key. I've signed admin's key, so I know that X is trusted, so go ahead rewrite the file. > - Server in busy ISP application. [What particular problem are you referring to here?] The ISP has ten machines, all running various servers. The four PPP servers all trust one another and use the same password db. The three techies have key pairs generated when their accounts are created, and then the big chief (who knows the admin password) signs their keys with group ppp's key. They sign their own home account's key with their PPPserver key and register their own home key (now signed) with PPPservers. They log in remotely via some form of channel, and their changes are trusted because they are signed with a trusted key. > - Development workstation. Power user X decides to try out application foobar from FreeBSD, Inc. He gets a copy of FreeBSD, Inc's PGP key (how is his problem) and signs it into the system with his local user key. He gets the signed package for foobar and does a pkg_add, which checks to see if the key is known and approved. It is so and it then goes through the motions of adding the package. > - Large corp/tertiary network. Well, lets take the example of a CS lab with 100 identical computers. They all have machine keys generated at install time, which are signed by a central server. They all trust the server, and you then create accounts on the server and all the machines implicitly trust those keys. They also all obey instructions from any key signed by the server, including reboots, installs, updated, flashing their BIOS, etc. > Also consider that whatever the interface, it has to work with a > textmode browser (ie. lynx). Like I said, I was only really addressing the security model. However, if you were reading carefully you would have noticed that I glossed over one major point in the ISP example above... How do you sign arbitrary data on an unspecified channel? You have to have something the other side which can sign that data. It could be signed diffs via e-mail (easy) or it could be a two way IP connection to an all-singing java application on the other side or it could be a connection over an SSL layer, where the user appears to be local. A browser needs some way of doing this... Java, plugins, ActiveX ;-), or a local httpd which implements a signed protocol in the background, or a remote shttpd which can set it's uid based on the connection. Probably a few dozen other ways to. > Too complicated to be the only security model. What's PGP? "Fred the > new admin needs to to XYZ, how do we give him permission?" Login as XYZadmin and sign his key, or pop up the user management web page, click on Fred, click on Options and then Sign key. > By contrast, the proposed Tcl application method wins in that : > - It can use any stream encryption for client/server comms (eg. ssh) Like I said, I was only really talking about making a secure stream. The stream would still be vulnerable to people snooping the un-encrypted private keys... if you've got people doing that then the channel is not where your hole is, it's in your memory management. However, the machine cannot reasonably encrypt it's private key (which it needs - but only when signing things), which means it is particularly vulnerable. As I mentioned way up top, the owner/installer, signs the machines key and then the machine can try and verify that it's key hasn't been hijacked (say the key is loaded into the kernel at bootup and prints "Owned by: Joe Bloggs" to the console. I hope I'm getting this accross and that this e-mail doesn't also go down like a ton of bricks... -Jeremy -- | "I could be anything I wanted to, but one things true --+-- Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna hold the world in my hand | Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna build a promised land | But that's, that's alright, OK with me..." -Audio Adrenaline From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 07:10:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA15491 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA15474 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:10:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA00429; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 23:37:39 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710011407.XAA00429@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Eivind Eklund cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 13:47:03 +0200." <199710011147.NAA20107@bitbox.follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 23:37:38 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > [long list of requirements for packages deleted] > > Doesn't RPM already deal with much of this? An entire book (over 500 > pages) is available on the design of RPM - and they've been kind > enough to also put it online at http://www.rpm.org (there is a link > from the front page). It would be a pity to just ignore all the work > that has already been done; at least we should be able to snarf the > good parts of their design, if it isn't good enough to use directly. Learning from the RPM design is a good idea, but it doesn't go far enough. I've mentioned the SGI 'inst' facility before, and I'll do so again. Ignore the interface, instead focus on the basic structure of the system; the hierarchical organisation of components within packages, packages upon media, etc. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 07:55:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA17942 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:55:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA17931; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:55:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA00561; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 00:21:12 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710011451.AAA00561@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Jeremy Lea cc: config@freebsd.org, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Security and authentication In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 15:21:32 +0200." <19971001152131.36386@shale.csir.co.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:21:11 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I've cc'd this message to -chat to catch the interested players. Please move to -config however, as this is where this discussion belongs. > The thread drift on this topic is horrible. *Please* people, can we try and > say on one topic. In six generations of messages this has moved from "I want > a GUI to configure DNS" to "generic package installation tools". This is because the issues at hand are extremely broad and general. Attempting to maintain such a narrow focus is pointless, particularly when it is necessary to look at a larger picture. > To provide some focus, this is how I see things: > > A system has a number of administrative phases: > - Initial installation/configuration > - Package/user/hardware installation/configuration > - Configuration tweaking These are not particularly distinct. They represent differing degrees of a single process, that of "administrative control". They can be furthe characterised into a remarkably small set of actions, which vary only in syntax and semantic content. It is, IMHO, an error to attempt to view these as separate processes. > These require a authentication and security layer to ensure that all actions > can be taken. It is this layer I want to deal with. If you want to deal with > anything else in the above list *change the subject line*. Apologies for the above aside. This is indeed a vital issue. > Problem statement: > > "How do you verify that user X can perform administrative function Y on > machine Z." Minor nit: "is permitted to", not "can". "Can" is a different problem altogether 8) > We have three players here: > > X - A person/entity. Could be a user of the system, could be some other user > with power over the system, could be someone supplying software (like > FreeBSD). > > Y - An administrative function. A meta-function which changes the way that > the system performs it's real functions. This could range from a > disklabelling to changing the icon enlightenment uses to indicate the > GIMP ;). > > Z - A computer system. Hardware, running kernel and processes. > > Current status: > > Rights are based on user:group combinations and file access rights. Users > can change any administrative settings they want if they own the > configuration files, or have group access rights to these files. Users with > access to a special uid 0 (root) can access everything and change all of the > files. User X must have an account on machine Z to change Y. > > [NIS and company should allow network based rather than machine based logins > as I understand them? I also just pulled the XSSO spec from your web page to > have a look at that...] It's still effectively the same model; the rights for X to apply Y to Z are determined by permissions attached to the objects that are the immediate target of Y. I agree with your implied assessment that this is a poor association between Y and selectors for a valid X; the association should be between a logical rather than physical group of Y and a given X. > Problems: > > 1. Coarse grained implementation. There are really only three levels of > security: root, group, user. In practice root access is required for most > non-trivial administrative tasks. User X must have a uid on machine Z. > They might also have to know the password for root, and belong to > specific group W. Outside users/entities cannot be trusted. As above. > 2. Network security. Can the pipe to the machine (of whatever form) be > trusted. Normally no, it can be sniffed, snooped, spoofed and all sorts > of other nasty things. > > 3. Configuration for all of the functions related to Y is normally granted > by providing access to Y. User X is trusted to not play with other > functions. As above again. > [Please list any other problems...] > > Ideal solution: > > Machine Z has some fine grained method of determining if the function Y is > permitted by user X, without relying on the security of the channel. This omits the guarantee that the action Y received by Z is actually the same action requested by X. Without channel security, it is difficult to see how this can be achieved. > Proposal: > > User X and machine Z are the only two fixed entities in this puzzle. > Function Y is very variable. Therefore, anchor X and Z by giving them a > fixed, unchangeable identity. Do this through providing each with a > verifiable signature. This is provided the first time that user X becomes > known, and upon the initial installation of machine Z. Organise these > signatures into webs of trust. Trust no one but yourself. > > Machine Z is a dumb thing, it can be tortured into revealing it's signature. > User X will put up a fight (three to four days of being chained to a > Windows95 machine ;), therefore assume X can always be trusted, but make > sure that Z hasn't been won over. > > When you create Z's identity, make the creator (ie the machines owner) sign > it's identify, to verify it is real, and make Z check it's identity at any > point where it may have been changed. Let X do their own thing, by > encrypting their identity. > > Z keeps a record of all functions Y (either in plain text files, or what > have you) and the functions are grouped and have a hierarchy of access > inheritance, like say oh, a file system. Access is only granted to one user > (say A). > > User X submits a change Y to Z, via a channel of some form or by editing the > file directly. Z looks and sees that X is not A who is the only user having > rights. So Z asks the question "Does A trust X to make this change?". Z > looks to see if A has signed X's identity, and if so, performs the change. A > is only trusted because A's identity is signed by Z. (Omit the "by editing the file" component. There's no way that this model belongs inside the traditional operational space of the system; if an administrator wants to fly outside we should try to work with it, but certainly not to that level.) > Machine Z, might also not maintain it's own access hierarchy. It may trust > another machine (like it's NIS master server S) to provide it with a set of > trusted relationships. It would then trust any identity signed by S, because > S had signed it's identity. > > You could also implement groups, by having Z sign group identity B and > having B sign X's key. This would give you finer control over access. Pardon my relative naivety, but how does the "web of trust" win you anything substantial over enumerating the traversals of the web and simply verifying the identity of the endpoints? You can devolve the "web" you describe into a simple list of foreign identities and their granted rights. If you make the ability to grant rights a right in itself, you achieve the "signing" process. All that is required then is a secure channel and a means of reliably and securely establishing the identity of the X:Z tuple. Extra tuples can be obtained from S. > OK, enough theory. Notice that I haven't mentioned anything about PGP or > any other product or language. It is using "public key encryption", some of > which is patented and has usage limitations. This is a model for developing > a "web of trust" between machines and users. It is a security model. It has > nothing to do with the channels of communication or the information being > transfered. Understood. My point being that I feel that you have a hammer with considerable trend value (the "web of trust"), and you are hitting a smaller nail with it. Trust webs are good for distributed, dynamic trust relationships. I'm not sure that the complexity involved is required, most particularly in that unless you colocate the key objects with X all you have is an indirect ACL listing in a complex and inefficient format. Am I missing something here? > This is something that could (well I believe) could be implemented through > the framework of Unix user:group access control and a YP/NIS like system, to > do general authentication and access control. I'm not convinced that access rights to apply Y to some Z should require any other rights at all (including right of access, ie. user/ group ID). The ability to inherit rights from a foreign server (S above) is indeed desirable. > It also could provide a mechanism whereby a PGP public key (say for an > entity named FreeBSD, Inc ;) verified by user A was registered with machine > Z and then anything sign by PGP with that public key was allowed A's access > rights. Like oh, say a package. Ie. allowing policy selection for the installation API based on secure identification of the package source. Jordan and I have discussed this; it's something I think everyone agrees is highly desirable. [proof-of-concept applications to practical scenarios] > > - Single user at home. > > User installs FreeBSD, which creates machines public and private keys, > protected by root password. User proceeds to create an account for > themselves which automatically generates a public and private key for the > user (protected by their password). The install also created users and > groups (looks in /usr/src/etc), which are admin accounts and protected by an > admin password. User logs in as admin and signs their own public key as > group admin. I would go further and say that even before users are created, the installer has obtained "god" rights to the administration system. This then allows them to perform the installation and create users. The more I think your model through, the more the separation between administration entity and login account seems to make sense. > They're a old fashioned kinda guy and don't like these "browser" things, so > they edit the config files with vi. The kernel looks and says: hey these > files are owned by the admin group, does the admin group trust X? yes. admin > has signed X's public key. I've signed admin's key, so I know that X is > trusted, so go ahead rewrite the file. No. This is outside the domain under consideration, and we shouldn't be distracted by this. > > - Server in busy ISP application. > [What particular problem are you referring to here?] Mostly authentication and security on a relatively vulnerable network. This really just requires secure communications between the client and server, unlike the example above which does not, although it still requires the admin to authenticate themselves. > > - Development workstation. > > Power user X decides to try out application foobar from FreeBSD, Inc. He > gets a copy of FreeBSD, Inc's PGP key (how is his problem) and signs it into > the system with his local user key. He gets the signed package for foobar > and does a pkg_add, which checks to see if the key is known and approved. It > is so and it then goes through the motions of adding the package. The installation should add a known set of trusted keys, which can be used to sign others suitable for inclusion. > > - Large corp/tertiary network. > > Well, lets take the example of a CS lab with 100 identical computers. They > all have machine keys generated at install time, which are signed by a > central server. They all trust the server, and you then create accounts on > the server and all the machines implicitly trust those keys. They also all > obey instructions from any key signed by the server, including reboots, > installs, updated, flashing their BIOS, etc. This introduces a number of significant questions to do with how you determine who the "ultimately trusted" entity is when you are establishing the system in the first instance. It sounds to me that with the above the handover of trust must come post-install, where the system is directed to abandon trust in the installer and instead demand a signature from the central system. I hope you're taking notes on all this. We will expect a tidy signing and keymanagement API to do this. > However, if you were reading carefully you would have noticed that I glossed > over one major point in the ISP example above... How do you sign arbitrary > data on an unspecified channel? Specifically, you don't. The channel has to be trusted. What constitutes a "trusted" channel is dependant on the application; a standalone system requires nothing special, wheras in an ISP or corporate network something much more robust may be required. > > By contrast, the proposed Tcl application method wins in that : > > - It can use any stream encryption for client/server comms (eg. ssh) > > Like I said, I was only really talking about making a secure stream. ... but you're not; you're discussing verifying the rights of X at the other end of an arbitrary stream, and how these rights should be maintained and distributed. > I hope I'm getting this accross and that this e-mail doesn't also go down > like a ton of bricks... Not at all. These issues *must* be discussed to the point where consensus can be reached, even before we can start complaining about how you're not off implementing them. I greatly appreciate your time and effort. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 07:59:36 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA18168 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:59:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA18154; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 07:59:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ares.cs.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa08300; 1 Oct 97 10:58 EDT Received: from stretch.cs.virginia.edu (atf3r@stretch-fo.cs.Virginia.EDU [128.143.136.14]) by ares.cs.Virginia.EDU (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA00741; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 10:58:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from atf3r@localhost) by stretch.cs.virginia.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA11458; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 10:58:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 10:58:39 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adrian T. Filipi-Martin" Reply-To: adrian@virginia.edu To: jbryant@tfs.net cc: Simon Shapiro , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Good Lord, Commercial Linux [redirected to chat] In-Reply-To: <199709302249.RAA02920@argus.tfs.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Jim Bryant wrote: > In reply: > > Also, you ommited vi :-) > > simon, this is where i draw the line... vi is pure unadulterated > evil. EMACS is the only true editor :^] > > Emacs makes the sun shine. > Emacs makes the birds sing. > Emacs makes the grass grow green. > > [just stating fact, not trying to start a holy war] Of course not. (grin) Being an old hand at and daily user of both, I feel comfortable to argue you _need_ to know both. Both set of key binding are integrated into oh so many applications. X (both athena and now CDE/motif toolkits) use emacs style bindings, and su much else uses vi. My editing motto: If you need to shoot form the hip, reach for vi. Especially for those small critters that live in hard to reach places. If you need to plan an extended textual campaign of hack and burn, emacs is the optimal weapon of destruction. Adrian -- adrian@virginia.edu ---->>>>| If I were stranded on a desert island, and System Administrator --->>>| I could only have one OS for my computer, Neurosurgical Visualzation Lab -->>| it would be FreeBSD. Think about it..... http://www.nvl.virginia.edu/ ->| http://www.freebsd.org/ From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 08:03:29 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA18447 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA18439 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:03:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA00618; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 00:30:28 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710011500.AAA00618@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Eivind Eklund cc: Mike Smith , softweyr@xmission.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 13:54:27 +0200." <199710011154.NAA20125@bitbox.follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:30:27 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > How do you feel about adding source-IP-based access control? That and > > a local sshd in port-forwarding mode would just about do it. > > I'd like to support SSL, too, as Windows users has to do quite a bit > of work to get hold of SSH (unless a freeware port has come along - > I've not looked at SSH for Windows for a while). It isn't the > ultimate priority, but it would make it much easier. (Especially if > those pesky export-restrictions fall over and die). The only SSH port to Windows is the one marketted by F-Secure AFAIK. They have the exclusive rights to it, at any rate. > > SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not > > exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it > > unsuitable. > > SSLeay isn't too much subject to this; it was developed outside the > US. We'd need it integrated in a web-server, though, and I don't know > how the state of Apache-SSL is (Stronghold works just fine for my job, > so I haven't looked at the freeware side of this). Do you have the time to investigate this? A small embedded server with this bolted on would be ideal. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 08:32:12 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA20217 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:32:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from scanner.worldgate.com (scanner.worldgate.com [198.161.84.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA20206 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:32:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from znep.com (uucp@localhost) by scanner.worldgate.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with UUCP id JAA26600; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 09:31:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (marcs@localhost) by alive.znep.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA14134; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 09:35:05 -0600 (MDT) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 09:35:05 -0600 (MDT) From: Marc Slemko To: Eivind Eklund cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199710011154.NAA20125@bitbox.follo.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not > > exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it > > unsuitable. > > SSLeay isn't too much subject to this; it was developed outside the > US. We'd need it integrated in a web-server, though, and I don't know > how the state of Apache-SSL is (Stronghold works just fine for my job, > so I haven't looked at the freeware side of this). Apache-SSL works fine. The main reason it isn't a standard part of Apache is because the US goverment are a bunch of twits. First, you have export restrictions. Even if software originates outside the US, if you import it and then try exporting it again you can get into trouble. Secondly, RSA has a patent on technology required to support SSL v2 which makes it illegal to use that within the US without a license from RSA. SSL v3 can be implemented using another algorithm; the pattent on that one expires soon if it hasn't already. I'm not sure what common clients support. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 10:01:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA24726 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 10:01:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from onyx.atipa.com (user634@ns.atipa.com [208.128.22.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA24721 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 10:01:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail-queue invoked by uid 501); 1 Oct 1997 17:05:32 -0000 Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 11:05:32 -0600 (MDT) From: Kevin McCarthy X-Sender: kmcc@dot.ishiboo.com To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Badtimes (fwd) / Is FreeBSD vulnerable? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I think this may be from bugtraq :) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 1 Oct 97 11:46 CDT Subject: Badtimes. This just in : NEW VIRUS WARNING If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous Email virus yet. It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles . It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play. It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic. Badtimes will make you fall in love with a hardened pedophile. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card. It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Badtimes, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear. Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will wantonly remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, and refill your skim milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve. These are just a few signs. Be very, very afraid. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! VirusCentral From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 14:16:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA08875 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:16:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.IAEhv.nl (root@news.IAEhv.nl [194.151.64.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA08841 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:15:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCAL (uucp@localhost) by news.IAEhv.nl (8.6.13/1.63) with IAEhv.nl; pid 9553 on Wed, 1 Oct 1997 21:15:56 GMT; id VAA09553 efrom: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl; eto: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: (from peter@localhost) by grendel.IAEhv.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA00730; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 22:37:48 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19971001223748.33773@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 22:37:48 +0200 From: Peter Korsten To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Browser interface (I changed the subject) References: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.67e In-Reply-To: <11391.875672994@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 07:29:54PM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jordan K. Hubbard shared with us: > > We have a big engineering task: How to front-end a wide variety of > system installation and administration tasks so that the user isn't > stuck trying to figure out how to use arcane commands like disklabel, > newfs or pkg_add if they really don't want to. I think we're all in > general agreement on the size and shape of the problem space. I think the installation part is not the main issue. Under normal circumstances, you will have to install a system just once. After that, you have a system to maintain on a daily basis. Since many of us aren't getting each other's points (or better, we don't get that we're basically agreeing, but I'll explain that later on): I doubt whether the interface should be limited to the most common denominator, which in any case is the text interface. Frames, for instance, aren't really possible with just a text interface. Although frames are often scoffed at (because many site builders don't know how to use them), they are an ideal means for navigation. It's a real pain that NCSA Mosaic 3.0 (for Windows) doesn't support frames, because for the rest, it's a very nice browser. A true web-like interface also gives you the possibilty to create your own personal interface, because you can simply edit a template HTML file. Admitted, the installation procedure could use an update. But is it really essential that 'the new way' includes this one-time task as well? To give a popular example: if I install NT, I begin with a text screen and later on, I get a 640x480x16c screen. Only when I'm finished, I can switch to my multi-color high resolution display. I don't know enough of the Juliet system, but it sounds promising enough. What I really want to know is: could a front-end be written that talks to Juliet and looks like a database - more specific: an ODBC data source - from the outside? Consider the following SQL statement: SELECT * FROM myhost..users WHERE usercode LIKE 'e%' which would give you all users on machine 'myhost' in the password file, whose usercode begins with 'e'. How about installing new pieces of software? "UPDATE myhost..packages SET name = 'apache', location = 'ftp://ftp.apache.org/...'" or something? In that case, all you need for the rest is a HTTP server with an extension or CGI that can parse 'extended HTML' files. (I know that I could have picked a better example, but MS IIS with IDC is one, though it's pretty limited. But I think there are also solutions for Unix.) If someone's browser doesn't support frames or graphics, provide an alternate set of extended HTML pages. That is far less complicated than writing different applications for text and graphical interfaces. As I come to think of it, this also makes it possible to use this scheme for the installation process. I don't think that a homebrew GUI is a solution. It's a lot of work and you won't be able to easily transport it to other systems. As mentioned, I don't want a text interface either (I presume that's what Jordan meant with a CUI). The third option is the browser. I really believe the browser to be the user interface of the future - well, for the next five to ten years at least. It's platform-independant and it can be made very beautiful. If the database look-a-like option could be implemented, three of the four needed parts are already there or almost there: the browser, the web server with the extension, and Juliet. OK, what did I forget in this magnificent plan? :) - Peter From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 14:41:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA10838 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:41:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA10814 for ; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:40:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA04177; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 14:40:45 -0700 (PDT) To: Peter Korsten cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Browser interface (I changed the subject) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 01 Oct 1997 22:37:48 +0200." <19971001223748.33773@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 14:40:45 -0700 Message-ID: <4168.875742045@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > OK, what did I forget in this magnificent plan? :) Your sense of reality. I think none of this stands a chance of happening unless you truncate your goalset accordingly. ;-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 1 21:00:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA29560 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 21:00:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.monmouth.com (root@shell.monmouth.com [205.164.220.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29448; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 20:59:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from i4got.lakewood.com (ppp80.monmouth.com [205.164.220.112]) by shell.monmouth.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA04292; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 23:56:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from pechter@localhost) by i4got.lakewood.com id XAA00539 (8.8.5/IDA-1.6); Wed, 1 Oct 1997 23:59:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Pechter Message-ID: <199710020359.XAA00539@i4got.lakewood.com> Subject: Sysctl variables To: hackers@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 23:59:37 -0400 (EDT) Cc: chat@freebsd.org Reply-to: pechter@lakewood.com X-Phone-Number: 908-389-3592 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I'm copying this to -chat because I'm wondering if there's any user interest in this except just me... I'm back working on the SysV init again. I know it's been a long layoff since a number of you sent code to me to work on. I've now got a dedicated test box and will be working hard on finishing the work that was started by a number of folks. Any chance of getting two varibles in the "official" FreeBSD sysctl MIB base... I was thinking of kern.run_level and kern.last_run_level. I'd like to avoid homebrew kernel patches to do this (I don't think I want to have to continually update the init code after each cvsup upgrade.) If they were standard in the kernel and blank, I think it would allow the SYSV init to be added as a package. This would make utmp changes unnecessary and be kind of slick. We'd be able to make both the BSD and SysV users happy. (I'm going to look at the userland command differences after this... including the ps, ls differences. I still haven't given up on the idea of supporting dual universes and getting tools up to support Unixware and SCO commercial packages.) This is kind of like the Pyramid OS/x System -- they shipped with both the SysV and BSD init programs and a script that will enable either one and save the old rc scripts and init files in the event of a reinstall of the other init. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Pechter | 17 Meredith Drive Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 | 908-389-3592 pechter@lakewood.com | Save computing history, give an old geek old hardware. This msg brought to you by the letters PDP and the number 11. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 01:15:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA11907 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 01:15:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (daemon@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au [130.102.2.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA11896 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 01:15:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA12234; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:15:04 +1000 Received: from troll.dtir.qld.gov.au (troll.dtir.qld.gov.au [167.123.8.1]) by ogre.dtir.qld.gov.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA03182; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 17:59:47 +1000 (EST) Received: from localhost (syssgm@localhost) by troll.dtir.qld.gov.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA07942; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 17:59:43 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199710020759.RAA07942@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> X-Authentication-Warning: troll.dtir.qld.gov.au: syssgm@localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, syssgm@dtir.qld.gov.au Subject: Re: Sysctl variables References: <22273.875775687@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: <22273.875775687@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:01:27 -0700" Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 17:59:43 +1000 From: Stephen McKay Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thursday, 2nd October 1997, "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: >> So, please, no dual universes. > >OK, how about Domain/OS variant symlinks? :-) The thoughts of a colleague when I explained how variant symlinks exceeded even the OS/x dual symlink that we know so well: "I'm sure they would bite you on the bum continuously, but just think of the job security!" Hmm... "The New FreeBSD, the Anti-Downsizing OS, now even harder to use!" Stephen. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 01:20:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA12199 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 01:20:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA12194 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 01:20:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id BAA01782; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 01:19:28 -0700 (PDT) To: Stephen McKay cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sysctl variables In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 02 Oct 1997 17:59:43 +1000." <199710020759.RAA07942@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 01:19:27 -0700 Message-ID: <1757.875780367@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Thursday, 2nd October 1997, "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: > > >> So, please, no dual universes. > > > >OK, how about Domain/OS variant symlinks? :-) > > The thoughts of a colleague when I explained how variant symlinks exceeded > even the OS/x dual symlink that we know so well: > > "I'm sure they would bite you on the bum continuously, > but just think of the job security!" Actually, that wasn't my experience during my brief tenure on Apollo systems. If anything, they made a number of otherwise complex and annoying tasks a lot easier to do and more fault tolerant (it makes switching resources in and out in emergency situations a lot easier, for one thing). Variant symlinks rule! :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 03:21:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA17808 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 03:21:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [194.77.0.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA17801 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 03:20:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with UUCP id LAA00143 for chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:00:32 +0100 (MET) Received: (from andreas@localhost) by klemm.gtn.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA15143; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:56:49 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19971002115649.22387@klemm.gtn.com> Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:56:49 +0200 From: Andreas Klemm To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: CVS kills me or did I kill CVS ? cvs import / cvs HEAD question ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81 X-Disclaimer: A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT SMP Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi ! I started to get apsfilter under CVS control and imported every released apsfilter version by doing something like: mkdir ~/src/apsfilter cd ~/src/apsfilter tar xvpf ../apsfilter.released/aps-48.tgz cvs import -m "apsfilter V 4.8" src/apsfilter APSFILTER v4_8 rm -rf * [...] tar xvpf ../apsfilter.released/aps-491.tgz cvs import -m "apsfilter V 4.91" src/apsfilter APSFILTER v4_91 Now I forgot to checkout apsfilter first before doing modifications.. I "saved" this modified version by moving the apsfilter directory to apsfilter.new Then I though checking out apsfilter and replacing the files should do the trick. cd ~/src mv apsfilter apsfilter.new cvs checkout apsfilter I had to recognize, that checking out a module from a cvs repository that only consists of vendor (or release ?) branches seems to checkout every file in it's last version. So I got more files (on the whole, a mix of all versions I imported) than I wanted. This way I recognized, that the CVS repository I created is something different from the FreeBSD one, where checking out a module always results in getting the latest version where everybody is working on (HEAD). Ok, now I thought I have perhaps to checkout the latest version and import it as HEAD ... (feel now something like "bastard CVS-meister from hell" ;-) But currently I don't know it better and trying to make my experiences to get better knowledge of CVS. So I did a: cd ~/src rm -rf apsfilter cvs checkout -r v4_91 apsfilter cd apsfilter cvs import -m "apsfilter V 4.91" src/apsfilter APSFILTER HEAD But simply doing a checkout still bring only version 4.91 ... Now the questions ... Do I have done something evil by importing to HEAD ? If yes, is it recoverable and how ? How do bring version v4_91 to HEAD in a sane way ? Did I understand something basically wrong or was the way to get apsfilter under CVS control correct ? Thanks Andreas /// -- Andreas Klemm powered by ,,symmetric multiprocessor FreeBSD'' andreas@klemm.gtn.com - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/SMP.html andreas@FreeBSD.ORG - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/benches.html From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 03:21:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA17843 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 03:21:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bagpuss.visint.co.uk (bagpuss.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA17818 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 03:21:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dylan.visint.co.uk (dylan.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.180]) by bagpuss.visint.co.uk (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA12047; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:20:06 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:20:59 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome To: Mark Murray cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: my first jump In-Reply-To: <199710011219.OAA04387@greenpeace.grondar.za> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Mark Murray wrote: > Stephen Roome wrote: > > I've done four jumps of the Advanced Freefall course, but the weather here > > in the UK is poor. =( > > British weather :-( :-( :-(. Well, someone built the local dropzone (netheravon) on top of a windy hill in the middle of Salisbury plain... Great thinking! > > So I don't count as a skydiver really, but I've had my 3 minutes or so of > > freefall, and as soon as I can afford it, I should be taking a trip to > > Florida to get skydiving sorted out at last. > > Ayone who falls out of an aeroplane for fun more than once is a > skydiver! > > When I did jump 400, I passed through 4 hours of freefall :-) I guess it's never enough - wonder if it gets boring eventually ?? Shame about the cost though, AFF course + weather + travel expenses ate a hole in my bank account - so it's on hold until I can do it all in a day or two (so I don't forget and have to retake training jumps) - or just get paid more either will do. =) Still wonder why more people don't skydive ? Steve. -- Steve Roome - Vision Interactive Ltd. Tel:+44(0)117 9730597 Home:+44(0)976 241342 WWW: http://dylan.visint.co.uk/ From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 05:20:12 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA22002 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:20:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from io.salford.ac.uk (io.salford.ac.uk [146.87.255.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA21936 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:19:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 4068 invoked by uid 6); 2 Oct 1997 12:18:58 -0000 Message-ID: <19971002121858.4066.qmail@io.salford.ac.uk> From: c.d.kettle@cms.salford.ac.uk (C.Kettle) Subject: Prodigy at the Manchester G-mex. To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 02 Oct 97 12:18:47 GMT X-Gated-To-News-By: NewsMaster X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3 Xref: io.salford.ac.uk salford.mailing-lists.freebsd.chat:3042 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hey, Just seeing if anyone else has got their hands on some prodigy tickets as well, to see if we could all meet up for a few warm-up beers' before hand. cK From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 05:46:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA23320 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:46:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.monmouth.com (root@shell.monmouth.com [205.164.220.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA23296 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:46:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from i4got.lakewood.com (ppp80.monmouth.com [205.164.220.112]) by shell.monmouth.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA08646; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:42:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from pechter@localhost) by i4got.lakewood.com id IAA01691 (8.8.5/IDA-1.6); Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:45:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Pechter Message-ID: <199710021245.IAA01691@i4got.lakewood.com> Subject: Re: Sysctl variables In-Reply-To: <199710020759.RAA07942@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> from Stephen McKay at "Oct 2, 97 05:59:43 pm" To: syssgm@dtir.qld.gov.au (Stephen McKay) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:45:50 -0400 (EDT) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Reply-to: pechter@lakewood.com X-Phone-Number: 908-389-3592 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Thursday, 2nd October 1997, "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: > > >> So, please, no dual universes. > > > >OK, how about Domain/OS variant symlinks? :-) > > The thoughts of a colleague when I explained how variant symlinks exceeded > even the OS/x dual symlink that we know so well: > > "I'm sure they would bite you on the bum continuously, > but just think of the job security!" > > Hmm... "The New FreeBSD, the Anti-Downsizing OS, now even harder to use!" > > Stephen. > really, you could use both commands in the same pipe -- for example (this is a quick hack from memory) att ls | att cut -f1 -d"x" | bsd cat -n since the AT&T subsystem didn't do cat -n you could get the best of both worlds on the fly. Made shell scripting interesting if you didn't specify the universe in the command. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Pechter | 17 Meredith Drive Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 | 908-389-3592 pechter@lakewood.com | Save computing history, give an old geek old hardware. This msg brought to you by the letters PDP and the number 11. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 05:56:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA23844 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:56:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from radford.i-plus.net (root@Radford.i-Plus.net [206.99.237.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA23839 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 05:56:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from totally.nutty.net (insane@totally.nutty.net [206.99.237.44]) by radford.i-plus.net (8.8.6/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA10563 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:53:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199710021253.IAA10563@radford.i-plus.net> Reply-To: "Troy Settle" From: "Troy Settle" To: Subject: SQL Interface - very wild idea (WAS: Browser interface) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:01:27 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1008.3 X-MimeOle: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE Engine V4.71.1008.3 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Maybe my mind if fried from going too long without sleep, but... Just minutes before reading Pete's post about using a database look-alike for system administration, I was thinking that a pure database for all system configuration would be quite interesting. Similar to the Windows registry. Having an extensible SQL/ODBC system would be ideal for both local and network configuration, user management, etc... The only drawback, would be the loss of simple text configurations that could be edited with a simple editor, but by moving slowly and carefully, we could end up with command line, curses, X, and web interfaces that will all work in a very similar way, providing easy access to various databases: - a user's database could be used for many things, password files, access logs (local, radius, etc). This would be especially useful in an ISP or academic environment. - a host database could be used for local configuration information (fstab, host info, dns info, network database info, manpath, checksums, etc...) - a network database, consisting of all your hosts' databases and more, could be used to keep all your network configurations handy and in order Basically, it comes down to the fact that if we keep doing what UNIX has always done, UNIX will never grow. Today's computing needs require ingenuity and thought. I don't have the resources or the skills to take this idea much further, and I know there's problems with security, accessability, implementation, and compatibility. Even taking this into consideration, I think it could be done. Perhaps something to work towards in FreeBSD 4.0? Maybe even set a new industry standard? -----Original Message----- From: Jordan K. Hubbard To: Peter Korsten Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Wednesday, October 01, 1997 5:56 PM Subject: Re: Browser interface (I changed the subject) >> OK, what did I forget in this magnificent plan? :) > >Your sense of reality. I think none of this stands a chance of >happening unless you truncate your goalset accordingly. ;-) > > Jordan > > From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 06:56:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA26754 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 06:56:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fps.biblos.unal.edu.co ([168.176.37.11]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id GAA26654 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 06:55:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost by fps.biblos.unal.edu.co (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA33804; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:44:19 -0500 Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:44:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" To: Terry Lambert Cc: Shimon@i-Connect.Net, jamil@counterintelligence.ml.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Good Lord, Commercial Linux In-Reply-To: <199710020820.BAA24323@usr08.primenet.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk ( My apologies also.... I hadn't noticed this thread was on -hackers, instead of -chat... ) I think there is little argument in saying that Linux is better now because Noorda sells it. Anyway (and this is just IMO), Linux's GPL makes it unsuitable for a _real_ commercial product because it is literally impossible to offer added value software at a low level (which is what commercial OS's do). Pedro. On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Terry Lambert wrote: > > And Noorda didn't leave Novell in a good position either...they seem to > > be getting better without him. > > BTW, it seems like the Groupwise client is a Java application :-) > > Noorda was forced out by Mar Burnside and the other members of "The > Office Of The President", a triumvarite of which Burnside was the > strongest member. > > Burnside was a bean-counter (accountant) who decided that the best way > to optimize short term profit was to milk the existing product line to > death without investment in new technology. That strategy has a 5 year > cap. > > Novell is doing better because of the retirement of the HP vice > president, Frankenburg, who never got over the V.P. "Yes man" stage > and thus let people like Mike DeFazio ride roughshod over him. > > > Terry Lambert > terry@lambert.org > --- > Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present > or previous employers. > From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 07:20:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA27936 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 07:20:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA27927 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 07:20:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA00288; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 23:47:41 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710021417.XAA00288@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Troy Settle" cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SQL Interface - very wild idea (WAS: Browser interface) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 02 Oct 1997 09:01:27 -0400." <199710021253.IAA10563@radford.i-plus.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 23:47:38 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Just minutes before reading Pete's post about using a database look-alike > for system administration, I was thinking that a pure database for all > system configuration would be quite interesting. Similar to the Windows > registry. *sigh* I wish I had a better saved-mail indexing strategy. Of course this idea has come up and been batted around in various forms before. The critical point to remember is: NOT like the "Windows registry", but like the Apollo Aegis slash Domain/OS registry. If there's anyone listening here works at Nescape, we could really do with hearing from Fred Roeber about this. 8) > Having an extensible SQL/ODBC system would be ideal for both local and > network configuration, user management, etc... The only drawback, would be > the loss of simple text configurations that could be edited with a simple > editor, This is probably something that could be borne in the longer term, however there are a couple of *really* important points that you must bear in mind when evaluting this idea: - Availability. There aren't a great number of decent SQL/ODBC databases available on terms that are likely to suit our requirements. - Size. Take a look at the footprint of your average not-so-complex SQL-subset database engine; they're Not Small. Size is an issue in a great number of situations. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 07:51:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA29751 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 07:51:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA29738 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 07:51:44 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199710021452.KAA11347@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Received: forwarded by SMTP 1.5.2. Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 10:55:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SQL Interface - very wild idea (WAS: Browser interface) In-Reply-To: <199710021253.IAA10563@radford.i-plus.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk And how exactly does one repair this monstrosity when it suffers from corruption? I can edit a passwd file manually from a shell given from a fixit floppy, how does one repair a damaged database? On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Troy Settle wrote: > Maybe my mind if fried from going too long without sleep, but... > > Just minutes before reading Pete's post about using a database look-alike > for system administration, I was thinking that a pure database for all > system configuration would be quite interesting. Similar to the Windows > registry. > > Having an extensible SQL/ODBC system would be ideal for both local and > network configuration, user management, etc... The only drawback, would be > the loss of simple text configurations that could be edited with a simple > editor, but by moving slowly and carefully, we could end up with command > line, curses, X, and web interfaces that will all work in a very similar > way, providing easy access to various databases: > > - a user's database could be used for many things, password files, access > logs (local, radius, etc). This would be especially useful in an ISP or > academic environment. > - a host database could be used for local configuration information > (fstab, host info, dns info, network database info, manpath, checksums, > etc...) > - a network database, consisting of all your hosts' databases and more, > could be used to keep all your network configurations handy and in order > > Basically, it comes down to the fact that if we keep doing what UNIX has > always done, UNIX will never grow. Today's computing needs require > ingenuity and thought. > > I don't have the resources or the skills to take this idea much further, and > I know there's problems with security, accessability, implementation, and > compatibility. Even taking this into consideration, I think it could be > done. Perhaps something to work towards in FreeBSD 4.0? Maybe even set a > new industry standard? > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jordan K. Hubbard > To: Peter Korsten > Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG > Date: Wednesday, October 01, 1997 5:56 PM > Subject: Re: Browser interface (I changed the subject) > > > > >> OK, what did I forget in this magnificent plan? :) > > > >Your sense of reality. I think none of this stands a chance of > >happening unless you truncate your goalset accordingly. ;-) > > > > Jordan > > > > > Jamie Bowden System Administrator, iTRiBE.net Abusenet: The Misinformation Superhighway From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 08:13:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA01422 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:13:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA01359; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:13:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA00515; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 00:40:46 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710021510.AAA00515@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG cc: config@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:54:53 MST." <199710010554.WAA21894@kithrup.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 00:40:45 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk (Apologies for the list double-up, trying to make sure this goes to the right places.) > This is something I do at work -- making sure that it is possible to upgrade > the OS without having to shut down. (There's a reboot to get to the new > kernel, of course.) > > This is *hard*. Mainly because nobody bothers writing support for it ;). Heh. Not wrong there. > When you do this kind of ugprade, you want to make sure that any > configuration local configuration changes are propogated to the new version; > you want to remove any old files that are obsolesced (you can just remove > any non-modified-configuration file, if you want instead); and you need to > then install the new versions. How do you identify configuration deltas? Do you use a parameter database and version parameters, or just diff "original" against "current"? > You also then have to deal with any dependencies that the old package had, > or possibly packages that depended on the old package (since these > dependencies might not hold true for the new package). This last is one that bothers me somewhat. The best I can come up with is to steal the major/minor versioning concept that's used with shared libraries. If foo-1.2 depends on bar-1.3 and you try to upgrade to bar-1.5 that should be OK, but if you want to upgrade to bar-2.0 this should require a simultaneous upgrade of foo to a version that's compatible with bar-2.0. This upgrade may be nothing more than a minor bump that comes with new control files indicating that it's compatible with either bar-1.x or bar-2.x of course. > Lastly, in our case at work, we should deal with files that are in multiple > packages. (Consider /usr/lib/libfoo.a, which when the OS was installed, was > in the 'core' package; later, however, the 'dcore' package installed its own > version of libfoo.a, so now the file either belongs to the 'dcore' package, > or to both the 'core' and 'dcore' package; now what happens when you remove > the 'dcore' package? The 'core' package? What happens when you replace > either but not both package?) Removing one or the other is easy; the reference count on the library falls but does not hit zero and it stays. More interesting is when you install the dcore package and the libfoo.a file is *newer*; which one do you keep? (Actually this is very similar to the "replace" question.) I would really like to know how you handle this. 8) > I did, btw, suggest to Jordan, a while back, that all the "distributions" > should be treated as packages. I don't know if he remembers :). Yes, he does. We all agree that it's the right way to do it. > I personally think the way to do that is to have an API for the utilities -- > something like SMTP or NNTP, I think. (Not socket based, but two-way pipe. > Terry gave an example of this about two or three years ago, I think.) Learn Tcl. Criticise the node-and-method interface Juliet uses. It sucks for manual control of course. > This doesn't mean that everything has to accept only the same commands -- an > 'add user' program is going to have some different requirements from a 'add > package'. But there should be a common interface, so that the 'add user' > utility and the 'add package' utility can all use the same GUI wrapper. .admin.users add .admin.users. set etc. Note that I'm not sure I buy adding a node for every user, even with the lazy tree expansion I currently use. Even on a hairy system adding thousands of user nodes is going to hurt a little. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 08:29:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA02347 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:29:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA02342 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:29:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA00601; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 00:56:41 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710021526.AAA00601@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Jamie Bowden cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SQL Interface - very wild idea (WAS: Browser interface) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 02 Oct 1997 10:55:04 -0400." <199710021452.KAA11347@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 00:56:40 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > And how exactly does one repair this monstrosity when it suffers from > corruption? I can edit a passwd file manually from a shell given from a > fixit floppy, how does one repair a damaged database? A text file is just a group of bytes with a particular organisation; a database is no different. Worst case you unpack the database into text form and feed it into an editor, then repack it on the way back. See the password database for how this is already done. See also the creation of /etc/passwd for backwards compatability; this approach is likely to be popular long after the authoratative version of the data is buried in a database. mike From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 09:40:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA07146 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:40:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA07079 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:39:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA23830; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:38:34 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:38:34 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199710021638.SAA23830@bitbox.follo.net> From: Eivind Eklund To: Mike Smith CC: perhaps@yes.no, softweyr@xmission.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Mike Smith's message of Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:30:27 +0930 Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) References: <199710011154.NAA20125@bitbox.follo.net> <199710011500.AAA00618@word.smith.net.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > > SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not > > > exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it > > > unsuitable. > [Eivind Eklund] > > SSLeay isn't too much subject to this; it was developed outside the > > US. We'd need it integrated in a web-server, though, and I don't know > > how the state of Apache-SSL is (Stronghold works just fine for my job, > > so I haven't looked at the freeware side of this). > [Mike Smith] > Do you have the time to investigate this? A small embedded server with > this bolted on would be ideal. I'm not certain I have time - I have quite a few other projects I've promised. I'll _try_ to find time for it, but no guarantees. Eivind. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 09:48:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA07717 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:48:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA07706 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:48:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA00750; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:48:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:48:08 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Troy Settle cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SQL Interface - very wild idea (WAS: Browser interface) In-Reply-To: <199710021253.IAA10563@radford.i-plus.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Troy Settle wrote: > Having an extensible SQL/ODBC system would be ideal for both local and > network configuration, user management, etc... The only drawback, would be ... > - a user's database could be used for many things, password files, access > logs (local, radius, etc). This would be especially useful in an ISP or > academic environment. > - a host database could be used for local configuration information > (fstab, host info, dns info, network database info, manpath, checksums, > etc...) > - a network database, consisting of all your hosts' databases and more, > could be used to keep all your network configurations handy and in order Isn't this more or less the sort of thing LDAP is designed to address? -john From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 09:49:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA07780 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:49:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA07772 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 09:49:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA23855; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:49:11 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:49:11 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199710021649.SAA23855@bitbox.follo.net> From: Eivind Eklund To: Andreas Klemm CC: chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Andreas Klemm's message of Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:56:49 +0200 Subject: Re: CVS kills me or did I kill CVS ? cvs import / cvs HEAD question ... References: <19971002115649.22387@klemm.gtn.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Hi ! > > I started to get apsfilter under CVS control and imported > every released apsfilter version by doing something like: > > mkdir ~/src/apsfilter > cd ~/src/apsfilter > tar xvpf ../apsfilter.released/aps-48.tgz > cvs import -m "apsfilter V 4.8" src/apsfilter APSFILTER v4_8 > rm -rf * > [...] > tar xvpf ../apsfilter.released/aps-491.tgz > cvs import -m "apsfilter V 4.91" src/apsfilter APSFILTER v4_91 > > Now I forgot to checkout apsfilter first before doing modifications.. > I "saved" this modified version by moving the apsfilter directory > to apsfilter.new > > Then I though checking out apsfilter and replacing the files should > do the trick. > > cd ~/src > mv apsfilter apsfilter.new > cvs checkout apsfilter > > I had to recognize, that checking out a module from a cvs > repository that only consists of vendor (or release ?) > branches seems to checkout every file in it's last version. > > So I got more files (on the whole, a mix of all versions I > imported) than I wanted. OK, what you want to do now is two checkouts - one one HEAD, and one on R4_91 (or whatever your latest import is). Then you do diff -Rq aps_head aps_4_91 You'll then get a list of the files which are only in the head, which are from previous versions. You want to do a 'cvs remove -f' on these - then you'll move all the old files to the attic. Then you'll want to copy in the latest changes, and commit them. Eivind. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Oct 2 14:39:44 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA25211 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 14:39:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [192.109.159.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA25204 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 14:39:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with UUCP id WAA02389; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 22:15:24 +0100 (MET) Received: (from andreas@localhost) by klemm.gtn.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA21939; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 21:09:31 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19971002210931.49103@klemm.gtn.com> Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 21:09:31 +0200 From: Andreas Klemm To: Eivind Eklund Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: CVS kills me or did I kill CVS ? cvs import / cvs HEAD question ... References: <19971002115649.22387@klemm.gtn.com> <199710021649.SAA23855@bitbox.follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 In-Reply-To: <199710021649.SAA23855@bitbox.follo.net>; from Eivind Eklund on Thu, Oct 02, 1997 at 06:49:11PM +0200 X-Disclaimer: A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT SMP Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, Oct 02, 1997 at 06:49:11PM +0200, Eivind Eklund wrote: > OK, what you want to do now is two checkouts - one one HEAD, and one > on R4_91 (or whatever your latest import is). Then you do > diff -Rq aps_head aps_4_91 > You'll then get a list of the files which are only in the head, which > are from previous versions. > You want to do a 'cvs remove -f' on these - then you'll move all the > old files to the attic. > > Then you'll want to copy in the latest changes, and commit them. Thanks, will try that ! -- Andreas Klemm powered by ,,symmetric multiprocessor FreeBSD'' andreas@klemm.gtn.com - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/SMP.html andreas@FreeBSD.ORG - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/benches.html From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 00:35:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA27623 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 00:35:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (daemon@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au [130.102.2.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA27615 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 00:35:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA17643; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:35:24 +1000 Received: from troll.dtir.qld.gov.au (troll.dtir.qld.gov.au [167.123.8.1]) by ogre.dtir.qld.gov.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA21375; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:36:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from localhost (syssgm@localhost) by troll.dtir.qld.gov.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA06730; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:36:01 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199710030736.RAA06730@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> X-Authentication-Warning: troll.dtir.qld.gov.au: syssgm@localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: pechter@lakewood.com cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, syssgm@dtir.qld.gov.au Subject: Re: Sysctl variables References: <199710021245.IAA01691@i4got.lakewood.com> In-Reply-To: <199710021245.IAA01691@i4got.lakewood.com> from Bill Pechter at "Thu, 02 Oct 1997 08:45:50 -0400" Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 17:36:00 +1000 From: Stephen McKay Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thursday, 2nd October 1997, Bill Pechter wrote: >> >> So, please, no dual universes. >really, >you could use both commands in the same pipe -- for example (this is a quick >hack from memory) > >att ls | att cut -f1 -d"x" | bsd cat -n > >since the AT&T subsystem didn't do cat -n you could get the best of both >worlds on the fly. Made shell scripting interesting if you didn't >specify the universe in the command. Yes, interesting, yet in practice, I found it a nightmare. The ability to use these prefixes to change the behaviour of every command meant that people did that! So, I could write a script using normal commands and have some bozo invoke it as "att do_the_stuff" and it would fail. So, I had to be acutely aware of universe issues at all times. It was rarely a help, and always a possible problem. People were always shoving "att" or "ucb" into scripts to fix the problems caused by the "ucb" or "att" in the script further up the call hierarchy. I am so glad to see the back of it! Again though, I'm not just a rabid "Not Invented Here" guy. I've tried a lot of SysV and BSD and hybrid systems and pure BSD beat the others. I would limit the imports to very carefully selected portions. I'd import from DOS if there was anything of value there! ;-) Stephen. From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 06:28:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id GAA13283 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 06:28:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.itribe.net (gatekeeper.itribe.net [209.49.144.254]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id GAA13276 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 06:28:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199710031327.JAA16422@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Received: forwarded by SMTP 1.5.2. Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 09:30:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Bowden To: Stephen McKay cc: pechter@lakewood.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sysctl variables In-Reply-To: <199710030736.RAA06730@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Stephen McKay wrote: > On Thursday, 2nd October 1997, Bill Pechter wrote: > > >> >> So, please, no dual universes. > > >really, > >you could use both commands in the same pipe -- for example (this is a quick > >hack from memory) > > > >att ls | att cut -f1 -d"x" | bsd cat -n > > > >since the AT&T subsystem didn't do cat -n you could get the best of both > >worlds on the fly. Made shell scripting interesting if you didn't > >specify the universe in the command. > > Yes, interesting, yet in practice, I found it a nightmare. The ability > to use these prefixes to change the behaviour of every command meant that > people did that! So, I could write a script using normal commands and have > some bozo invoke it as "att do_the_stuff" and it would fail. So, I had to > be acutely aware of universe issues at all times. It was rarely a help, > and always a possible problem. People were always shoving "att" or "ucb" > into scripts to fix the problems caused by the "ucb" or "att" in the script > further up the call hierarchy. I am so glad to see the back of it! > > Again though, I'm not just a rabid "Not Invented Here" guy. I've tried > a lot of SysV and BSD and hybrid systems and pure BSD beat the others. > I would limit the imports to very carefully selected portions. I'd import > from DOS if there was anything of value there! ;-) > > Stephen. > Why not take the road that Sun (/usr/ucb), and SGI (/usr/bsd) have taken, and make seperate commands for the other? Make a /usr/sysv and throw all the sysv equiv commands in there. Scripts should use explicit command lines when calling tools, so you just use the appropriate, and not worry about user environs/paths screwing things up. Jamie Bowden System Administrator, iTRiBE.net Abusenet: The Misinformation Superhighway From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 07:50:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA18776 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 07:50:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from toth.ferginc.com (toth.ferginc.com [205.139.23.69]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA18767 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 07:50:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by toth.ferginc.com (You/Wish) id KAA00542; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 10:48:17 -0400 (EDT) Posted-Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 10:48:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19971003104817.00217@toth.hq.ferg.com> Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 10:48:17 -0400 From: Branson Matheson To: Jamie Bowden Cc: Stephen McKay , pechter@lakewood.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sysctl variables Reply-To: Branson.Matheson@ferginc.com References: <199710030736.RAA06730@troll.dtir.qld.gov.au> <199710031327.JAA16422@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199710031327.JAA16422@gatekeeper.itribe.net>; from Jamie Bowden on Fri, Oct 03, 1997 at 09:30:37AM -0400 Organization: Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 2.2.2-RELEASE Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Why not take the road that Sun (/usr/ucb), and SGI (/usr/bsd) have taken, > and make seperate commands for the other? Make a /usr/sysv and throw all > the sysv equiv commands in there. Scripts should use explicit command > lines when calling tools, so you just use the appropriate, and not worry > about user environs/paths screwing things up. I agree wholeheartedly to this!!!! it is more universally used for using different versions of commands ( /usr/local/gnu/bin ... etc.. ) Hell.. whilst we're at it ... make it a seperate part of the install.. so that those that don't need/want that functionaliy .. won't have to use it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Branson Matheson " If you are falling off of a mountain, System Administrator You may as well try to fly." Ferguson Enterprises - Delenn, Mimbari Ambassador ( $statements = ) !~ /Corporate Opinion/; From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 12:12:34 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA06429 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 12:12:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dumbwinter.ecomotor.it (mod4.logic.it [195.120.151.20] (may be forged)) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id MAA06398 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 12:12:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 2112 invoked by uid 1000); 3 Oct 1997 19:11:49 -0000 Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 21:11:46 +0200 (MET DST) From: Marco Molteni X-Sender: molter@dumbwinter.ecomotor.it To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Chuck image being used in a sex ad Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi all, I just discovered our little Chuck (the BSD daemon) being used for a commercial banner. You can have a look at it at http://www.erosclub.it/messag.htm, pointing to a would-be herbalist's shop. The text is in italian, and means: "Now you can improve or find again your sexual power". Obviously, I *hate* seeing Chuck being used in a commercial banner. If someone at FreeBSD is willing to contact them, I'll be pleased to translate from english to italian. Cheers Marco Molteni Computer Science student at the Universita' degli studi di Milano, Italy. "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 14:26:34 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA13642 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:26:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hwcn.org (main.hwcn.org [199.212.94.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA13637 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:26:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (ac199@james.hwcn.org [199.212.94.66]) by hwcn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA25925; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:26:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA00470; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:27:18 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:27:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek X-Sender: ac199@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: Brett Glass cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New ports added/updated last two weeks In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971003104921.02f8a000@mail.lariat.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [-ports -> -chat] On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Brett Glass wrote: > Thank you! By the way, is there among the ports collection a utility that > lets you boot into FreeBSD from DOS (so that you can load coprocessor No, but there is /usr/mdec/fbsdboot.exe. It won't work if you're running too many memory managers, or whatnot. FWIW, I have a Win95 login, "fbsd", which just boots to DOS mode and runs fbsdboot.exe... -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 3 23:35:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA00929 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 23:35:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from www.dca.net (www.dca.net [204.183.80.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29246 for ; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 20:11:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost.dca.net [127.0.0.1]) by www.dca.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA27649; Fri, 3 Oct 1997 23:10:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 23:10:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter David Roehsler To: Marco Molteni cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Chuck image being used in a sex ad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Well, how did you find that? -PDR On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Marco Molteni wrote: > Hi all, > > I just discovered our little Chuck (the BSD daemon) being > used for a commercial banner. You can have a look at it at > http://www.erosclub.it/messag.htm, pointing to a would-be > herbalist's shop. The text is in italian, and means: "Now you can > improve or find again your sexual power". > > Obviously, I *hate* seeing Chuck being used in a commercial banner. > If someone at FreeBSD is willing to contact them, I'll be pleased to > translate from english to italian. > > Cheers > > Marco Molteni > Computer Science student at the Universita' degli studi di Milano, Italy. > "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" > > **************************************************************************** Peter David Roehsler DCANet Technical Support roehsler@dca.net (302) 654-1019, (215) 235-7955 http://www.dca.net or (610) 558-8254 **************************************************************************** From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 02:27:17 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id CAA08832 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 02:27:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dumbwinter.ecomotor.it (mod13.logic.it [195.120.151.29] (may be forged)) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id CAA08826 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 02:27:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 321 invoked by uid 1000); 4 Oct 1997 07:30:44 -0000 Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 09:30:43 +0200 (MET DST) From: Marco Molteni X-Sender: molter@dumbwinter.ecomotor.it To: Peter David Roehsler cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Chuck image being used in a sex ad In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Peter David Roehsler wrote: > Well, how did you find that? -PDR You know, when one surfs, it happens to slip.... ;-) Marco Molteni Computer Science student at the Universita' degli studi di Milano, Italy. "Whuffo you jump out of them airplanes?" From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 07:14:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA17277 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 07:14:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [194.77.0.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA17266 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 07:14:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with UUCP id PAA21551 for chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 15:00:10 +0100 (MET) Received: (from andreas@localhost) by klemm.gtn.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA24456; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 15:50:03 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <19971004155003.23469@klemm.gtn.com> Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 15:50:03 +0200 From: Andreas Klemm To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: freefall not reachable from from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 X-Disclaimer: A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT SMP Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 36 bytes from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104): Destination Host Unreachable Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst 4 5 00 5400 7206 0 0000 eb 01 b145 194.77.2.34 204.216.27.21 36 bytes from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104): Destination Host Unreachable Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst 4 5 00 5400 7210 0 0000 eb 01 b13b 194.77.2.34 204.216.27.21 36 bytes from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104): Destination Host Unreachable Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst 4 5 00 5400 7214 0 0000 eb 01 b137 194.77.2.34 204.216.27.21 -- Andreas Klemm powered by ,,symmetric multiprocessor FreeBSD'' andreas@klemm.gtn.com - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/SMP.html andreas@FreeBSD.ORG - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/benches.html From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 10:53:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA27233 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:53:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shasta.wstein.com (shasta.wstein.com [207.173.11.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA27228 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:52:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from joes@localhost) by shasta.wstein.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01607; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:52:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Stein Message-Id: <199710041752.KAA01607@shasta.wstein.com> Subject: fbsdboot.exe In-Reply-To: from Tim Vanderhoek at "Oct 3, 97 05:27:18 pm" To: hoek@hwcn.org (Tim Vanderhoek) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 10:52:39 -0700 (PDT) Cc: chat@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31H (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > No, but there is /usr/mdec/fbsdboot.exe. It won't work if you're > running too many memory managers, or whatnot. FWIW, I have a > Win95 login, "fbsd", which just boots to DOS mode and runs > fbsdboot.exe... Is using fbsdboot "the same as" a warm reset into freebsd? (I have a PNP card that requires an DOS program _each_ time the system is power-cycled; therefore I have a DOS disk with the autoexec batch file set to run that utility, but then I have to be around to warm boot the machine.) joe From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 12:29:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA02594 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:29:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kalypso.cybercom.net (kalypso.cybercom.net [209.21.136.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA02587 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:29:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from atlanta (ksmm@world-f.std.com [199.172.62.5]) by kalypso.cybercom.net (8.8.7/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA23769 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 15:28:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19971004145216.00967820@cybercom.net> X-Sender: ksmm@cybercom.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 14:52:16 -0400 To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: The Classiest Man Alive Subject: Re: fbsdboot.exe In-Reply-To: <199710041752.KAA01607@shasta.wstein.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 10:52 AM 10/4/97 -0700, Joseph Stein wrote: >Is using fbsdboot "the same as" a warm reset into freebsd? > >(I have a PNP card that requires an DOS program _each_ time the >system is power-cycled; therefore I have a DOS disk with the autoexec >batch file set to run that utility, but then I have to be around to >warm boot the machine.) I've used this technique succesfully with a SoundBlaster 32PnP and a MediaMagic SoundBlaster-compatible card. Both required initializing with their DOS drivers and the use of FBSDBOOT.EXE before they would work in FreeBSD/Linux. A kludge, but it worked... K.S. From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 12:53:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA03526 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:53:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from implode.root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA03518 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:53:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from implode.root.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by implode.root.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA13782; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:55:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199710041955.MAA13782@implode.root.com> To: Andreas Klemm cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: freefall not reachable from from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 04 Oct 1997 15:50:03 +0200." <19971004155003.23469@klemm.gtn.com> From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 12:55:08 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >36 bytes from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104): Destination Host Unreachable >Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst > 4 5 00 5400 7206 0 0000 eb 01 b145 194.77.2.34 204.216.27.21 This appears to have been a temporary routing instability. It's working fine right now... -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 14:31:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA07554 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 14:31:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [192.109.159.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA07531 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 14:30:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with UUCP id WAA01700; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:15:11 +0100 (MET) Received: (from andreas@localhost) by klemm.gtn.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA17343; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:12:04 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from andreas) Message-ID: <19971004221204.49138@klemm.gtn.com> Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:12:04 +0200 From: Andreas Klemm To: dg@root.com Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: freefall not reachable from from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com References: <19971004155003.23469@klemm.gtn.com> <199710041955.MAA13782@implode.root.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 In-Reply-To: <199710041955.MAA13782@implode.root.com>; from David Greenman on Sat, Oct 04, 1997 at 12:55:08PM -0700 X-Disclaimer: A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT SMP Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, Oct 04, 1997 at 12:55:08PM -0700, David Greenman wrote: > >36 bytes from mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104): Destination Host Unreachable > >Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst > > 4 5 00 5400 7206 0 0000 eb 01 b145 194.77.2.34 204.216.27.21 > > This appears to have been a temporary routing instability. It's working > fine right now... I noticed that as well after some minutes. Thanks. -- Andreas Klemm powered by ,,symmetric multiprocessor FreeBSD'' andreas@klemm.gtn.com - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/SMP.html andreas@FreeBSD.ORG - http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/benches.html From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 19:51:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA20962 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 19:51:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA20955 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 19:51:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id UAA07165; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:55:47 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:55:47 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199710050255.UAA07165@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Tom CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: References: <199709300503.WAA12579@MindBender.serv.net> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk tom@sdf.com writes: > Yes, I was just thinking about that. If gcc is randomly dying on older > K6 processors, is it actually producing correct object code when it > doesn't crash? Yes. It is producing correct code when it crashes, too. It just jumps to the wrong address, which quickly leads to a crash. > AMD and Cyrix scare me. Intel's true competition is DEC, Motorola/IBM, > Sparc, and MIPS. And you assume they are perfect? Hah! The only way to trust any silicon is to read the errata sheets in great detail, and then disbelieve 90% of what you read. These chips are more complex than software, and their designers don't have any better idea what's happening inside the chips than you do inside the FreeBSD VM management code. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 20:33:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA22252 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:33:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA22243 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:33:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id VAA07197; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:38:03 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:38:03 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199710050338.VAA07197@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Mike Smith CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709301309.WAA00520@word.smith.net.au> References: <199709301226.OAA22862@bitbox.follo.net> <199709301309.WAA00520@word.smith.net.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike Smith writes: > > > > I'd much rather send my root password (over SSL) - that way, I can at > > least use S/Key. > > What's the smallest available secure HTTP server you know of? Anyone? Mine. (Soon to be secure.) The current FreeBSD version, written as several C++ classes, weighs in at about 8K of code (minus the libraries, of course). I'd guess that by the time I get secure mode added, it will be in the 20 - 24 K range. Is that reasonable? BTW, I've never written for SSL before, and don't even have it installed on this machine. So take everything I said with a largish grain of salt, right? ;^) > > However, if we're going to use Java anyway, there are lots of crypto > > we could use - but will this be the easiest way of implementing the > > interface? > > IMHO Java may be a lose, unless we can come up with a 'legacy' > interface for the terminal addicts and people with non-Java browsers. I agree; I was thinking more of sticking to forms, and ones supported by Lynx at that. I haven't researched Lynx enough lately, so I'll have to go take a look. Fortunately, one of the groups that is maintaining Lynx is located about a half mile from where I work, and I used to teach there. I can probably find out pretty quickly. ;^) As far as this high-flying Java/JavaScript/Tcl/etc discussion: at Dayna, we purposefully chose to do our interface to be visually interesting and to push the edge of technology. We have active database-linked HTML, server side includes, server push, Java applets, JavaScript, and compiled-in CGIs in our user interface. THIS WAS NOT AN EASY SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM! As I said before, we had several full time engineers, a full time experienced webmaster, and two dedicated graphical artists spend MONTHS on this. And this user interface is much smaller, perhaps two orders of magnitude smaller, than FreeBSD would require. GIVE IT UP, THIS JUST ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN! My idea was to keep the user interface, at least for ANY sort of browser tool, pretty simple. It is a straightforward task to product a server that can fill in and rewrite named variables in a database, text file, or whatever; the HTML source file can fill in whatever instructions and/or explanatory text needs to be added to instruct the user on the significance of this variable. Picture this as a sort of on-line rc.conf with the HTML containing the "comments" and the forms part containing the "variables." You can, of course, do some pretty complex things on the server side also, since you have the ability to exec any command on the system by writing a compiled-in CGI, but that really impacts the extensability and maintainability of the project. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 20:46:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA22608 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:46:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA22600 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:46:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id VAA07212; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:50:45 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:50:45 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199710050350.VAA07212@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Jamie Bowden CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199709301906.PAA29715@gatekeeper.itribe.net> References: <199709301309.WAA00520@word.smith.net.au> <199709301906.PAA29715@gatekeeper.itribe.net> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jamie Bowden writes: > If you can support lynx, you can support anything. I would make that the > LCD mark. Lynx is apparently gaining nice features while retaining its > X independence. OK, Jamie, now you've stepped in it. You're nominated our Lynx expert. No, no, don't bother kicking and screaming, we're not going to remove the nomination and YOU don't get to vote, because you're not on the team until you become the Lynx expert. Catch-22, see? How many of the following features does Lynx currently support? [ ] HTML 2.0 Forms. [ ] Secure document communication via SSL. [ ] Local server communication via a UNIX-domain socket. And remember, any of them that are not currently implemented fall into your hands, because you are now our Lynx expert, right? ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 20:55:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA22902 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:55:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA22894 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:54:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id VAA07218; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:59:22 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:59:22 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199710050359.VAA07218@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Mike Smith CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199710010650.QAA00865@word.smith.net.au> References: <34320C04.5DB5@xmission.com> <199710010650.QAA00865@word.smith.net.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I recently blathered: % I've been developing the prototype for the next generation of my % embedded web server on FreeBSD ;^) where it is working pretty well. % I'm willing to throw this in, if I can convince you (all-inclusive % you here) that it will be sufficiently secure. I can think of a % couple of ways to insure this, but it won't be completely painless. Mike Smith writes: > How do you feel about adding source-IP-based access control? That and > a local sshd in port-forwarding mode would just about do it. The existing version already has a limited form of IP src access control. I'd be happy to extend it in reasonable ways; this is something the product as a whole needs anyhow. I'm not terribly familiar with sshd port-forwarding mode, and we would have to determine if there are browser issues, but I'm always willing to learn. % I believe most security-enabled broswers support SSL communications for % "secure" documents. They also support extended, and *extenable* % authentication protocols, a number of which might be acceptable in % conjunction with SSL. > SSL is, AFAIK, subject to certain undesirable licensing conditions (not > exportable, not available for commercial use, etc.) which may render it > unsuitable. Gurk. How do the commercial server vendors do this? You know, IIS and Netscape Commerce Server, etc.? % The part I'm not certain of is the interaction with Lynx, which I % feel is a necessity for our situation. Another need is a simple % local communications path, so we can use Lynx to setup the machine % via the console, VGA or serial. Perhaps a UNIX-domain socket would % suffice, or even a FIFO. > What's wrong with an ordinary socket talking to the loopback address? Fine, once you have a loopback address. I'm still wondering how early in the installation process we'll be switching to this tool. If you haven't yet configured *any* network interfaces, a UNIX-domain socket created by the server is a pretty sure communications channel. Late enough in the installation, a loopback TCP socket would be no problem. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 21:09:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA23348 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:09:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA23343 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 21:08:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id WAA07234; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:13:45 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:13:45 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199710050413.WAA07234@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Mike Smith CC: Eivind Eklund , Jamie Bowden , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) In-Reply-To: <199710011500.AAA00618@word.smith.net.au> References: <199710011154.NAA20125@bitbox.follo.net> <199710011500.AAA00618@word.smith.net.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Eivind Eklund said: % SSLeay isn't too much subject to this; it was developed outside the % US. We'd need it integrated in a web-server, though, and I don't know % how the state of Apache-SSL is (Stronghold works just fine for my job, % so I haven't looked at the freeware side of this). Mike Smith writes: > Do you have the time to investigate this? A small embedded server with > this bolted on would be ideal. Yes, and I'd like to add this to my server anyhow. Have you done any programming with SSLeay, Eivind? If so, how much overhead does it take to setup SSLeay administratively, to add a service like HTTP to it, and to get an SSLeay-secured socket connection opened? And Jamie, as our newly crowned Lynx expert, do you know if Lynx supports and/or will interoperate with SSL? ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 22:13:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA25897 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:13:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hwcn.org (main.hwcn.org [199.212.94.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA25892 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:13:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (ac199@james.hwcn.org [199.212.94.66]) by hwcn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA17674; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 01:14:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA17704; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 01:14:21 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 01:14:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek X-Sender: ac199@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: Joseph Stein cc: Tim Vanderhoek , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: fbsdboot.exe In-Reply-To: <199710041752.KAA01607@shasta.wstein.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, Joseph Stein wrote: > Is using fbsdboot "the same as" a warm reset into freebsd? > > (I have a PNP card that requires an DOS program _each_ time the > system is power-cycled; therefore I have a DOS disk with the autoexec > batch file set to run that utility, but then I have to be around to > warm boot the machine.) Yup, same as that, but even warmer. ;-) -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Oct 4 22:33:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA26529 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:33:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.210.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA26524 for ; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:33:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tom by misery.sdf.com with smtp (Exim 1.71 #1) id 0xHjJ9-0004pB-00; Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:32:47 -0700 Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 22:32:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom To: Wes Peters cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas In-Reply-To: <199710050255.UAA07165@obie.softweyr.ml.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, Wes Peters wrote: > tom@sdf.com writes: > > Yes, I was just thinking about that. If gcc is randomly dying on older > > K6 processors, is it actually producing correct object code when it > > doesn't crash? > > Yes. It is producing correct code when it crashes, too. It just jumps > to the wrong address, which quickly leads to a crash. And that isn't going to lead to incorrect object code? I would not be that confident. It seems to that such a bug will eventually lead to situation where it makes a incorrect jump but doesn't crash. ... > happening inside the chips than you do inside the FreeBSD VM management > code. Hehe... making some assumptions again! > -- > "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" > > Wes Peters Softweyr LLC > http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com > > Tom