December 2018 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

war story: power failure makes CentOS system unbootable
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Sep '22

30 Sep '22

tl;dr / spoiler: change fstab so that /boot/efi is not automatically mounted. See the recommendation at the end of this message. My gateway computer is a little PC running CentOS. It does not come back after a power failure. The reason (as best I can tell) is interesting and I think that I have a fix. My system is UEFI. It boots from a UEFI system partition, known as /boot/efi to Linux. If this gets corrupted, it won't boot. It is a VFAT partition. On my gateway (a Zotac Zbox RI321, a cute little box with two ethernet ports), the UEFI firmware apparently won't boot if the dirty bit is set in the system partition. CentOS normally runs with /boot/efi mounted. So when the system isn't shut down cleanly, the dirty bit will be on. Consequence: the system is not going to boot after a power failure. Odd observation 1: if I put a live Fedora 25 USB stick in the system and try to boot in this otherwise-unbootable state, CentOS boots from the main disk. So this really looks like a firmware bug/quirk. Odd observation 2: fsck doesn't seem to automatically fix the system partition. Once CentOS 7 booted, I dismounted /boot/efi and did an fsck on it. $ sudo fsck /dev/sda1 fsck from util-linux 2.23.2 fsck.fat 3.0.20 (12 Jun 2013) 0x25: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt. 1) Remove dirty bit 2) No action ? 1 Leaving filesystem unchanged. /dev/sda1: 16 files, 2420/51145 clusters Googling got me to <https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50917> In particular, this advice seemed quite good: ==== recommendation ==== Two other changes I recommend for UEFI systems, to each OS's /etc/fstab. - For the /boot/efi mountpoint, add the mount options x-systemd.automount,noauto - Change fs_passno (last column) to a 1 or 2; the canonical fstab instructions suggest 2, but systemd treats 1 and 2 as the same. The first change means the EFI System partition will not be automatically read-write mounted at boot time; it's a bad idea this is the default because it puts the ESP at risk especially if ther are crashes, FAT has no journal and will therefore always be marked dirty in such a case; no other UEFI OS mounts the ESP by default. Second, if anything tries to access /boot/efi (read or write), systemd will automatically mount it, and because of the fs_passno 1 or 2, it will fsck it first and that fixes and clears the dirty bit in case it's set. Right now without these changes, it's just a matter of having the right number and bad timing of crashes to render the EFI System partition corrupt.

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Invitation to a Debian Bug Squashing Party in Montreal
by Znoteer 04 Jan '19

04 Jan '19

Hello everyone, I've been lurking on this list since slightly before DebConf17 last year (well, soon two years ago :) to which I wanted to invite you all. I'm back with another invitation. Debian is preparing a major release. There are some release critical bugs. Debian users worldwide are holding Bug Squashing Parties to try and resolve as many of these critical bugs as possible as quickly as possible. We're holding one in Montreal. It's a weekend affair, so we're hoping to see people come from out of town for the 19th and 20th of January. Is there is a Debian community within GTALUG that might consider coming? Maybe you can car pool or get a cheap bus or Via Rail ticket. Maybe even a cheap flight... Don't forget that the Debian Project is willing to reimburse up to the Canadian equivalent of USD $100 of expenses for qualified contributors to attend BSPs. Here are some relevant links for those who might be interested: https://lists.debian.org/debian-dug-nyc/2018/12/msg00000.html https://agendadulibre.qc.ca/events/1942 https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2019/01/ca/Montreal If any of you are thinking of coming and have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks, and maybe see some of you in a couple of weeks! -- Znoteer znoteer(a)mailbox.org

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December 2017 meeting video
by Alex Volkov 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

Hello everyone, December 2018 meeting, Getting to know VDO with Aaren de Jong is available on youtube. https://youtu.be/5UfdX3pEemw Cheers, Alex.

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Looking for Lighting Talks for January's meeting on Linux Distros!
by Myles Braithwaite 👾 18 Dec '18

18 Dec '18

GTALUG is having another Lighting Talks night for the 8th January meeting. If you are interested in giving a talk about your favorite Linux Distribution (or what ever you want to talk about), send an email to speakers(a)gtalug.org!

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[GTALUG-Announce] GTALUG Meeting Tonight
by hi＠gtalug.org 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

<https://gtalug.org/meeting/2018-12/> # VDO for CentOS, RHEL and beyond w/ Aaren deJong VDO is the new storage layer from Red Hat for block level compression, deduplication and zero-block omission. It's not just for RHEL and it's likely the start of something bigger for open-source storage. Those familiar with (open)ZFS might find this familiar and/or interesting. ## Location George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre 245 Church Street, Room 203 Ryerson University <https://goo.gl/maps/16oJ2> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23447525> ## Schedule * 6:00 pm - Please discuss on the general mailing list (i.e. <talk(a)gtalug.org>) where you want to go for dinner. * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. * 9:00 pm - After each meeting, a group of GTALUGers move to The Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East) for refreshments and more socialising. # Code of Conduct We want a productive happy community that can welcome new ideas, improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between individuals with differing needs, interests and skills. We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment. We will challenge prejudice that could jeopardise the participation of any person in the community. The Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the Linux community will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the community officially or informally, claims affiliation or participates directly. It applies to activities online or offline. We invite anybody to participate. Our community is open. Please read more about the GTALUG Code of Conduct here: <https://gtalug.org/about/code-of-conduct/>. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the GTALUG Code of Conduct please contact the GTALUG Board @ <board(a)gtalug.org>. --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Linux on ppc64 (G5) - distro support
by Stewart Russell 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Hey - so I picked up a couple of very pretty but backbreakingly-heavy Apple G5s - one dual-core, the other dual-processor single core. I know these are old machines (2005) and vastly inefficient compared to modern machines: there are faster ARM SBCs. G5s make amazing room heaters when they are busy. Distro support seems to have completely dropped away for these machines. ppc64el is alive and well on IBM servers, but PowerMacs are big-endian. Anyone using ppc64 here? What distro would you recommend? Debian used to have ppc64 support, but its last release is in LTS with no future releases planned. Cheers Stewart

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war story: reviving an old computer
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

I had an old computer in storage for a couple of years. Separate from its disk drive (SSD). After I reinstalled the drive, it would not show many signs of life. Not even a POST screen. I plugged and unplugged everything from the motherboard (except the processor). Then it would limpingly sort-of boot. The problem looked like disk errors. I tested power-supply voltages with a cheap tester designed for that purpose. OK. I tested the SSD on another machine using a SATA to USB 3 dock. The disk looked OK and I was able to fsck the appropriate partitions. Still booting was a bit wonky. I replaced the SATA cable for the drive. It booted fine. ==== The system is quite old. It seems to have some oddball limitations on booting: - no UEFI support - the firmware cannot boot from a Fedora 29 Live USB stick. It can be selected as a boot source, but the boot doesn't happen - but two OSes (CentOS 5.11 and Fedora 20) do see the USB stick and contents - the firmware cannot boot from the SATA Bluray / DVD / CD drive. Probably the firmware can only boot from ATAPI optical drives. - Fedora sees exactly the expected bytes when it reads from the SATA optical drive (the contents are the Fedora 29 Live image)

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Streaming address for Jazz91 FM?
by Peter King 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

For a long time I used streamripper successfully to catch certain shows on our very own Toronto station, Jazz91 FM (CJRT). A few months ago the address (http://streamertheta.jazz.fm:8000) stopped working, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to identify a working stream from the station, even though it's possible to play it live over the web. Any ideas, suggestions, or even addresses? -- Peter King peter.king(a)utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42

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