I got the machine reloaded but didn’t last to the mail maintenance.  So I will be doing that tonight around 11pm-11:20pm.  The client mail server will be down during that interval.

Incoming mail will continue to be processed and will be accessible during that interval via shell mailers like pine, mutt, elm, mailx, etc.  Web mail and client mail programs like Thunderbird, Outlook, etc will not be operational during that interval.

I will be taking the client mail server down just after midnight to image the machine so that if it is necessary to restore it will have all the recent updates in the image. This will take approximately 20 minutes.

During this time, web mail will be unavailable, it will not be possible to access mail via IMAP or POP3 mail clients, and you will not be able to send mail.

You will be able to read mail via shell mailers such as pine, elm, mutt, mush, and mailx during this time frame.  Outgoing mail sent via shell mailers should queue and be sent when the client mail server is returned to service.

I will be in and out this late afternoon and evening, first to attend a Shoreline Community Meeting that concerns possibly turning the street I use to get to my home into a one-way which would make getting in and out a nightmare, and then second to reload CentOS onto a new server I’m trying to get operational at the co-location facility.

We changed the motherboard and the new motherboard has a different Ethernet chip and we’ve already tried to rebuild the initramfs manually and it didn’t fly.  So I’m just going to reload this machine as it has nothing important on it yet.  This machine will be used to provide virtual machines to customers.

If you call, PLEASE leave voice mail, I will be out around 5:15PM, back in briefly around 7:45PM, and out again by around 8:30PM.  Please also leave how late it will be okay to call you back.

Because things didn’t go entirely well this morning, I’m going to have to take shellx down for approximately 25 minutes to image it again tonight just after midnight.

Please do not give your files and directories public write permissions.  People do bad things with them.

I suggest setting your umask at least to 022, this will automatically take away public and group write permissions for any files and directories you create.

Today, I had to clean up several dozen user web pages which were publicly writable and had been vandalized to include malicious JavaScript code.  These modifications were made possible by users setting permissions on their files allowing public write.

We are reaching that time when the radio-active isotopes from Fukushima start to wash up on the beaches of the west coast, and as it happens those of us between Portland and Vancouver will get the brunt of it.

I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t more than coincidence that the US Government has passed legislation to make death records unavailable to the public.

They claim it is to prevent fraud, but any fraud that it would prevent isn’t new.  What is new is that we’ll probably see a gradual creeping up of the rates of leukemia and other bone cancers as we take radioactive cesium into our bodies through the food chain.

I don’t know how big of a problem this will be in reality as information that is available on the Internet is totally wild ranging from there will be no effect to it will be the end of humanity.  I think the most likely scenario is somewhere in-between.

I don’t own a Geiger-counter and they’ve gotten quite expensive lately so I’m not likely to own one in the near future.  But that seems to be the only reliable way to get a handle on what we’re actually being exposed to.

It doesn’t seem like we’re going to get honest information from our government.

If you get an e-mail telling you that your password will expire in 3 Days or some such, it is not from us, it is a phishing scam trying to get your login credentials here.

We do not use password aging here.  On sites that do use it, I tend to choose bad passwords since I’ve got to think them up on the spot and have them be something memorable, and I think that is the case for most people, others probably write them down where other people can get them.

For Mac users, Chicken VNC is another way you can get a remote desktop from our server on your computer allowing you to use graphical applications here.

Instructions for connecting are at: http://www.eskimo.com/shell/visual/chicken.html.

X2Go provides a remote desktop from our server on your computer.

X2Go is a replacement for NX which is based upon the NX 3.5 libraries. X2Go includes support for sound (though on a Windows system I tested it on, it tended to stutter).

Unlike other NX clients, X2Go doesn’t require installing a key. Setup is extremely easy on Linux.

On Windows it requires Ming X-server and installs it as part of the installation process.

On MacOS, it requires XQuartz which you must install.  It is reported to work under Leopard and Snow Leopard but does seem to work under Lion where it has key mapping issues similar to OpenNX.

X2Go setup instructions are at http://www.eskimo.com/shell/visual/x2go.html.

We will have to reboot and image all the machines Saturday morning just after midnight.

There will be about a 15 minute downtime of everything and then individual services will go down for 15-20 minutes.  I’m hoping a two hour window will be enough time to complete everything but if not, we may need more time Sunday morning.

The reboot is necessary to load the latest Linux kernel, and the images to capture the machines in their current state in case one needs to be restored.