Successful test of encrypted usb drive
by Bruno Wolff III
While I think this feature has been available for a while, it might be worth
mentioning with the encrypted install feature.
I tried it out as follows (as root):
Plug in the usb drive and not the device name (/dev/sdc1 in my case)
Erase it with random data (which can take a while and isn't really needed
if no senstive data was previously on the device and you don't care about
leaking which blocks on the drive have been written)
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdc1
Create the encrypted area
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdc1
Enter the passphrase twice
Make the encrypted area a usable device
The name at the end is arbitrary, but don't use one already in use
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdc1 luks-usb
Create the file system using the name from above as the device
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/mapper/luks-usb
Close the encrypted device
cryptsetup luksClose /dev/mapper/luks-usb
Unplug the device
Now when you plug in the device (while logged in at the console using a GUI)
you will get asked for the passphrase and after prodiving the correct one
the device will work like a normal removable device.
Note that doing this limits you to using it with systems that support luks
and ext3, which isn't going to work for everyone.
16 years, 1 month
hwbrowser not showing DASD
by Clyde E. Kunkel
Hi, I just noticed that my drives are no longer showing up in hwbrowser
when I select hard drives.
Anyone else seeing this? I didn't see a bz and will enter one if others
seeing the same thing. This is on current rawhide x86 system, SATA and
IDE drives, no selinux.
--
__________________________
Regards,
Old Fart
16 years, 1 month
Re: install from rsync tree on local partition possible?
by Gianluca Cecchi
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:23:48 +0800 John Summerfield wrote:
> man mkisofs
So here we are. I created a 13Gb iso from the tree (updated today) with the
command:
mkisofs -v -U -J -R -T -f -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -V "Fedora rawhide i386
DVD" -o rawhide_290308.iso /dir_of_rsync_tree
NOTE: the date in the command is two days ago because I tried at that time,
but also today after updating tree (and without changing iso file name) but
with the same install errors (see below).
I'm able to mount the iso created as a loop device in my f8.
I'm able to use this iso image as dvd in qemu-kvm to start an install (I
stopped it after the screen with language selection...).
Then I burned the boot.iso file of the tree on a cdrw.
Then I booted it and chose an hard disk install type.
I point to the partition and dir with the iso file and I see the message
"local install media detected".
Suddenly then I get a traceback.
I attach console screen (installer exited abnormally[1/1]). The screenshot
is only for the latest lines in the screen....
Using Alt+Fkeys I can see respectively these on them (I got all screenshots
with digikam if it can be useful) on various consoles:
3) path to valid iso found (name is rawhide 290308.iso but it was rsynced
today with anaconda-11.4.0.61-1); try to mount; mounted; detected stage2
image on cd
4) iso9660 joliet level 3; unable to load NLS charset utf8; iso9660
extensions: rrip_1991A; isofs: unable to identify cd-rom format; vfs: can't
find an ext2 filesystem on /dev/loop0 (several times);
5) mount, wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0
(several times)
... (typical other 3 lines when you try to mount a bad file on a loop
device)
So it seems that local hard disk iso image method doesn't work either with
13Gb iso image.... Correct?
Or other suggestions...?
Thanks
Gianluca
16 years, 1 month
Rawhide First Impressions
by Martin Sourada
Hi,
I've installed rawhide from the Live Spin (20070327 snapshot) and here
are my first assorted impressions.
The Live CD works pretty well, I noticed only one hickup during the
usage - gnome became somehow not responsible after turning on compiz...
Installation went pretty well and I was impressed that it was faster
than ever before (it took about 5 mins excluding setting up). It seems
simpler than in previous fedoras.
The new First Boot seems to need some love in terms of graphics, but
from how it looks now, it seems it might be on schedule...
And now to the impressions of the work with rawhide itself:
Good impressions:
* The new package kit package management is awesome and seems a lot
faster than pup/pirut.
* Reworked system-config-services seem to have been gotten some love,
it's now quite straightforward to use :)
* The system seems to boot quite fast, I didn't do any measurements
yet, but it seems it boots in less than one minute (using the services
setting from install).
* The new date&time applet is really cool. I like that it can show
temperatures as well and the way how the time zone is set.
* Swfdec works much better than in F8. Youtube videos finally plays
without quirks and so far even without crashes :)
* The new gdm is a huge step forward. Finally there is smooth
transition from it to gnome session *THUMBS UP*
* TeXLive (namely the csplain format) works nice.
Mixed feelings:
* Seems like we are more permissive in what an ordinary user can do. I
opened some config dialogs without noticing, that I gained more
rights... while it simplifies life a lot I am not sure it's the right
thing to have it so much permissive by default...
* Totem youtube plugin works, but totem cannot play the files, even
with all the gstreamer-* lot form livna installed.
* The packagekit package management tool cannot import gpg certificate
for livna (so I had to install the first package in CLi via yum).
* During yum transactions I'm getting
error: failed to stat /home/martin/.gvfs: Permission denied
but it does not seem to do any harm
* When I looked into system monitor I noticed that gvfs-fuse-daemon
occupies nearly 7 GiB of my HDD space... Is there a way make the loss
smaller?
Bad impressions
* Epiphany does not see any firefox plugins
(https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=427369)
* Epiphany does not have an option to remember filled passwords (this
is definitely a regression... dunno if there is a bug for it)
* Video output (intel GMA 950) sucks. xv in mplayer does not work at
all, so I had to resort to x11 (does it know how to zoom videos??) and
gl2 (which is usable only for small videos, for big it's dreadfully
slow). Just for record this is the error:
X11 error: BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)0.8% 0 0
dunno if it's mplayer's fault or not
* Compiz does not work (again regression). Starts fine, but after a
while freezes whole ui (well, freeze is a bit strong... the ui is just
not responsive and cursor stays the same), so I have to wait for the
dialog to timeout. If I happen to close the dialog prior to freeze,
killing X seems necessary...
Anyway, seems like rawhide is quite usable and has a lot of new awesome
futures, but also some annoying bugs. Can't wait for final :-D
Martin
16 years, 1 month
vmware fusion xserver performance
by Andrew Farris
Hey all,
Has anyone else using VMWare Fusion (or any vmware) noticed a major change in X
server performance since beta? I'm seeing very slow window movement, screen
refresh, menu drawing, etc. Its so slow I find I have to make deliberately slow
mouse movements to get windows to move to where I want them while dragging.
Before beta I don't have this problem, its much faster. I still have a VM that
has not been updated since the freeze and the X performance is significantly better.
In the post-beta VM I have all disks encrypted (separate scsi vmblk disk for /
and /home), but in pre-beta I didn't have any encryption used. I'm also using
ext4 for both disks now and had ext3 for both before. I wouldn't expect either
of those things to have such a big impact on X performance though.
Thoughts? Its usable, just seems to be a performance regression.
--
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul(a)gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
gpg 0x8300BF29 fingerprint 071D FFE0 4CBC 13FC 7DEB 5BD5 5F89 8E1B 8300 BF29
revoked key 0xC99B1DF3 no longer used
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
---- ----
16 years, 1 month
Can't enable desktop effects in Fedora 9 Beta (GNOME)
by Scott Beamer
I'm running Fedora 9 Beta i686.
When I attempt to enable desktop effects (System --> Preferences --->
Look & Feel ---> Desktop Effects). The box to enable them pops up, I
click "Enable Desktop Effects". The screen blanks out and is totally
white. It then returns after I hit the escape key (it took a bit to
figure that out) and I'm back to the "enable" box again.
At that point I just clicked "close".
No desktop effects.
$ sudo /sbin/lspci | grep nVidia
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV40 [GeForce 6800
GT] (rev a1)
That card has 256MB of RAM. I've had no trouble with Compiz recently in
Betas of Mandriva or Ubuntu.
Is this a bug or a feature? ;)
Any ideas?
Curiously,
Scott
16 years, 1 month
Tuesday's Rawhide
by Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX
The NFS install actually installed a Working Linux today.
And it seems to understand that static IP means no DHCP.
However the settings for nameserver and gateway were ignored.
The new add software program still can't actually install software.
But at least yum still works.
I've noticed that another distro automatically looks for a different
driver if the X server can't get going. This would be useful
for Fedora, or at least a text mode command to set X
to use the appropriate driver.
--
Chuck Forsberg caf(a)omen.com www.omen.com 503-614-0430
Developer of Industrial ZMODEM(Tm) for Embedded Applications
Omen Technology Inc "The High Reliability Software"
10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231 FAX 629-0665
16 years, 1 month
npviewer.bin + samba
by "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson"
SELinux is preventing npviewer.bin (nsplugin_t) "getattr" to
/etc/samba/smb.conf (samba_etc_t).
Is selinux preventing npviewer for doing something it's supposed to be doing
or is selinux preventing npviewer for doing something it not supposed to
be doing
Curios to know why npviewer.bin wants to access my smb.conf...
Best regards
Johann B.
16 years, 1 month
nspluginwrapper issues
by Reid Rivenburgh
Hi. I'm running an updated F9 beta on a new 64 bit computer. I've
been running fedora for a long time, but I'm new to the world of
64-bit issues.
I'm trying to get the Adobe flash plugin working with firefox. I
found out about nspluginwrapper, so I installed that package. When I
run this:
% mozilla-plugin-config -i -f -v
with libflashplayer.so in the /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins directory, I get this:
INFO: Wrapping /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so to
/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_64_64.libflashplayer.so...
WARNING: Wrapper /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/npconfig is not accessible!
I noticed it was handling a different plugin correctly, so I tried to
replicate the underlying command:
% /usr/lib64/nspluginwrapper/npconfig -p nswrapper_64_64 -d
/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped -i
/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
nspluginwrapper: no appropriate viewer found for
/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
Am I doing something wrong here?
I tried installing gnash as well, but it failed the youtube test, not
showing a video. I'd be happy to use an open source alternative,
though!
Thanks,
reid
16 years, 1 month
