- Roundtable - muug.ca

GNOME: staring into the abyss
by Adam Thompson 29 Jul '12

29 Jul '12

http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2012/07/27/staring-into-the-abyss/ Interesting post from a GNOME core developer on the state of the Gnome world... -Adam

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Neat trick... passing _environment variables_ to openssl.
by Sean Cody 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

Neat trick with OpenSSL is that a bunch of variables can be substituted with environment variables. Now you may be thinking, "yeah, they call it scripting" but the reality is a bit more subtle. For instance you want to pass credentials to a chain of openssl commands. You can substitute the credential in your script but the credential ends up in logs (ie. using sudo) or the process list thereby exposing the credentials to the untrained eye. With this option you tell openssl... 'for this value lookup the environment variable X' so upon invocation your command string shows only the variable name and not the credential. Here is an example script which illustrates this by dumping the contents of a wack load of PKCS12 certificate stores. Note the passwords for import and keys are passed in without exposing the credentials outside of the process environment. Pretty slick bit of functionality. #!/bin/sh #./check_certificates.sh 2>/dev/null | grep 'CN\=.*example\.com$' <--- dump certificates grab .gwl.bz hostnames from CNs PACKAGE_FOLDER=packages/ EXPORT_PASSWORD="ZOMGWTFBBQ^2!" export EXPORT_PASSWORD for HOST in `cat hosts.txt`; do # Show contents of PCKS12 package, don't care if it's named p12 or pfx. openssl pkcs12 -info -in ${PACKAGE_FOLDER}/${HOST}.p* -passin env:EXPORT_PASSWORD -passout env:EXPORT_PASSWORD done # Not _entirely_ necessary but never hurts. EXPORT_PASSWORD="" export EXPORT_PASSWORD -- Sean

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Emails blocked by government
by Michael Sierks 20 Jul '12

20 Jul '12

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I have inherited a poorly maintained SMTP server with lots of spam going through this server everyday. I have slowly been killing off spammers mail accounts and removing the server from various blockilists. And the server has not been sending any spam for months now. I'm also able to send mail to almost everyone again, except to emails with the "gov.mb.ca" domain. I get the reply "refused by EDS blackhole list". My question is, how do I get my server unblocked by the Manitoba government ? Mike Sierks

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[OT] Hackathon this Saturday at Skullspace
by Mark Jenkins 18 Jul '12

18 Jul '12

Hey MUUG members, As some of you already know Winnipeg has a hackerspace called Skullpace. http://www.skullspace.ca http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Main_Page The third Saturday of every month (noon-8pm) is a both a hackathon and open day where we invite non-members to come and see our space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Hackathons The hackathon this month (July 21) is this upcoming Saturday. Normally we try to keep our noise down to encourage work and collaboration, but this month we're going to go for a crazy, loud party atmosphere with music (including live DJs) and challenge ourselves to get work done anyway. http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Too_loud_to_hackathon So, not the best day for tours and such, but we are dropping the music at 7pm and giving lightning talks on what we managed to get done in that atmosphere -- that should be a good opportunity to learn about some of the projects our members are working on. I'm going to be working on a retro-project called "Back in my day, we punched tape instead of each other" with the help of PDP-11 emulator SIMH. http://skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Skullspace_Hardware_Programming_Challen… Mark

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Odd LDAP issue
by Robert Keizer 18 Jul '12

18 Jul '12

Maybe someone can point out that I'm being a complete idiot. I've got a custom LDAP schema ( see below ) that defines 2 attributes, namely "clientAccountEnabled" and "clientDownloadsAvailable". Their sytax is defined by the LDAP schema for Boolean and Int values. I'm also making use of a "dead-space" OID of 1.1.x until the enterprise allocation goes through. The objectClass of "clientAccount" enforces that both fields must exist in any object of this type. I've got a few objects which have the objectType of clientAccount ( example below ). The problem I'm running into is that any filtering I do with these fields doesn't work. Only testing that the fields exists seems to work. 1. '(&(uid=robert)(objectClass=clientAccount))' - works 2. '(&(uid=robert)(objectClass=clientAccount)(clientAccountEnabled=*))' - works ( tests if the field exists ) 3. '(&(uid=robert)(objectClass=clientAccount)(clientAccountEnabled=TRUE))' - Fails 4. '(&(uid=robert)(objectClass=clientAccount)(!(clientAccountEnabled=TRUE)))' - Fails Obviously 3 and 4 should be mutually exclusive, but nothing shows up. I've checked that the field types ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 and 1.3.6.1.4.1.1446.115.121.1.27 ) are valid, as setting them to another type fails with syntax errors. Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.. I've been banging my head against the wall for a couple hours now. Rob Schema: n: cn={4}client,cn=schema,cn=config objectClass: olcSchemaConfig cn: {4}client olcAttributeTypes: {0}( 1.1.1.1 NAME 'clientAccountEnabled' SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1 .1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE ) olcAttributeTypes: {1}( 1.1.1.2 NAME 'clientDownloadsAvailable' SYNTAX 1.3.6.1 .4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) olcObjectClasses: {0}(1.1.2.1 NAME 'clientAccount' DESC 'A Client Account' SUP top AUXILIARY MUST ( uid $ clientAccountEnabled $ clientDownloadsAvailable ) ) LDAP Object with objectClass=clientAccount: # robert, people, younessleeptechnologies.com dn: uid=robert,ou=people,dc=younessleeptechnologies,dc=com uid: robert uidNumber: 20000 gidNumber: 20000 cn: robert sn: robert objectClass: top objectClass: person objectClass: posixAccount objectClass: shadowAccount objectClass: clientAccount loginShell: /bin/sh homeDirectory: /home/robert clientDownloadsAvailable: 10 clientAccountEnabled: TRUE

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Re: [RndTbl] Roundtable Digest, Vol 91, Issue 3
by Steve Moffat 13 Jul '12

13 Jul '12

Seeing as this is already labeled as "geeky", let me add that it is nice to put your PID in the lockfile so that if a new instance of the program finds it, it can determine if the lockfile is stale by checking for the PID of the program that created it. Steve Moffat (my $.05, cuz we don't use pennies any more) From: roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca, Date: 07/13/2012 12:01 PM Subject: Roundtable Digest, Vol 91, Issue 3 Sent by: roundtable-bounces(a)muug.mb.ca Send Roundtable mailing list submissions to roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca You can reach the person managing the list at roundtable-owner(a)muug.mb.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Roundtable digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: race conditions? (John Lange) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:18:49 -0400 From: John Lange <john(a)johnlange.ca> To: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca> Subject: Re: [RndTbl] race conditions? Message-ID: <CAPfXoshL7BUo+3HWe+5v0FNs61VMa1BnTa7d5xBYYY=sBNyhQg(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I nominate this as the geekiest thread on MUUG in recent memory. Nicely done boys! Reminds me why i'm on this list. Oh ya, and what Sean(s) said. Lockfile. John

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race conditions?
by Adam Thompson 13 Jul '12

13 Jul '12

I just wrote the following snippet to quickly rotate some log files. I know this runs without bound, that's acceptable and desirable in this case. What I'm worried about is creating race conditions if this gets run from cron every minute... ###check if daemon has died### if daemon-is-dead; then L=mydaemon.log shopt -u failglob for i in $( ls -1r ${L}.[0-9]* 2>/dev/null ); do N=${i#$L.} M=$(( ${N} + 1 )) mv -n $i "${L}.${M}" done if [ -f ${L} ] ; then mv -n ${L} ${L}.1; fi restart-daemon fi Am I shooting myself in the foot here? The obvious race condition is if two copies run simultaneously, but this is only for temporary debugging purposes. If necessary, I'll change the cron job from every minute to every five minutes. Even then, the '-n' option to GNU mv should protect me...? Does anyone have a safer way to do this sort of thing manually? I don't want this logfile managed by logrotate(8). -Adam Thompson DMTS (Contractor) athompso(a)dmts.biz (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax

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SGI Wikipedia project - neat
by Adam Thompson 30 Jun '12

30 Jun '12

http://www.sgi.com/go/wikipedia/ Kind of neat… all done using an SGI UV 2000 (http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/uv/models.html#uv2000) using Perl scripts and GraphViz running under either SuSE or RHEL, not sure which. I shudder to think of how much data was parsed to come up with these images. -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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Re: [RndTbl] Business Basic BBx Data Extraction
by Adam Thompson 21 Jun '12

21 Jun '12

Oh, FYI... The reason I thought I could do a BBx app migration was that I used to be a BBx programmer. Fat lot of good it did me. -Adam Adam Thompson <athompso(a)athompso.net> wrote: >You haven't been led astray - flat file goes not necessarily mean text or human-readable. The data is in an ISAM format, and you will either need to locate and purchase one of the data extraction tools that used to be on the market, or write an extraction routine yourself in BBx. >There is a very small amount of information out there about their file format, if you want to try writing a BBx decoding library from scratch. >It might be much easier to set up a dummy printer and print out each patient's complete file - there's likely a print routine in the software. Then take the output and parse it with your favourite programming language. If you get fancy with a printcap definition, you might find ways of making the parsing easier. This still might require a temp sitting at a terminal for several days printing one file at a time. >I've done one AIX to Linux conversion of a BBx app... I'm never doing that again except on a time-and-materials basis, for about $500/hr with no estimates up front. >BBx is a decent programming language (especially for its time) but they have (or had, it's been a few years) absolutely no idea how to package their software, or how to build it in a portable manner. I remember having to exclude libc from updates because the interpreter would break on anything except the EXACT version they had compiled against. >Which, fyi, means any system running a BBx app probably has multiple exploitable bugs that have long since been patched. >Have fun, >-Adam > > >Michael Sierks <msierks(a)gwn.ca> wrote: > >>Hello All, >> >>I have an issue with some software that is well before my time and was >>hoping someone from the muug group would be of assistance. I have been >>tasked with extracting data from the following program. >> >>Assyst Practice Managment (GENIE) Software >>V8.8.6 an Emergis Inc. Product(STX.EME) >> >>This program itself is running on an old AIX 5.1 server and has been >>written in BBx Pro5, a language I didn't even know existed. This >>language appears to be an extension of Basic and is know as Business >>Basic. Written by this company. >> >>http://www.basis.com/. >> >>Now the trouble is this program has no built in way of >>dumping/extracting the data. It isn't using Pro/5's built in data >>storage engine so I cannot simply use ODBC to pull the data out. We have >>been informed it is storing all its data in a flat file. And the best >>way to retrieve the data is by reading backups from the tape drive, >>which we have done so. The data files retrieved mostly end in the ".REC" >>and ".SUB" file extensions and appear to contain some patient info. But >>the largest file that seems to contain most data begins with the text >>"<<bbx>>" and is definetely not stored as flatfile. >> >>Does anyone have experience with this BBx language or does anybody have >>any ideas for extracting the data ? I ask because the company that has >>written this practice management software has no interest in assisting >>with exporting the data. Any suggestions are appreciated. >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Roundtable mailing list >>Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >>http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > >_______________________________________________ >Roundtable mailing list >Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

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Re: [RndTbl] Business Basic BBx Data Extraction
by Adam Thompson 20 Jun '12

20 Jun '12

You haven't been led astray - flat file goes not necessarily mean text or human-readable. The data is in an ISAM format, and you will either need to locate and purchase one of the data extraction tools that used to be on the market, or write an extraction routine yourself in BBx. There is a very small amount of information out there about their file format, if you want to try writing a BBx decoding library from scratch. It might be much easier to set up a dummy printer and print out each patient's complete file - there's likely a print routine in the software. Then take the output and parse it with your favourite programming language. If you get fancy with a printcap definition, you might find ways of making the parsing easier. This still might require a temp sitting at a terminal for several days printing one file at a time. I've done one AIX to Linux conversion of a BBx app... I'm never doing that again except on a time-and-materials basis, for about $500/hr with no estimates up front. BBx is a decent programming language (especially for its time) but they have (or had, it's been a few years) absolutely no idea how to package their software, or how to build it in a portable manner. I remember having to exclude libc from updates because the interpreter would break on anything except the EXACT version they had compiled against. Which, fyi, means any system running a BBx app probably has multiple exploitable bugs that have long since been patched. Have fun, -Adam Michael Sierks <msierks(a)gwn.ca> wrote: >Hello All, > >I have an issue with some software that is well before my time and was >hoping someone from the muug group would be of assistance. I have been >tasked with extracting data from the following program. > >Assyst Practice Managment (GENIE) Software >V8.8.6 an Emergis Inc. Product(STX.EME) > >This program itself is running on an old AIX 5.1 server and has been >written in BBx Pro5, a language I didn't even know existed. This >language appears to be an extension of Basic and is know as Business >Basic. Written by this company. > >http://www.basis.com/. > >Now the trouble is this program has no built in way of >dumping/extracting the data. It isn't using Pro/5's built in data >storage engine so I cannot simply use ODBC to pull the data out. We have >been informed it is storing all its data in a flat file. And the best >way to retrieve the data is by reading backups from the tape drive, >which we have done so. The data files retrieved mostly end in the ".REC" >and ".SUB" file extensions and appear to contain some patient info. But >the largest file that seems to contain most data begins with the text >"<<bbx>>" and is definetely not stored as flatfile. > >Does anyone have experience with this BBx language or does anybody have >any ideas for extracting the data ? I ask because the company that has >written this practice management software has no interest in assisting >with exporting the data. Any suggestions are appreciated. > >_______________________________________________ >Roundtable mailing list >Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

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