/dev/chat

12:15 AM

@slm this file?

/etc/passwd

ah, OK

a hacker had gotten into my FC1 system that was my DMZ and was using it as a eggdrop repeater (linux.about.com/cs/linux101/g/eggdrop.htm) for bouncing commands into a botnet

@slm yeah, I remember, and you finally convinced the feds to take an interest. You were even offered a job wren't you?

no job

yeah

was annoying but extremely educational

different topic but someone sent me this video today

►

12:22 AM

by the way @slm, great answer on the where is the file name stored but where is it actually stored? You say it is "within the directories' information structure" but where is that stored?

@terdon superblock

I ran out of time at work to construct a demo via command line to show that

was trying to figure out a way to illustrate it

@slm wow. And it's missing all of Israel's, obviously. Shit! That's a lot of bombs. Where were they being detonated in the states? Is that Arizona?

yes

wow

12:30 AM

technically it's nevada

I told my coworker that the countries didn't need to bomb each other, they're bombing themselves pretty good

i couldn't believe the total number, humans are friggin idiots

Yeah. Note that the French and English had the sense (and callousness) to at least not detonate them in their own (mainland) countries. Bastards.

@Braiam So you're saying, in general, LAMP is not necessarily very secure, and it might in fact make it harder to secure if you ARE interested in doing the patch work? — Kevin 14 mins ago

@strugee OK, where's that saved? dumpe2fs /dev/sda7 | grep -i superblock gives me something but I'm not sure what. Clusters?

maybe I should drop that in the DMZ...

@terdon I've no idea how to get it. varies by fs for sure

Gilles

12:36 AM

@terdon and lack of room

@strugee OK, but presumably it is a file somewhere. From what (very) little I know, it seems to be part of the actual file system. If so, the filesystem's size should increase with each new file/dir I create. Is that so?

@Gilles true, pretty sure some Indian tribes might object to the idea of there being so much room in those parts of the states as well though

@terdon no. this is why you run out of inodes. the superblock is the region of the filesystem at the very beginning that keeps track of this stuff.

it's allocated a fixed size at filesystem creation time, generally

@strugee OK, but to keep track of it, it needs to record it. Therefore more space is needed to save the name of each new file that is created. Even if that were a tiny single byte.

it depends on filesystem but that's why you run into problems running out of inodes, is because when the filesystem was created there wasn't enough space saved for inode information

@terdon no, because there is an entire region dedicated to inode information.

Ah, so you're saying that the superblock is created with all the inodes stored and creating a file simply changes the name of the pointer to that inode and so would not change the size of the stored data?

@strugee exactly, it is that region I am wondering about

12:40 AM

the data in the superblock grows but your filesystem doesn't, because it is just expanding into blank (but allocated) space

@terdon almost. inodes aren't created at filesystem creation per se, but you get to choose how much room you dedicate for inodes.

Q: How to sort a list of files by time, given only the filenames

@strugee OK, so the superblock is not part of the filesystem? It still counts as part of the disk space occupied thogh

Wow, just wow:

2

Given a list of file names, how can I sort it by file modification time? The resulting output needs to look exactly like the input with the exception that the data has been sorted accordingly. Here is a sample of the input. /jobs/crm/import/done/20140227-1359-0009.txt /jobs/bridge/open-workite...

Q after edit:

Ah, no, I take that back, he did actually explain.

@terdon the superblock is part of the filesystem. the filesystem basically consists of the superblock (which is at the beginning, is relatively small and is generally a fixed size once created) and everything else is dedicated to the actual data in the files. superblock = metadata, everything else = data

@strugee yes, exactly. Hence the size of the superblock affects the size of the filesystem.

@terdon yes but it doesn't change when you create a new file

Q: Is there a way to cat files as they are created?

Presumably the size of wherever the file/dir names are stored is set at file system creation time to be MAX_NAME_LENGTH * NUMBER_OF_INODES

Only way I can think if to not have it's size change.

Anyway, can we reopen this:

3

Unlike the answer to this question (Can a bash script be hooked to a file?) I want to be able to see content of files that haven't been created yet as or after they are created. I don't know when they will be created or what they will be named. That solution is for a specific file and actually ...

bash files output real-time

and close it as a dupe of this:

11

Q: Script to monitor folder for new files?

How do I detect new files in a folder with a bash script? I would like to process the files as soon as they are created in the folder. Is this possible to do so or do I have to schedule a script with cron that that check for new files each minute or so?

shell filesystems files directory monitoring

12:47 AM

vvvv

It needs 3 more reopen votes, @Braiam @strugee @slm @Graeme (I assume you've already done so) @Gilles

@qwr ▲▲▲▲

@terdon just did

this is completely unrelated to unix and linux but does anyone know why stackoverflow is so popular

@qwr on the main site I'd close that as opinion based ;)

It is rank 58 on alexa.

Graeme

12:49 AM

Um, how do I vote for a reopen?

it beats popular sites like reddit

so?

Graeme

Do I need more rep for that?

are there really that many people visiting the website

@Graeme yes, sorry, you need 3k

@qwr apparently so. Why does it surprise you?

12:50 AM

yes

@terdon exactly. there's more data needed for things like permissions but yeah that's basically how it works

@qwr it has 2.9m registered users

Gilles

@terdon 1 more

according to reddit it had 2.8 million registered users in a day

active

@qwr it is by far and away the best site to get quick and high quality solutions for programming problems. A disproportionate amount of the people who are on the internet are either programmers or simply write code now and then so it makes sense that a popular programming site would be one of the most popular places online.

12:52 AM

done

@Braiam damn we're good :)

Voting to close again

@terdon Yes I thought about the unproportionate amount

this is specifically why I didn't post this as a question

wow, the close queue has 4 items

@terdon I cast the 5th vote

not @Braiam

(I think)

stackoverflow beats pornhub

just think about that

12:55 AM

@qwr the miracle happened ;)

@qwr my friend won't believe you

link?

alexa.com/topsites/global;2

@qwr 1) pornhub is one site among the millions of similar/equivalent ones, Stack Overflow has become the site for programming questions. 2) a lot more people will attempt to hide their visits to pornhub than will try and hide their visits to Stack Overflow. Depending on how they count, that could make a difference

it is ordered by traffic

also wtf is qq.com

@qwr and proves my point, there are 2 porn sites before Stack Overflow but it is the only programming related site on the first 2 pages. So, all programmers seem to be going to it. Also, remember that programming is really a very common activity among geeks (the internet is full of those). Even among non professionals (I'm not, for example).

Just look around the SE network and you will see many many people who have high rep profiles in English Language & Usage or Biology or Photography or whatever and also have accounts on SO. A lot of people dabble in programming.

Also, @qwr why are you asking us? You do know that this is not Stack Overflow right?

1:02 AM

he knows

he said so

if I asked on stackoverflow I'd be met with "unconstructive question"

"off topic" "not appropriate for this site" :P

the only thing I remember about unix is that I used it a long time ago

I meant their chat room

they have a chatroom?

@qwr that was probably Linux ;)

@qwr yes, they have very very many.

All SE sites do

I vaguely remember typing commands

and then deciding it wasn't worth the time at the time

1:08 AM

is insulting Linux a bannable offense?

@strugee not if it's Ubuntu. Perhaps if it's arch and you get rep for insulting RedHat

s/Linux/GNU/Linux/

true :P

@strugee tsk, s/Linux/GNU\/Linux/ :)

I considered relearning linux

but then I decided it wasn't worth the time

Slackware's OK too

1:10 AM

@qwr go for it, it's fun!

to insult

@strugee never used it (and I'm actually quite fond of Fedora when @slm isn't around to hear)

I tried it. It wasn't very fun.

@terdon I know. I did it for the children('s readability)

@terdon neither have I (cut my teeth on Ubuntu) but according to Gilles it was a great distro for 1998

@qwr things have changed a lot in the past few years, try again. MOst (all) modern Linux flavors come with a live system. You just put a cd into your drive, reboot your computer and try it out with no installation or danger to your installed system

1:12 AM

the problem is that it's still a great distro for 1998

@qwr I second that. just don't use Ubuntu. I recommend Mint

@strugee it was dammit, it was (though not at '98, it came out in 2004). I started using it around 2005 I guess and was hooked. It weaned me off of openSuSe

well, SuSe actually

I meant Slackware. not Ubuntu.

@strugee nah, come on, Ubuntu is fine for a beginner. We have ethical issues with it but those are neither here nor there.

I mean, I also have basic usability issues with it but that's cause I'm a Linux geek.

@strugee oh, OK

I was using Mandrake in '98, my first distro

@terdon I agree, but I think Mint's just as good and it doesn't have ethical problems

@strugee fewer anyway, none for me, but they include closed source software by default which can bother others.

1:15 AM

now we're worrying about ethical problems?

@qwr welcome to the Linux world!

I never really cared about ethics

ookay

maybe I should. but no one has convinced me enough

@terdon yeah that bothers me too but I make exceptions for newbies if their hardware won't work no matter what with a libre distro

@qwr the Ubuntu project had made since very controversial decisions. e.g. Mir

1:17 AM

controversial to linux users or to the general public

@qwr do you approve of using 3 year old children as food for domesticated dogs? If not, you have an opinion on an ethical issue.

@qwr mostly to users. The public by and large neither knows nor cares.

fine. I never cared about linux ethics

@qwr ah, OK, that's a different issue.

or the open source whole thing

@strugee go for it :)

1:18 AM

most of us think that the reasons Mir was created are wrong and hurt the community

I read this text by Richard Stallman and free software

apparently it was some kind of horrible evil

it=nonfree software btw

OK, Richard Stallman is a bleedin' genius and enjoys a very great level of highly deserved respect in the Linux world

He is, nevertheless, on the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to OS (open source)

While I agree with a lot of his thoughts, I don't tend to be as vehement and neither do most Linux users.

yeah I'm pretty close to his extremes but even I make compromises

I feel like most people have no desire for open source

However, the basic points are valid. The idea behind OS is that when I buy a tool (OSS can be bought/sold), I should be able to adapt it to my needs. If I buy a house, I have the right to paint it purple, if I buy a car, I can change it's tires to better fit the terrain I drive it in.

1:23 AM

I wonder if the whole "technology boom" would've happened if only free software was used

The same should apply to software, I should have the right to modify it to fit the use I want to make of it.

@terdon see also DRM. DRM is despicable.

@qwr OK. You really need to read up on the history of software a little.

and stuff like Restricted Boot

@strugee yes, but that is not necessarily a feature of closed source.

@qwr ALL software was open source at the beginning. In fact, that's what started Stallman off, he was told that he no longer had the right to share his code with his friends and that pissed him off.

1:25 AM

the history of software?

@terdon of course, but it's impossible to have as a (anti)feature in free software

Also, something like 99% of the web and the financial system runs on open source software

I know it was open source at the beginning, but it's gotten a whole lot larger than what it started as

@qwr and besides, free software is far superior a lot of the time

Most of the major servers in the world, and I mean MOST, are running either Linux or UNix (OK, that's closed)

1:26 AM

@terdon depends on what you mean by UNIX

@qwr some of the largest software projects in the world are open source. Linux for example.

@strugee I was thinking old AT&T

I think a bigger question might be is open source stuff is not capitalistic

as in people have no incentive to make it?

@qwr NO! That has absolutely nothing to do with it!

without money

@qwr you just have to change the business model

1:27 AM

Who said without money? DO you think google is not making money out of android? Or Canonical out of Ubuntu? Or RedHat?

that's easy to say

sell value-added services, sell enterprise support (like Red Hat), etc.

@qwr there is nothing in the rules that says that open source software needs to be free (as in beer), just free (as in speech)

you can only get so much out of value-added

Sell the damn software! Why not?

1:28 AM

so I have a little confusion

@qwr Red Hat makes millions even though CentOS exists

I've payed money for open source software.

@strugee and Fedora

if it's open source does that mean it's freely redistributable

no

It means that when it's distributed, it is distributed with the source

@terdon Fedora isn't an exact clone and its actually useful to Red Hat. it's a testbed for new RHEL features.

1:29 AM

but if the source is given

then people can copy it

is that correct

ah, yes, but they can't make it into closed source

That's what the GNU and similar licences ensure

you mean GPL

so the licenses stop people from copying it everywhere?

@strugee yes, as in GNU Public Licence. Since I had the licences later in the sentence I just used GNU [...] licence :)

you mentioned the house example. But I can't copy a house the way software can be copied

1:31 AM

@qwr no, they stop them from incorporating it into closed source projects

@qwr no, OK, limited simile

Look, say you create a really cool piece of software and sell it as open source. I buy it, and decide I like your code so I'll copy it and redistribute as mine. Only I will close the source so that no one else can profit from any enhancements I made to your code

That's what's not allowed by the open source licences.

that = the source closing?

yes

On the other hand, I can decide to copy your code and distribute my own, cheaper version. That's fine. However, understanding a few thousand lines of code is not trivial. It is very often simply not worth the effort and instead of trying to steal your code, I'll just use it and be done.

casey

@qwr Having source doesn't tell you anything about what you can do with it (copying, modifying, distributing, etc). The license you received the source under is what tells you what freedoms you have with the source.

Some licenses will let you do whatever with the source, including put it into closed source code. Others (notably the GPL) will not.

but people will ignore licenses though

who enforces them?

well yes, but they can be attacked legally

1:35 AM

@qwr then you have grounds to sue

casey

Yes, and when GPL violations come to light, lawyers get involved

big time...

casey

FSF has a few on staff

and the FSF will target you

it's similar to software piracy. I know people hate drm, but it's impossible to stop piracy

I shouldn't say similar

I should say related

1:36 AM

@qwr the free software movement no longer consists of four old hippy hackers

There are huge companies and millions of dollars involved (unfortunately)

@terdon why unfortunately?

Red Hat is great IMHO

The largest is probably google. Chrome, for example, is open source

I apologize for any outdated understanding

@terdon no it's not

I don't think it's unfortunate that huge companies are involved

1:37 AM

@strugee because I've had it with what RH are doing to gnome and Canonical to everything

@terdon Chromium is open sourced, chrome not

@qwr there are good sides and bad sides.

@terdon Canonical I get. but I can't see what Red Hat's been doing wrong

@Braiam Yes, OK, but chromium is based on the chrome source released by google.

I thought it was the other way around

1:38 AM

@strugee I'm not that bothered, I just really don't like how gnome has been ignoring it's users and toeing the company line

@qwr might be, I'm not sure either. Point is that google release a huge part of the chrome code base as open source. Same for android

@terdon yes, but it also includes a closed source auto updater, Flash plugin, PDF reader, H.264 decoder, more integration with the closed source Chrome Web Store, and a bunch of other things that I can't remember

@strugee all of which are such a tiny part of it that an entire open source browser can be built from what's left over. Come on!

@terdon they're trying to do better. one sec, lemme find a blog post

when it was said that you can make money from selling services, that's beside the point of having software

@terdon true but I hate H.264 with a passion and am still bitter that Google broke its promises about it

1:41 AM

@strugee I dislike google for many reasons but an aversion to open source is not something I can accuse them of.

@qwr what do you mean?

I don't think the business model of free software is sustainable

on a large scale

@qwr how do you counter the examples of multi million dollar companies (canonical, redhat, google) I gave you?

it's fundamentally against scarcity of goods?

??

google's main focus is not based on open software

its revenue comes from ads and the google search

1:43 AM

Ah, OK.

So? RedHat's and Canoncal's is

@terdon I'm not saying they're averse. I'm saying that I think they can and should do better

Of course they could. No argument there

I can't say how much influence redhat has I don't know

@qwr the fact remains that there are already quite a few companies that are successfully making money from open source projects.

@terdon do you know the background behind H.264?

1:45 AM

isn't h264 a video encoding thing?

@strugee no but I really really don't need convincing that google are evil, you're preaching to the choir

I also believe there's something wrong on a basic level when you consider corporations evil

@qwr I don't see your problem with the business model. How likely are you to ever attempt to read/understand the code of a program you've bought so that you can resell it?

@qwr You're thinking in terms of s/w being a tangible good, those rules do not apply to the software it self. It's the services those s/w pkgs provide which generate revenue.

for those that think Google is capable of doing evil

1:46 AM

Understanding someone else's code is hard even if that code is well written

but that's a shaky model

I can only hope that no one else understands it?

Yeah @qwr, what @slm said. Microsoft was the first company to ever attempt to sell software as a product as far as I know. In fact, that was their great breakthrough.

well this has been a very insightful discussion but I'm off

yes. HTML5 introduced the <video> tag for plugin-free video on the web, but the codec was never standardized. Apple and MS wanted H.264, which was patent-encumbered and controlled by the MPAA, who had licensed of freely for web use for 5 years. the worry was that they'd wait 5 years for the format to become entrenched and then start taxing everyone touching web video.

I'll look into it a bit

1:48 AM

@strugee and google?

WebM was a free, patent unencumbered codec pushed for by Mozilla and Opera. Google pushed for WebM but still implemented H.264 in Chrome.

@Braiam :)

in Jan 2011 they promised to get rid of it in Chrome. but they didn't. they lied.

Chrome had enough market share at the time to turn the tide either way. but they chickened out.

So is there a standard now?

1:52 AM

I think that Chrome most successful selling point was fast releases

innovation, lots of features, etc.

@terdon de facto. H.264.

through firefox supports gstreamer0.1/1.0 in linux, so they can play almost everything as long as you have the correct codecs

the other thing thing that pisses me off is that the W3C has an explicit ban on patent-encumbered stuff. but MS and App,e were big enough, so...

@Braiam I doubt it, the vast majority of people don't care/know about that, some fringe geeks (like me) don't want that and only some other fringe geeks (like you?) want it

@Braiam Firefox uses OS H.264 codecs when available nowadays. they have to, in order to be compatible with a bunch of sites. especially on mobile.

@terdon try the entire web dev community

1:55 AM

@strugee yes, fringe geeks

By the way, web devs do NOT want fast releases! Why would they? With every new release you need to relearn what works and what breaks on which browser.

Believe me, though things are better today, getting a webpage to work properly for FF chrome[ium], IE, opera and safari (let alone anything else) is a royal pain

@terdon yes we do, that's an exaggeration. things don't break in a backwards-incompatible way, almost ever.

@terdon because standards support

@Braiam if new releases actually suppoerted the standards I'd be happy

@strugee you're a web developer?

How does this make sense for example:

@terdon yeah, standards support is pretty damn decent nowadays. except for IE, but that's just because they have 10+ years of standards to implement. and for older browsers, I have one word: polyfills.

  -webkit-transition:background-color 0.2s ease-in;
  -moz-transition:background-color 0.2s ease-in;
  transition:background-color 0.2s ease-in;

1:59 AM

@terdon vendor prefixes are discouraged at the W3C nowadays. and besides, leaverou.github.io/prefixfree

@terdon yes

@strugee ooh, that looks cool!

@terdon "IN UR SITES, ADDIN UR PREFIXES" is their Twitter tagline

@strugee really? As in you have developed a few webpages or as in you're trying to do this professionally and have an in-depth knowledge of the languages, technologies and standards involved?

(honest question, I am continuously impressed by your knowledge of *nix and did not know you also were into web dev)

@terdon I have developed up to intermediately large/complex HTML/CSS/JS projects. but I have very little backend experience.

Cool! I can bug you and not only @Braiam next time I'm stuck with jquery :)

2:04 AM

I'm very knowledgeable about standards. I'm subscribed to e.g. mozilla.dev.platform

@terdon yah :P

@terdon and thanks :)

I've been meaning to learn HTML5 but haven't gotten round to it yet

there's no differences actually, just more ways to break stuff ;)

@strugee s'true! I was afraid you might have thought I was being sarcasting cause of your age and the use of the term professionqal

@Braiam well, there seem to be some cool things with dynamic data (and embedded media but I don't care about tat much)

@terdon DOCTYPE declarations are <!DOCTYPE html>. that should be incentive enough.

@strugee ?

Always have been as far as I can recall. Even in HTML 3

I think...

2:07 AM

@terdon thats all you need to declare a document as HTML5. no DTD links. no XML templates. no nothing

That's all you need anyway really (sorry, standards)

Not true, in practice all you need is <html></html>

@terdon nope. here's one from HTML4: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

yeah yeah, I know

pain in the ass those are

@terdon if you don't have one you get kicked from standards mode to quirks mode

nevertheless, this is a valid html page for all intents and purposes:

@strugee I know, I've struggled with them often enough.

I just mean that in order for a browser (any?) to display a webpage, all it needs is <html><body>Hello World!</body></html>

2:11 AM

oh yeah I guess that's true. I've always preferred/made special effort to be semantically correct. but I know not everyone feels that way

@strugee I started writing HTML with HTML3 in around 1998 or before I guess by reading a book called something like "learn HTML in 10 minute lessons" :P

Been picking it up by osmosis ever since

ah

So I know those standards I have had occasion to use but have not ever attempted to make a study of them

makes sense

Yeah, but it's a bad approach. I did pretty much the same with perl (though it was a better book) and despite using it professionally every day for a decade or so, I still just discovered an operator today.

Your method is certainly better.

2:16 AM

bows

on the other hand I wrote a SQL query almost alone :D

A: Cannot start xterm over ssh after several successes

@Braiam :) WHohoo!

I built a database alone and I still don't know much about it.

Gilles

2:45 AM

0

SSH blocks new X11 connections after 20 minutes. To avoid this, run ssh -Y instead of ssh -X, or set the option ForwardX11Trusted yes in ~/.ssh/config. If you run ssh -v, you'll see the message “Rejected X11 connection after ForwardX11Timeout expired” when a new application tries to connect to t...

I've tried to piece together the story of the 20-minute X11 forwarding timeout in OpenSSH, but I don't understand everything.

3:22 AM

@strugee No, I'm just passing on the URL from derobert. — Gilles 1 min ago

@derobert do you have access to FreeDesktop security bugs?

@strugee I don't think so:

@peterph Feel free to post as an answer. "No, you can't" definitely answers the question... Yeah, I know the X thing is a bug in the server, its already reported. Probably. Xorg has the bug marked secret. — derobert Jan 2 at 15:15

@Gilles very informative nevertheless.

" Probably. Xorg has the bug marked secret. "

augh

I just want to know who's special

3:46 AM

@strugee You are dear, don't worry :P

@terdon why thank you :D

4:11 AM

Man, this is the kind of question that stops me from spending more time on Ask Ubuntu:

0

Q: What OS Linux use?

First I want to thank and congratulate the talk given today at the premises of the American University. I want to go incursionarme in the free software world and I doubt which is the operating system that most benefits me arises. Features of the laptop: Intel Core i7-RAM-4GB Video Card-Nvidia 61...

installation

Worst thing is, they might actually try to pass it on to us :)

4:22 AM

we have a dupe for that

but that's basically half the questions on AU

4:40 AM

@terdon nah, SR seems more likely candidate

I seems to find that with the current mechanisms set in place (questions quality bans and review audits) + some aggressive moderation would improve the general quality of AU

5:03 AM

@terdon they invited him back to thei place for a visit.

@terdon Define "disproportionate". You mean, like all the Facebook users? :-)

@FaheemMitha no, that people who know how to code are over-represented among the people who have access to the internet.

@strugee 1994

5:19 AM

@FaheemMitha I couldn't remember exactly what he said. I was on mobile and couldn't look properly. thanks.

6:59 AM

@terdon exactly!

Man Gilles is on fire tonight, he solved 2 of them that have been dogging me most of today

Jenny D

7:44 AM

Morning

8:19 AM

@terdon people who know how to code yes, people to know how to code correctly hummm not that much

And also do you guys ever sleep ?

And also good morning

8:36 AM

@strugee People often write software for their own use, or participate in bigger projects for tools they use themselves. e.g. all the contributors to gcc.

@terdon Well, the source is available on "request".

c.f. the GPL.

12:17 PM

Is it possible for a user to close his/her own question?

I know deletion is an option.

12:27 PM

@FaheemMitha No, but you can flag your own question, I do it from time tto tim

@Kiwy Ok.

maybe when you get more than n points of reputation

@strugee They don't have much by resources, though.

1:30 PM

-2

Q: What is a file?

I thought that the file is a reserved place on disk and it is a Record collection but i found that it is wrong definition because the empty file capacity is 0kb so it can't be a reserved place on disk , mostafa@jamareh:~$ cd Desktop/ mostafa@jamareh:~/Desktop$ touch test mostafa@jamareh:~/De...

files disk

does someone feel like answering ? the OP shows really good wheels

@FaheemMitha if they have 1k rep, they can