[PLUG] Debugging odd effect a Slackware machine has on a network printer

Richard C. Steffens rsteff at comcast.net
Fri Feb 29 16:04:33 UTC 2008


Rich Shepard wrote:

>> KDE version :	3.5.4
> 
>    More knowledgeable folks will provide higher quality answers, but I'll
> offer some thoughts. For example, why are you running KDE on a machine
> acting as a server?

Because the machine started out up in my office as a "try things out on
this one" machine, and KDE is what I'm familiar with for a working
environment. I don't expect to run X or KDE when it's back in the basement.

>> As far as what services are running, does the output of ps ax answer the
>> question? (It's below.)
> 
>    Yes.

OK. How do I figure out which of those services I need and which I
don't? I know I won't be printing, so I don't need CUPS. When I saw kmod
 in the hourly script my first thought was that it was somehow related
to KDE, and that since I won't be running X, I won't need KDE. I tried
to read a man page on kmod, but there isn't one. I did a Google search
and learned that it is a kernel module loader. That sounds like
something I should not mess with.

Is the process (for figuring out what services do) to take every thing
in the output of ps ax that ends with "d" and run a Google search to
learn what it is, or is there a better place to search for that information?

>> What tool do I use on Slackware? If it's to not use a tool, but do it
>> from the command line, is there some tool I would need to disable?
> 
>    ps prints all running processes.
> 
>> On SuSE, I start and stop things using YaST.
> 
>    Slackware -- until version 12.0 which now uses the SysV init scripts
> rather than the BSD init scripts -- has the startup scripts in /etc/rc.d/.
> Each application has its own rc.* script and you can append 'start,'
> 'restart,' or 'stop' to the name of the script.

OK, but what do I do to tell Slackware not to run those scripts at boot
time? I'd like to make the changes relatively permanent, so that
recovery from power failures can happen without my involvement.

>> The machine has been running for a couple of hours and so far, no issue
>> with the network printer. On the other hand, my wife reminds me that it
>> was several days before the problem showed up. I don't recall if that's
>> true, but I have no reason to doubt her, either.
> 
>    Then it may not be anything to do with this one machine. Unless something
> new starts after a few days, it does not seem reasonable to me that it would
> suddenly start acting like a character in a Stephen King novel or Twilight
> Zone episode.

I don't see how it would matter, but since I'm currently running the
machine in my office, it's network traffic is not passing through the
switch in the basement. It is passing through the switch in my office,
though.

>> One other issue for now: SAMBA is working, and I can see the files on
>> Slack-2 from this machine. httpd is running, and from Firefox on Slack-2
> 
>    If Slack-2 is your server in the basement, why have firefox installed?

As mentioned, above, it's a temporary thing. I'm spoiled by the GUI, and
use the tools I know for debugging.

>> I can connect to http://localhost/ and see index.html correctly
>> displayed. However, I can't connect to it from Firefox on this machine.
>> If I enter slack-2 in the Firefox address box, I get a Google page. On
>> the other hand, if I enter slack-2 in the Firefox address box on my XP
>> laptop, I do get the right page. Also, I can ssh from Slack-2 to this
>> machine, but not from this machine to Slack-2.
> 
>    To see what various network hosts can see, look at /etc/hosts,
> /etc/hosts.allow, and /etc/hosts.deny. Also. /etc/hosts.allow controls who
> is able to use ssh and what hosts can be accessed.

Aha! I added Slack-2 to Moonguide's hosts file and now I can ssh to
Slack-2. I looked at the hosts file on Slack-2 and saw that Moonguide is
there. (Moonguide is the name of this machine.)

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens




More information about the PLUG mailing list