Monthly Archives: November 2009

cygwin: zsh: zsh compinit: insecure directories

19-Nov-2009 Posted by Sonia Hamilton under , ,
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Using cygwin under Windows, I’ve setup my shell as zsh by editing the launch script:

@echo off
C:
chdir C:cygwinbin
zsh -l -i

Unfortunately, this gives a nasty error everytime the shell is started up, due to Cygwin installing zsh incorrectly:

zsh compinit: insecure directories, run compaudit for list.
Ignore insecure directories and continue [y] or abort compinit [n]? y

Solution, thanks to wezm.net:

compaudit | xargs chmod g-w

macports: git-upload-pack: command not found

19-Nov-2009 Posted by Sonia Hamilton under ,
4 Comments

When doing a git clone from a repo hosted on a Mac OSX machine (installed using macports), I get this error on the client (Linux, cygwin, whatever):

git-upload-pack: command not found

Solution is to do this on the OSX machine:

cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s /opt/local/bin/git* .

Obviously some $PATH funkiness is going on somewhere on the Mac, and I should find a better fix. My personal $PATH on the Mac is OK:

$ echo $PATH
/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

DeltaCopy – rsync for Windows

12-Nov-2009 Posted by Sonia Hamilton under ,
1 Comment

A nice little tool I came across – DeltaCopy – for when you have to work with Windows desktops and want to rsync (and don’t want to install Cygwin). I haven’t had time to play with it yet, but apparently the DeltaCopy client will connect to an rsync server.

Out of interest, there’s also a SourceForge package for installing a minimal ssh server on Windows, rather than the full Cygwin.

Linux and Cisco VPN Client “Remote peer is no longer responding”

10-Nov-2009 Posted by Sonia Hamilton under
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I’m using the Cisco VPN client, and it seems unreliable on Linux – it occasionally connects but often just gives up with “Remote peer is no longer responding”.

Apart from the obvious firewall/nat checks [1][2], a solution seems to be to edit the .pcf file, bump up the timeout and force keepalives:

PeerTimeout=180
ForceKeepAlive=1

 

 

Network access with Exetel HSPA and Antenna

03-Nov-2009 Posted by Sonia Hamilton under ,
2 Comments

I got a Huawei HSPA E1762 USB stick a few months ago for 3G network access, together with Exetel’s $5/month Zero Gig plan (uses the Optus network). Great for when I’m out and about and can’t find a wireless signal to jump onto, or I’m at some client who doesn’t allow laptops onto their network. I’ve been using it regularly and still haven’t gone over about 100M usage, so it’s worked out to be very cheap.

Using Network Manager on Ubuntu Jaunty it mostly “just works” – all I needed to do was set the APN to ‘exetel1′. I’ve also bought an antenna for it from The Antenna Shop – gives me better coverage in shadows in the CBD and out in the country. There’s also other bigger antennas available, as well as car antennas.

antenna

antenna

All-in-all a good buy – thanks Dean for the tip.

Addendum

As per Matt’s comment below, Huawei modems currently have problems on Ubuntu Karmic – Problem with Huawei E1762 Mobile Broadband in Karmic, Bug #413989, Bug # 446146.

Also, if you’re ever prompted to enter an “SP CODE” (ie Mac & Windows), enter “BROADBAND”