gmane.linux.ubuntu.devel.discuss

Re: [RFC] zswap for Precise, with script

Oliver Grawert — 2012-05-18T11:07:16

hi,
On Thu, 17 May 2012 09:55:52 -0400
John Moser <john.r.moser< at >gmail.com> wrote:

such a package exists in the form of the zram-config package in
precise ... please take a look at this one and send patches (while the
current package as used in all ubuntu arm installs already does a good
deal of automation for setting up the zram devices, it could surely do
with some additional /etc/default integration for overrides)

ciao
oli

Re: Questions and patches related to casper.

Ben Greear — 2012-05-17T22:35:27

After some excellent help from the aufs maintainer and mailing
list denizens, I have this at least mostly working.  The /cow
is properly un-mounted on shutdown, and fsck properly runs
on startup (that part was working last time I posted).

I'm attaching the casper initrd file and the /etc/init.d/umountroot
scripts that I modifed.  It would be grand if someone with commit
privs would consider this for upstream inclusion.

Thanks,
Ben

Re: 12.04 - question/feedback on "sound settings"

David Henningsson — 2012-05-17T21:28:31

To clarify, the only profile that was actually removed was the "Off" 
profile. If you have other profiles (5.1 surround, etc), those profiles 
are still selectable.

For the "off" profile, I believe this was considered a too unusual use 
case to support, but at the UDS session about the sound settings, I 
believe we decided to put it back in for 12.10. [1]


The current workaround is to install the pavucontrol application. That 
application can still set your sound card to the "off" profile.

Re: Questions and patches related to casper.

Ben Greear — 2012-05-17T16:32:00

Using 'dd' on windows is a royal pain, so if I can just point the
users at some third-party pendrive tools and feed our modified .iso
image into that, that is the easiest I think.  I also like that the
user can choose the amount of persistent storage based on their USB
stick size.

That said, if I can't find a way to cleanly un-mount the /cow
(or mount it (ro)) on shutdown, then I'm going to have to try
something else...

And, I'm seeing ubiquity panel cores on startup of the live-cd
image, which is almost worse.  I'm going to re-build the modified
cd image from scratch today in hope that that will somehow fix
the cores.  They started after I removed /var/cache/* in an attempt
to make the cd image smaller...seems that might have been a bad
idea...

Thanks,
Ben

[RFC] zswap for Precise, with script

John Moser — 2012-05-17T13:55:52

Any thoughts on this?  I wrote it on a whim after installing an SSD and 
completely disabling all swap.  Haven't checked to see if Ubuntu 
supports hibernate to file yet (creating a hibernation file on demand 
would be optimal for me...)

This works with kernel 3.2.0 ... 3.0 used num_devices as the parameter 
for zram, while 2.6.32 used num (I think).  They keep changing the 
parameter name!

This init script (sorry, I have no clue how to write an upstart job) 
will load zram, set one of its devices to a given size, create swap on 
it, and turn that swap on.  It'll also deactivate the swap and free the 
associated RAM.

Accepted sizes are "half" and "quarter" of installed RAM as gotten by 
MemTotal in /proc/meminfo; any size in bytes; or suffixed K, M, G sizes.


/etc/default/zswap can contain the following variables:

# Set to 1 to disable
ZSWAP_DISABLED=0

# Number of /dev/zramX devices
ZRAM_NUM_DEVICES=4

# Swap device is /dev/$ZSWAP_DEVICE
ZSWAP_DEVICE="zram0"

# Size
ZSWAP_SIZE="quarter"
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          zswap
# Required-Start:    $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description:       Activate compressed swap
### END INIT INFO
#
#
# Version:1.0 john.r.moser< at >gmail.com
#

#
# It's also possible to resize the zswap by device hopping, i.e.
# making a new one on /dev/zram1, swapon /dev/zram1, and then
# swapoff /dev/zram0.  This would be CPU intensive...
#

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DESC="Sets up compressed swap"
NAME=zswap
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME

# Default value
ZRAM_NUM_DEVICES=4
ZSWAP_DEVICE="zram0"
ZSWAP_SIZE="quarter"

# Read config file if it is present.
if [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]; then
. /etc/default/$NAME
fi

# Gracefully exit if disabled
[ "$ZSWAP_DISABLED" = "1" ] && exit 0

is_numeric() {
echo "$< at >" | grep -q -v "[^0-9]"
}

#Takes:
# zswap_to_bytes 524288
# zswap_to_bytes 512K
# zswap_to_bytes 128M
# zswap_to_bytes 2G
# otherwise formed parameters are errors.
zswap_to_bytes() {
MODIFIER="${1#${1%?}}"
ZR_SIZE="${1: -1}"

# Numeric:  just pass as-is
if ( is_numeric ${1} ) ; then
echo ${1}
return 0
fi

# If size isn't a number,
if ! ( is_numeric ${ZR_SIZE} ) ; then
echo "0"
return 1
fi

if [ "${MODIFIER}" = "K" ]; then
ZR_SIZE=$(( ZR_SIZE * 1024 ))
elif [ "${MODIFIER}" = "M" ]; then
ZR_SIZE=$(( ZR_SIZE * 1024 * 1024 ))
elif [ "${MODIFIER}" = "G" ]; then
ZR_SIZE=$(( ZR_SIZE * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 ))
elif [ ! is_numeric "${MODIFIER}" ]; then
echo "0"
return 1
fi
echo $ZR_SIZE
}

#
#Function that starts the daemon/service.
#
d_start() {
ZSWAP_LOADED=0
swapon -s | cut -f 1 | grep "/dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}" && ZSWAP_LOADED=1
if [ "${ZSWAP_LOADED}" -eq "1" ]; then
echo "zswap already in use"
return 1
fi
# this parameter name keeps changing with new kernel versions
modprobe zram zram_num_devices=${ZRAM_NUM_DEVICES}

# Does it now exist?
if [ ! -b /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE} ]; then
echo "/dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE} does not exist!"
return 1
fi

# half or quarter size
if [ "${ZSWAP_SIZE}" = "half" -o "${ZSWAP_SIZE}" = "quarter" ]; then
MEM_SZ=$(cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal | awk '{print $2}')
if [ "${ZSWAP_SIZE}" = "half" ]; then
ZSWAP_SIZE=$(( MEM_SZ * 512 ))
else
ZSWAP_SIZE=$(( MEM_SZ * 256 ))
fi
else
ZSWAP_SIZE=$( zswap_to_bytes $ZSWAP_SIZE )
if [ "${ZSWAP_SIZE}" = "0" ]; then
echo "Invalid ZSWAP_SIZE"
return 1
fi
fi
echo $ZSWAP_SIZE > /sys/block/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}/disksize
mkswap /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}
swapon /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}
}

#
#Function that stops the daemon/service.
#
d_stop() {
ZSWAP_LOADED=0
swapon -s | cut -f 1 | grep "/dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}" && ZSWAP_LOADED=1
if [ "${ZSWAP_LOADED}" != "1" ]; then
echo "zswap not in use"
return 1
fi
if ! ( swapoff /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE} ); then
echo "Cannot de-activate compressed swap /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}!"
return 1
fi

# Double check this
ZSWAP_LOADED=0
swapon -s | cut -f 1 | grep "/dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}" && ZSWAP_LOADED=1
if [ "${ZSWAP_LOADED}" = "1" ]; then
echo "zswap /dev/${ZSWAP_DEVICE} did not de-activate!"
return 1
fi

# free the block device's memory
echo 1 > /sys/block/${ZSWAP_DEVICE}/reset
modprobe -r zram
}


case "$1" in
  start)

echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
d_start
echo "."
;;
  stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME"
d_stop
echo "."
;;
  #reload)
#
#No reload target
#
  #;;
  restart|force-reload)
echo -n "Restarting $DESC: $NAME"
d_stop
#sleep 1
d_start
echo "."
;;
  *)
echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Re: Questions and patches related to casper.

Jordon Bedwell — 2012-05-17T03:52:51

Because Ubuntus goal is easy, yes you can be advanced but easy is priority
and dd is 'hard' in a sense depending on how you look at it.  I think it
would be better to diagnose the grub problems and go that route making the
installer error free.

On May 16, 2012 10:31 PM, "Akkana Peck" <akkana< at >shallowsky.com> wrote:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss

Re: Questions and patches related to casper.

Akkana Peck — 2012-05-17T03:30:54

I got it working once on Oneiric, but only on a multi-distro USB
stick using grub, with a separate partition for casper, like this:
http://shallowsky.com/blog/linux/install/ubuntu-persistent-live-cd.html
I've never had any luck on either O or P in getting a single-boot
USB stick to be persistent.

I'm currently setting up some USB sticks to use in a classroom/workshop
setting, with everybody booted from the same image. After wasting
most of a day trying to make persistence work, it occurred to me to
wonder why I was doing all that work: for a USB stick, why not just
install Ubuntu to the stick, and have a normal install that saves
whatever changes you make? No need for overlays like casper, just
install to a normal filesystem on the USB stick.

So I tried it. The grub install failed the first time so I had to
re-run it (be careful that you're installing grub to the USB stick,
not to your hard drive) but otherwise it seems to work fine so far.
I've installed several extra packages on it, customized the user
theme and added a few programs and icons. It seems like a much
easier solution than fighting with the undocumented casper
persistence stuff.

Ubuntu should consider shipping a filesystem image that can be dd-ed
to a USB stick, in addition to the CD ISO iamges that require
special magic to be made persistent. It would make it so much easier
to introduce newcomers to Ubuntu.

...Akkana

Questions and patches related to casper.

Ben Greear — 2012-05-16T22:40:54

I have been having issues trying to do a persistent-usb image for
Ubuntu 12.04.

*  /cow is not checked with fsck on startup.  (casper patch to fix this attached)

* /cow is not visible in / by default.  I think this is required if
   we are ever to be able to unmount /cow cleanly.
   (fixed by attached casper patch).

* /cow cannot be cleanly un-mounted on shutdown

   I've made some attempts, but have not gotten this working.
   The attached '/etc/init.d/umountroot' contains my attempts.


I'd love to get this working cleanly....so please let me know if you
have any suggestions.

I'm not sure if Ubuntu uses 'signed-off-by' for this type
of thing, but if so, consider it:

Signed-off-by:  Ben Greear <greearb< at >candelatech.com>

Thanks,
Ben

12.04 - question/feedback on "sound settings"

Edwin Günthner — 2012-05-14T11:25:30

Power off not really working on system with EFI BIOS

Aleksandar Milivojevic — 2012-05-12T21:21:13

I've an Gateway FX6850-51u desktop.  This is an EFI system, and until few
Ubunutu releases ago, there was a kernel bug that caused kernel to crash on
shutdown or reboot.  This bug was fixed some time ago, and my system
reboots correctly (see
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/721576).  However on
shutdown kernel now only displays "Power down." message on console, but it
does not power down the system.  It's kind of odd.  Are there some settings
to fiddle with or diagnostic I could run?

Re: Problems with setuid app in Ubuntu 12.04

Luis M — 2012-05-10T13:03:07

If you post to the "users" mailing list, I'm sure you will get an answer. 

--
A bug magnet

El May 9, 2012, a las 19:27, Paul Smith <paul< at >mad-scientist.net> escribió:

Problems with setuid app in Ubuntu 12.04

Paul Smith — 2012-05-09T23:27:58

Hi all.  I've recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 64bit.

I'm using a proprietary VPN utility from Juniper Networks on my Linux
system.  In previous versions of Ubuntu, it worked just fine.  In the
current version of Ubuntu, I'm getting failures.  For some reason it's
not letting me invoke a setuid application.

The way it is deployed is it unpacks into a hidden directory under
$HOME, then the main VPN program needs to be made setuid root so that it
can be invoked by me but do root-y things.

Then, you can either run the tool directly from the command line or you
can run a little Java control window which manages the VPN.  If I run
the program directly from the command line, the setuid works and the VPN
comes up and works fine.  But, I can't control it or see how long it's
been up.

Whenever I try to use the Java control panel the GUI comes up and tries
to run the setuid program, but it fails and then the whole thing
crashes.  I get this error:

  Failed to setuid to root. Error 1: Operation not permitted

But I have clearly set the right bits and it works when invoked
directly.  I've tried many different variations of Java including
downloaded ones directly from Sun/Oracle.

One note, the application is 32bit and so I need to run 32bit Java as
well.  Not sure if that matters.

Has the 12.04 release installed some new security measures that might be
keeping my setuid program from working properly?  I've tried putting
Java under /opt/jvm and also run "service apparmor teardown" to try to
be sure apparmor is not involved, but I don't know enough to know if I
succeeded.

I'm really stuck and could use any pointers or tips anyone has.

Re: questions about current ways of work in Ubuntu release process

Sivan Greenberg — 2012-05-09T15:43:55

Yes, flora I know - I was not familiar with fauna. Phew, I was going
to email this to ubuntu-devel but then the bounce back told me only
ubuntu-developers are allowed to post to it.

Indeed I have, thanks for re-mentioning it.

-Sivan

Re: questions about current ways of work in Ubuntu release process

Evan Huus — 2012-05-09T15:40:20


English borrows that from Latin:
flora & fauna === plants & animals

He was simply referring to the animal code names that Ubuntu uses.

Also, I believe you missed your footnote link:
[0] http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1121

Sorry I can't help with any of the other more interesting questions.
Evan

questions about current ways of work in Ubuntu release process

Sivan Greenberg — 2012-05-09T15:30:24

Hi All,

 Some of you might remember me, some of you won't. I used to be part
of the Ubuntu community and loved every minute of it. I've been drawn
to some other open source projects since then, but the apparent
quality boost I'm experiencing with 12.04 has left me eager and
curious about things, not to mention Mark's helped to engage this
curiosity[0].

So, I'm terribly curious about:

1) "we’ll ratchet up the continuous integration" - What sort of
continues integration system Ubuntu is using now? I guess its based on
Jenkins ? I'd love to read the gory details somewhere.
2) "smoke testing" - is it done by hand by Ubuntu members, or also
taken care of by the CI system?
3) "automated benchmarking of the release" - How's that done? Again,
happy to read the gory details somewhere ;)
4) "..both qualitative and quantitative, with user research and
testing continuing to shape our design decisions.." - How is user
research being conducted? for testing, I suppose there's the community
QA team the has the test cases executed by hand? How is it shaping the
design decision? Are there new Launchpad modules that assist in that?
5) Is 'Fauna' another software / cloud component? (I've never seen
such a blog post with so many cryptic words for the non native English
speaker ;)
6) Where can I read more about 'Quantum' , the virtualized network
madness in the cloud  ;) ?

Kudos to the great team of Ubuntu - reading all of this and asking all
those question makes me wanna rejoin the party again, doing some catching up.
I might also try to pitch up some of the practices to the other open
source projects I'm part of ;)
(I've always admired the way we do things in Ubuntu!)

Re: Where is libgcr-3-common:i386?

Evan Huus — 2012-05-08T15:37:58


This is bug #885492 [1].

My understanding is that this is something broken by the transition to
multiarch, which will be fixed when libgcr-3-common is converted to the new
multiarch format. Not 100% sure though.

Evan

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-keyring/+bug/885492

Where is libgcr-3-common:i386?

Paul Smith — 2012-05-08T15:19:22

I'm trying to run a program under Wine in my Ubuntu 12.04 64bit fresh
installation.  When I run it I get this error:

        p11-kit: couldn't load
        module: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pkcs11/gnome-keyring-pkcs11.so: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pkcs11/gnome-keyring-pkcs11.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I've discovered that the 64bit version of that file lives in
gnome-keyring and so I tried to "sudo apt-get install
gnome-keyring:i386".  I found some libraries it requires and those
require other libraries, all of which do exist, until I get down to a
requirement for:

        $ sudo apt-get install libgcr-3-common:i386
        Package libgcr-3-common:i386 is not available, but is referred
        to by another package.
        This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted,
        or
        is only available from another source
        
        E: Package 'libgcr-3-common:i386' has no installation candidate

However it's odd because if I go to the Ubuntu site to look it up, that
library seems to be packaged properly; for example:

        https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/i386/libgcr-3-common

Can anyone explain what the message means and how I can get a copy of
that library to install?  Am I missing some extra repo (I think I've
turned them all on at this point)?

Re: Accessing GVFS mounts from 3rd party applications?

Frédéric Dreier — 2012-05-07T09:03:49

Hi,

Perhaps you  may create a symlink in your home directory that points
on the .gvfs/whatever directory.

Regards,

Frederic

2012/5/6 David Klasinc <bigwhale< at >lubica.net>:

Re: Accessing GVFS mounts from 3rd party applications?

David Klasinc — 2012-05-06T17:21:41


Yes, as I mentioned before, sometimes you don't see the dot directories. 
Because the ones who wrote the proprietary software didn't think about 
it. :)

I guess I'll start filing the complaints with them. :)

Regards,
David

Re: Accessing GVFS mounts from 3rd party applications?

Timo Aaltonen — 2012-05-06T17:16:47

07.04.2012 10:47, David Klasinc kirjoitti:

gvfs mounts show up under ~/.gvfs/<name> at least here, so navigate
there to access them from 3rd party apps (like, the terminal.. :)

t

Re: Accessing GVFS mounts from 3rd party applications?

Martin Pitt — 2012-05-05T20:12:37

Hello David,

David Klasinc [2012-04-07  9:47 +0200]:

You can click "Unmount" in the dialog that comes up when you plug in
the camera, and then use any photo management program which uses
libgphoto2 directly to access the camera instead of gvfs.

Martin