Evan Hoffman's silly writings. » linux

Why is my laptop so freaking hot?

evan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:07:07 +0000

HP Compaq nc8430, Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz. Fedora Core 12 x86_64, kernel 2.6.32.19-163.fc12.x86_64 (just updated via yum).

At idle, with nothing running in the foreground, the CPU is around 70-72° Celsius, and the other sensors are 80°+. Why is this? It seems like every time I run yum update the machine gets hotter. I wonder if there’s any way to figure out what’s causing this. In any case, it’s pretty annoying. It’s uncomfortable putting the thing on my lap for any length of time.

Notice the temperatures at the top. The first two are Core0 and Core1, the other 2 are other sensors. The CPU is running at 1.0 GHz due to SpeedStep and the temp is still 70°C.

Edit: I forgot I’ve been logging temperature via sensord. I just turned the computer on after having it off all night and within 10 minutes the CPU is back up to > 60°C.

Aug 26 00:01:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:06:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:11:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 00:16:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 00:21:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 00:26:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:31:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:36:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:41:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 00:46:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:51:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 00:56:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 01:01:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 01:06:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:11:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:16:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:21:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:26:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:31:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:36:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:41:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:46:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:51:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 01:56:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:01:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 02:06:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 02:11:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 02:16:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:21:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:26:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:31:34 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:36:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 02:41:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:46:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:51:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 02:56:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:01:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:06:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:11:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:16:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:21:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:26:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:31:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:36:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:41:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:46:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:51:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 03:56:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:01:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:06:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:11:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:16:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:21:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 04:26:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:31:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:36:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:41:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:46:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:51:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 04:56:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:01:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 05:06:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 05:11:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 05:16:35 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:21:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:26:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:31:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:36:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:41:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:46:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 05:51:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 05:56:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:01:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:06:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:11:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:16:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 06:21:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 06:26:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:31:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:36:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:41:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:46:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:51:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 06:56:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 07:01:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 07:06:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 07:11:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 07:16:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 07:21:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 07:26:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 07:31:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 63.0 C
Aug 26 07:36:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 63.0 C
Aug 26 07:41:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 63.0 C
Aug 26 07:46:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 07:51:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 07:56:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 08:01:36 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 08:06:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 08:11:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 08:16:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 64.0 C
Aug 26 08:21:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:26:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:31:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:36:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:41:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:46:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:51:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 08:56:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 09:01:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 65.0 C
Aug 26 09:06:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 09:11:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 66.0 C
Aug 26 09:16:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 78.0 C
Aug 26 09:21:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 83.0 C
Aug 26 09:26:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 09:31:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 09:36:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 09:41:37 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 09:46:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 09:51:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 09:56:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 10:01:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 10:06:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 10:11:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 78.0 C
Aug 26 10:16:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 10:21:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 10:26:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 10:31:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 10:36:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 10:41:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 76.0 C
Aug 26 10:46:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 10:51:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 10:56:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:01:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:06:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:11:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 11:16:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:21:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 11:26:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 11:31:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:36:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 11:41:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 11:46:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:51:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 11:56:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 12:01:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 12:06:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 12:11:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 12:16:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 86.0 C
Aug 26 12:21:38 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 77.0 C
Aug 26 12:26:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 74.0 C
Aug 26 12:31:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 12:36:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 77.0 C
Aug 26 12:41:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 79.0 C
Aug 26 12:46:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 96.0 C
Aug 26 12:51:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 95.0 C
Aug 26 12:56:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 13:01:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 94.0 C
Aug 26 13:06:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 13:11:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 94.0 C
Aug 26 13:16:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 94.0 C
Aug 26 13:21:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 77.0 C
Aug 26 13:26:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 94.0 C
Aug 26 13:31:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 94.0 C
Aug 26 13:36:39 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 95.0 C
Aug 26 13:42:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 80.0 C
Aug 26 13:47:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 13:52:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 13:57:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 14:02:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 14:07:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 77.0 C
Aug 26 14:12:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 78.0 C
Aug 26 14:17:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 14:22:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 14:27:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 14:32:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 14:37:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 14:42:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 14:47:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 14:52:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 14:57:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:02:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:07:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:12:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 15:17:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 15:22:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 15:27:18 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:32:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:37:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 68.0 C
Aug 26 15:42:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 15:47:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 69.0 C
Aug 26 15:52:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 15:57:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 16:02:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 16:07:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 16:12:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 16:17:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 16:22:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 70.0 C
Aug 26 16:27:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 16:32:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 16:37:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 16:42:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 16:47:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 73.0 C
Aug 26 16:52:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 72.0 C
Aug 26 16:57:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 75.0 C
Aug 26 17:02:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 26 17:07:19 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 71.0 C
Aug 27 08:23:10 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 43.0 C
Aug 27 08:28:10 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 55.0 C
Aug 27 08:33:09 ehoffman sensord:   Core 0: 62.0 C

ldapsearch on Active Directory

evan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:40:18 +0000

Just putting this here for safekeeping since I couldn’t remember the exact syntax.

[evan@ehoffman 10:35:50 ~]$ ldapsearch -x -LLL -D "ldapuser@example.com" -w password -b "OU=Users,DC=example,DC=com" -s sub -H ldaps://activedirectory.example.com "(sn=hoffman)" cn mail displayName samaccountname
dn: CN=Evan Hoffman,OU=Tech,OU=Users,DC=example,DC=com
cn: Evan Hoffman
displayName: Evan D. Hoffman
sAMAccountName: ehoffman
mail: Evan.Hoffman@example.com

Blocking comment spammers by IP

evan — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:59:27 +0000

I use Akismet to block comment spam, but it still annoys me that it even exists. Last night I put a simple IP ban into my httpd config. But who to block?

I used a grep & Perl to get a rough guess of which IPs were submitting the most comments (working on the assumption that one IP address submits many spam comments) It took me about 20 minutes to write this mess but it does what I wanted to do:
[root@lunix ~]# zgrep POST /var/log/httpd/evanhoffman-access_log-201008??.gz | grep comment | perl -ne 'chomp; $_ =~ m/(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}/; print "$&\n";' | perl -e '%a = (); while (<>) { chomp; $a{$_} += 1; } while (my ($key, $value) = each (%a)) { if ($value > 1) { print "$value\t=>\t$key\n";}}' 2 => 218.6.9.140 180 => 91.201.66.34 2 => 213.5.67.41 2 => 188.187.102.74 [root@lunix ~]#

That’s pretty hard to read. Here’s a quick explanation of each piece:

zgrep POST /var/log/httpd/evanhoffman-access_log-201008??.gz

Use zgrep to search for the string “POST” in all of the gzipped Apache logs for August. Pipe the results (the matching lines) to the next part:

grep comment

grep for the string “comment”. This isn’t really scientific, but I feel safe in assuming that if “POST” and “comment” both appear in the HTTP request, it’s probably someone posting a comment. Pipe the matches to…

perl -ne ‘chomp; $_ =~ m/(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}/; print “$&\n”;’

This is a perl one-liner that uses a regular expression to match an IP address in a given line and print it out. The original regex I used was \d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+, this one was slightly fancier but did the same work in this case. It’s worth noting that this will only print out the first match in the given line, but since the requester’s IP (REMOTE_ADDR) is the first field in Combined Log Format, that’s fine this case.

The output (the IPs from which comment posts have been made) is piped to…

perl -e ‘%a = (); while (<>) { chomp; $a{$_} += 1; } while (my ($key, $value) = each (%a)) { if ($value > 1) { print “$value\t=>\t$key\n”;}}’

This is another perl one-liner. Basically, it maintains a hash of String=>count pairs, so each time it sees a string it increments a “counter” for that line. Then when it’s done receiving input (i.e. all the data has been processed) it prints out the contents of the hash for keys that have a value > 1 (i.e. IPs that have POSTed more than 1 comment).

The output shows pretty clearly where the spam is coming from:

2 => 218.6.9.140
180 => 91.201.66.34
2 => 213.5.67.41
2 => 188.187.102.74

180 submits from 91.201.66.34. Out of curiosity I looked up that IP in whois:

[root@lunix ~]# whois 91.201.66.34
[Querying whois.ripe.net]
[whois.ripe.net]
% This is the RIPE Database query service.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: This output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '91.201.64.0 - 91.201.67.255'

inetnum:        91.201.64.0 - 91.201.67.255
netname:        Donekoserv
descr:          DonEkoService Ltd
country:        RU
org:            ORG-DS41-RIPE
admin-c:        MNV32-RIPE
tech-c:         MNV32-RIPE
status:         ASSIGNED PI
mnt-by:         RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-by:         MNT-DONECO
mnt-by:         MNT-DONECO
mnt-lower:      RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-routes:     MHOST-MNT
mnt-routes:     MNT-PIN
mnt-domains:    MHOST-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

organisation:   ORG-DS41-RIPE
org-name:       DonEko Service
org-type:       OTHER
address:        novocherkassk, ul stremyannaya d.6
e-mail:         admin@pinspb.ru
mnt-ref:        MNT-PIN
mnt-by:         MNT-PIN
source:         RIPE # Filtered

person:         Metluk Nikolay Valeryevich
address:        korp. 1a 40 Slavy ave.,
address:        St.-Petersburg, Russia
e-mail:         nm@internet-spb.ru
phone:          +7 812 4483863
fax-no:         +7 901 3149449
nic-hdl:        MNV32-RIPE
mnt-by:         MNT-PIN
source:         RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '91.201.66.0/23AS21098'

route:          91.201.66.0/23
descr:          Route MHOST IDC
origin:         AS21098
mnt-by:         MHOST-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

[root@lunix ~]#

Not much info other than the IP is based in Russia. Well, anyway, I IP blocked 91.0.0.0/8 (sorry, Russia), so if you’re in that subnet you’re probably seeing a 403 now.

Edit: It occurred to me that I can accomplish the same thing while being less draconian if I wrap the Deny in a clause. This way everyone can still see the site but certain IP ranges won’t be able to POST anything:


Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from 218.6.9.
Deny from 173.203.101.
Deny from 122.162.28.
Deny from 91.
Deny from 213.5

Amazon EC2 – ext3 mkfs takes 30+ minutes?

evan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:33:42 +0000

I’ve been playing around with Amazon EC2 for a new project I’m working on and so far I’m really impressed. One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that it takes forever to create an ext3 filesystem on a new volume. For example, the below command took over 30 minutes to create the filesystem on a 300 GB volume:

# mke2fs -j -m0 /dev/sdf1
mke2fs 1.40.4 (31-Dec-2007)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
39321600 inodes, 78642183 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
2400 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 38 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

It took about 30 seconds do do everything up to the writing of the superblocks. Not sure why this takes so long, but it’s happened for every EBS volume I’ve formatted ext3. Annoying. Initially I thought it was hanging, and ended up terminating an instance that wouldn’t shutdown or let me cancel the operation. The terminated instance is still being displayed in the UI with a status of “terminated” and I can’t find any way to remove it from the list.

Finally got this DVD ripped and copied to my iPhone

evan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:28:47 +0000

This was a lot more work than I expected. Then again, I am a newb. And lazy.

yum install streamdvd – This is what I used to rip the DVD to a VOB file. I played around with a few other utils, including vobcopy and dvd::rip, but this was the only one I tried that ripped the DVD to a single VOB file AND started the movie at the right place. I’m sure there’s other ways to do it, but streamdvd > whatever.vob worked well for me.
You need to recompile ffmpeg with AAC support. I followed this great walkthrough; you need to install a bunch of libs but when I was done I ended up ffmpeg supporting everything I needed:
[evan@evanfc12 ~]$ ffmpeg -version FFmpeg version SVN-r22963, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers built on Jul 11 2010 11:48:47 with gcc 4.4.3 20100127 (Red Hat 4.4.3-4) configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic' --extra-version=rpmfusion --enable-bzlib --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdirac --enable-libfaac --enable-nonfree --enable-libfaad --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect libavutil 50.14. 0 / 50.14. 0 libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0 libavformat 52.61. 0 / 52.61. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0 libavfilter 1.19. 0 / 1.19. 0 libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 FFmpeg SVN-r22963 libavutil 50.14. 0 / 50.14. 0 libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0 libavformat 52.61. 0 / 52.61. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0 libavfilter 1.19. 0 / 1.19. 0 libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 [evan@evanfc12 ~]$
Used WinFF to encode the VOB file to .m4v, with these preset settings (conveniently included in the Windows version of WinFF):

-r 29.97 -vcodec libx264 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -crf 21 -bt 256k -refs 1 -coder 0 -me_method full -me_range 16 -subq 5 -partitions +parti4x4+parti8x8+partp8x8 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -level 30 -trellis 2 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -s 320×240 -aspect 4:3 -acodec libfaac -ab 112kb -ar 48000 -ac 2 -vpre default

That created the .m4v, I loaded it into iTunes and it synced to the phone and plays perfectly. Hooray!

Ripping a DVD on Fedora Core 13

evan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:16:57 +0000

I thought this would be a pretty straightforward task. It was, though it took several minutes to track down the CSS library needed for decryption of the DVD. All I want to do is copy Talking Words Factory to my phone so my kid can watch it in the car if needed. It looked like Brasero was the tool for the job, but I got some error about needing a plugin for it to be able to decrypt it. I found libdvdcss here and after installing the RPM, everything worked. Now I just need to encode it with ffmpeg.

Flash plugin on Firefox on Fedora 12 x86_64

evan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:36:54 +0000

I know I’ve been through this before because I’ve setup Fedora before and it’s working. But I just installed FC12 on my desktop at home (since my Seagate drive bricked itself a few days ago and I had to reinstall anyway) and while I finally got the Adobe Flash plugin working, it didn’t have any audio, which made YouTube kind of suck. Anyway, this of course was a solved problem, I just forgot where the fix was located… but duh, it’s on the Fedora website. A simple

yum install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.x86_64 \
    nspluginwrapper.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 \
    libcurl.i686'

and everything appears to be fine. Thank you Fedora!

libiphone / libmobiledevice is now in the official Fedora repo!

evan — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:28:41 +0000

Hooray! This was strange though:

[root@ehoffman yum.repos.d]# yum install libmobiledevice
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
No package libmobiledevice available.
Nothing to do

[root@ehoffman yum.repos.d]# yum install libiphone libiphone-devel ifuse
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Package libiphone is obsoleted by libimobiledevice, trying to install
libimobiledevice-1.0.1-1.fc12.i686 instead

...

================================================================================
 Package                     Arch        Version             Repository    Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 ifuse                       x86_64      1.0.0-1.fc12        updates       20 k
 libimobiledevice            i686        1.0.1-1.fc12        updates       73 k
 libimobiledevice-devel      x86_64      1.0.1-1.fc12        updates       59 k

“There’s no such thing as libmobiledevice… no wait… there it is.” http://libimobiledevice.org/

Edit: I see it now – it’s libimobiledevice.

Windows XP guests hang on shutdown in VMware Workstation on Linux

evan — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:45:30 +0000

I had this problem with FC11, where I couldn’t properly shut down or suspend the Windows XP VM I run (mostly for Outlook). When I’d shutdown inside the guest, it would mostly do what you’d expect, but then the screen would go blue, then black, and then the only way I could get the thing to exit was to kill the pid of vmware-vmx (or a ‘killall vmware-vmx’). I solved it somehow by removing some RPM, but when I went to FC12 the other day it came back, and I couldn’t remember how I’d fixed it initially. I Googled for nearly a full day before I found the original blog post that told me which RPMs to remove – for some reason I thought it was fprintd, but it was something else completely. Here’s the original post, and when I just read it I was going to comment on it to say thanks for posting it, but apparently I did that already. Anyway, I removed pcsc-lite again and everything appears to be good now.

Upgraded to Fedora Core 12

evan — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:24:14 +0000

I upgraded my work laptop from FC11 to FC12 yesterday using the “preupgrade” tool. It was pretty simple, though it took a lot longer than I expected. There was some funkiness with my screen going crazy after the upgrade – my external monitor and the laptop’s LCD both did this crazy wavy-line thing. I tried changing the refresh rate, running system-config-display, nothing worked. I found a post that suggested passing “nomodeset” to the kernel boot options – that solved it. Yay!

The other problem I had was reinstalling VMware Workstation – I couldn’t. I got this error: /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:240: error: ‘TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE’ … etc. I ended up having to edit the vmplayer source files directly (!!!) to get them to compile – instructions found here

So far FC12 seems exactly like FC11. But that’s fine – I only upgraded because I didn’t want to be on a dead-end version once FC13 is released.