[Grml] Grml 2011.12 Release Candidate 1 available

[Christian Hofstaedtler]

Grml Users!

We are proud to announce the first release candidate of the upcoming
version 2011.12, code-named "Knecht Rootrecht"!

For detailed information about the changes between 2011.05 and
2011.12 have a look at the official release announcement:
http://bit.ly/vMHbqR

This release brings a downsizing and cleanup: one flavour, two
architectures. The new, smaller flavour has a 350MB ISO size target,
while still delivering over 1.1GB of open source software relevant
for system administrators!

Give it a try: download grml 2011.12-rc from http://bit.ly/sESUaa
now!

Please test the ISOs and everything you usually use and report back,
so we can complete the stable release soon. If no major problems
come up, the next iteration will be the stable release, which is
scheduled for end of December.

Thank you for your attention,
-ch on behalf of the Grml Team.

[John Heim]

Successes:

1. Waited for the tone, pressed q, typed in 'modprobe speakup_ltlk' and got
speech.
2. Waited for the tone, pressed q, typed in 'brltty' and got braille on my
braille display.

Problems:

1. Could not get the ssh server to start. Has the ssh=<password> cheat code
been removed?
2. Could not load speakup kernel module for my synth at the boot prompt. I
understand that the grml cheat codes for loading speakup have been removed.
But I thought there was a way to load kernel modules at boot. The grml
documentation references this document on kernel.org:

http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt

If I read that correctly, I should be able to type 'grml modprobe
speakup_ltlk' at the boot prompt. But it didn't work. I think that only
works for modules in initrd, correct?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian Hofstaedtler" <ch at grml.org>
To: <grml-announce at ml.grml.org>; <grml at ml.grml.org>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 3:27 PM
Subject: [Grml] Grml 2011.12 Release Candidate 1 available

_______________________________________________
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join #grml on irc.freenode.org
grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/

[Ulrich Dangel]

* John Heim wrote [14.12.11 20:32]:
Hi,

Post by John Heim
1. Waited for the tone, pressed q, typed in 'modprobe speakup_ltlk'
and got speech.
2. Waited for the tone, pressed q, typed in 'brltty' and got braille
on my braille display.

That is really great. Thanks for your feedback.

Post by John Heim
1. Could not get the ssh server to start. Has the ssh=<password>
cheat code been removed?

No. I just tested it with an little bit older build and it works without
a problem. Maybe you didn't have a network connection?

Post by John Heim
2. Could not load speakup kernel module for my synth at the boot
prompt. I understand that the grml cheat codes for loading speakup
have been removed. But I thought there was a way to load kernel
modules at boot. The grml documentation references this document on
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
If I read that correctly, I should be able to type 'grml modprobe
speakup_ltlk' at the boot prompt.

No. This document specifies how you can specify module parameters. One
way is to specify the parameters after providing the name on the
modprobe command like:

modprobe modulename moduleparameter=value

The other solution is to specify modulename.moduleparameter=value at the
boot commandline.

Ulrich

[John Heim]

From: "Ulrich Dangel" <mru at grml.org>
To: <grml at ml.grml.org>; <grml-devel at ml.grml.org>

Post by Ulrich Dangel

Post by John Heim
Problems
1. Could not get the ssh server to start. Has the ssh=<password>
cheat code been removed?

No. I just tested it with an little bit older build and it works without
a problem. Maybe you didn't have a network connection?

Well, I can ping it. I checked it with nmap and found that only port 111 is
open. (see below.) I'm about as sure as I can be that I'm typing 'grml
ssh=bogus' at the boot prompt. I've done it about a million times with
previous grml releases. Later this afternoon I may be able to get sighted
assistance.

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-12-14 13:46 CST
Interesting ports on test1.math.wisc.edu (144.92.166.10):
Not shown: 999 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
111/tcp open rpcbind

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 6.67 seconds

[Ulrich Dangel]

* John Heim wrote [14.12.11 21:41]:
Hi,

Post by John Heim
Well, I can ping it. I checked it with nmap and found that only
port 111 is open. (see below.) I'm about as sure as I can be that
I'm typing 'grml ssh=bogus' at the boot prompt. I've done it about a
million times with previous grml releases. Later this afternoon I
may be able to get sighted assistance.

If you have access to the system you can just read /proc/cmdline to
get the commandline.

We are currently thinking about adding a beep after the bootloader is
loaded. Hopefully this will help to add customized parameters to the
commandline.

Ulrich

[John G. Heim]

From: "Ulrich Dangel" <mru at grml.org>
To: <grml at ml.grml.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Grml] ssh server with grml_2011.12-rc1

Post by Ulrich Dangel
Hi,

Post by John Heim
Well, I can ping it. I checked it with nmap and found that only
port 111 is open. (see below.) I'm about as sure as I can be that
I'm typing 'grml ssh=bogus' at the boot prompt. I've done it about a
million times with previous grml releases. Later this afternoon I
may be able to get sighted assistance.

If you have access to the system you can just read /proc/cmdline to
get the commandline.

I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong. Here's the contents of
/proc/cmdline... Note that it does not contain what I typed. I think the
problem is that I have to press some down arrows and/or tabs when the disk
stops spinning. I have just been typing my grml command...

initrd=/boot/grml/initrd.gz boot=live bootid=grml201112rc1 apm=power-off
vga=791 quiet nomce grml ssh=bogus BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/grml/linux26

Post by Ulrich Dangel
We are currently thinking about adding a beep after the bootloader is
loaded. Hopefully this will help to add customized parameters to the
commandline.

That would be very nice.

Post by Ulrich Dangel
Ulrich
--
IRCNet: mru | freenode: mrud
_______________________________________________
Grml mailing list - Grml at ml.grml.org
http://ml.grml.org/mailman/listinfo/grml
join #grml on irc.freenode.org
grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/

[Ulrich Dangel]

Post by John G. Heim
I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong. Here's the contents of
/proc/cmdline... Note that it does not contain what I typed. I think

It actually contains your ssh=bogus entry which is correct. I just
downloaded grml64-2011.12-rc1 and it works for me.

Post by John G. Heim
the problem is that I have to press some down arrows and/or tabs
when the disk stops spinning. I have just been typing my grml
command...

Grml switched to a graphical menu a while ago. You just have to press
tab and enter the addtional boot parameters like ssh=bogus which you did
according to the content below. You do not have to add the grml paramer
like you did but there is no harm if you do it.

Post by John G. Heim
initrd=/boot/grml/initrd.gz boot=live bootid=grml201112rc1
apm=power-off vga=791 quiet nomce grml ssh=bogus
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/grml/linux26

It seems that this is the correct commandline. I just tested it and it
works for me. Is there maybe a firewall in between? Otherwise can you
test if there is a sshd running on the machine with pidof sshd? You can
also try to access the ssh daemon from the machine itself with:

ssh grml at grml.local

which should ask for the password of the host.

Post by John G. Heim

Post by Ulrich Dangel
We are currently thinking about adding a beep after the bootloader is
loaded. Hopefully this will help to add customized parameters to the
commandline.

That would be very nice.

You can test and use a test version from
http://jenkins.grml.org/job/grml-full-amd64/760/artifact/2011-12-15_00-04-14/grml_isos/autobuild_2011-12-15_00-04-14.iso
which should contain the beep in the bootloader. This is atm untested.
Please be aware that this iso is a 64bit one. I can't offer you a 32bit
one.

Ulrich

[John G. Heim]

From: "Ulrich Dangel" <mru at grml.org>
To: <grml at ml.grml.org>; <grml-devel at ml.grml.org>

Post by Ulrich Dangel
The other solution is to specify modulename.moduleparameter=value at the
boot commandline.

Well, what I'd like to know is if its possible to load a kernel module atthe
the boot prompt. After boot, I can say, 'modprobe speakup_ltlk' to get
speech but sometimes it is important to have speech during boot. That way I
can hear the boot messages.

Actually, if the serial console worked, that would probably be enough for
me. I can't speak for all blind people but if I really needed to see boot
messages, I'd probably want to access them through a serial console anyway
since that way you can cut & paste them into an email or whatever.

I'm going to try that serial console thing again tomorrow. I know you said
its a bug but I am not sure that the cheat codes were getting through to the
kernel because I wasn't pressing tab before typing them.

[Ulrich Dangel]

Post by John G. Heim
Well, what I'd like to know is if its possible to load a kernel
module atthe the boot prompt.

Not as far as i know.

Post by John G. Heim
I'm going to try that serial console thing again tomorrow. I know
you said its a bug but I am not sure that the cheat codes were
getting through to the kernel because I wasn't pressing tab before
typing them.

I tried it myself and had the same problem. I saw the bootmessages on
the serial console but could not login onto the system.

Ulrich

[John Heim]

From: "Ulrich Dangel" <mru at grml.org>
To: <grml at ml.grml.org>

Post by Ulrich Dangel
It seems that this is the correct commandline. I just tested it and it
works for me. Is there maybe a firewall in between? Otherwise can you
test if there is a sshd running on the machine with pidof sshd? You can
ssh grml at grml.local
which should ask for the password of the host.

I got it to work. Part of the problem was that I forgot abut having to press
tab before typing in the cheat code. But another thing I was doing wrong is
being too quick to try to log in. The ssh daemon doesn't start until about 5
seconds after the tone. Even after I was entering the cheat code correctly,
I ran both an ssh command and an nmap before the daemon started.

I actually verified this... I can type 'ssh hostname', listen to it say
"connection refused", and run nmap all in the time between the tone and when
the daemon starts. Welll, I'm currently testing on an old Dell 280. So that
might be part of the problem too.

[Marc Haber]

Post by John Heim
I got it to work. Part of the problem was that I forgot abut having to press
tab before typing in the cheat code. But another thing I was doing wrong is
being too quick to try to log in. The ssh daemon doesn't start until about 5
seconds after the tone. Even after I was entering the cheat code correctly,
I ran both an ssh command and an nmap before the daemon started.
I actually verified this... I can type 'ssh hostname', listen to it say
"connection refused", and run nmap all in the time between the tone and when
the daemon starts. Welll, I'm currently testing on an old Dell 280. So that
might be part of the problem too.

Generation of an ssh host key takes a few seconds on current hardware
and even more on older hardware. The daemon will not start before this
process has finished.

Greetings
Marc