Interesting that the Unix calls for setting user ids of processes are so varied and so complex, that they warranted an entire paper. I only skimmed, but I did get a pretty good description of the “saved uid” parameter of the setresuid call.

Setuid demystified (PDF)

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The previously mentioned Ubuntu repository problem seems to have resolved itself. I am finally able to upgrade my Samba packages.

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This has been happening all day every time I attempt to do apt-get dist-upgrade:

The following packages will be upgraded:
  libsmbclient samba samba-common smbclient smbfs
5 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 11.0MB of archives. After unpacking 4096B will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Writing extended state information... Done
Err http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main smbfs 3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3
  403 Forbidden
Err http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main smbclient 3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3
  403 Forbidden
Err http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main samba 3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3
  403 Forbidden
Err http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main samba-common 3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3
  403 Forbidden
Err http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main libsmbclient 3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3
  403 Forbidden
E: Failed to fetch

http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/samba/smbfs_3.0.24-2ubuntu1.3_i386.deb:

403 Forbidden

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Seen on a work email list. A possible solution to the problem where files downloaded through apt-get on Ubuntu at work (where we have a squid HTTP proxy) periodically get corrupted.

Put the following in apt.conf:

Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth "0";

Quote from man apt.conf:

One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2) Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many outstanding requests APT should send. A value of zero MUST be specified if the remote host does not properly linger on TCP connections – otherwise data corruption will occur. Hosts which require this are in violation of RFC 2068.

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It seem that some of the newer Linux kernel versions (2.6.21 and 2.6.22) don’t like the LSI SCSI adapter emulation in some of VMware’s products. I myself ran into this when I upgraded the kernel on a Gentoo VM (VMware ESX Server 3.0.1) to 2.6.22. After rebooting, the system could not find the root partition.

It took a bit of searching to figure out what the problem was, but the solution was simple. Change the VM to use the BusLogic SCSI adapter instead of the LSI.

Some references:

• forums.gentoo.org: 2007.0 on vmware: “cannot open root device sda3…”
• VMTN Discussion Forums: VMware 5.5.4 + Kernel 2.6.21.3: LSI …

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Installing gentoo-livecd-i686-installer-2007.0.iso into a VM on a VMware ESX Server 3.0.1 host.

Flickr photoset

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I haven’t worked with Solaris in years and I was curious to see how a recent version looks so I installed sol-10-u4-beta-bld7-x86-dvd.iso in a VMware ESX 3.0.1 VM.

Here are some photos.

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