dwc

Better Pictures

Joe took some pictures of the uprooted trees. Since we don't have Internet access right now, Elliot posted some of them.

Update: The full set of pictures, courtesy Suresh.

Hurricane Jeanne

Hurricane fatigue, I think, is an accurate term for the way many Floridians feel right now.

In the interest of keeping this entry short, let me just say that we lost TWO TREES in our front yard, which knocked out our water and power. The trees missed our house, but one landed on our neighbor's house.

Here's a picture of one of the trees from my (crappy) picture phone:

I'm at my mom's house for the time being.

Mac OS X vs. Samba, Round 2

A few months ago, I ran into some problems with Mac OS X's implementation of Samba. After spending a little more time with it, I'm pretty convinced that Apple indeed screwed it up.

I started debugging the problem again by verifying that my Windows XP installation could connect to a Linux Samba server. The server was configured using the defaults for authentication options: encrypt passwords = yes, auth methods = (use security setting), passdb backend = smbpasswd, username map = (no username map), and security = user. I added a new SMB user using smbpasswd. In Windows Explorer, I typed \\linuxserver\share, and after a brief delay (during which the client seemed to be sending the username and password used on our domain) was prompted for a username and password. The share showed up fine after entering them.

This definitely suggested that there was some issue with the Mac OS X version of Samba. I opened up the Mac's smb.conf, and started setting the authentication options to be as similar as those on the Linux box. I used the following configuration:

[global]
  workgroup = WEBADMIN
  netbios name = server
  os level = 0
  lm announce = no
  preferred master = no
  local master = no
  domain master = no
  guest account = unknown
  invalid users = root
  encrypt passwords = yes
;;; Default Mac configuration
;  auth methods = guest opendirectory
;  passdb backend = opendirectorysam guest
;;; -END- Default Mac configuration
;;; Default Samba configuration
  auth methods =
  passdb backend = smbpasswd:/etc/smbpasswd
  username map =
  security = user
;;; -END- Default Samba configuration
  printable = no
;  printer admin = @admin, @staff
  server string = Samba %v on %h (Mac OS X)
  unix charset = UTF-8-MAC
  display charset = UTF-8-MAC
  dos charset = 437
  use spnego = no
  client ntlmv2 auth = no
  unix extensions = no
  log level = 1

Save smb.conf, restart Windows Sharing. I then tried smbpasswd -a dwc, and it bombs out with the same error as last time:

[15:10:16 dwc@server ~]$ sudo smbpasswd -a dwc
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
could not find new user/computer dwc in passdb.
Failed to initialise SAM_ACCOUNT for user dwc.
Failed to modify password entry for user dwc


When using the default Mac configuration, smbpasswd dies with an even worse error:

server:/etc root# smbpasswd -a dwc
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
dyld: smbpasswd Undefined symbols:
/etc/pdb/opendirectorysam.so undefined reference to _get_opendirectory_authenticator expected to be defined in the executable
Trace/BPT trap

ARGH. I didn't really expect this to work, but it would have been interesting to see the results.

I understand that the Mac OS X user accounts are stored in NetInfo, so maybe Samba isn't able to see them when it's using the smbpasswd backend. Windows clients can connect to Linux servers using this backend, but can't connect to Mac servers using the default backend. So what the hell am I supposed to do?

Installing Samba from source might solve the problem, but I wonder how it will interface with NetInfo (if at all). Setting up a Linux server to act as a proxy of sorts would almost certainly work, but I shouldn't have to resort to that...

POWER

We got power back at the house yesterday afternoon, after 12 days without it. I lost a surge protector, but it seems like my UPS is okay (phew).

The Waiting Game Isn't Fun

It looks as though our power issues are partially resolved. According to Joe, GRU restored the power lines. We're waiting on an electrician to repair the weatherhead, after which we might have power again!

I negelected to mention the other day that we are without water service also. GRU shut off our water due to an apparently severe leak on the house side of the water meter. No final word yet, but that might have been fixed today.

More Hurricane Fun

I've been rather disconnected as of late due to Hurricane Frances. It's a little strange not being able to constantly check my email, use IRC, and browse the Web, but I'm starting to like it.

We lost power on Sunday afternoon (at about 16:00). Service was partially restored on Monday, but the lines to the house were damaged by a large branch. The power was on, but was surging every few minutes. We managed to keep the lights and air conditioner on, but that was about it.

One surge caused the loss of at least two surge protectors (I've never had the pleasure of hearing a large capacitor violently explode before) and possibly my $500 UPS and various computer equipment. I had disconnected everything when the power went out initially, but reconnected it briefly when my boss called me on Monday to make an update to the UF Home Page. If my UPS or computers are damaged, I'm not really sure what will happen - if UF doesn't pay for it (...), I may have to use my renter's insurance ($500 deductible, ugh).

Today, our landlord had an electrician look at the damaged lines and the wiring in the house. The electrician apparently shut off power to the house immediately after seeing what had happened. We're waiting on GRU to repair them, and I'm sure they have bigger problems right now. End result: we're without power again, and we're back to the waiting game.

If you need to get in touch with me, your best bet is to try when I'm at work. I'll be at home for the time being. I'll have my laptop with me, but like I said, I'm sort of enjoying the feeling of being somewhat disconnected.