Edward_178118's questions

I'm running CentOS 8.1 with Python 3.6.8, and Apache/2.4.37.

I'm new to mod_wsgi. I found this "hello world" example and got it to work:

https://www.ionos.com/community/hosting/python/use-mod-wsgi-to-run-python-as-a-web-application-on-centos-7/

The problem I'm having is that this appears to require each .py file to be added to its own .conf file to be added to conf.d, as seen in /etc/httpd/conf.d/helloworld.conf:

WSGIScriptAlias /helloworld /var/www/python/helloworld.py

<Directory /var/www/python/>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

And to run on python (.py) scripts out of /var/www/python.

This is very inconvenient before it looks like each Python program needs to be hardcoded instead of running out of the /var/www/html directories. We have development in Python 2 where the .py files are executed in the same directory along with .html and .php files. Under CentOS 7 we just had an entry added to the httpd.conf to recognize all .py files and make sure they got executed by Python.

I see the author mentioned this was for security. Is there a way to do this still being secure, but so I don't have to gather up all the .py files on the server and make .conf files for it, as seen in this "hello world" example?

If my take on using mod_wsgi is completely wrong, please enlighten me.

I wrote a simple shell script which uses the 'find' command so non-technical users can do a search on the file server through a web browser on the LAN. It works, but sometimes it has a long execution time, and then the follow-up searches are quick.

Is there a way to force a cache for 'find' or perhaps run something in the CRON to do this daily or a few times a day so users don't have to wait so long to get their first results?

I have a software RAID running on another distribution of Linux and are upgrading the server to CentOS 8.

I've only configured a server in the past when there was no data on the boot device or software RAID. How do I upgrading just the boot device to CentOS 8 so it will recognize the existing software RAID?

Note: I cannot be root on example.com, so editing httpd.conf isn't an option.

I want anything from http://example.com to redirect to be https and including the slash directory. This is an example of the problem. The same problem if it is http://www... or http://example.com...

If the URL looks like this:

http://www.example.com/suggestions

It incorrectly redirects to the home page:

https://www.example.com/index.php

When the desired result is for it to redirect to here:

https://www.example.com/suggestions

Here is the .htaccess code I'm using:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I have a CentOS 7 server. It is running a software RAID 1 mirroring three disks. I want to add a 4th disk to act as a hot spare. My intention is that in the event of a failure of one of the three disks being mirrored that the hot spare would automatically be populated from one of the remaining working disk, and take its place from the failure drive.

For the hot spare, other than formatting the new drive what else needs to be done to it? I assume it remains with no data on it until it is needed and starts syncing to replace the bad drive?

This is on CentOS Linux release 7.6.1810 (Core) with gparted.

I'm trying to re-format LaCie rugged external drives connected via USB 3.0.

I continue to get this error message when using gparted to format and add a partition:

    Libparted Error
    Partition(s) 1 on /dev/sdf have been written, but we have been
    unable to inform the kernel of the change, probably because it/
    they are in use. As a result, the old partition(s) will remain in 
    use. You should reboot now before making further changes.

By default, I noticed through the GUI it automounts the drive, but I have unmounted it from the command line before I proceed. Makes no different, I get this error message.

I have tried rebooting and trying this again, and the same thing.

How could I find out what is causing to generate this error message? It seems to think the resource is in use by another process, but I don't know what they could be.

I ssh'ed into the server and ran this:

while :
do
sleep 1
lsof | grep sde
done

So I could monitor if the device sde was being accessed. Although my message originally was for sdf, after rebooting, it got assigned to sde.

What I found out is, that gparted is access sde. When I clicked to "apply" this I saw this in the lsof output:

gpartedbi 7504                root    6u      BLK               8,64       0t512       16537 /dev/sde
gmain     7504 7506           root    6u      BLK               8,64       0t512       16537 /dev/sde

So it seems that gparted and gmain itself are accessing sde, which I would expect it to do since it is formatting it. But I don't see anything else.

I do see this in the log regarding systemd-udevd. Is this related?

Sep 18 14:04:13 myserver gparted.desktop: ======================
Sep 18 14:04:13 myserver gparted.desktop: libparted : 3.1
Sep 18 14:04:13 myserver gparted.desktop: ======================
Sep 18 14:04:14 myserver systemd-udevd: invalid key/value pair in file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/59-fc-wwpn-id.rules on line 10, starting at character 26 (';')
Sep 18 14:04:14 myserver systemd-udevd: invalid key/value pair in file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/59-fc-wwpn-id.rules on line 11, starting at character 29 (';')
Sep 18 14:04:14 myserver systemd-udevd: invalid key/value pair in file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/59-fc-wwpn-id.rules on line 12, starting at character 25 (';')
Sep 18 14:04:14 myserver kernel: sde: sde1

I noticed in the logs this message which relates to Microarchitectural Data Sampling:

kernel: MDS CPU bug present and SMT on, data leak possible. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/hw-vuln/mds.html for more details.

The URL refers to Microarchitectural Data Sampling. The wiki pages on it states, "...vulnerability can be used by hackers exploiting the vulnerability to steal information recently accessed by the affected microprocessor."

If a server isn't on the internet, being used on a LAN as an intranet server, is this vulnerability a valid concern?

Even if it were on the internet, how could a hacker gain access to the microprocessor to steal information because of MDS?

I see one of the solutions is to disable hyper-threading but performance would suffer.

Final question, is security the only concern for MDS or is this known to cause other problems?

I'm trying to install and configure Postfix/Dovecot on an EC2 instance running Amazon Linux 2. The documentation I've run across so far talks about opening ports using firewall-cmd or iptables on the EC2 instance. But are these really necessary if using AWS Security Group, wouldn't opening the inbound ports there take care of it?

I know some people want to use their own firewall on EC2 in additional to the AWS Security Group, but my question is it a requirement to use firewall-cmd/iptables so that Postfix/Dovecot can allow users to connect to pop3 their e-mail?

When we develop websites on the staging server (CentOS) on the LAN, we end up storing it in something like:

/var/www/html/project1.com

And to access it through a web browser on the LAN:

http://ourserver/project1.com

When it gets published on a public hosting service it is then:

http://project1.com

Is there a way to match the same domain structure on the staging server for the LAN as when it is published? So that during development when we type in http://project1.com in a web browser, it knows to go to http://ourserver/project1.com?

I've not been able to find documentation that describes doing this. What I've seen so far is geared towards domains that are publicly being hosted with a public registered DNS.

I have looked into /etc/hosts, but that doesn't allow something like this:

ourserver/project1.com project1.com

which what I would want to map project1.com requests on the LAN to point to http://ourserver/project1.com

The server is:

CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core) , 3.10.0-693.5.2.el7.x86_64
PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Nov 15 2017 16:33:54)

I wasn't able to get PHP SOAP to work without an error from web pages, although the test I did worked fine at the command line in Linux for PHP cli. After a lot of searching I found a suggest to add the following to the /etc/php.ini file:

extension=soap.so

This make the web pages doing the SOAP requests work fine, however, the PHP CLI is producing this error:

PHP Warning:  Module 'soap' already loaded in Unknown on line 0

I get the above message even doing a 'php -v' at the command line.

If the soap module is already loaded, why doesn't soap work in web pages for cgi? If it already loaded, where is it already loaded at, and how do I correct this?

# yum list | grep -i soap
php-soap.x86_64                         5.4.16-43.el7_4                @updates 
CGSI-gSOAP.x86_64                       1.3.10-7.el7                   epel     
CGSI-gSOAP-devel.x86_64                 1.3.10-7.el7                   epel     
SOAPpy.noarch                           0.11.6-17.el7                  base     
fence-agents-vmware-soap.x86_64         4.0.11-66.el7_4.3              updates  
glite-lbjp-common-gsoap-plugin.x86_64   3.2.12-7.el7                   epel     
glite-lbjp-common-gsoap-plugin-devel.x86_64
gsoap.x86_64                            2.8.16-9.el7                   epel     
gsoap-devel.x86_64                      2.8.16-9.el7                   epel     
gsoap-doc.noarch                        2.8.16-9.el7                   epel     
perl-POE-Component-Server-SOAP.noarch   1.14-12.el7                    epel     
perl-SOAP-Lite.noarch                   1.10-1.el7                     epel     
perl-SOAP-WSDL.noarch                   3.003-6.el7                    epel     
perl-SOAP-WSDL-Apache.noarch            3.003-6.el7                    epel     
perl-SOAP-WSDL-examples.noarch          3.003-6.el7                    epel     
php-ZendFramework-Soap.noarch           1.12.20-1.el7                  epel     
php-ZendFramework2-Soap.noarch          2.4.11-1.el7                   epel     
php-pear-SOAP.noarch                    0.13.0-5.el7                   epel     
qtsoap.x86_64                           2.7-9.el7                      epel     
qtsoap-devel.x86_64                     2.7-9.el7                      epel     

This existed as part of the 'yum install php-soap':

# cat /etc/php.d/soap.ini
; Enable soap extension module
extension=soap.so

It seems like this should be left alone. If I remove the extension=soap.so from the /etc/php.ini, the warning error message at the command line goes away, but it breaks the php soap related web pages.

Further, I don't understand why SOAP for the php web pages isn't simply installed and configured with the rest of the yum installations for php and soap.

Are their .ini or other configuration files that needed to be changed to add extension=soap.so? If so, where are those files?

I ran the phpinfo program through the web browser and at the command line and got the same results for the path:

Server API => Command Line Interface
Virtual Directory Support => disabled
Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc
Loaded Configuration File => /etc/php.ini
Scan this dir for additional .ini files => /etc/php.d

The exception is that from the web browser for "Server API" it is: Apache 2.0 Handler.

When I run this:

php -i | grep -i soap

This is the output:

PHP Warning:  Module 'soap' already loaded in Unknown on line 0
/etc/php.d/soap.ini,
PHP Warning:  Unknown: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in Unknown on line 0
soap
Soap Client => enabled
Soap Server => enabled
soap.wsdl_cache => 1 => 1
soap.wsdl_cache_dir => /tmp => /tmp
soap.wsdl_cache_enabled => 1 => 1
soap.wsdl_cache_limit => 5 => 5
soap.wsdl_cache_ttl => 86400 => 86400

To compare, I created an instance in virtualBox for CentOS 7 and manually installed PHP 7 instead of the PHP 5 that comes with CentOS 7.

PHP 7.0.25 (cli) (built: Oct 27 2017 13:55:11) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies

This only has one php.ini file located in /etc/php.ini and with soap.so added to it, it works fine without errors at the command line and phpinfo() run from the server also says it is using the php.ini in /etc. It also mentioned that it is using /etc/php.d, but so what PHP 5. But the directory looks different even though it contains the same soap.ini file's contents, but the file names are different. In the PHP 7 installation they are named 20-soap.ini while in the PHP 5 installation it is named soap.ini.

In PHP 5 if I add soap.so to the /etc/php.ini file, the same that the CGI is apparently using this makes SOAP work for the CGI, but it generates an error at the command line about soap already being loaded.

This might be helpful, I have edited the php.ini to add soap.ini, and done this:

service httpd restart

That causes the CGI to work, and no errors from the command line for PHP, that is, until I reboot the server and then the PHP Warning about soap already being loaded returns.

Where else and how could the PHP cli already have loaded soap.so that it doesn't need it added to the php.ini file? Could this mean that PHP was compiled with soap.so built into it?

I'm running a CentOS 7.4/KVM with an instance of CentOS 6.8 for legacy purposes. I have DHCP for everything on the LAN, all devices, workstations and servers. Using a Verizon FIOS Actiontec router they all show up, except when running CentOS 6.8 as an instance. I have instances on KVM of Ubuntu running and the CentOS 7.4 server shows up without a problem. The router shows that IP address as added to "new-host".

When I ran CentOS 6.8 on the actual hardware before it was retired there was no problem with the hostname showing up.

I do have the DNS set to 192.168.1.1 on the LAN in the KVM, but I'm not successful in getting the CentOS 6.8 instance to have its hostname appear.

Is there something with KVM? I am using a bridge network adapter with virt-manager so all the IP addresses are 192.168.1.X.

CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core) 
uname -r output: 3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64
NVidia driver: NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-375.66.run

When using the Nvidia graphics card driver with the Nvidia GeForce GT 720 graphics card on CentOS 7.4 it works fine for the wired computer monitor on the console. However, when attempting to connect to the vncserver, you only get a blank black screen on connection. I have removed the Nvidia driver, and VNC works again. Apparently I just recently found out that the Nouveau driver works with VNC, but it doesn't with the wired computer monitor on the console.

Is there a work around for using the Nvidia driver and be able to get VNC to work? Possible configuration files changes or a simpler GUI to use with Gnome? Currently I'm using metacity in the ~user/.vnc/xstartup file. Or is there another good alternative to using the vncserver/tigervnc?

I'm running CentOS 7.4 with Gnome and having problems getting the VNC server to serve a Desktop environment for the client. I either get a blank black screen or text with checkboxes. It is running for VNC:

Xvnc TigerVNC 1.8.0 - built Aug  7 2017 01:32:32

If I use the .vnc/xstartup as supplied in my home directory:

#!/bin/sh

unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

It gets prompted for the password, but it just provides a blank black screen. It doesn't inter at all. When I log into this same account from the console, it works perfectly fine.

I had the VNC server working on a now retired CentOS 6 system, so I decided to try the xstart from that one:

#!/bin/sh

vncconfig -iconic &
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
OS=`uname -s`
if [ $OS = 'Linux' ]; then
  case "$WINDOWMANAGER" in
    *gnome*)
      if [ -e /etc/SuSE-release ]; then
        PATH=$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin
        export PATH
      fi
      ;;
  esac
fi
if [ -x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
  exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
fi
if [ -f /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
  exec sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
fi
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#twm &
exec gnome-session &

But this produces gray screen for the client with the following check boxes and text:

Accept clipboard from viewers
Also set primary selection
Send clipboard to viewers
Send primary selection to viewers

I can check and uncheck those boxes, but that's it. Don't get a desktop environment that I've edited according to CentOS 7 articles and documentation I've seen:

Here is the /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@:1.service file:

# The vncserver service unit file
#
# Quick HowTo:
# 1. Copy this file to /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
# 2. Replace <USER> with the actual user name and edit vncserver
#    parameters appropriately
#   ("User=<USER>" and "/home/<USER>/.vnc/%H%i.pid")
# 3. Run `systemctl daemon-reload`
# 4. Run `systemctl enable vncserver@:<display>.service`
#
# DO NOT RUN THIS SERVICE if your local area network is
# untrusted!  For a secure way of using VNC, you should
# limit connections to the local host and then tunnel from
# the machine you want to view VNC on (host A) to the machine
# whose VNC output you want to view (host B)
#
# [user@hostA ~]$ ssh -v -C -L 590N:localhost:590M hostB
#
# this will open a connection on port 590N of your hostA to hostB's port 590M
# (in fact, it ssh-connects to hostB and then connects to localhost (on hostB).
# See the ssh man page for details on port forwarding)
#
# You can then point a VNC client on hostA at vncdisplay N of localhost and with
# the help of ssh, you end up seeing what hostB makes available on port 590M
#
# Use "-nolisten tcp" to prevent X connections to your VNC server via TCP.
#
# Use "-localhost" to prevent remote VNC clients connecting except when
# doing so through a secure tunnel.  See the "-via" option in the
# `man vncviewer' manual page.


[Unit]
Description=Remote desktop service (VNC)
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=justme

# Clean any existing files in /tmp/.X11-unix environment
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver %i
PIDFile=/home/justme/.vnc/%H%i.pid
ExecStop=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I've looked in the log file and the only errors/warnings I've seen are:

[root@myserver ~]# systemctl status vncserver@:1.service
● vncserver@:1.service - Remote desktop service (VNC)
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/vncserver@:1.service; enabled; **vendor preset: disabled**)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2017-10-11 05:04:32 EDT; 21min ago
  Process: 2456 ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 1410 ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver %i (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 1358 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i (code=exited, status=2)
 Main PID: 1570 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Oct 11 05:01:31 myserver vncserver[1358]: Can't find file /home/justme/.vnc/myserver:1.pid
Oct 11 05:01:31 myserver vncserver[1358]: You'll have to kill the Xvnc process manually
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver vncserver[1410]: New 'myserver:1 (justme)' desktop is myserver:1
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver vncserver[1410]: Starting applications specified in /home/justme/.vnc/xstartup
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver vncserver[1410]: Log file is /home/justme/.vnc/myserver:1.log
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver systemd[1]: Started Remote desktop service (VNC).
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver gnome-session[1952]: gnome-session-binary[1952]: **WARNING: software acceleration check failed: Child process exited with code 1**
Oct 11 05:01:34 myserver gnome-session-binary[1952]: WARNING: software acceleration check failed: Child process exited with code 1
Oct 11 05:04:32 myserver vncserver[2456]: Killing Xvnc process ID 1570
Oct 11 05:04:32 myserver vncserver[2456]: Xvnc process ID 1570 already killed

I've made some attempts at changing the xstartup and the etc/systemd/system/vncserver@:1.service files, but none of them have produced a result other than the blank blank screen or the one with check boxes.

If anyone with experience in this has suggestions for more trouble-shooting or you are able to see what the problem is, please contribute your thoughts.

I've installing apcupsd in a fresh installation of CentOS 7 that is running Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS).

I installed the CGI status for apcupsd, but I continue to get the error message when attempting to access the page from another workstation:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /apcupsd/upsstats.cgi on this server.

The url for it on the LAN looks like this:

http://mysite/apcupsd/upsstats.cgi?host=127.0.0.1&temp=F

If I run this URL on a web browser on the server, it works fine.

So I figured that Apache doesn't know that apcupsd is located in /var/www/apcupsd, so I better go tell it.

However, when I look in /etc/httpd/conf.d I see there is an apcupsd.conf which looks like this:

#
# apcupsd configuration file for Apache Web server
#

# files are off the documentroot of Web server
Alias /apcupsd /var/www/apcupsd
<Directory /var/www/apcupsd>
 AddHandler cgi-script cgi pl
 Options ExecCGI
</Directory>

#
# Allow only local access at default
# Change the ".example.com" to match your domain or modify
# access rights to your needs to enable remote access also.
#
<Directory "/var/www/apcupsd">
    DirectoryIndex upsstats.cgi
    AllowOverride None
    Options ExecCGI Indexes
  <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
    # Apache 2.4
    Require local
  </IfModule>
  <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
    # Apache 2.2
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.1
    Allow from ::1
  </IfModule>
</Directory>

So I see there is already scripting there to tell it that /apcupsd is /var/www/apcupsd.

Yet it isn't working for the CGI because I get the error message above.

Do I need to do something else so this file in conf.d is loaded/executed? Does /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf needed to be edited, if so why and to what, because I see the "alias" is being done in the conf.d for apcupsd.conf. Seems like this is all in place and it should work.

What am I overlooking?

Would RAM upgrade for an HP 4050N LaserJet printer matter? We have this real workhorse of a Laser Printer. It's an HP 4050N and it's been in use for many years. In the past few years, I've noticed that the processing time it takes before it starts printing can take a long time. In some cases, some print queues just process so long we end up killing them and sending it to a different printer on the network.

This HP 4050N printer has a total of 16 MB of RAM. I believe it has 8 MB built-in which I suspect is on the motherboard. There are three slots for RAM. One slot has an 8 MB stick of RAM there. I've looked in the User's Guide and apparently this model can go up to a max of 200 MB of RAM.

I've seen RAM for this printer on sale very cheap in either 64 MB or 128 MB.

My question is, would upgrading the RAM on this printer by bringing the total up to 80 MB or 144 MB have a noticeable improvement on the processing time so that when printing output that contains modern graphics be worth doing? Or is RAM even the issue and it is the processing speed of the printer's CPU that's the actual bottleneck?

Update: The RAM I ordered for $10.00 (128 MB) arrived and I installed it. So the HP4050N went from having a total of 16 MB to 144 MB of RAM. I printed the test print which previously stayed in "processing" forever and never came out, but after this upgrade it printed as normal. This suit our needs. For your situation, as they say, your mileage may vary.

I'm running a CentOS server with Samba. Connected on the LAN is one Windows 7 PC and the rest are Macs and Linux. The Macs don't have this problem, but on the Windows PC when a user attempts to move a file on the same share from one folder to another, it doesn't "move" them. It makes a copy of the file to the destination and doesn't remove the source file.

This doesn't happen all the time, but it seems to be happening more when the file is created from one of the Macs (all running El Capitan). The problem has not occurred when the PC user moves a file they have created.

What can I try to trouble-shoot this?

Could this be an issue with the smb.conf file? How should it be set-up so that all users of the file server have read/write access to all the files on the share?

I find this very puzzling that it doesn't seem to be happening all the time, even though the files have the same owner/group and permissions.

Is there something I need to do on Windows 7 to make sure the client on there is working currently?

CentOS release 6.7 (Final) Samba version 3.6.23-24.el6_7

The share is 0755 permissions and is owned by smbuser and smbuser group.

The folder in the share has a permission of 0775, same owner/group as above.

The actual file has a permission of 0644 and is owned and belongs to group root. However in the smb.conf file, everything is forced to root (I believe):

[global]
        workgroup = workgroup
        netbios name = SERVER
        browseable = no
        available = no
        wins support = yes
        local master = yes

[SERVER]
        comment = File Server
        browseable = yes
        valid users = smbuser,nobody,edward
        force user = root
        writeable = yes
        path = /home/share
        available = yes

Everyone (on the Macs) has access through user smbuser with the same password.

The Windows 7 PC, which I'm not entirely sure about since it has been so long since I set it up, I thought it was also using smbuser too. But now I can't find where that information is on the PC to verify this, or wipe it out and re-enter it. But if everyone is "force user = root" doesn't that mean, they would all be acting as "root"?

I have done a test where the PC created a folder and file on the share, and it is owned by root and the same group.

If I don't have this set-up properly, please let me know. We need all workstations to be able to read/write the same files. There is no reason for it to belong to a specific user.

We do a back-up to a LaCie external rugged drive. The drive is then swapped with it's twin in the safe deposit box. While the drives have different serial numbers, for the servers purposes they are the same drive. I can't image a normal situation where both drives would ever been connected to the server at the same time, but it could be possible.

Often another drive is connected to this same server so the rugged drive doesn't always get the same dev, sometimes it gets /dev/sde1 and other times it gets assigned /dev/sdf1. I thought of solving this problem with UDEV so the UUID is always referring to the "safedepositbox" mount point, but I would want to be able to do this for either of the rugged twins.

Is there a way to set it up in UDEV that the "safedepositbox" can be assigned from either UUIDs or Serial numbers for these two drives? Again, I can't imagine a situation where both drives would be connected to the server simultaneously, but I wouldn't want to rule out that possibly.

Or is there another option to do this I'm overlooking? The way it's done now, is the drive is powered on, an fdisk -l is run to find which device it has been assigned too and then it is mounted, but this is all manual. Thanks!

I run rsync in the cron every 4 hours. This works well for backups, but it generates six messages a day to root for each successful backup. I know I can put the output to /dev/null not to get any e-mail messages to root at all, but what I really want is exception reporting. In other words, only send an e-mail message to root if the rsync fails or has any problem completing normally. Is there a way to do this without having it also send e-mail to root every 4 hours? Thanks!

"SMART Usage Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 146 to 150". This is on CentOS 6.6.

What does this really mean? Is the drive really hot or is this perhaps a software bug? The drive is an eSATA 2TB drive and it feels cool to the touch and the server located in a basement is 70F.

# smartctl -A /dev/sdb
smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [x86_64-linux-2.6.32-504.16.2.el6.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   134   134   054    Pre-fail  Offline      -       89
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   123   123   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       507 (Average 505)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       89
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   067    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   135   135   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       26
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       29541
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       71
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       205
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       205
**194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   150   150   000    Old_age   Always       -       40 (Min/Max 20/49)**
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       9

When and how should this be run? Is it better to boot from a DVD-ROM and run fsck on each real hard drive? Or can this be done automatically after X number of mounts?