Ians Ramblings

Have you ever had the issue where you try to launch an application in Linux and you’re greeted with something like “error while loading shared libraries: libaudio.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory” Only to then find out there is no package in yum or apt-get called libaudio or anything similar that could contain the so file.

There is a command for yum which helps track down the parent package which contains the missing dependency which is: -

yum provides */libaudio.so.2

This will return something like: -

[root@castlenix ~]# yum provides */libaudio.so.2
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirrors.melbourne.co.uk
* extras: mirrors.melbourne.co.uk
* updates: mirrors.melbourne.co.uk
nas-libs-1.9.2-1.el6.x86_64 : Run-time libraries for NAS
Repo : atrpms
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/lib64/libaudio.so.2

So you then need to install the NAS package, so “yum install nas” and you will then have your dependent so file.

Another titan in the music industry has died, seems so strange when the mega stars of your youth pass away. It seems especially sad when they are so massively talented and special to the world. The world has changed in these last 30 years, seems unlikely we will ever see mega stars of the calibre of Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson again.

I think they were born and came to fame just at the point the US was at the height of it’s global power and influence and their fame and talent spread worldwide like wildfire.

‘Stars’ crop up and fade away in month these days and are often little more than karaoke singers that can help peddle some singles maybe an album or two if they can squeeze them out before the public get bored. This dross of current artists just makes the passing of true stars that much sadder for the world.

How far Whitney’s performance at the Super bowl in 1991 was from the clown who no one had heard of that was swearing at the Super bowl 2012.

I hope everyone will play Whitney Houston’s music loud for this week all over the world.

It seems there is a vulnerability in the wp-css-compress Word Press plugin. Luckily I don’t have this installed and tend not to use any plugins for this reason. However I have had numerous attempts to exploit this vulnerability against this site, including today from a little script kiddy trying to proxy via the Netherlands.

You will see the exploit in your logs looking something like: -

/wp-content/plugins/wp-css/wp-css-compress.php?f=../../../../../../../../etc/passwd

Clearly the developer that wrote wp-css-compress doesn’t stop attempts to move out of the web accessible directory and into the etc folder to pull back the system passwd file which will contain the user-names of users on the server making a brute force attack over SSH much more likely to succeed.

So ensure you disable this plugin and keep an eye on your eyes for this kind of activity, and while your at it why not install mod security it defeats a lot of the pleb level hacking you see on a regular bases.

The good ole CB550 is running ok now, breathing properly with it’s new carb rubber. It’s quite difficult to start the old girl though, and today I had a real panic, driving into town, she cut out totally. Pulled over started again, then few moments later total cut out.

Hmm it really helps when you actually put petrol in the tank! Although it was only showing 91 miles I had been running the bike stationary trying to diagnose the carb issues and had actually run it out of petrol ! Buffoon.

Once I’d filled up with a tank full of nice 100 RON V-power she was purring again, I even got a complement for running a great classic!

Well here’s a (rather long sorry!) video of how the old girl is running now, would be great if any motorcycle experts who happen to come across this page could leave a comment to say whether or not it sounds like it’s running well / lean / rich.

Found some great motorcycle websites lately. It feels like a bit of a change in the motorcycle community either that or I am just picking up on a whole alternative side to it. There seems to me to be a surge in the creative side of motorcycling, individual bikes created by their owners but modified in an artistic nostalgic manner.

I think people are happy to go back to a more chilled out time, with great looking bikes that perform comfortably on the road but also give a real feeling of nostalgia. Something people can tinker with individualise but still use on a regular basis. Especially with so much time spent with technology it’s great to have that juxtaposition on a daily basis as you arrive at work on a bike made 40 years ago and work on the latest technology in the day.

Indian engine

http://bikeexif.com Bike Exif – Great blog and interviews
http://southsiders-mc.blogspot.com – Very artistic photographic motorcycle blog
http://www.dimecitycycles.com/ Great bike builders, making some gorgeous cafe racers
http://www.lossaengineering.com/ Again brilliant bike builder some great retro bikes and cafe bikes

Norton

Very annoyed with Virgin media and their very poor customer service. My modem seems to be sitting there flashing indicating no connection to their service. However it took over an hour, two separate 30+ minute calls (where they seem to auto disconnect after 35 mins on hold) to get through to a customer service centre in India.

Now I have to wait until next Saturday for someone to come and bring a replacement modem as apparently the flashing light is uncommon and means there is a fault with the modem.

So I can only write this offline and it will probably appear in a weeks time.

I received my new carburetor to air box rubber kit arrived for my Honda. I had thought that the running problems I had would require a full clean out of the carbs and re-balancing possibly re-jetting so I hadn’t fitted them right away.

Today I thought I would just go and get a new plug spanner and check the plugs but while I was in the garage I thought I would just try and replace the one carb to airbox tube that had some small splits in it and see what difference it made.

Immediately after installing the new tube, I thought something had gone horrendously wrong as the bike would no longer turn over or if it did it would splutter and back fire and die within 10 seconds or instantly if throttle was applied.

However after 10 to 15 starts with the kick starter and various combinations of choke, throttle, fuel on / off (to burn off flooding) it finally started roughly and I held the throttle on at 2k rpm closing the choke and it started to run like normal again.

Once it had been left to warm I went on a bit of a ride in the freezing weather and the performance difference was massive, easily nipped up to 70 mph at 6k. Very pleased with that result .