Topic: FIrst impression and manual comments

[rgmhtt]

I did my first install yesterday evening on an old Compaq SFF:  PIII/500, 256Mb mem, 6Gb disk.

Install went well. I have my own DHCP server, and supplied a sub zone off my registered domain name.

Followed the reboot and got to a login prompt.  Figured that I should log in as root, that is what I always do when I build a new system.  Did a bit of pinging, then ran 'yum update'.  At the end of this I got a message about needing to run a couple of commands, which I did and rebooted.  System now runs a long time and seems to be setting up some services then allows me to log in again.  I do so as root.

Nothing much.  No information on managing this unit...

Oh, look at Chapter 6!  Chapter 5 ended prematurely.  There is something about selecting 'auto' mode?  Did not see that in the install, nor is there any information on 'auto mode' in Chapter 5.  Well Ch 6 tells me to log in as 'admin', not root!  Dah, NOW I get a menu....

And to get remote access to the server-manager from my other systems which are all on different subnets, I have to first go into it server-manager to set up remote access.  Well, I am NOT your typical newbie.  They don't tend to have 64 public IPv4 addresses divided into 6 subnets plus 6 rfc1918 subnets with IPv6 addressing available on many of these....  All in your home.

So now I am up to managing my first network from my Centos 5.2 laptop with Firefox...

I create a group; oh lower case only?  fine.  I guess since NT was case insensitive, restricting Linux to lower case to avoid problems makes some sense.  Perhaps this is covered somewhere?

I create my first user, lower case again.  It comes up locked.  Well I did not remember a password field in the create user panel, so this makes sense, and I go to change the password to only discover....

YOU HAVE those STUPID password restrictions enabled!  STUPID and insane!  I have TAUGHT Authentication and get involved in all the craziness in passwords.  Check Rich Smith's web site:

http://www.cryptosmith.com/sanity/pwdilemma.html

In his book on Authentication, Rich shows a simple way to create a password with 50 bits of entropy.  It is one of a number of rules I have used for my users here.

So is there a way to turn off this password enforcement policy?  If not I will be finding passwords on post its under the mouse pad:

http://www.cryptosmith.com/sanity/pwdilemma.html#anchor12902853

I don't need Dilbert's Mordac (http://www.cryptosmith.com/sanity/mordac.jpg) in my home....

So that is it for now.  I have some other tasks to tackle this morning...

[Tib]

Hello rgmhtt,

There have been many a debate on this ... lol

Have a look here:

http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:FAQ#Password_Strength_Checking

Regards,

Tib

[rgmhtt]

Hello rgmhtt,

There have been many a debate on this ... lol

There always are.  And because changing this behavior is obscure, I bet this gets asked a lot.

Have a look here:

http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:FAQ#Password_Strength_Checking

OK.  That fixed things.

I have passed my 'typical' passwords through cracklib-check and they come back "OK", just not with the composition rules of 'normal', let alone 'strong'.  There needs to be a 'crack only' check...  But as you said this has been debated and will forever be debated.  And I am one of the big debaters on this subject.  It IS one of my proficiency areas.

[CharlieBrady]

Oh, look at Chapter 6!  Chapter 5 ended prematurely.  There is something about selecting 'auto' mode?  Did not see that in the install, nor is there any information on 'auto mode' in Chapter 5.

Please open a bug report (via http://bugs.contribs.org/) for any errors or omissions you find in the documentation.

[rgmhtt]

Please open a bug report (via http://bugs.contribs.org/) for any errors or omissions you find in the documentation.

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5089

[CharlieBrady]

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5089

Please use the Clone button to make one bug for each issue you raise. Issues will be resolved one at a time, and need to have a separate bug to be traced through the resolution and verification process.

Thanks.

[tandum]

I did my first install yesterday evening on an old Compaq SFF:  PIII/500, 256Mb mem, 6Gb disk.

There ya go ... museum quality product.

Last server I knocked up was a tri core amd and it rocks.

[rgmhtt]

Please use the Clone button to make one bug for each issue you raise. Issues will be resolved one at a time, and need to have a separate bug to be traced through the resolution and verification process.

Thanks.

I split off the end about password complexity, but could not figure out how to edit the first bug to take that part out.

And I don't know enough about the install process to properly break up the rest of the bug into subpieces.

[Stefano]

There ya go ... museum quality product.
Last server I knocked up was a tri core amd and it rocks.

I have production servers of that kind for small offices.. they're running flawlessy since... wow, I can't even remember..

I have also a dual p166 with 128 mb ram and a 9 gb scsi hd running SME 6.0.1 without problems at all

if you don't have to serve the universe, all "iron" can work..

Ciao
Stefano