A few Qs before updaing a package

[scaramanga]

Hi Joao,

saw that a new Transmission package is available (2.76) in the news topic (thank you!), so I went to the Packages->Alt-F web admin page and hit the UpdateList button.
(Got this error message, I reported it here).

Anyway, before I continue with the update, a couple of questions:
1. Do I need to stop the service/Transmission-daemon before the update or is that taken care of by the update procedure?
2. What about settings.json. I changed things a bit to conform with how I had things arranged in my ffp days. Will my settings be overwritten?

[Joao Cardoso]

On Friday, February 8, 2013 11:16:26 PM UTC, scaramanga wrote:

Hi Joao,

saw that a new Transmission package is available (2.76) in the news topic (thank you!), so I went to the Packages->Alt-F web admin page and hit the UpdateList button.
(Got this error message, I reported it here).

Anyway, before I continue with the update, a couple of questions:
1. Do I need to stop the service/Transmission-daemon before the update or is that taken care of by the update procedure?

The update script stops the service first, but you should do the sensible thing and stop it yourself, just in case.

To not block in-definitively, in case the service is very slow to stop (and some services *are* slow to stop), install scripts only waits 30 seconds after successively signaling a service to stop, then continue with the install. 

 

2. What about settings.json. I changed things a bit to conform with how I had things arranged in my ffp days. Will my settings be overwritten?

You already got a answer on this:

On Monday, January 28, 2013 5:02:18 PM UTC, scaramanga wrote:

On Sunday, January 27, 2013 6:27:35 PM UTC+2, Joao Cardoso wrote:

A new transmission package is available, which defaults to a logevel of 1, logging only errors; the initscrip also preserves user-added rpcwhitelist hosts, at least while the box network is not changed.

Yup, that's what I did.
Thanks, Joao (looking forward for a 2.76 package. There are some useful bug fixes: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/Changes#version-2.76).
How will the update process work? Will it overwrite my tweaked settings.json?

If settings.json exists it will not be changed except for umask (set to 2) and message-level (set to 1).

At start time, if the box IP has changed to a different network, user added whitelist hosts will be lost.

But save a copy and report back if any problem arises.

 

[scaramanga]

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 4:02:38 AM UTC+2, Joao Cardoso wrote:

But save a copy and report back if any problem arises.

 

I followed your advice and stopped Transmission before the update. double-checked from command-line that it actually stopped before proceeding.
The Transmission 2.73 --> 2.76 went well except one little thing: In settings.json, one(!) of the settings was modified. I noticed that after starting transmission (but before stopping it again) so I'm not sure what's the cause of it. Could be the upgrade, could be transmission at run-time.

"umask": 0,

changed to

"umask": 2,

FYI

[Joao Cardoso]

On Sunday, February 10, 2013 8:23:05 PM UTC, scaramanga wrote:

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 4:02:38 AM UTC+2, Joao Cardoso wrote:

But save a copy and report back if any problem arises.

 

I followed your advice and stopped Transmission before the update. double-checked from command-line that it actually stopped before proceeding.

The Transmission 2.73 --> 2.76 went well except one little thing: In settings.json, one(!) of the settings was modified. I noticed that after starting transmission (but before stopping it again) so I'm not sure what's the cause of it. Could be the upgrade, could be transmission at run-time.

"umask": 0,

changed to

"umask": 2,

FYI

Thanks.

The umask change was expected. As I said,

If settings.json exists it will not be changed except for umask (set to 2) and message-level (set to 1). 

When transmission is installed, the system user 'transmission' and the 'BT' (Bit Torrent) group are created.

Transmission runs as user transmission, and users who you want to be able to start torrents and manipulate the generated files must be made part of group BT. That's the reason for the umask change -- only users belonging to the BT group can rename, move, delete...

Even if you are the only one using the box...

[scaramanga]

Now that makes perfect sense (btw, even when accessing the files over SMB? that's the reason I changed umaks).
I'm trying to follow what you're suggesting. Can't seem to add my user to the BT group. The situation is as following:
In Setup->Users:
my user, called "myUser" is, currently in 3 groups: myUser, users, backup.
The right pane only lists 3 groups: users, myUser and BT. backup isn't listed.

When I select myUser on the left (=users) pane and BT on the right (=groups) pane and click the addToGroup button I get the following error:

addgroup: unknown group undefined HTTP/1.1 303 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Location: /cgi-bin/usersgroups.cgi



Not sure if this might help:
#
# cat /etc/group | grep BT
BT:x:201:transmission
#
# cat /etc/group | grep myUser
backup:x:34:anotherUser,myUser
users:x:100:aUserICreatedAndDeleted,anotherUser,myUser
sharon:x:501:myUser
#

 

I don't remember why there's a myUser group. I might have created it myself, for some odd reason I can't think of right now.
Maybe it was when migrating from stock firmware+ffp: I created the myUser with specific UID/GID so that I wouldn't have to
chown/chmod files en-mass. Yes, it's coming back to me. There was a default, failed user creating attempt (aUserICreatedAndDeleted)
where the UID/GID didn't match so I deleted it and started over creating myUser.

I looked at /etc/passwd as well. All seem to be well there.

Edit: The aUserICreatedAndDeleted situation was easy enough to fix:

delgroup aUserICreatedAndDeleted users

Edit2: I fixed that other issue by

addgroup myUser BT

And can confirm this change is also reflected in the web interface.

How do I saveSettings from a telnet session?

[Joao Cardoso]

On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 8:53:01 PM UTC, scaramanga wrote:

Now that makes perfect sense (btw, even when accessing the files over SMB? that's the reason I changed umaks).

I think so, because you are authenticated when using SMB, even if as a guest.

The /etc/samba/smbusers file is intended to establish Windows to linux equivalence.

Samba respects filesystem files/folder permissions, even if the samba share definition allows everything. i.e., it first checks the share definitions, then the filesystem permissions.You can try that for yourself.

I'm not a samba expert!

 

I'm trying to follow what you're suggesting. Can't seem to add my user to the BT group. The situation is as following:
In Setup->Users:
my user, called "myUser" is, currently in 3 groups: myUser, users, backup.
The right pane only lists 3 groups: users, myUser and BT. backup isn't listed.

When I select myUser on the left (=users) pane and BT on the right (=groups) pane and click the addToGroup button I get the following error:

addgroup: unknown group undefined HTTP/1.1 303 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Location: /cgi-bin/usersgroups.cgi

The "undefined" user/group is a "well known" issue, there exists a possible cure under issue 101.

 

Not sure if this might help:
#
# cat /etc/group | grep BT
BT:x:201:transmission
#
# cat /etc/group | grep myUser
backup:x:34:anotherUser,myUser
users:x:100:aUserICreatedAndDeleted,anotherUser,myUser
sharon:x:501:myUser
#

 

I don't remember why there's a myUser group. I might have created it myself, for some odd reason I can't think of right now.
Maybe it was when migrating from stock firmware+ffp: I created the myUser with specific UID/GID so that I wouldn't have to
chown/chmod files en-mass. Yes, it's coming back to me. There was a default, failed user creating attempt (aUserICreatedAndDeleted)
where the UID/GID didn't match so I deleted it and started over creating myUser.

It was suggested earlier that Alt-F could change files owned by nobody from D-Link firmware to Alt-F nobody, but I don't like to "automagically" change users files, I prefer users to do that.

Use Setup Folders/Directories, select the folder, hit Permissions, change to the desired user/group, check the apply recursively,...

I looked at /etc/passwd as well. All seem to be well there.

Edit: The aUserICreatedAndDeleted situation was easy enough to fix:

delgroup aUserICreatedAndDeleted users

Edit2: I fixed that other issue by

addgroup myUser BT

And can confirm this change is also reflected in the web interface. 

How do I saveSettings from a telnet session?

type 'loadsave_settings' to see the usage

 

[scaramanga]

On Wednesday, February 13, 2013 9:18:08 PM UTC+2, Joao Cardoso wrote:

On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 8:53:01 PM UTC, scaramanga wrote:

Now that makes perfect sense (btw, even when accessing the files over SMB? that's the reason I changed umaks).

I think so, because you are authenticated when using SMB, even if as a guest.

The /etc/samba/smbusers file is intended to establish Windows to linux equivalence.

Samba respects filesystem files/folder permissions, even if the samba share definition allows everything. i.e., it first checks the share definitions, then the filesystem permissions.You can try that for yourself.

I'm not a samba expert!

Neither am I. What you write makes perfect sense ot me. I'm trying it now, I'll report back how it went.
Edit: Yup, it worked as expected. umask is 2, myUser added to group BT and I have full control over those files over CIFS.
 

 

I'm trying to follow what you're suggesting. Can't seem to add my user to the BT group. The situation is as following:
In Setup->Users:
my user, called "myUser" is, currently in 3 groups: myUser, users, backup.
The right pane only lists 3 groups: users, myUser and BT. backup isn't listed.

When I select myUser on the left (=users) pane and BT on the right (=groups) pane and click the addToGroup button I get the following error:

addgroup: unknown group undefined HTTP/1.1 303 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Location: /cgi-bin/usersgroups.cgi

The "undefined" user/group is a "well known" issue, there exists a possible cure under issue 101.

Replacing those files fixed it. I really *should* search the issues list before posting here and wasting your time answering the same question for the 1000th time.
 

 

Not sure if this might help:
#
# cat /etc/group | grep BT
BT:x:201:transmission
#
# cat /etc/group | grep myUser
backup:x:34:anotherUser,myUser
users:x:100:aUserICreatedAndDeleted,anotherUser,myUser
sharon:x:501:myUser
#

 

I don't remember why there's a myUser group. I might have created it myself, for some odd reason I can't think of right now.
Maybe it was when migrating from stock firmware+ffp: I created the myUser with specific UID/GID so that I wouldn't have to
chown/chmod files en-mass. Yes, it's coming back to me. There was a default, failed user creating attempt (aUserICreatedAndDeleted)
where the UID/GID didn't match so I deleted it and started over creating myUser.

It was suggested earlier that Alt-F could change files owned by nobody from D-Link firmware to Alt-F nobody, but I don't like to "automagically" change users files, I prefer users to do that.

Use Setup Folders/Directories, select the folder, hit Permissions, change to the desired user/group, check the apply recursively,...

I had a ton of files owned by the orignal firmwares' myUser user. Creating a user with the same UID/GID seemed easier/safer/simpler/quicker than:

find /sd[ab]2 -user UID -exec chown ... {} \;

 

I looked at /etc/passwd as well. All seem to be well there.

Edit: The aUserICreatedAndDeleted situation was easy enough to fix:

delgroup aUserICreatedAndDeleted users

Edit2: I fixed that other issue by

addgroup myUser BT

And can confirm this change is also reflected in the web interface. 

How do I saveSettings from a telnet session?

type 'loadsave_settings' to see the usage

 

 Thanks, that'll surely come in handy.