three questions

[Eric Kjeldergaard]

> Hi!
> Could you answer my questions, please?

I'll try.

> 
> 1) When I halt or reboot FreeBSD 5.3 I always receive following:
>     Syncing disks vnodes remaining... 4 3 3 1 1 0 done
> 
> Is it OK? What does it mean?

This is relatively normal.  What it means is that it is syncing your
hard disk before shutting down.  As long as it ends up with a 0, it's
fine.

> 
> 2) When I download something from the Internet for a long time (around 9
> hours) I always receive 3 strange letters (unfortunately, I deleted
> third letter, sorry) from my OS (FreeBSD any versions), see below. What
> for? What happen? Why do I receive them?
> 

These strange letters seem like usual system messages that are
generated by systems kinda late at night (early in the morning).  They
are completely normal and they are just to give the administrator
(root by default) a quick summary of what's happened on the computer
recently.  Learning to read these letters can make administering a
system substantially easier.

> 3) I change resolution for consoles as vidcontrol -g 100x37 VESA_800x600
> green. Can I change rate? How to do it?
> 

The rate of what?  I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this part.

> letters:
> *******
> *first*
> *******
> removing stale files from /var/preserve:
> Cleaning out old system announcements:
> Removing stale files from /var/rwho:
> Backup passwd and group files:
> Verifying group file syntax:
> Backing up mail aliases:

This is your system taking care of some occasional clean-up/back-up
tasks.  It's just telling you that it did stuff for you.  This way you
(in a state of relief) know that you don't have to do these things 
yourself.

> Disk status:
> Filesystem  1K-blocks    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
> /dev/ad0s4a    257998   51810  185550    22%    /
> /dev/ad0s4f   1032142      70  949502     0%    /tmp
> /dev/ad0s4g   6399156 3999490 1887734    68%    /usr
> /dev/ad0s4e   1032142   20328  929244     2%    /var
> procfs              4       4       0   100%    /proc
> /dev/ad0s2   10231440 9594792  636648    94%    /mnt/dos
> Last dump(s) done (Dump '>' file systems):

These messages have to do with the status of your disks as of this system check.

> UUCP status:
> Network interface status:
> Name    Mtu Network       Address              Ipkts Ierrs    Opkts
> Oerrs  Coll
> rl0*   1500 <Link#1>    00:c0:26:a4:b6:b0        0     0        0
> 0     0
> lp0*   1500 <Link#2>                             0     0        0
> 0     0
> lo0   16384 <Link#3>                             0     0        0
> 0     0
> lo0   16384 sinn        ::1                      0     -        0
> -     -
> lo0   16384 fe80:3::1   fe80:3::1                0     -        0
> -     -
> lo0   16384 your-net      sinn                   0     -        0
> -     -
> ppp0*  1500 <Link#4>                             0     0        0
> 0     0
> sl0*    552 <Link#5>                             0     0        0
> 0     0
> faith  1500 <Link#6>                             0     0        0
> 0     0
> tun0   1500 <Link#7>                         12259     0    13232
> 0     0
> tun0   1500 ts3-a0.NNovgo ts3-a29.NNovgor    12259     -    13231
> -     -
> tun1*  1500 <Link#8>                             0     0      111
> 0     0
> 

Like the disk status above, this is information about your network interfaces.

> cal system status:
>  3:10AM  up  1:10, 2 users, load averages: 0.64, 0.70, 0.62

This is the output of the command `uptime`.

> Mail in local queue:
> /var/spool/mqueue is empty
>                 Total requests: 0
> Mail in submit queue:
> /var/spool/clientmqueue is empty
>                 Total requests: 0

This is information about pending mail messages.

> Security check:
>     (output mailed separately)

The Security check is a separate "letter" to you.  In fact, the second
one that you included here is the Security check.

> Checking for rejected mail hosts:
> Checking for denied zone transfers (AXFR and IXFR):
> Tidying Exim hints databases:
> Usage: exim_tidydb [-t <time>]  <spool-directory> <database-name>
>        <database-name> = retry | misc | wait-<transport-name> | callout
> Checking for rejected mail:

These checks tell about mail due to attempted open relay searches and
such except for teh Tidying.  That is a little problem in that the
Tidying of the Exim hints databases is likely not actually occurring. 
It appears that the script that is generating this has the wrong
command for updating the database.  Perhaps your exim isn't configured
quite proper?

> 
> ********
> *second*
> ********
> ubject:  security run output
> Status: O
> Content-Length: 534
> Lines: 22

The length and status of the security run output.   Length sould
reflect the contents of this message.

> Checking setuid files and devices:
> Checking for uids of 0:
> root 0
> toor 0

A list of the people of have uid 0: root powers

> Checking for passwordless accounts:
> trial::1000:1000::0:0:Unknow:/home/trial:/bin/tcsh

This tells you that trial has no password.  Accounts that can login
should have passwords.

>  kernel log messages:
>  > CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz (2399.94-MHz 686-class CPU)

This is what got put in your systemlog recently.  (Seems there should
be more than what is here, perhaps you <snip>ed?)

>  login failures:
> Nov 27 02:00:33  login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv1
> Nov 27 02:00:33  login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv1, alec
> Nov 27 16:59:47  login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv0
> Nov 27 16:59:47  login: 1 LOGIN FAILURE ON ttyv0, root
>  refused connections:
> 

Well, the login failures sectoin means (almost assuredly) that you
mistyped passwords or in some other way attempted to login improperly.
 Everyone does it.  The local ones (ttyv0 - ttyv7) aren't a security
hazard in most situations.  Attempted brute force attacks show up here
(generally by lots of root attempts from one or a small number of
ips).

> 
> Thanks.
> 
No problem.  Hope I helped.

-- 
If I write a signature, my emails will appear more personalised.