224. Disabling tracker-miner-fs

Yes, yes, I shouldn't have a full desktop install on a computational node, but the nodes serve as instant replacement desktops if something goes awry with my main desktop, and occasionally visitors get to use them to access the internet in order to avoid getting bored.

Anyway, tracker-miner-fs is eating up 26% of my 8 Gb RAM on one of my nodes running KDE, and I really don't need it. I mean, I don't know if it's useful to most people running a full DE, but on my node I most certainly, definitely don't need it.

Given the number of posts online with questions about tracker ('What is it?", "Why is it using up all my resources?" etc.) I think that there's a bit of a PR problem. If it's a program that is noticeable because it makes demands on your computer system, the users should be allowed to know why putting up with this extra drain on resources is desirable -- or not.

Anyway.

aptitude show tracker says:
"Tracker is an advanced framework for first class objects with associated metadata and tags. It provides a one stop solution for all metadata, tags, shared object databases, search tools and indexing."

...which means what exactly in practical terms?

man tracker-miner-fs 

NAME
       tracker-miner-fs - Used to crawl the file system to mine data.

man tracker-store

NAME
       tracker-store - database indexer and query daemon

My guess would be that tracker-miner is basically indexing files for faster search, but I really don't know. It's one daemon I'm happy to expel.

There's a standard place for stuff that's supposed to be brought up with x:

ls /etc/xdg/autostart/

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   306 May  3 09:42 at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6216 Jun 20 06:58 evolution-alarm-notify.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7404 Oct 14  2011 gdu-notification-daemon.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5340 May 24 08:46 gnome-keyring-gpg.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6711 May 24 08:46 gnome-keyring-pkcs11.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6282 May 24 08:46 gnome-keyring-secrets.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5138 May 24 08:46 gnome-keyring-ssh.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6681 May 30 21:02 gnome-sound-applet.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7018 Apr 28 09:27 gsettings-data-convert.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   460 Oct 21  2011 guake.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   301 Jun 24 16:52 hplip-systray.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   238 Dec  2  2011 kerneloops-applet.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4673 Mar 25 08:49 nm-applet.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   250 Sep 10  2011 notification-daemon.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4651 Nov 12  2011 polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7112 Dec 23  2011 print-applet.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3864 Oct  1  2011 pulseaudio.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   633 May 20 06:08 pulseaudio-kde.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3288 Aug 12 12:05 tracker-miner-fs.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3004 Aug 12 12:05 tracker-store.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11041 Apr  4 22:02 user-dirs-update-gtk.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   433 Nov  3  2011 wicd-tray.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   150 Feb  8  2012 xfce4-settings-helper-autostart.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   357 Aug  1  2011 xfce4-volumed.desktop

Incidentally, the folder on that particular node betrays a history of previously installed desktop environments...

To stop and remove the tracker-miner processes, do

tracker-control -r 

It removes the databases it has created as well.


To disable:
Launch tracker-preferences from the KDE menu. Uncheck all options under 'Semantics'. Uncheck all places under locations. Clicking apply doesn't seem to have any effect, but if you open tracker-preferences again you'll probably find that it worked.

To disable tracker-miner-fs and tracker-store from the terminal you can probably edit:

tracker-miner-fs.desktop:

51 Icon=

 52 Exec=/usr/lib/tracker/tracker-miner-fs

 53 Terminal=false

 54 Type=Application

 55 Categories=Utility;

 56 X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false

 57 X-KDE-autostart-enabled=false

 58 X-KDE-StartupNotify=false

 59 X-KDE-UniqueApplet=true

 60 NoDisplay=true

tracker-store.desktop

54 Icon=

 55 Exec=/usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

 56 Terminal=false

 57 Type=Application

 58 Categories=Utility;

 59 X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false

 60 X-KDE-autostart-enabled=false

 61 X-KDE-StartupNotify=false

 62 X-KDE-UniqueApplet=true

 63 NoDisplay=true

 64 OnlyShowIn=GNOME;KDE;XFCE;

Reasons why we don't simply uninstall it:

apt-cache rdepends tracker

         tracker
Reverse Depends:
  tracker-miner-fs
  tracker-gui
  tracker-gui
  tracker-gui
  nautilus
  tracker-miner-evolution
  tracker-utils
  tracker-extract
  brasero
  shared-mime-info
  tracker-utils
  tracker-miner-fs
  tracker-miner-evolution
  tracker-gui
  tracker-gui
  tracker-gui
  tracker-extract
  tracker-explorer
  tracker-dbg
  shared-mime-info
  rygel-tracker
  nautilus (twice?)
  catfish

223. Moving disks, devices from one box to another -- issues with network interfaces

Long story short: edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Long story:
I have a very small beowulf cluster keeping my office warm in these antipodean winter months. For some silly reason I was using the front node, a six core + 8 Gb box, as my daily desktop. That of course meant I wasn't really using it for computations. In addition to the front node I have a four core i5-somethingorother with 8 Gb RAM (fast!) and a slovenly AMD X3 /4 Gb to actually run the jobs. They are connected via a gigabit switch (192.168.1.0/24) for nfs exports and a 10/100 router (192.168.2.0/24) for WAN access.

I finally decided that 1) I didn't need a six-core box to prepare latex documents, run octave jobs and make pretty gnuplot plots and that 2) having a slow 3-core AMD box to run heavy nwchem jobs was not fast enough. On the other hand, I didn't want to set up/reinstall/move all my stuff from one harddrive to another.

Linux is wonderful in that it's often just a case of ripping out a harddrive and moving it to a different physical. Windows will scream bloody murder, but linux normally does it pretty well. Same here.

The main issue was the three network cards that I wanted to set up (three separate subnets) and which I configure via /etc/network/interfaces. I simply couldn't call the networks cards what I wanted.

Well, as is obvious in hindsight, you should pay a visit to /etc/udev, and more specifically, /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

It looks something like this:

# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules# program, run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.## You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single# line, and change only the value of the NAME= key.
# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8168 (r8169)SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:YY:XX:96:XX:32", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:XX:YY:83:0a:48", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:XX:YY:64:0b:46", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth2"
# PCI device 0x1814:0x3062 (rt2860)SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="c8:YY:XX:cf:1f:5d", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="ra*", NAME="ra0"
# USB device 0x:0x (rt2800usb)SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="c8:YY:XX:c8:91:e6", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="wlan*", NAME="wlan0"

Basically, make sure you can figure out the mac addresses of the different network cards (ip addr helped me more than ifconfig) you can simply go in and edit the ATTR{address}=="" statements and the NAME="" variables. Make sure that there are no conflicts, obviously.

After that, everything should be fine.

If you are using network-manager (i.e. stock GNOME setup) then you will want to pay attention to the /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ as well -- open and edit suspiciously named files like e.g. eth0.

They'll look like this:

[802-3-ethernet]
duplex=full
mac-address=00:YY:XX:96:93:32
[connection]
id=eth0
uuid=fa5YYYY-XXXX-43a3-8502-f8ba2d28ZZZZ
type=802-3-ethernet
timestamp=1326324509
[ipv6]
method=auto
[ipv4]
method=auto

222. Fighting and, eventually, installing HP laserjet P1102w on debian.

This printer is great when it works. It's just always a pain to set up, and it seems to be down to the way the install scripts are written. Setting up the printer was easy in the end -- but getting there? Not so much. Obviously, part of the reason is my own stupidity. Summary: it works on linux, but you'll need a bit of time and patience.

Update: here's an interesting post on the same topic: http://downfromthetrees.com/linux-installing-a-proprietrary-hp-printer-driver.html The only thing I would add is that instead of using sudo as described in that post you may have to use gksu in order to avoid the Magic Cookie error.

The short guide:
You NEED a binary plugin. It blows, but you do. Blowing harder: there's a lot of references to letting hp-setup download it for you -- but I'm willing to bet that it will fail for you.

Anyway, do this:
wget http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/auxfiles/HP/plugins/hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run
chmod +x hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run
gksudo ./hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run

Hopefully that's good enough to take you through to system-config-printer and/or hp-setup. I did a lot of things, but it was the gksudo ./hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run that did it in the end.

And don't forget to add yourself to the lpadmin and perhaps lp groups:

cat /etc/group|grep lp

lp:x:7:verahill
lpadmin:x:111:verahill

I don't know how necessary it is, but heck, why not?

Here's the full, painful (and probably embarrassing) route I took:
It should not be this difficult to get a bloody printer to work. With older printer models it's been quick and easy, without having to download any 'binary plugins'. This is just effing ridiculous. Guess who's not buying another HP printer...

I reorganised my office, and as part of that decided to move my printer from my desktop to one of my networked boxes to free up some space on my desk. My desktop is running GNOME, while the target box is running KDE.

If you install the hplip packages in debian you end up with a very helpful script called hp-setup. You can run that as a user, but try running it as root via sudo, and you get

Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyhp-setup: cannot connect to X server :0

OK, so you can run it as user. Everything looks great, BUT...you'll find that in this case the install will fail at the step of downloading the magical, mythological 'binary plugin'.

Also, as a user you're unlikely to be able to be able to put files in the places where they belong anyway, so there's that (see e.g. the first comment below).

You then do a bit of googling for hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run, and end up here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=44646

You do

wget http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/auxfiles/HP/plugins/hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run
chmod +x hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run
./hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run

This opens a gui where you get to accept the T&C. Not much seems to happen beyond that though. Oh, and you can't do the sudo-thingy because, well, you get the magic cookie error.

OK, take a step back.

sudo lpstat -a

global-mfp accepting requests since Mon 20 Aug 2012 10:46:48 EST
HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2 accepting requests since Mon 20 Aug 2012 13:49:19 EST

lpoptions -d HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2

lpq

HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2 is ready

Test it:
lp /etc/fstab

request id is HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2-1 (1 file(s))

 lpq

HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2 is ready and printing
Rank    Owner   Job     File(s)                         Total Size
active  (null)  1       untitled                        2048 bytes

Printing my foot it is.

Hmm...
cat /etc/group|grep lpadmin

lpadmin:x:114:

OK, edit /etc/group and add myself to lpadmin.

I can open system-config-printer, but I can't 1) delete any printers (which would've been nice) or 2) start it with sudo.

I can use http://localhost:631, but as a user I'm somehow not allowed to remove printers, and I use sudo -- there's no 'root' password.

At this point I was getting frustrated and nuked all printers clear of my system.

sudo lpadmin -x HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w-2

sudo apt-get install system-config-printer-kde

Now I had both 'printing' (= vanilla CUPS system-config-printer) and 'Printer Configuration' in the KDE menu.

Still no dice.

OK, another step back.
mkdir hp
./hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run --target hp
cd hp/
sudo cp 86-hpmud-sysfs_hp_laserjet_professional_p1102w.rules /etc/udev/rules.d

Still no effing luck.

Tried one last desperate thing:
gksudo ./hplip-3.12.6-plugin.run
Clicked the agreement. Said done.
Hit 'print test page' and...it printed!

So...you need to be root...but the MIT magic cookie issue combined with the requirement to have a friggin' gui (why???) made that painful. Well, I guess that's why we're told to use gksu whend oing graphical stuff...

OK, only things remaining: network sharing. Should be simple. Opened up all ports on print-host box to accept traffic from my desktop (and desktop only). No luck.

gksu system-config-printer
Click on server, settings -> check Publish shared printers connected to this system.

On my desktop it was then just add a matter of adding the printer in GNOME (ipp://192.168.1.101:631/printers/HP-LaserJet-Professional-P1102w)

Sweet.

SOLVED.