If you're basically a Linux administrator for your family members, I've written a script that allows your family to type a description of a problem they're having into a console and hit CTRL-D when they're finished, and then it will send the problem report, along with system information (i.e. firewall rules, IP addresses, problem description, and running processes of user and root) to your email inbox with a subject saying something like "grimw@10.0.0.23's Problem Report." For the emails to go to the correct place, you need to modify the '/etc/preport.conf' file's "EMAILS" variable, and you need to have "mail" installed.
The script is called 'preports' (problem reports) and is available here (as a Debian .deb) (http://ite.sf.net/downloads/preport-0.1.0_all.deb) and here (as a gunzip'd tarball) (http://ite.sf.net/downloads/preport-0.1.0_all.tar.gz). The tarball has a NOTES file in the doc/ directory to describe how to do a manual installation, which amounts to copying two files to their proper locations.
Hopefully this script, while being simple in design, can help out a few of you.
that's actually a pretty handy little tool.
Thanks! Not the prettiest or anything, but it helps me when my dad is having problems and I'm not right there next to him to see what's wrong.
If you or anyone has comments, feedback, or source code patches, let me know!
Hey there!
I have updated the preport utility and placed it online here (debian .deb) (http://ite.sf.net/downloads/preport-0.1.1_all.deb) and here (tar.gz) (http://ite.sf.net/downloads/preport-0.1.1_all.tar.gz).
It adds a fix, piping log output through "$PAGER". Before, when someone ran this as an argument to xterm, no one would be able to see the log before the xterm disappeared. This fixes that issue for all types of terminals.
Any feedback or patches are certainly welcome!