MUUG Monthly Meetings for 2017-18
Please note our current meeting location:
1M28 Manitoba Hall,
University of Winnipeg,
entrance on Ellice Ave. between Spence and Balmoral St.
(Check out the UofW's maps for nearby parking locations.)
Meetings start at 7:30pm sharp.
Wyatt Zacharias presented NTP,
starting with a bit of theory and history of the protocol,
and ending with practical information and a demo on setting up NTPD.
Wyatt has made his presentation slides, in
PPTX and
PDF format,
available online.
RTFM: RCS Redux
Following up on his earlier presentation on
Revision Control for SysAdmins,
Adam Thompson presented this month's RTFM segment focused on
RCS(1),
the Revision Control System.
Like other version control systems, RCS automates the storing, retrieval,
logging, identification, and merging of revisions.
This primer helped you manage your frequently-revised text, source code,
programs, documentation, graphics, papers, and form letters.
Adam demoed using RCS (including the
ci(1),
co(1), and
rcsdiff(1) commands)
to manage a shell script that might be modified by multiple maintainers.
VLANs
(Virtual Local Area Networks)
allow you to partition a physical network at the data link layer,
"creating the appearance and functionality of network traffic that is
physically on a single network but acts as if it is split
between separate networks."
(Wikipedia)
VLAN tagging
(IEEE 802.1Q)
allows traffic from multiple VLANs to travel
between Ethernet switches over the same physical link.
In this presentation,
Gilbert Detillieux introduced some of the basic concepts of VLAN setup,
and showed how this can be implemented.
Examples of implementation were given using Cisco IOS commands
and typical Linux network interface configuration.
Gilbert has made (a Creative-Commons-licensed subset of)
his presentation slides, in
PPTX and
PDF format,
available online.
RTFM: Kid3
This month, Wyatt Zacharias presented and demonstrated
Kid3,
the KDE ID3 tag editor.
Kid3 is available as open source, and as binaries for many popular platforms,
including macOS and Windows. (The Windows implementation is what was shown.)
LXD
is a next-generation system container manager,
which offers a user experience similar to virtual
machines but using Linux containers instead.
Kevin McGregor presented an introduction to
basic Linux containers using
LXD on Ubuntu.
RTFM: MacPorts
Adam Thompson presented and demonstrated
MacPorts,
one of the systems used for compiling, installing and upgrading command-line,
X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the Mac operating system.
Wyatt Zacharias gave a short demonstration of
KeePass.
KeePass is a free open source password manager,
which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way.
KeePass is fully open source (OSI certified).
You can have a look at its full source and check for yourself
whether the encryption algorithms are implemented correctly.
Round-table, Mingling and Munchies
As 2017 drew to a close,
MUUG continued our recent tradition of
turning the December meeting into more of a social event.
We had the usual round-table session, followed by a mini-presentation,
and then had some time for mingling, eating, and drinking.
We also collected food and cash donations for
Winnipeg Harvest.
Tyhr Trubiak gave a basic introduction to the node-based
digital compositing software: Blackmagic Fusion,
which now has free versions available for Linux and macOS,
as well as Windows.
(Tyhr demoed the macOS version, since the Linux version kept crashing
when his laptop was connected to the low-res data projector.)
Blackmagic Fusion is one of the many different software packages
movie studios use to do visual effects in post-production on movies
such as Thor, The Martian and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
It is a GUI used to manipulate motion graphics.
RTFM: xargs (redux)
Adam Thompson presented an RTFM on
xargs(1),
a command line utility to forward output from one command
to the command line of another.
Wyatt Zacharias presented the AWS Storage Gateway with iSCSI block storage.
The AWS Storage Gateway allows AWS S3 storage to be presented to hosts as
native block devices using iSCSI.
Wyatt demonstrated the setup of a new storage gateway
and how to connect a new volume to the gateway with iSCSI,
and also talked about the costs and technical limitations of the service.
RTFM: jmtpfs & simple-mtpfs Android USB
Trevor Cordes demonstrated how to transfer files to and from your
Android device via USB cable using the MTP protocol and
simple command line utilities.
Cloud? We don't need no stinkin' cloud!
Trevor has made his presentation slides, in
ODP and
PDF format,
available online.
March 13, 2018: PostgreSQL: Who, What, Where, When, Why
Adam Thompson talked about the
PostgreSQL
open-source relational database:
who should use it, what's it all about, where do you find it,
a little bit of its history, and the rationale behind its current existence.
PostgreSQL
is the leading OSS RDBMS for non-trivial applications,
scales to enterprise and beyond (petascale),
and has features that let it compete directly with Oracle.
In fact, there's a commercial edition that you can buy specifically
to replace Oracle!
Adam has made his presentation slides, in
Keynote and
PDF format,
available online.
RTFM: ulimit
Gilbert Detillieux presented an RTFM on
ulimit(1),
as well as the csh/tcsh equivalent,
limit(1).
This is a shell built-in command for displaying and setting
various per-process resource limits, using the
setrlimit(2) system call.
Gilbert has made his presentation slides, in
PPTX and
PDF format,
available online.
April 10, 2018: Checkpoint Next-Gen Firewalls
Wyatt Zacharias presented and demoed Checkpoint Next-Gen Firewalls.
Checkpoint firewalls feature next-gen features such as IPS,
Application and Web control, Download Sandboxing, HTTPS deep inspection,
and advanced central management capabilities.
Checkpoint software is available on a variety of platforms,
including their own hardware appliances and any standard x86 platform.
Wyatt demonstrated how to install and set up the software
in a virtual environment,
showing the typical firewall setup with connections to the Internet,
an internal network and a DMZ,
and how to get started with the next-gen features of the firewall.
RTFM: true/false
Brad Vokey covered the basics of how these "do-nothing" commands,
true(1) and
false(1),
can be used in useful ways.
May 8, 2018: LISA Review and Intro to Docker
Katherine Scrupa summarized her experience from the training portion
of the 31st annual Large Installation System Administration conference.
The training section had a devops-heavy focus,
including Docker, Golang, PostgreSQL, Git, tuning, and CI/CD.
Katherine also gave a beginner-level demonstration of Docker containers.
RTFM: systat
UNIX systems in the 1990s routinely came with
terminal-based system performance-monitoring tools.
Linux and FreeBSD unfortunately did not continue this tradition
with the exception of
top(1).
OpenBSD has had standard system monitoring tools since inception,
but in 1995 they added
systat(1),
a full-screen system monitor designed to run on the console or in a terminal.
Adam Thompson demonstrated the use of systat(1)
and described some of the interesting details it displays
that are still difficult to get today on other systems.
RTFM: Pioneer
Pioneer - A game of lonely space adventure -
was demonstrated by Trevor Cordes.
Not just a game, Pioneer is a full-blown space simulator
with realistic Newtonian physics.
After you figure out how to not crash into planets
or over-shoot space stations by mega-kms;
explore the planets and other star systems,
work as a trader to make a few bucks,
or arm up and become a pirate or assassin.
Beautiful spacescapes made this a demo worth seeing!
July 2018: No meeting this month
August 2018: No meeting this month
Please note our current meeting location:
1M28 Manitoba Hall,
University of Winnipeg,
entrance on Ellice Ave. between Spence and Balmoral St.
(Check out the UofW's maps for nearby parking locations.)
Meetings start at 7:30pm sharp.
