[TriLUG] Red Hat Launches Nation's First K-12 Red Hat Linux Education Program; Helps Improve Computing Access for All Students

Kevin - The Alchemist - Sonney alchemist at darkcanvas.com
Wed May 8 12:08:36 EDT 2002


On Wed, 2002-05-08 at 11:46, Chris Hedemark wrote:
> Is there an MTA in place?

AFAIK, yes.

> What's wrong with ssh?

Ask JonC - he planned this box. I, personally, would like to see a
global login for all the boxes on the rack, with a shared home directory
so that if I log on to stonesoup or fatalpha, it's the same configs &
etc for both. I have a raq to use as a kerberos server on the trilug.org
cluster, I've just not had the time to get it past the default 2.0.x
kernel and weird RAQ default configs. I will be bringing it with me to
the IFest, though.

> I think a lot of that all goes back to having leadership in place.  It's
> one thing to declare "We're going to have an installfest every quarter"
> but it is quite another thing to actually have an installfest every
> quarter.  I think we suffered a great loss when Ed Hill moved away, but
> this weekend will be a good indicator as to how well we'll bounce back
> in his absence.  I'm still hoping to take HAHT up on their offer to host
> an installfest (perhaps this fall?) and I think it is a good thing to

CHCPS in Holly Springs is looking at doing things in the fall. Perhaps
HAHT over the summer?

> have different volunteers lead the installfest efforts.  The only thing
> I'd like to see out of the SC is someone to try to drum up the
> volunteers and periodically make sure they're going to be ready for the
> event they are leading.

Didn't we say something like that at the January "State of the LUG"
meeting? *grin*. So far, jeremyP has done a great job on handling this
weekend's installfest. 

> Funding?  I don't know if funding is a big problem.  The software we
*trim*
> for the statement about open source reducing licensing costs if we can
> show the community we eat what we cook for next to no money spent.

After Pizza this week, trilug will have under $60 in the bank. Even if
we go without pizza from now on, we haven't got the money. The lack of
corporate sponsors this past year has really hurt. if we needed to help
out a school with more than sweat equity, we can't. 

> The thing I was working on part-time on fatalpha was a bug tracking
> system to manage to-do's, but it was geared more towards development
> projects.  I'd like to refocus that towards any sort of volunteer
> projects going on within the LUG to help ease the pains of coordinating
> volunteers (which is very much like herding cats).

you are preaching to the choir on that one *grin*

> One thing I would very much like to see more of in the coming year is
> more focus on services from our server farm and less focus on security. 

I think security is just about fixed, and we *CAN* start working on
these other projects. I just don't want to see security compromised with
every new service we add. We've already had one spammer exploit a bad
script on fatalpha (more on that at the meeting), and I'd rather not
have to fend off script kiddies and the like because we didn't pay
enough attention to security.

> Don't get me wrong.  Security is important.  But I think there was so
> much focus on security with fatalpha that the services it provided were
> not terribly convenient to use (especially the ftp mirror, which doesn't
> use ftp at all).  I'd like the next SC to take more of an approach of

Which is why we're adding an FTP Server in the near future. As soon as
we have more disks.

> "what service do we want to provide?  and what is the most responsible
> way to do it?"  Over the years I've been able to contribute somewhat to
> that goal, for example setting up and maintaining the Mailman mailing
> list services that handle this mailing list and others for the LUG.  If
> elected onto the SC, I would like to further extend the services
> available to TriLUG members on our servers and make the existing
> services more accessible.

Right. And finding that middle ground on that has been important. I lean
towards the more secure, because my name is on the contract we signed at
inflow, and I am *PERSONALLY* liable for any damage that may result
because something bad happens from that rack. 

Think about that for a second, and maybe you'll understand why I tend to
be a little tight-arsed about security *grin*. We can write discalimers
all we want, but when push comes to shove, I'll be getting the knocks on
my door...

-- 
--------------------------------------------
--      Kevin "The Alchemist" Sonney      --
--  ICQ: 4855069            AIM: ksonney  --
--------------------------------------------
320C 0336 3BC4 13EC 4AEC  6AF2 525F CED7 7BB6 12C9
"It's not stupid...it's ADVANCED"
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