Annual General Meeting and Elections

The Calgary UNIX Users' Group is holding its Annual General Meeting and election of the 2007/2008 Board of Directors.

W.R. Castell Central Library

6:00 PM, Tuesday, June 26, 2007

June General Meeting

FPGA Development using Open Source Tools

Speaker: Andrew Seniuk

We investigate the workflow involved in programming an FPGA board (Chris Walpole's) using its USB 2.0 interface and Xilinx HDL-to-JTAG synthesis tools.

An FPGA ("field-programmable gate array") is a type of technology which allows the hobbyist to build something like their own microchips, at a very low cost. It might be compared to EEPROM, but with programmable logic elements instead of only storage. The FPGA chip on this board offers up to 200,000 transistors, which can be dynamically reprogrammed from on-board memory.

Programming the board has been done for years in Mr. Walpole's CPSC 525 embedded systems course, but always using a melange of closed-source binaries and licence-encumbered Windows tools. Is it possible to do all of this using only open source tools? I will talk about my efforts to give this an affirmative answer. This will be work in progress up until the talk, so I cannot promise my efforts will be completely successful, but they may still be interesting. Anyone with ideas about what functionality to actually implement is welcome to mail me (andru).

Andrew Seniuk is a 4th year computer science student at the University of Calgary. His interests include information visualisation, human-computer interaction, and systems design.

W.R. Castell Central Library

6:30 PM, Tuesday, June 26, 2007

May General Meeting

OpenBSD Hackathon

Speaker: TBA

Each year, the OpenBSD developers get together for their annual Hackathon, putting together large chunks of code for the next OpenBSD release. CUUG has been fortunate in past to have speakers from the OpenBSD team discuss various projects which were underway, and we continue this tradition again this year. For specific details on speaker and topic, stay tuned for an update in the near future.

Please note that this meeting takes place on the 5^th Tuesday of the month, rather than the usual 4^th Tuesday.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 (5th Tuesday)

April General Meeting

Open Source based Spam Filtering with Realtime Updates

Speaker: Mark Leonard

The increase in botnet-originated spam in late 2006 threatened to overwhelm the mail servers of several of our clients. With modifications to pre-existing open-source software, we have created a system that allows any spam-blocking technology (eg SpamAssassin) to update a firewall in realtime, thereby reducing the need for resource-intensive filtering.

Mark Leonard is the president of M&J Leonard Consulting Ltd (MJL), a small firm that specializes in system and network administration. Current clients of MJL include Evolvs Media, Webcore Labs, Paper Thin Walls, iStockPhoto, Davinci Broadband, and Theatre Junction. Prior to founding MJL, Mark has worked as an administrator for IT firms such as Critical Mass, Evolvs Media, Webcore Labs, and iStockPhoto. MJL is currently responsible for e-mail systems with over 1000 domains, 10,000 users, handling over 2 million mail deliveries per day.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, April 24, 2007

March General Meeting

A Quick Look into HPC

Speaker: Dave Tsang, IBM

IBM is a CUUG Diamond-level sponsor.

This presentation is a high-level discussion of the going-ons in the world of High Performance Computing, and how IBM is contributing to it. For years, HPC was a topic restricted to those in research labs. More and more we are seeing supercomputers built on clustering commercially available servers and businesses trying to adopt this model in their IT infrastructure. We'll discuss how IBM's Unix servers and the associated POWER chipset are leading the charge in the HPC world.

Dave Tsang has been with IBM for 9 years working with the IBM RS/6000, pSeries, System p5 line of servers. Dave is a specialist in the AIX (IBM's UNIX) operating system, as well as many clustering technologies for the Unix/Linux world. He has a B.Sc. (Hon) in Computer Science from Queen's University and currently serves as an IBM System p5 Technical Sales Specialist for Alberta.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, March 27, 2007

February General Meeting

I use UNIX, so I'm Safe Forever

Speaker: John Aycock

Anyone feeling smug because they're using UNIX and not Windows?

Get over it.

I'll start by talking about some memorable moments in the history of UNIX security. Then, boot off your users: I'll tell you about a couple of ways you can be pwned that work nicely under UNIX right now. Finally, a presentation of one or two future threats we've been researching at the U of C, along with some countermeasures for them.

John Aycock is an associate professor at the University of Calgary in the Department of Computer Science. He received a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Victoria. He researches computer security and compilers, and conceived and taught the University's "Computer Viruses and Malware" and "Spam and Spyware" courses. A book he wrote on computer viruses and malware, cleverly titled Computer Viruses and Malware, was published in 2006.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, February 27, 2007

IMPORTANT CUUG SERVICES UPGRADE NOTICE

                Coming 2007 Jan 19 Friday


                Server CONCORD Upgrade

This Friday, CUUG's server CONCORD will be upgraded to Debian Etch
with expanded storage and newer, more featureful software.  As well,
security changes will take place at this time.

                Service Outage        

There will be an outage period sometime between 10h00 and 16h00 MST.
CONCORD and the domain CUUG.AB.CA will unavailable for up to 2 hours.
The actual outage time will be posted by 09h30 Friday.  Afterwards,
CUUG services will resume on the upgraded server.

                Security Changes

        CONCORD New SSH Server Keys

During the changeover, CONCORD's SSH server keys will be replaced.
Afterwards, users connecting to CONCORD will receive an alert saying
the server's keys have changed and warning of a possible compromise.
This warning is expected in this situation.  Details on how to update
these keys is listed below.

        Change Your CUUG Password

To enhance security changes, all users are directed to change their
CUUG password as soon as possible after the outage. Those who login to
CONCORD can do so at the command prompt with the 'passwd' command.
Those who read email with a POP3 client should use it to change their
password.

        Change Your SSH User Keys

Users of SSH who use key pairs (made with ssh-keygen) to access to or
from CONCORD should generate new key pairs to replace them.  This is
to completely ensure a full security transistion.  Users should use
ssh-keygen to create new key pairs and replace the keys they
previously installed using the same procedure (detailed, help
available if needed).

        Problems or Questions?

If you experience problems after the upgrade, or have questions about
the upgrade, please contact us via email:

                help  at  cuug.ab.ca

and we will assist you as soon as possible.


                Mark Hewitt, CUUG Lead SysAdmin


        Updating SSH server keys

Only do this when you know that the server has had a key pair change.

Users of the Windows PuTTY ssh client who receive the key-change
detection warning will have a option button to accept a key update.

Users of UNIX ssh clients will have to manually remove the server
public key from their ~/.ssh/known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts2
files.  These files consist of long lines containing a text form of
the public key and will start like one of these examples:

    209.115.168.90 ssh-rsa AIJDOFJWFJIWFJIWJFWIFJWFWF.....
    concord,209.115.168.90 ssh-rsa AIJDOFJWFJIWFJIWJF.....
    concord.cuug.ab.ca,209.115.168.90 ssh-rsa AIJDOFJ.....

Delete all lines with either CONCORD's hostname or IP address and save
the file.  On your next ssh connection to CONCORD, it will be reported
as a 'new' server and you will be asked to accept it.

IMPORTANT CUUG SERVICES UPGRADE NOTICE

January General Meeting

CUUG Open House

The Calgary UNIX Users' Group annual Open House, featuring presentations from sponsors Sun Microsystems and IBM and more. An exhibition of member demos, UNIX vendors and related local Users' groups will be held in the other meeting room.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, January 23, 2007

December General Meeting

Open Source Desktop Software Directions

Speaker: Aaron Seigo

Abstract: The media and the market are abuzz with news and discussion of the open source desktop, but there is very little consistency in the messages. Just where is open source desktop software today? Where is it going? What can (and can't) it do for companies, governments and home users? How can you help out, and when should you jump on board?

This presentation looks at both the technology and market forces that are behind modern open source desktop software and attempts to clear the air with some sensibility.

Aaron Seigo is a 15 year veteran in the software industry who currently works full time as an open source software developer. Within the KDE project Aaron works on the desktop framework and various applications, writes for online and print journals, is on the KDE e.V. board of directors and speaks around the world on topics relating to KDE and Free software.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, December 12, 2006 (2nd Tuesday)

November General Meeting

Solaris ZFS--The Most Advanced File System on the Planet

Speaker: Curtis Eisinger, Sun Microsystems

Anyone who has ever lost important files, run out of space on a partition, spent weekends adding new storage to servers, tried to grow or shrink a file system, or experienced data corruption knows that there is room for improvement in file systems and volume managers. The Solaris Zettabyte File System (ZFS), is designed from the ground up to meet the emerging needs of a general-purpose file system that spans the desktop to the data center.

Available for both OpenSolaris and Solaris, ZFS offers a dramatic advance in data management with an innovative approach to data integrity, tremendous performance improvements, and a welcome integration of file system and volume management capabilities.

Come out and learn about the exciting new features and capabilities of ZFS and see how they can save you time, money and aggravation.

Curtis Eisinger is a Systems Architect / OS Ambassador for Sun Microsystems, and is based in Vancouver, BC. Sun is a CUUG Diamond-level sponsor.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, November 28, 2006

October General Meeting

Open Documentation: Absolutely or Else

Speaker: Theo de Raadt, OpenBSD

Many companies still refuse to provide operating systems with documentation for their products. They give various reasons. Theo will dig through the truth and baloney, and explain the consequences, while providing a lot of hilarious material about the process.

Theo de Raadt is leader of the OpenBSD project.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, October 24, 2006

September General Meeting

Portable GUI Programming with wxWidgets

Speaker: Brian Richardson

wxWidgets (previously wxWindows) is a stable C++ Framework for developing portable GUI applications. While many people immediately choose Java when they hear words like 'portable' or 'multi-platform', it is often not the best choice when a rich desktop application is needed. wxWidgets provides portable solutions in these cases, using the native platform's Look and Feel (i.e., the application "looks like" a native Windows app on Windows, and a native MacOS app on OSX). Brian Richardson, a CUUG member, will demonstrate how to develop a small wxWidgets application in C++, and provide a short overview of the wxWidgets API.

Brian is a consultant specializing in Java/J2EE server solutions. Visit his website at http://web.cubik.ca.

W.R. Castell Central Library

5:30 PM, Tuesday, September 26, 2006