The feature presentation for our ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 will be:
Grant but Control,
Trust but Verify
with John E. Kimberly,
SE Region Systems Engineer,
Centrify Corporation
SYNOPSIS:
– The presentation will focus on the use of Active Directory
to seamlessly provide access to non-Windows platforms,
including most versions of UNIX / Linux, MAC’s, iPhones,
iPads and Androids, and then use specific Active Directory
GPO’s to control that access and manage the rights and
elevated privileges on those systems. Once complete,
the administrator can easily validate access to systems,
confirm elevated privileges and audit what users do with
elevated privileges, thereby delivering data and system
security, and regulatory compliance.
BIO:
– John E. Kimberly has a 32 year career in the UNIX and
“open systems” world, in a wide variety of positions at
companies like Dun & Bradstreet, Siemens Information
Systems Worldwide and the Georgia Technology Authority.
He holds certifications in Redhat Linux as an RHCE, Sun
Microsystems as a Hardware, Network and Systems
Engineer, AIX Certified Specialist, VMWare, as well as
experience in system security, threat prevention and
platform hardening from SANS International. For the past
15 years, he has been in the area of Enterprise Architecture
and Disaster Recovery, with additional focus in systems
and data security. Today, he is the Southeastern Region
Sr. System Engineer for Centrify Corporation, which
provides seamless integration for non-Windows platforms
with Active Directory, for access, elevated privilege
management, and license compliance auditing.
ABOUT CENTRIFY:
– Centrify delivers integrated software and cloud-based
solutions that centrally control, secure and audit access to
cross-platform systems, mobile devices and applications
by leveraging the infrastructure organizations already own.
From the data center and into the cloud, more than 4000
organizations, including over 40% of the Fortune 50, rely
on Centrify’s identity consolidation and privilege management
solutions to reduce IT expenses, strengthen security and
meet license compliance requirements. Customers come
to Centrify for a variety of services including:
– IT Security
– MAC Security Management
– IT License Compliance & Auditing
– Mobile Security Management
– UNIX & Linux Identity Management
– SAP & Web Single Sign On
– Windows Server Auditing
– SAMBA and NFSv4 integration
=============
The meeting will be held at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:20pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
http://ale.org/?page_id=2
In a spirit of improving the value and relevance of the ALE organization
to both its members and to the wider Open Source and IT communities,
the ALE Central Meeting for 7:30pm on Thursday, July 19th, 2012 will
be an open discussion and brain storming session to share feedback on
what is or isn’t working in ALE now, and to consider what new directions
may be worthy of exploration and commitment:
“ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF ALE”
A Public Forum Discussion
moderated by Aaron Ruscetta,
ALE Events Coordinator (etc)
SYNOPSIS:
— As an essentially anarchist organization with no formal charter or
managing hierarchy, the structure and operations of ALE are a highly
representative (and self referential) model of the Open Source ideals and
communities that we strive to support. Like most Open Source software
projects, the duties of maintaining the organization and services are
handled by whatever small cadre of volunteers may feel motivated to
step up and do the necessary or envisioned work. ALE has kept itself
running fairly smoothly for about 17 years under this system, but in
consideration of the changes that the IT industry and the Open Source
world have undergone in recent years it seems that a little self reflection
on our efforts and re-evaluation of our group’s future goals may be in
order. ALL ARE WELCOME!
BIO:
— Aaron Ruscetta has been an active ALE member and volunteer since
discovering an avid enthusiasm for Linux and the FLOSS philosophy
back in 1998. For the past several years he has served as a public face
for the group in various roles including FLOSS Evangelist, meeting
moderator, web site manager and Events Coordinator, as well as
offering public education presentations and civic duty lobbying
surrounding the issues of computerized election systems and electronic
vote fraud. Aaron’s volunteer efforts with ALE have been directly
supported by numerous fellow members, including Michael Hirsch,
Charles Shapiro, J.D. Pfulgrath, Michael Warfield, Michael Trausch,
Joshua Roberts, Stephen Blevins and ALE sysadmin Jim Kinney, and
indirectly by the countless ALE and FLOSS community members who
generously provide relevant presentations or who actively participate
in our meetings and mailing lists.
=============
The meeting will be held at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
http://ale.org/?page_id=2
The feature presentation for our ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 will be:
“Open Source in Education:
Liberating Students, Teachers, Schools and Budgets
with Liberated Information Technology”
with Jim Kinney
Synopsis:
– This presentation will be a look at tools, techniques and
philosophies from the communities of Free Liberated Open
Source technology that should be integrated RIGHT NOW
in K12 schools.
– Discussions will include a look at elements of the Open
Source universe that are an obvious and natural fit with the
functions and concerns of K12 education. Some specific
software and configuration techniques will be discussed,
along with the benefits of integrating key concepts from
Open Source communities into the daily working process
of K12 schools and related IT practices.
Bio:
– James (Jim) Kinney became a zealous fan of Linux and
Liberated Open Source Software the first time he saw a
discarded Next Cube running Slackware in 1992. In the
20 years since his introduction to Linux & FLOSS goodness,
James transformed his obsession into a career. First at Emory
University where he taught physics, converted their computer
lab to Linux and helped co-found LUGE, the Linux Users Group
of Emory. Next followed a 10+ year stint as an entrepreneur
Linux & Open Source consultant. Notable projects included
the installation of 40+ Linux servers running 2000+ student
stations in Atlanta public schools, server upgrade work at
Google, systems integration for a travel booking company,
and consulting for Cox Communications
– Currently Jim works with the Internet Security Systems
group of IBM along side some [other] really bright people
who are actively involved in protecting all aspects of
critical path communications (despite any MicroSoft
products in the pavement).
=============
The meeting will be held at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
http://ale.org/?page_id=2
The feature presentation for our ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 will be:
“GRUB 2: Bootloader Magic Demystified”
with Michael Trausch
Synopsis:
– The GRUB 2 bootloader will be presented, with a discussion of
its architecture. There will be emphasis on upstream functionality
in comparison with (some of) the ways that bootstrapping tasks
could be accomplished with GRUB Legacy.
– For those who are unfamiliar with bootloaders, there will be a quick
introduction to what a bootloader does and where its role exists in the
system boot process for the most predominant architecture of common
desktops and laptops, a BIOS-based x86/x86-64 system.
– If there are any particular questions that you have and would like
answered, or _particular_ functionality that you would like shown,
please let me know directly at [mike@trausch.us]. I’ll incorporate
anything I can, and anything that I can’t incorporate I’ll move to the
list for after the meeting.
Reference:
From the GNU GRUB Web site http://www.gnu.org/s/grub/:
– GNU GRUB is a Multiboot boot loader. It was derived from GRUB,
the GRand Unified Bootloader, which was originally designed and
implemented by Erich Stefan Boleyn.
– Briefly, a boot loader is the first software program that runs
when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and
transferring control to the operating system kernel software
(such as the Hurd or Linux). The kernel, in turn, initializes the
rest of the operating system (e.g. GNU).
Bio:
Michael B. Trausch is an independent consultant and developer
performing all manner of IT services using free software, including
network systems administration and programming (in many different
and often disliked languages). He works from home (when everything
is going well) and devotes much of his time to parenting his six year
old son, Benjamin. He is an advocate for free software, public
education, and freedom in general, accepting the responsibilities that
come with it. He is also obsessed with typography and Unicode, and
drinks way too much coffee. ;-)
=============
The meeting will be held at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
http://ale.org/?page_id=2
Our highlight presentation at the ALE Central Meeting
for 7:30pm on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 will be:
CMake or
How I Learned To Stop Worrying and
Love Automated Build Systems
with Ryan Curtin
Synopsis:
— Maybe you’ve heard of CMake before. If you haven’t, maybe you’ve
heard of autotools. And if you have worked with autotools, well, I am
sure your friends have heard your sighs of sorrow. If you have worked
with CMake, you probably have your own sighs of sorrow too.
Build systems, or “makefile generators”, as CMake calls itself, are
never pretty. But it’s better than that festering mess you call a Makefile.
I mean, come on! You don’t even know how it works anymore. Nobody
does. It’s this horrifying black box that executables magically come out
of. Oh, and it’s not portable… don’t even think about running that on
HP-UX or whatever. And if it is portable… well, I can only imagine
the nightmare _that_ Makefile must be.
— CMake provides most of a solution to your building and compilation
problems. It has a nice language which lets you define how to build
your projects, and on top of that, it’s portable, even to Windows.
Unfortunately, there is some voodoo required when dealing with CMake.
My aim in this presentation is to shed light on some of this voodoo and
give you enough knowledge to (a) start building your simple (or
advanced) projects with CMake and (b) know how to find solutions to your
more complex problems (and unfortunately with CMake, Google-fu isn’t
always enough).
Bio:
— Ryan Curtin is a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech studying machine
learning. He [denies having any] interesting biographical trivia [despite
being an extraordinarily complex biological machine which is constantly
learning through the generation of trivial biographical data ].
=============
We will be meeting at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
[here]