ALE Mailing List: ale@ale.org
We are happy to announce that, following up on a very
successful SPSU install fest event on August 25th,
the organizers of the new ALE-NW @ SPSU group
will be hosting their first monthly meeting on
Thursday, Sept. 8th, 7:30pm
in room J101 on the SPSU campus
The format plan for the ALE@ SPSU meetings is
to offer 2 to 4 short form presentations with an
emphasis on follow up discussion. A featured
presentation at this first meeting will be:
The Keys to Using SSH
with David Tomaschik
**UPDATE 2011.09.13**
Presentation slides are now available at David’s web site:
http://systemoverlord.com/presentations/keys-ssh
Synopsis:
— The Secure Shell, or SSH, is a powerful communications
tool most often used for securely accessing a command-
line session on a remote system. There is much more to
SSH than that. This talk will introduce SSH, and discuss
applications including secure file transfer, accessing
services behind a firewall, and running graphical
applications remotely. Specific topics include:
– Starting with SSH
– SSH Keys
– Secure File Copying (SCP)
– Port Forwarding
– X11 Forwarding
Additional short presentations are in the works
and presentation offers can be emailed to
jdp [at] algoloma.com
** For a campus map and a link to directions please see
http ://www.spsu.edu/visitspsu/campusmaps/index.htm
Parking in non reserved spaces in the P60 deck is best.
building J, the Atrium building, is a short distance east
of the parking deck.
The feature presentation for our ALE Central Meeting at
7:30pm on Thursday, August 18th, 2011 will be:
“The Seven Most Deadly Sins of Linux Securityâ€
presented by Bob Toxen
Abstract:
– Bob Toxen will discuss the seven most deadly sins of Linux security
and how to avoid them with time for Q&A. Key points include:
=> Understanding the seven most deadly sins
=> Password issues
=> Open network ports
=> Insecure and badly configured programs
=> How to protect against new unforseen vulnerabilities
=> The trade-offs between security and convenience
– Participants will learn how to decide what software to install while
installing Linux and how to harden a Linux system after the installation
to greatly reduce the likelihood of a break-in. This presentation is
unique in that a few key techniques will be explained that allow any
SysAdmin — newbie or with decades of experience — to harden a desktop,
laptop, or server in an hour or two so that it will be orders of magnitude
more difficult to compromise.
Bio:
– Mr. Bob Toxen is author of Real World Linux Security Second Edition, 848pp
published by Prentice Hall PTR. He is a world-class expert on Linux and
UNIX security and mixed-OS network security using Linux. His 30+ years of
UNIX and 16 years of Linux experience including being one of the developers
of Berkeley UNIX and being one of the four creators of Silicon Graphics’ UNIX.
– His consulting practice focuses on hardening Linux servers, security
consulting, Linux System Administration, network and computer security
using low cost Linux solutions, including firewalls, virus and spam
filters, VPNs, teaching computer security around the world, and more.
Related link:
Real World Linux Security (2nd Edition)
=============
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
The feature presentation for our ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, July 21st, 2011 will be:
“An Introduction to Drupal CMS”
presented by David Tomaschik
— MP4 Pixeo of this presentation is now available for download
courtesy Steve Brown and Fabric.com at:
ale-20110721-drupal-tomaschik.mp4
— and via Torrent with the torrent file at:
ale-20110721-drupal-tomaschik.mp4?torrent
— and among other ALE presentations courtesy of Aaron at:
arxion.net/ale
— with the presentation slides available courtesy David at:
drupal-open-source-content-management
Synopsis:
– Drupal is a freely distributable open source Content Management
System used for building everything from basic websites to web
applications and social media sites. Drupal is scalable and can
be tailored to meet many needs, from small personal sites to
sites that get millions of hits a day. This presentation will cover
everything from choosing a hosting platform to building content
to utilizing the power of community contributed modules, with
specific topics including:
– Why is Drupal the right choice?
– Choosing a hosting platform
– Initial installation and configuration
– Building basic content
– Managing themes, blocks, and other features
– The power of “contrib” (community-contributed modules)
– An overview of custom development
– How to run multiple sites from one codebase
Bio:
— David is a system administrator and Drupal developer at Kennesaw
State University. Additionally, he is currently pursuing a M.S. in
Information Security from Georgia Tech. When he’s not at the computer
(a rare event), he enjoys sci-fi books and movies and amateur
photography.
=============
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
…and if you missed our March meeting, be sure to
check out Davids excellent presentation on
“Protecting Privacy, Identity & Systems with GnuPG”
available at http://arxion.net/ale/
Our feature presentation for the ALE Central Meeting
on Thursday, June 16th, at 7:30pm will be:
“Remote Presentation & Collaboration
with the Big Blue Button”
presented by Crawford Rainwater of the Linux ETC company
via an interactive Big Blue Button connection from Colorado.
SYNOPSIS:
— Crawford Rainwater will be using our own ALE Big Blue Button
account (generously hosted for us by Linux-Etc) to conduct a real
time demonstration of the features and use of this FLOSS streaming
server for live, interactive remote presentation and collaboration.
— Attending in person at our Emory Law School venue is encouraged
as the most complete experience, but remote attendance for up to 8
ALE members will also be provided on a first come first serve basis.
Email arxaaron[at]gmail.com to request access to our account and
the June 16th meeting.
BIO:
— Crawford Rainwater is the CEO of Linux ETC, the Linux Education
& Technical Consulting company, located in Westminster, Colorado.
He is also an active member of ALE through the ALE mailing list.
=============
We will be meeting at our usual venue: Emory Law School,
Gambrel Hall, rm 1C. 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 the ALE Central Meeting
on Thursday, May 19th, at 7:30pm will be:
“An Intro to Sudo”
presented by Michael Potter of
Replatform Technologies, LLC
Synopsis:
– The sudo command is a security tool that comes pre-installed
on many *NIX systems, including Mac OS X, and most distributions
of Linux. sudo allows for fine grained control of privileges as an
alternative to setuid programs & scripts, turning on read & write
privileges on sensitive files, sharing passwords, and (gasp) giving
out the root password.
– This presentation will begin with a quick demo for those of you who
are unfamiliar with sudo. The complete syntax of the configuration
file will be explained starting with the simplest rules to the most
complex. Finishing with a discussion recipes to solve real world
problems.
– I started developing this presentation after getting frustrated
trying to understand the sudo configuration file syntax. I added
the real world problem while helping people on the sudo mailing
list.
Bio:
– Michael has been working in IT since 1989 when he switched
from programming automotive embedded systems. Since that
time he has been involved in projects related to moving mainframe
applications to UNIX and Linux using open-source technologies.
Michael is the lead author of the open source library that allows
socket code originally developed on the mainframe to be recompiled
on Linux: http://code.google.com/p/ezasoket/
– Recently Michael is work on various projects from Groovy/Grails to
development of iPhone/Blackberry/Android applications for business.
– In 2009 Michael and his wife Lanna moved their consulting business
from Chicago to Atlanta.
[ED comment]:
Michael is an excellent presenter who last spoke at ALE in May
of 2010 with a first rate presentation on security and debugging
tips for bash shell scripting. We have no doubt that the sudo talk
will be similarly polished and informative and encourage
everyone who can do so to attend. Per presenter preference,
this talk will not be recorded, though slides are available on
Michael Potter’s download page.
=============
We will be meeting at our usual venue: Emory Law School,
Gambrel Hall, rm 1C. Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
[http://ale.org/?page_id=2].