BALUG-Admin June 2006

balug-admin@lists.balug.org

7 participants
13 discussions

Request for user feedback on Novell's SLED and SLES platforms
by Dan_Tennant＠computerworld.com 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

To whom it may concern: I am in the process of writing a user-feedback article for Computerworld (www.computerworld.com) regarding Novell's recent pre-release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 in both its Desktop and Server variations, and am curious as to whether one or two of your users might already have tested the OS out and would be willing to answer a few questions on it via e-mail. If you do know of any of your users that might be interested, please let me know at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your time, Dan Tennant Computerworld www.Computerworld.com Office: (508) 620-7754 Email: dan_tennant(a)computerworld.com AIM: dtennantatcw

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Fwd: Re: BALUG website [BALUG stuff to do (site, etc.)]
by Michael Paoli 25 Jun '06

25 Jun '06

Works better to the list if I don't drop a character, and duplicate that error. ----- Forwarded message from Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli(a)cal.berkeley.edu> ----- Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:30:16 -0700 From: Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli(a)cal.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli(a)cal.berkeley.edu> Subject: Re: BALUG website [BALUG stuff to do (site, etc.)] To: mikron <mikron1234(a)gmail.com> Thanks for volunteering. I'm not aware of much/anything in the way of database stuff to do presently, but regarding the site in general, you might start with some of these items. Get yourself subscribed to the "admin" list <balug-admin(a)list.balug.org> http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-admin-balug.org It's probably a fairly good idea to read/skim a moderate bit of past archives (e.g. about the last 1 to 3 years). You can also grab those from the archives: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/ if you grab the gzipped stuff, and gunzip those, they're in mbox format, so those could be browsed/skimmed with most mail client software, if desired ... can probably also just concatenate them all into one long mbox format file (something like that may be more convenient than trying to browse lots of them via the web interface). Anyway, reviewing a fair bit of the "admin" archives will give you a fairish overview of various issues which have been discussed and such. Probably good to also likewise at least skim the Subject: lines for the last year or so of of the "announce" and "talk" lists. On the website itself, you probably want to look it over and get familiar with the various portions of it. Some are probably in the dead to semi-dead range - e.g. haven't changed in a very very long time, and may not have been actively used for similarly long time. Opinions might differ on this, but perhaps some of those could be turned into static archives, rather than exist as "dynamic" stuff that nobody updates or actively uses (other than looking at older/historic stuff). It's probably a *good* idea to preserve backwards compatibility, in terms of content. E.g. folks do find, reference, search out, link to, etc., various stuff on our web pages, so, preserving most of that functionality - at least in terms of preserving references, can be quite useful. Unfortunately some older stuff has been lost and/or significantly munged (e.g. I've been active with BALUG since sometime in 2003, and since then the mailing lists have gone through 3 very different configurations, and in at least some cases access to the older archived stuff has been effectively lost (I think the data still exists, but not in a format we've been able to make use of)). The most active areas (at least in my opinion and as far as I can tell) are the lists, and a few relatively "high level" web pages on the site. Most notably (interpreting / tersely paraphrasing) there are the lists: "announce" - low volume, moderated, "highly" important/relevant stuff to BALUG (e.g. information about upcoming meetings/speakers, etc.) "talk" - open unmoderated (must be subscribed to it) discussion (should be reasonably topical to BALUG, but we haven't carved out a highly specific policy for that list.) Traffic volume varies from quite quiet, to very active. "admin" - administrivia - basically for discussing (it's publicly archived) BALUG administrivia stuff (the "business" of running BALUG). Stuff that shouldn't be publicly accessible should go in private e-mails (e.g. often communications to/from prospective speakers arranging speaking engagements, passwords (unless very strongly encrypted), etc.) I think we've got a fairly reasonable handle on the lists and their management presently, so that's probably mostly okay. What could probably use more attention is the website itself. It's hosted by Dreamhost, so, as long as that's the case, and the interfaces are as they are, we can't go in a freely muck about with and change things in any and/or all ways we might want to. Unfortunately, I don't think we have, or know that we have a way to set up a "beta" or "test" site, such that it would effectively be a copy, yet would have the same interfaces when it comes to changing stuff - so that we could safely test out changes without mucking up the main site. Unfortunately some of the interfaces definitely leave things to be desired - not only do we not have the lower level control of the site, but it is possible (e.g. via a HTML error) to introduce error(s) into the site that cannot be corrected via the same interfaces that introduced the error(s) (at least from what I've been told and seen thus far anyway). So, ... one does need to be rather to quite careful with at least some types of changes on the web pages - at least given our current interfaces to manage them. If you poke around some of the Dreamhost support and related web pages, that'll also give you a rough idea of what we can and can't do, and how, and also the types of problems/issues others have run into under our present hosting arrangement. e.g.: http://www.dreamhost.com/support.html and related pages. There's been occasional talk of switching to a rather/quite different hosting arrangement. For that to be feasible, however, various conditions would need to be met, e.g.: o it would need to be quite affordable o it would need to be rather/quite reliable (e.g. probably in a colo) o it would need to be "sufficiently easy" to maintain - a web hosting situation (such as dreamhost) may not give us the flexibility and direct access we might like, but it saves someone from having to also do all the OS and hardware maintenance, etc. Covering the OS and hardware isn't particularly trivial ... unless that's just someone's N+1th similar system (real or virtual) in an existing large managed set of N systems - otherwise it's a fair bit of time and work for some person(s) to cover, and do so reliably and regularly. Yes, ... Post Nuke, ... get yourself set up with a login on the web site using the New User? Sign Up! link on the main page, continue to get yourself familiar with the site, and one of us with admin access to the site can then grant that access to you presuming we're then settled upon that. Again, thanks for your interest in volunteering to assist with this. Quoting mikron <mikron1234(a)gmail.com>: > Hi Michael, > > It was interesting to hear about the state of the BALUG website last Tues, > and I look forward to contributing to a fix up. > > I took a quick peak at the site, and discovered what content management > system it runs on. It uses Post Nuke, and I discovered that by looking at > the HTML source meta tags. The post nuke site is here: > http://postnuke.com, > and a demo site is accessible here: > http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=130&Item… > > Presumably, someone has an admin login so we can manipulate our content. > > Not sure what the next step is, but at least we know what we are dealing > with. > > Mike ----- End forwarded message -----

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(forw) UNIX/Linux Management Opportunity - Google
by Rick Moen 24 Jun '06

24 Jun '06

----- Forwarded message from Amy Klein <aklein(a)google.com> ----- From: Amy Klein <aklein(a)google.com> To: balug-talk-owner(a)lists.balug.org Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:03:21 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353 Subject: UNIX/Linux Management Opportunity - Google Dear Moderator: My name is Amy and I'm part of the Leadership team at Google. I'm looking for highly technical Managers/Directors who are are very strong in C, C++, or Java, who also have a strong background in Linux/Unix, Networking, and Management. I recently found your Linux User Group site; I was wondering if you could post the below position to your mailing list for me? I have included the job description for your convenience. Thank you...I am trying to get the word out! The below position is located in the following cities: Mountain View, CA / Santa Monica, CA / Dublin, Ireland / Zurich, Switzerland . We provide extensive relocation benefits! And please don't hesitate to forward on my contact information to anyone who might be interested. Thank you in advance for your time. Sincerely, Amy - Google Talent Scout Leadership, Google.com Engineering 650-253-1840 <BLOCKED::mailto:aklein@google.com> aklein(a)google.com The group I'm supporting is Google.com Engineering. This multi-talented group of engineers and leaders are responsible for ensuring the quality, speed, and uptime of Google's services and tools and managing the production systems and network they run on. From code-level troubleshooting of traffic anomalies to maintenance of our most cutting edge services; from monitoring and alerts to building new automation infrastructure, our SRE engineers and leaders are in the thick of everything related to keeping Google.com running at peak. Interested parties can send an updated copy of their resume to: <BLOCKED::blocked::mailto:aklein@google.com> aklein(a)google.com and note the correct title and location. Engineering Manager/Director, Google.com We're looking for a highly technical, hands-on Software Engineering Managers/Directors to lead a team of Google software engineers and systems administrators for the Google.com group. The Google.com teams are directly responsible for Google's stellar uptime record, and act as the guardians and custodians of Google's user-visible services. In this leadership role, you will be responsible for ensuring that Google users can always reach and use all of the services under your team's care. Requirements: * Very high technical competence and strong academic record. * BA/BS in Computer Science preferred; MS/PhD a plus. * 3-10+ years of relevant experience managing software development teams * Excellent understanding of coding principles. * Strong understanding of UNIX/Linux. * 5+ years of relevant hands-on technical experience, and a record of individual technical achievement. * Deep understanding of networking; understanding of how to isolate, diagnose, and resolve service delivery components (service delivery components include servers, networks, and applications); be familiar with the functionality, operating, and failure modes of key networking devices (routers, switches, bridges, firewalls, hardware load balancers); be able to identify networking as the potential cause of a service issue using server-resident tools to generate this data (tcpdump, ping, traceroute, etc.); familiarity in interpreting the output of these tools; familiarity with common network topologies, protocols, and tools; have some notion of common network security exploits -- and their remedies; understanding of troubleshooting at the packet level. * Skilled in leading projects, especially in deploying live end-user systems. * That rare mix of intelligence, integrity, domain knowledge, verbal agility, and diplomacy which allows you to rapidly earn the trust of technically-astute teams across the company. ----- End forwarded message ----- Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:53:36 -0700 To: Amy Klein <aklein(a)google.com> Cc: balug-talk-owner(a)lists.balug.org Subject: Re: UNIX/Linux Management Opportunity - Google Quoting Amy Klein (aklein(a)google.com): > My name is Amy and I'm part of the Leadership team at Google. I'm > looking for highly technical Managers/Directors who are are very > strong in C, C++, or Java, who also have a strong background in > Linux/Unix, Networking, and Management. > > I recently found your Linux User Group site; I was wondering if you > could post the below position to your mailing list for me? I have > included the job description for your convenience. Thank you...I am > trying to get the word out! Hi, Amy! We're glad to hear from you, and I'm responding on behalf of the moderator team. BALUG's policy on that matter is shown on the list information page, http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-talk-balug.org : Linux jobs postings are welcome from companies intending to give a technical presentation at an upcoming BALUG meeting. If we see a job-offer posting from you, we expect to see a talk proposal [link] around the same time. (Companies not prepared to speak may want to post elsewhere, such as SVLUG Jobs [link] or BayLISA Jobs [link].) If you can get the ball moving towards arranging a technical talk at one of BALUG's monthly meetings (Chinatown, San Francisco) from a Google representative, your jobs postings will be most welcome on balug-talk: You can just post them directly to balug-talk(a)lists.balug.org, and we'll approve them right away. We had to make that rule because, although BALUG provides an interested and sometimes sizeable audience in a pleasant environment, there has been a shortage of speakers, lately. Best Regards, Rick M.

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Re: [balug-admin] UNIX/Linux Management Opportunity - Google
by 'Rick Moen' 24 Jun '06

24 Jun '06

Quoting Amy Klein (aklein(a)google.com): > Hi Rick: > > Thank you for getting back to me! > > Question for you...How large in your group? > What type of topics are you looking to be presented? Hi, Amy. The group's attendence tends to vary a lot based on topic and (presumably) conflicting events. Meetings are held at the upstairs banquet room of a Chinatown restaurant (the Four Seas) that can accomodate several hundred people, and the speaker's presentation follows a banquet-style dinner. (The speaker eats courtesy of the audience, of course.) Typical BALUG meeting attendance is about 50 people -- sometimes more, sometimes fewer. The audience is predominantly technical, so the best sorts of presentations are likewise, e.g., presentations about aspects of Linux and open source at Google, or Chris di Bona doing his talk about the Summer of Code program, or Marc Merlin talking about Exim (both friends of mine <grin>). Odds are, if a topic would be interesting to Google's own engineers and sysadmins, it would be to BALUG's membership, too. I am not actually the person who handles speakers for BALUG, but I'll be forwarding our mail to the people who do (CC'd). Thank you for your interest in BALUG!

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Re: [balug-admin] Jobs postings have moved to balug-talk
by Rick Moen 17 Jun '06

17 Jun '06

[Hoping you don't mind my CCing back to balug-admin.] Quoting Larry Platzek (larryp(a)inow.com): > On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Rick Moen wrote: > > >Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:38:13 -0700 > >From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> > >To: Larry Platzek <larryp(a)inow.com> > >Cc: balug-admin(a)lists.balug.org, Dick Verna <rverna01(a)gmail.com> > >Subject: Re: [balug-admin] Jobs postings have moved to balug-talk > > > >Quoting Larry Platzek (larryp(a)inow.com): > > > >>Dick Verna's and mine opion was/is that if a company wants to post job > >>opennings they should be willing to speak to the group (we are short of > >>speaker > >> for balug). > > > >An excellent idea. Should we make this official on the balug-talk > >listadmin page text? > > > I know I had asked someone to do that but it was not acted on, so please > do so. OK, I've so noted on the balug-talk listinfo page (http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-talk-balug.org), sort of like this: Linux jobs postings are welcome from companies intending to give a technical presentation at an upcoming BALUG meeting. If we see a job-offer posting from you, we expect to see a talk proposal [link] around the same time. (Companies not prepared to speak may want to post elsewhere, such as SVLUG Jobs [link] or BayLISA Jobs [link]. Please let me know if I got that wrong, and I'll be glad to fix.

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Re: [balug-admin] balug mailing list management
by Michael Paoli 17 Jun '06

17 Jun '06

Yes, that's a reasonable approximation of what I said. Thanks, ... got 'em now. references/excerpts (redacted): Quoting X-Caliber <xcaliber(a)xav.to>: > Larry Platzek wrote: > > I think I read recently Michael Paoli say we would keep moderator > > approvial requests under control if he was given the password, > > if that is true I thank him and will let him do it. > > I have been moving a lot of things around and can not find the "paswords" > > I can logon the balug site from one computer only and have administrative > > priviledges, I need someone to give me the passwords, this can wait untill > > the balug June meeting without be too harmful. > > I have been looking for the password and know someone needa to attend to > > the duties, so this is why I am posting this email. > > Admin: <redacted> > Moderator: <redacted> http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2006-June/000179.html

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Ugh! ... the announce list is NOT FOR JOB POSTINGS!!!
by Michael Paoli 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

Ugh! ... the announce list is NOT FOR JOB POSTINGS!!! This is the kind of stuff that makes me (and others) want to unsubscribe. It's *not* what the "announce" list is for, nor is is what most would want or expect it to be for. The list is supposed to be *low volume* (e.g. one to a few mailings per month) and on-topic (rather to highly relevant to BALUG). E.g., when folks sign up for a list, expecting it to be more-or-less one thing, and find it's quite something else, they tend to unsubscribe (e.g. when a PICNIX *announce* list got subverted/diverted into an sbay.org flamewar/argument/gripe list, I quickly unsubscribed). Job announcements aren't suitable for the balug-announce list - keep 'em off there! Only the "talk" list *may* be considered *possibly* appropriate for such. references: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2006-February/000123… http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk-balug.org/2005-March/003164.html No no no!!!: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce-balug.org/2006-June/000064.… http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce-balug.org/2006-June/000065.… http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce-balug.org/2006-June/000066.… et. seq. (I got 7 of these darn things today from balug-announce!)

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balug mailing list management
by Larry Platzek 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

I think I read recently Michael Paoli say we would keep moderator approvial requests under control if he was given the password, if that is true I thank him and will let him do it. I have been moving a lot of things around and can not find the "paswords" I can logon the balug site from one computer only and have administrative priviledges, I need someone to give me the passwords, this can wait untill the balug June meeting without be too harmful. Michael: I hope I remembered correctly that you said would take care mailing list requests. If so contact Rick Moem or Xavier for password needed. I have been looking for the password and know someone needa to attend to the duties, so this is why I am posting this email. Larry Platzek larryp(a)inow.com

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Jobs postings have moved to balug-talk
by Rick Moen 15 Jun '06

15 Jun '06

Exactly as I predicted, the jobs postings moved from one list to the other. At least that gets them off balug-announce -- but that leaves the question of whether we're OK with them landing on balug-talk. (My personal opinion is "No" -- and that, instead, we should have a Web page listing suggested places for job-seekers.) The default of no action will equate to "It's fine." FYI. ----- Forwarded message from Blair Mandell <bmandell(a)availigent.com> ----- From: Blair Mandell <bmandell(a)availigent.com> To: balug-talk(a)lists.balug.org Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:23:27 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627 Subject: [balug-talk] Linux Kernel Engineer (Checkpointing) Fulltime position in San Jose - Direct Hire Availigent is the leading provider of affordable, transparent and automatic high availability for Linux-based enterprise applications, giving companies peace of mind during planned and unplanned downtimes. We are specifically looking for a Linux Kernel S/W Developer to design, develop and maintain Availigent's Checkpointer, a kernel level technology that keeps track of the application's state. You will be responsible for architecture, design, implementation, code review, documentation and testing. This is a full time position w/benefits in San Jose, CA. Send a resume to: Blair Availigent Email: bmandell AT availigent.com ============================================================= Responsibilities: * Design, develop and maintain Availigent's Checkpointer, a kernel level technology that keeps track of the application's state. * Architecture, design, implementation, code review, documentation and testing. * Working as a member of the engineering team. Skills/Experience: * Experience in C programming * Expertise in distributed, multi-process, and multi-threaded programming in a Linux environment. * Experience in high-availability and fault-tolerance technologies, such as checkpointing, fault detection and recovery, and event notification is highly desirable. * A track record of designing, developing and releasing quality commercial enterprise software on time and to specification. * Excellent troubleshooting and debugging skills. If you are interested send your resume to me at: bmandell(a)availigent.com Other openings: http://www.availigent.com/company_jobs.shtml _______________________________________________ balug-talk mailing list balug-talk(a)lists.balug.org http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-talk-balug.org ----- End forwarded message -----

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Jobs Policy
by Rick Moen 14 Jun '06

14 Jun '06

Just to remind y'all, I raised a couple of questions, in part by taking semi-unilateral action: o What policy should balug-announce have? I established a fait accompli by putting text on the listinfo page: It says "Announcements for and by BALUG", and tells people where to send non-BALUG announcements for consideration. o What policy should balug-talk have? In particular, does it need a jobs policy? I stuck to description, on the listinfo page, except to advise people to also join balug-announce to get meeting announcements. Default outcome will undoubtedly be for employers & recruiters to switch to balug-talk. Some will join first; their posts will go straight through. Many, including a lot of professional recruiters, tend to mass-blitz mailing lists "from orbit"; those posts will get held as non-subscriber postings for listadmin approval. At which point, it'd be a good thing for listadmins to have worked out a policy. Are we OK with jobs posts on balug-talk? If so, are we also OK with postings from "drive by" people who can't be bothered to subscribe first? I'm aware the above wording is loaded, and will confess that I'd prefer to politely refer all jobs-offered postings to elsewhere, such as the SVLUG, Bay Area FreeBSD User Group, and BayLISA Jobs mailing lists. But I'll be glad to implement whatever policy the other listadmins want. (Michael Paoli mentioned, in March 2005, the option of it being OK to post _as a subscriber_ about tips / inside tracks you have on particular jobs, as distnct from the usual generic and impersonal ads.) Which was another question I have: Who are our listadmins? I've sent RSVP request mail to balugadmin(a)balug.org and balugadmin-talk(a)xav.to, to find out, but please speak up if you know. Judging by early posts to this list, possibles include: Michael Hubbard, our "angel" who foots our bill at Dreamhost. Thanks! I'm guessing Michael is "balugadmin(a)balug.org"? Larry Platzek Dick Verna Jerry McGovern "Xavier" (who I just noticed is the balug-talk(a)xav.to guy) I believe Xavier and Larry are active keeping the Web site updated and healthy.

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BALUG-Admin June 2006