SLUUG Steering Committee Minutes - April 2006

NOTE: Minutes posted on the wiki are always unofficial. Schedules for upcoming presentations are always tentative. (Some more tentative than others!)

Saint Louis Bread Company,
10550 Old Olive Street Road,
Creve Coeur, MO 63141 (at Old Olive and Olive)

• April 5, 2006
• 7:00 pm - 8:25 pm

• Carl Fitch
• Barry Morrison
• Stan Reichardt
• Lee Lammert
• Craig Buchek

• Need to print out previous months' minutes for signature and inclusion in Secretary folder.
• Need to finish typing up minutes for March 3 board meeting and official annual meeting.

• Currently working on pulling in 2003 data into QuickBooks.
• Treasurer recommends passage of motion to establish Professional Memberships @ $100.

• Four books sold for total sales of $95.37. Credit card posting fee of $5.00 resulting in $90.37 of income.
• No new books ordered this year.

• Annual report received for 2005 and Q1 2006.

March attendance figures:

 8 - UNIX     - 23
16 - STL LUG  - 15
22 - Security -  9
23 - STC LUG  -  3
28 - HZW LUG  -  5

 8 - UNIX
     Base: KDE Control Center by Carl Fitch
       Stan said it was pretty good.
     Main: FreeNX by Jim Roe
       Outstanding.
16 - STL LUG
     Main: Blender by JT Moree
       Best presentation in 2 years.
22 - Security
     Main: dd_rescue and dd_rhelp by Carl Fitch
       A bit disjointed. Not enough time.
23 - STC LUG
     Main: dd_rescue and dd_rhelp by Carl Fitch
        Better the second time around, with more time.
28 - HZW LUG
     Hands-on Troubleshooting Juno dial-up script for Xandros 3.0 by Phil Bunch

• Base: ???? by Stanford Baldwin (via Craig)
• Main: Wireless Network Card Configurations (including ndiswrapper) by Carl Fitch

• Base: [CLI] Simple Redirection by Stan Reichardt
• Main: Ruby on Rails by Jeff Barczewski (Confirmed, LVL)

• Volunteers needed to man tables
• Setup 8:00 AM, Teardown 4:00 PM

• Base: [CLI] Simple Redirection by Stan Reichardt
• Newbie topics

• TENTATIVE: Mark Bunn @ Fishnet (via Clarence)

• Main: CUPS Printing w/ BSD by Carl Fitch

• Base: [CLI] Simple Redirection by Stan Reichardt
• Main: Attacking Web Applications by Mark Murdock and Scott Winter of Lantern Secure Solutions (via Ted)

• Base: TBD
• Main: GeeXboX / MythTV / HTPC by Mark Sims (Carl has reconfirmed date and location)

• Newbie topics

• Wireless Troubleshooting - Kismet & Other Diagnostic Tools

• TBD

• Base: TBD
• Main: Secure Email by Dustin Anders and Paul Vinson of Slashmail (via Craig)

• Main: SUSE 10 by Novell (LVL)

• TBD

• Newbie topics

• TBD

• Base: TBD
• Main: Novell SuSE in the Enterprise Space (LVL Tentative)

• TBD
• Alternate: Distro Updating Installfest

• TBD

• TBD

• TBD

• Zimbra Collaboration Suite (Exchange "replacement") - Matthew Porter volunteered (October?)
• InkScape (STLLUG) - Mark Jarnowski volunteered (via Craig)
• Alternate: Distro Updating Installfest
• MythTV / Freevo / TiVo - (STLLUG?) - (via Sarah on the Perl list)
• WiFi - Jerry @ OCI (via Gary)
• CVS/Subversion - Sanjiv, JT, Ed Howland
• Requests:
  • VPN (hands-on preferred, good for a Security meeting)
  • CVS for Config Files
  • Oracle Application Express
  • How To Update Your System - apt, yum, etc.
  • Music - Linux on iPod, iPod on Linux, Ogg, players, etc.

• Stan is looking to somehow automate the announcements.

• Lee volunteered to send invoices to our list of previous sponsors. ($200)
• Clarence and Stan will start working to gather information about previous sponsors.
  • Starting with information from the web site.
  • Lee spoke with Dave Mills - NO other informaiton available.
• Stan received an email from Angela Trotter from Unidev, wanting to sponsor our group and post job listings.
  • Craig to follow up.

• Presentation topics as far back as 2000 have been listed.
  • Stan indicated that accuracy is not high, but will search additional notes.
  • Stan and Ted will continue listing prior years' data as time permits.
• Stan working with Ted to get presentations put up.
  • Ted has gotten some of the older presentations gathered.
  • Ted's major emphasis will be to focus on getting the material from presenters.

• Root passwords on all 4 systems have been changed. Passwords have been given to the President and Secretary.
  • Most admin work should be done via sudo, which does not require the root password.
• After some mis-steps, our DNS situation seems to be working now.
  • Wash U removed SLUUG.ORG zone from their servers.
    • But the their systems were out of sync for a while, returning inconsistent results.
    • Reverse DNS records were changed, causing some issues with NFS.
  • Wash U records not matching EveryDNS records caused some problems for dial-up and shell users.
  • Wildcard record caused some problems for email and RADIUS services.
    • Wilcard record has been removed from EveryDNS.

• Several of us met at Computers and Things on March 18 to discuss how to proceed, and to get some work done.
• Configured SLUUG.ORG web site on new server.
  • Copied over all the data.
  • Configured a redirect back to old systems for user pages for short-term.
    • Will redirect to users.sluug.org, which can remain in place after the full migration.
    • This will allow us to move the web site without having to move the users.
  • Need to determine how to do the mailing list sign-up pages.
  • Need to determine how to proceed with non-SLUUG sites we host.
• Next step is to test the new site, before we point our production DNS there.
  • Make sure everything is there and working.
  • Make sure we copy over any updates from the old web site.
  • Make sure the redirect to user pages is working.
  • Make sure the SIG sites/pages work.
  • Get the mailing list sign-up pages to work.
• Craig is working on email infrastructure.
  • He made some progress, but is not quite finished.
  • Got some input on how to proceed from the others.
• We need some versa-rails to mount the servers.
  • Craig will go into Primary and measure the rack depth.
• Craig has a 1U UltraSparc with Solaris 10 to donate and install at Primary.
• We could use a rackmount switch.
  • Carl has a 12-port rackmount hub he will donate.

• Missouri Exempt status - (Carl Fitch and Lee Lammert, with help from Fred Smith's wife)
  • Carl has the forms. Working to finish filling them out. Will hand them off to Lee.
  • Gary will take forms to Rich McClennan to get help answering some of the questions.

• See about O'Reilly bringing someone in to speak to our group(s).
  • Carl will follow up.

• Stan proposed we clean house, and send any excess inventory to WITS.

• Need to come up with rates for membership / accounts this year.
  • Craig proposed a new $100 "professional" membership level.
    • He wants to pay that much for a membership this year.
    • This would support one of SLUUG's goals - being a professional organization.
    • Professional members will receive recognition on a new page on the web site.
    • No other benefits currently proposed for this level, beyond the current membership benefits.
    • Craig will write up info on the membership levels for the web site and hand-outs.
  • Proposed rates for 2006:
    • Level 1: $35 (basic/shell) Shell
    • Level 2: $65 (dial-up + shell) Sustaining
    • Level 3: $100 ("professional") Professional
    • Corporate Sponsorship: $200
  • Stan proposed that we charge a $5/month late fee.
    • Annual account ffes are due on July 1.
    • Late fee takes effect starting August 1.
    • Accounts over 90 days past due will be suspended.
  • Need to announce the new rates, and update all web pages.
    • Craig volunteered.

• Mike Knight suggested (via email) that 4 dial-up lines would be the optimal number.
  • We currently have 5 lines, and pay $160/month.
  • Having 4 lines would result in only a small number of busy signals.
  • Reducing 1 line would save us 20% of our #1 expense.
  • Reducing 2 lines (down to 3 lines) would save us $768, reducing the total expense to $1152/year.
    • This would require about 18 $65 accounts to sustain.
  • Unanymous agreement to reduce to 4.
  • There was nearly unanymous agreement to reduce to 3 lines.
    • Will table the discussion to reduce to 3 (or 0) for later.
      • Mike Knight reminded us (via email) that we need to remember that we provide Rich McLennan with a comp account.
        • Would need to make alternate arrangements with him for his work for us.
    • It was suggested that those who want dial-up look into a more sustainable arrangement.
      • Wholesale dial-up accounts.
      • Recruiting more users.

A board meeting was held in order to agree upon the proposals listed above. Quorum was met, with Lee, Carl, and Stan in attendance.

Called to order @ 8:25. Motion by Lee to reduce number of phone lines to 4. Unanymous approval. Motion by Lee to approve proposed fee structure for accounts/memberships. Unanymous approval. Move to adjourn by Lee. Meeting adjourned @ 8:27.

• Carl - Complete tax-exempt status paperwork.
• Carl - Follow up with O'Reilly about bringing someone in to speak to our group(s).
• Craig - Write up info on membership levels for web site and hand-outs.
• Craig - Print out meeting minutes for inclusion in secretary folder.
• Craig - Continue working on new servers.
  • Recruit testers in preparation to move www.sluug.org site.
  • Complete email configuration.
• Craig - Go into Primary and measure the rack depth.
• Craig - Follow up on email by Angela Trotter from Unidev, wanting to sponsor our group and post job listings.
• Ted - Get abstract for May 10 presentation.
• Stan - Update web sites w/ info on April presentations.
• Stan - Confirm April 12 tutorial with Stanford Baldwin. Get topic/details.
• Lee - Finish QB transfer & financials.
• Barry - Look into Webmin and Majordomo/Mailmain for new servers.
  • Need to be able to preserve the archives.