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steercom:2011-04

SLUUG Steering Committee Agenda - 6 April 2011

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

Location

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

Date and Time

  • Wednesday, April 6, 2011
  • 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Attendees

  • Lee Lammert
  • Don Ellis
  • Craig Buchek
  • Jerry Stutte
  • Gary Meyer

Agenda Changes

  • Are there any additions, deletions, or changes to sequence of items in the prepared agenda?
  • No changes to agenda.

Secretary Report

  • Nothing to report.

Treasurer Report

  • Bank Balance as of 2/28: $810.40
  • Income: $ 0.00
  • Expenses: SBE Booth Electric $ 95.46
  • Service Charge $ 10.00
  • Bank Balance as of 3/31: $704.94
  • Need to encourage people to use the new PayPal buttons on the web site!!

Mailing List Report

  • Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of March 2011:
List Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
ANNOUNCE 751 752 755 755 739 736 724 718 717 718 717 717 708
DISCUSS 221 223 223 224 224 222 223 222 222 221 219 218 218
STEERCOM 37 37 37 40 39 39 40 38 38 38 38 38 39
SYSADMIN 18 19 19 19 19 19 19 18 18 17 17 17 17
  • Numbers as end of each month.
  • Blocking of mailing list attachments not completely configured yet.
  • ANNOUNCE mailing list.
    • Still no volunteer editor to do a quarterly or monthly newsletter.
  • Command used to generate these (as root on Bud):
    • /usr/local/mailman/bin/list_members list_name | wc -l

Attendance Report

  • Initial mail list subscriptions are prompted by attendance sheets.
  • Group leaders are responsible for taking attendance at meetings.
  • Attendance sheets are available here
  • Attendance numbers, as of end of February 2011:
Meeting Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Steercom 5 6 4 6 6 4 7 6 5 7 5 (9) 5
SLACC 8 ? 5 (6) ? ? ? 8 x 7 ? 5 ?
SLUUG 26 ? ? 18 22? 29(31) ? 29 ? 15 18 15 14
SNUG SuSE - 8 8 9 4 8 ? - 7 11(14) 11 15 -
STLLUG 16 16 17 19 9 17 21 17 16 (9) - 14 13
STCLUG 6 ? 6 5 12 5 6 6 4 - 4 ? -
HZWLUG 8 11 ? 8 ? ? 6 7 6 9 13 9 7
  • NA - Not part of SLUUG.
  • () - Number in parentheses is head count.
  • xx - attendance was taken, numbers not yet recorded.
  • ? - Question mark indicates attendance not taken or sheet missing.
  • - - dash indicates no meeting.
  • NOTE - Corrected STCLUG August and September counts.
  • NOTE - February 2011 Steercom was via IRC #SLUUG channel on freenode.

Meeting Review and Comments

March 2011

     March 2011     
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31      

SLACC - March 3

  • SLACC usually holds a Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

SLUUG - March 9

  • SLUUG usually starts with a tutorial or demo session before a main presentation.
  • BASE: Demo of StackOverflow and ServerFault Q&A Sites by Craig Buchek
    • Good.
  • MAIN: Chroots & Jails by Lee Lammert
    • Continued from prior month by popular request.
    • Good.

EXPO - March 16

  • SLUUG/Gnu/Linux Booth #510
  • Volunteers were: Don Ellis, Lee L., Gary McKee, Stan R.
    • Seemed like less traffic overall, yet we talked to more people. - Stan R.
  • Visitors this time did not know what UNIX or Linux were. - Lee

SNUG - March 16

  • SNUG is the St. Louis Novell Users Group.
  • HIATUS: Meeting cancelled because of participation at STL Business Expo in St. Charles

STLLUG - March 17

  • STLLUG is the St. Louis Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Social Media and the Egyptian Revolution by Scott Granneman
    • Not enough technical meat.

HZWLUG - March 22

  • HZWLUG topics are usually determined by attendees. We usually cover more than one.
  • Had two new attendees. Recruited from Micro Center Linux Basics workshop.

STCLUG - March 24

  • STCLUG is the St. Charles Linux Users Group.
  • Canceled meeting - TOPIC: Video Capture and Editing by Noah Lance

Presentation Schedule

Potential Presenters and Topics

April 2011

     April 2011     
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

SLACC - April 7

  • SLACC usually holds a Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

SLUUG - April 13

  • SLUUG usually starts with a tutorial or demo session before a main presentation.
  • BASE: Chkconfig by Jerry Stutte
  • MAIN: Cross-platform Tricks (Windows and Unix) with Alan Griggs (via Jerry Stutte)

SNUG - April 20

  • SNUG is the St. Louis Novell Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Path to the Private Cloud by James Staten from Forrester and Benjamin Grubin from Novell

STLLUG - April 21

  • STLLUG is the St. Louis Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Natural Language Processing by Kevin Scannell (via Gary)

HZWLUG - April 26

  • HZWLUG topics are usually determined by attendees. We usually cover more than one.

STCLUG - April 28

  • STCLUG is the St. Charles Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Basics of 3-D Graphics and Animation (In Two Parts) by Ed Wehner

May 2011

      May 2011      
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31            

SLACC - May 5

  • SLACC usually holds a Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

SLUUG - May 11

  • SLUUG usually starts with a tutorial or demo session before a main presentation.
  • BASE: Homebrew (Mac OS X package manager) by Don Ellis
  • MAIN: To Be Determined (TBD)

SNUG - May 18

  • SNUG is the St. Louis Novell Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Going from Cloud to Cloud: Moving the Cloud to the Enterprise

STLLUG - May 19

  • STLLUG is the St. Louis Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Setting Up Webalizer by Lee Lammert (tentative)
  • BACKUP: Video Editing by Noah Lance

HZWLUG - May 24

  • HZWLUG topics are usually determined by attendees. We usually cover more than one.

STCLUG - May 26

  • STCLUG is the St. Charles Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Basics of 3-D Graphics and Animation (In Two Parts) by Ed Wehner

June 2011

     June 2011      
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30      

SLACC - June 2

  • SLACC usually holds a Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

SLUUG - June 8

  • SLUUG usually starts with a tutorial or demo session before a main presentation.
  • BASE: To Be Determined (TBD)
  • MAIN: To Be Determined (TBD)

SNUG - June 15

  • SNUG is the St. Louis Novell Users Group.
  • TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD)

STLLUG - June 16

  • STLLUG is the St. Louis Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: Scratch Programming Language by Ryan Brooks (tentative, per Jerry)

STCLUG - June 23

  • STCLUG is the St. Charles Linux Users Group.
  • TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD)

HZWLUG - June 28

  • HZWLUG topics are usually determined by attendees. We usually cover more than one.

July 2011

     July 2011      
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31                  

Potential Presenters and Topics

Old Business

Password Cards

  • 2009-12 We need to change root passwords.
  • 2010-01 Craig handed out new password cards.
  • 2010-06 Stan R. will build an unviewable page to record the number for server list.
    • Further implementation when we move BUD downtown.
  • 2010-07 Craig - change root passwords; make sure Mike Knight has a copy of the password card.
  • 2010-08 Status unchanged.
  • 2010-09 Status unchanged.
  • 2010-10 Mike Knight, Jerry, and Don all need password cards. Jeff sent mail to Craig inquiring.
  • 2010-11 Jerry received a password card from Craig.
  • 2010-12 Status unchanged.
  • 2011-01 Craig REALLY intends to change root passwords VERY soon.
  • 2011-02 Jeff will get pw info to Mike if he'll be at the main meeting. Afterwards, we can change passwords.
  • 2011-03 Status unchanged.
  • 2011-04 Status unchanged.

Server Admin

  • 2009-12 Bud Light offline due to fan failure, is still offline.
  • 2009-12 Craig has been adding some packages to his server; would be willing to add them to SLUUG servers.
    • fail2ban - temporarily ban IPs that have too many SSH failures (unanimous agreement)
    • fcheck - file integrity checker - emails files that changed since last time run
    • logcheck - email anomalous log entries
    • munin - monitoring of system details
    • awstats - web stats
  • 2009-12 Carl recommended using one of the Sun Netras as a log server.
  • 2010-02 Craig wondered if we could put sudo back on Bud.
    • Configure it to require root password instead of user's own password.
    • Will follow up on SYSADMIN list.
  • 2010-02 Craig wondered if we could start applying the patches pending for Bud.
    • There are a lot of patches pending now, including kernel and security fixes.
    • We have some concern with DNS patches, but Craig has applied them on his systems without issues.
    • Will follow up on SYSADMIN list.
  • 2010-02 Noah has a server we can use.
    • IBM X325, dual P4 Xeon 2.8 GHz, 2x72 GB.
    • Name: Golden Wheat
    • Craig will get with Noah to install the system.
  • 2010-03 Noah and Craig will install it on Wednesday 3/10 at 2:00 PM.
  • 2010-03 Noah has loaded VMware ESXi 4.0
  • 2010-04 New server [Debian] installed from Noah - thanks!
  • 2010-04 Noah has two more Dell 2850s for installation at IT Enterprises for the OS lab, to be supported by SLUUG. Noah to contact them and confirm installation - this will be a good indication of the support level they wish to have for an ongoing relationship.
  • 2010-04 New server from Contegix - Amber
    • Contact Lee or SysAdmin list for info
  • 2010-05
    • PrimaryNet problem with possible rogue IRC activity on system we later identified as Golden Wheat.
    • Stan R. added some info on Golden Wheat to resources.txt file.
    • Taking Golden Wheat offline…
    • Mike Knight pointed out that Bud is not being backed up since BudLight went down.
    • Jeff Muse has started rsnapshots backing up Bud to Bock.
    • Noah Lance willing to diagram our assets – later.
    • Joe B will be installing Sun Netra box.
  • 2010-06
    • Golden Wheat ready for reinstall - setup with virtual appliance Debian 5 XVA.
    • Lee is building backup on a server built - aliased as AMBER. We might need different name.
  • 2010-07
    • Golden Wheat has been re-installed, and fully functional.
    • Amber had incorrect DNS entry; Craig fixed it.
    • Lee copied over Bud home directories to /bu/home on Amber.
      • Cannot get rsync to work between the 2 systems — JEFF FIXED THIS
    • Work party at the bat cave - started on web, mail, system services, user IDs. Big problem now is that mysql won't let postfix log in.
  • 2010-08
    • Jerry is working on setting up Nagios
  • 2010-09
    • Backups have been disabled, since they were filling the / partition.
    • Postfix integration with MySQL – not working yet.
    • Trying to get Zimbra installed – not working yet either.
  • 2010-10
    • Postfix and MySQL are now talking to each other (on Amber)
    • Mailman is installed - list info needs to be migrated over yet
    • Proposed date for work party to finish moving bud to the cloud box - Nov 13th. Location TBD.
  • 2010-11
    • We have 2 new boxes.
      • Compaq DL580 (G1) boxes at Lee's house.
      • 4 x 73 GB disks (old servers have 4 x 18GB)
      • 3 GB RAM (old servers have 4 GB)
    • Work party to finish moving bud to the cloud box - Nov 13th at Lee's.
  • 2010-12
    • Got Budlight back up and runnable
      • Got a fan to fit in it
      • Need to reinstall in rack
    • Got OS installed on DL580, but Grub didn't work.
    • Lee suggested we keep 1 of each system type.
      • Keep the 2nd of each system type as backup hardware.
  • 2011-01 At December Blue Sky session Stan wanted to gather web analytics.
    • Craig said that there are 2 ways to accomplish this.
      • Way 1 is to analyze Apache logs, such as webalizer.
      • Way 2 is to use something like Google Analytics.
    • The group decided against using anything external like Google for this.
    • Craig and Lee got Webalizer working after the blue sky session.
    • Gary and Stan have been looking at the Webalizer reports.
    • Lee disabled a disuse account with 280 MB of email.
    • Lee tested the PayPal button.
  • 2011-03 Status unchanged.
  • 2011-04 Michelob is sick/dying.

Wash U Cleanup

  • 2009-09 Jerry Stutte, Jeff Muse, and Eric Xu volunteered to cleanup Wash U site.
  • 2009-09 Gary Meyer is Captain.
  • 2009-10 Captain is AWOL. Carl will be available in November or later.
  • 2009-11 Captain was AWOL.
  • 2009-12 Captain still AWOL.
  • 2010-01 Captain still AWOL.
  • 2010-02 Captain Gary Meyer still AWOL. Search party has not reported back.
  • 2010-04 Pending until next month at the earliest.
  • 2010-05 This project open since September 2009. Gary immediately left meeting.
  • 2010-06 Gary not here, nothing resolved.
  • 2010-07 Gary not here, nothing resolved.
  • 2010-09 Gary will work on this.
  • 2010-10 No progress. Stan questioned Gary's usefulness. Suggested that he is merely decorative.
  • 2010-11 No progress. See note above about Gary's usefulness.
  • 2010-12 No progress. See note above about Gary's usefulness.
  • 2011-01 No progress. See note above about Gary's usefulness.
  • 2011-02 No progress. See note above about Gary's usefulness.
  • 2011-03 No progress. Gary is in Florida. See note above about Gary's usefulness.
  • 2011-04 No progress.

Recording Meetings

  • 2010-12
    • We have a voice recorder (VC) for recording meeting presentations and have posted some results on web site.
    • On 28 Oct Stan R. suggested buying an additional VC so that there wouldn't be a single point of failure.
      • We forget who has it.
      • We forget to bring it.
      • We forget to turn it on.
      • We forget fresh batteries.
      • We forget how to turn it on.
      • We forget to free up space on it.
    • There was some STEERCOM list banter but nothing was brought up at 3 November Steering Committee meeting.
    • Alternative of video recording suggested, huge size of video files was mentioned.
    • Stan R. passed voice recorder to Gary M. on 18 November and doesn't want it back.
    • Noah volunteered an old Digital8 recorder.
  • 2011-01 Continued discussion, but no consensus.
  • 2011-02 Not discussed during IRC meeting.
  • 2011-03 Gary M. returned voice recorder to Stan R. before going to Florida.
    • Stan needs to pull February 2011 STLLUG recording and post it (on Amber).
      • And email it to the speaker (Igor Gueths).
  • 2011-04 Stan R. passed on voice recorder to Phil Bunch, who should be at next general meeting.

Web Site Suggestions

  • 2011-01 Mike Knight's emails regarding web site.
    • Stan changed the copyright dates.
    • Good idea to list other Open Source friendly resources.
      • On a separate page from our own SIGs.
      • Sites like WITS, CVillage, Arch Reactor, 2600.
    • Our site layout has not changed for years.
      • Would take some effort to re-do it, and seems to be working for most people.
  • 2011-02 Stan hasn't gotten around to building new resources page, yet.
  • 2011-03 No change.
  • 2011-04 No change.

STLLUG Sponsorship Credit

  • 2010-11 STLLUG is the St. Louis Linux Users Group.
  • STLLUG meetings are now hosted at IT Enterprises, which is affiliated with UMSL.
  • Typically because of meeting space value we recognize host as sponsor on our web pages.
  • Previously, some educational institutions (other than UMSL) did not want to be listed.
  • Lee updated the SLUUG web site sponsors list
  • 2010-12 No status change.
  • We should push the PayPal usage.
  • 2011-01 Stan suggested putting Hostirian at the bottom of all SIG web sites.
  • 2011-02 Stan hasn't gotten around to the pages, yet.
    • Noticed .PNG file doesn't show up on old county library browsers. Do we have .JPG file anywhere?
    • Not discussed during IRC meeting.
  • 2011-03 No change.
  • 2011-04 No change.

SLUUG Hand-Out

  • 2011-01 Stan talked about the 2-page hand-out we have for SLUUG.
    • Suggested we put the membership form on the back of that.
    • Lee will look into printing them out.
  • 2011-02 Stan hasn't gotten around to combining documents, yet
  • 2011-03 No change.
  • 2011-04 Combined form was printed and first used at St. Louis Business Expo.
    • Cleaned up – looks nice.

Using IRC for Steering Committee Meetings

  • 2011-02 Because of extreme weather conditions Steering Committee business was conducted on #SLUUG at Freenode.
    • Jeff Muse volunteered to update Steering Committee minutes during IRC session.
    • Jerry Stutte was only brave soul that went to St. Louis Bread company.
    • IRC discussion was way too much technology for flustered Stan R. (he left channel early).
    • Gary Meyer maintained telephone dialogue with Stan (concurrent with session).
    • Transcript of IRC session was provided to Stan for review later.
    • IRC discussion was slow and St. Louis Bread Company threw Jerry out at 9:00 PM.
    • IRC session bogged down at about same time as face to face meeting usually does.
  • 2011-03
    • Observations and opinions by Stan R.
      • Few participants had any experience using IRC.
      • IRC channel was not private and any somewhat sensitive information may be revealed.
      • IRC dialog too hard to follow in real time, transcript not much better.
      • IRC participants kept going off on tangent items, making following along difficult.
      • Afterwards, others failed to correct, elaborate, or update the Steering Committee minutes.
  • 2011-04
    • No action. Nobody at STEERCOM meeting logged in.

LUGs and Attendance

  • 2011-03 Craig brought up the topic of LUG attendance.
  • Why is STLLUG attendance so low?
    • Is it the location?
    • Was it the change in location?
    • Is it because we have too many local meetings?
    • Is it the improving job market?
  • With low attendance, we cannot bring in bigger names.
    • Telling Red Hat they'll have 15 people to speak with won't get them to come here.
  • Craig will post a message to DISCUSS.
    • Explain why I'm asking.
    • Ask why people don't attend.
    • Ask what we could do to get people to attend more often.
    • Ask if we should combine some of the LUG meetings.
  • 2011-04
    • Craig has created a survey – http://stllug.org/2011-member-survey
    • Need to have STEERCOM members look at it first, to make suggestions.
    • Craig will send out the URL to DISCUSS and ANNOUNCE once we're happy with it.

New Business

Reserve Rooms at Library

  • 2011-04 Reserve rooms at St. Louis County Library Branches.
    • First Saturday in April, reserve rooms for balance of calandar year.
    • Stan R. completed reservation forms. Phil Bunch and Stan R. delivered forms to appropriate library.
    • Hazelwood LUG meetings reserved at Prairie Commons Library Branch. Stan paid for HZWLUG meetings.
    • St. Louis Area Computer Club meetings reserved at Thornhill Library Branch.
    • A $60 check needs to be mailed to Thornhill Library Branch within 14 days.

PR

  • Jerry recommended we create a Facebook group and page.
  • Jerry recommended we post meeting notices on college campus bulletin boards.
    • Jerry will send out an email to Sanjiv.

Income

  • Our bank account is hovering above our minimum balance.
  • Need to generate some income.
  • Need to pass the hat at meetings again.
  • PayPal button on SLUUG home page works, but has had no hits.
  • Could have a fund-raiser.

Annual Requirements

  • July 2011 - Renew SLUUG.ORG domain.
  • October 2011 - Reserve rooms at St. Louis County Library Branches.
  • October 2011 - St. Louis Business Expo
  • December 2011 - Renew STCLUG.ORG domain.
  • February 2012 - Renew STLLINUX.ORG domain.
  • February 2012 - SLUUG annual Board meeting and elections.
  • March 2012 - St. Louis Business Expo
  • April 2012 - Reserve rooms at St. Louis County Library Branches.
  • May 2012 - IRS Form 990-N for Tax Exempt Status.
  • July 2012 - Renew SLUUG.ORG domain.
  • August 2012 - Missouri Annual Report for Corporate Legal Status (every 2 years).
  • May 2012 - IRS Form 990-N for Tax Exempt Status.

Blue Sky

  • Nothing

Recognize Useful Efforts

  • Recognize completed action items, and other useful actions.
  • Who did what?
  • Lee filed IRS Form 990-N for Tax Exempt Status.
    • Placed login details in treasurer's home directory on Bud.
  • Stan and Phil registered for library meeting rooms.

Follow-up and Action Items

  • Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings.
  • Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships.
  • Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation.
  • Craig - change root passwords; make sure Mike Knight has a copy of the password card.
  • Craig - work on getting refund for 2 months of Indian Trails reservations we did not use.
    • Or transfer the 2 months to SLACC or HZWLUG.
  • Craig - follow up on potential presentations.
    • Kyle Cordes - ffmpeg or other
  • Jerry - find someone to talk to us about Android.
    • Talk to Lopez from FBI about Internet security.
    • Talk to Alan Griggs about 101 Windows Tricks Linux Users Should Know.
    • Talk to Joshua Frank and Bill Zimmerly.
    • Talk to Rich Siebel to see if Andrew Prunicki of OCI can talk to us.
    • See Announce list from February 2009 for speakers from Java SIG presentations.
  • Jeff - talk to Splunk reps about presenting.
  • Noah - work on Amber build.
  • Gary - look into syncing domain renewals so they all happen at the same time of year.
  • Gary - follow up with Noel about transferring the SLACC.COM domain to us.
  • Gary - get Wash U site cleaned up.
  • Gary - talk to Gary Hollingsworth.
steercom/2011-04.txt · Last modified: 2011/04/06 19:51 by SLUUG Administration