Next ELUG Meeting: 28 November 2024

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Topic: TBD
Discussion lead: TBD
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7
Virtual location: meet.elug.rocks/28Nov2024

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The Edmonton Linux User Group (ELUG) is a chance to get together with other users of Linux, GNU, and Unix-like operating systems, and open source software. Our members range from newcomers to power users to seasoned administrators and developers; so, all are welcome!

We meet as an opportunity to exchange ideas, knowledge, and experiences for several reasons:

  • to educate for personal and professional growth
  • to promote and advocate for free and open source software
  • to support and assist with Linux related challenges
  • and to socialize with peers who have common interests

Meetings are held both virtually and in person, usually at Strathcona County Public Library.
We would like to find a more centrally-located and technologically equipped venue within Edmonton proper for the monthly meetings. If you know of a location or have space to offer, please let us know! (Contact info below)

Standard Agenda:

6:00pm – Arrival, random chitchat
6:30pm – Welcome & introductions, topic discussion begins
7:30pm – Announcements, open discussion
8:00pm – Event conclusion

Examples of topics that may be discussed or presented include (but not limited to):

  • Exposure to different distributions
  • Workshops on various tools and commands
  • Applications, development and tuning
  • just about anything else Linux-related

We welcome anyone with an interest in Linux and/or open source software and look forward to building the Linux community in Edmonton.

ELUG Meetup: 24 October 2024

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Topic: Cyber security!
Discussion lead: Robin will start, then the floor is open to anyone and everyone
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7

Robin got the discussion started by giving a quick description of a few security tools that he is familiar with, and then we continued talking about various other security tools and utilities:

AIDE (advanced intrusion detection environment)
aide.github.io
file integrity checker

Snort
snort.org
network intrusion detection and intrusion prevention system

Zabbix
zabbix.com
network and IT infrastructure monitoring tool

Nessus (proprietary)
tenable.com
remote security / vulnerability scanner

ModSecurity
modsecurity.org
owasp.org/www-project-modsecurity
web application firewall

metasploit
metasploit.com

fail2ban
fail2ban.org
auto-ban IP after 3 failed attempts to remote log in

Graylog
graylog.org
log management and security analytics

veracrypt
veracrypt.fr
on-the-fly encryption

ClamAV
clamav.net
antivirus for linux

Lynis
cisofy.com/lynis
antivirus for linux

By the way, if you haven’t heard: Don’t use linux kernel commits for hypocritical security patches:
www.theverge.com/2021/4/30/22410164/linux-kernel-university-of-minnesota-banned-open-source

ELUG Meetup: 26 September 2024

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Topic: General
Discussion lead: various
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7

The group talked about possible topics. What is interesting for people to talk about. One of the topics we identified an interest in was to review the everyday tools people use when driving Linux. In one of our next meetings we will review different options and tools people use on a daily basis.
Was there pizza and vim? Unfortunately no Pizza… or vim for that matter… which was weird.

ELUG Meetup: 22 August 2024

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Topic: tmux
Discussion lead: Robert, and then everyone
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7

tmux is a “terminal multiplexer”, essentially a terminal manager for creating and managing multiple terminal windows within a single environment.

tmux isolates terminals from connection dependencies because the (tmux) terminal process is now on the
remote machine, not on your local machine, i.e. terminal processes can continue running on the remote machine even if your connection to the remote machine is lost.

Usage:

tmux

By default, tmux creates a new “session” = the environment that contains one or more terminals, and creates one terminal in the new session

  • Multiple terminals/windows/tabs can be started within each session
  • You can manage how the multiple running terminals are arranged on your screen
  • Each terminal can be used for a different purpose (connect to another machine, do a task locally,
    compile and run a donut-shaped program that displays a spinning ascii-art donut, etc…)
  • You can replicate processes between terminals, e.g. type a command into multiple terminals at the same time
  • Each terminal state can be saved, e.g. when it is no longer needed
  • If you disconnect from the session, the session continues running (because tmux is still running)
  • If you disconnect your ssh connection, the session continues running (because tmux is still running on
    the remote machine)
  • You can reconnect ssh and reconnect to an existing tmux session at any time

Resources:

https://tmuxcheatsheet.com/
https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/tmux-beginners-guide-and-cheat-sheet/

Alternatives:

(GNU) screen (available in most *nix repositories)
abduco + dvtm (https://www.brain-dump.org/projects/)

ELUG Meetup: 25 July 2024

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Presenter: Mostly Robin, but there was plenty of banter from several others
Topic: More security topics! public key crypto, ssh, gpg keys
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7

https://www.ssh.com/academy/ssh
~/.ssh/known_hosts file = list of authenticated server signatures
“I’ve connected to these servers before, and this one matches a signature”
~/.ssh/authorized_keys = list of authenticated public keys
“I’ve authenticated these (users) public keys before, and this user has proven they have a matching private key”

https://www.gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg24/gpg.1.html
gpg --list-keys
gpg --export-secret-keys
subkeys: https://gnupg.org/howtos/card-howto/en/ch05s02.html

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/difference-between-pgp-and-gpg

Recommendation: Encrypt personal files with your own private key, so that no one can decrypt anything except you… but then make sure you backup your private key(s)!

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Subsequent discussion:

fan speed kernel daemon module (yay Lyndon!)
vitals = package to show system info in top status bar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1Password

ELUG Meetup: 27 Jun 2024

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Presenter: primarily Robin
Topic: Configuration profiles… What are they? What do they do? How do i use them?
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park

Robin S led a discussion about config profile scripts and shell commands, and reviewed many of the shell config and profile commands that he has implemented on his systems.

Subsequent discussion went all over the place:
A couple of things from/by Robin:
* https://github.com/FOSSUnleashed/XS/
* https://fossunleashed.xiennith.com/tags/xs/
Use of brackets: https://dev.to/rpalo/bash-brackets-quick-reference-4eh6
Just for fun:
* https://github.com/ChrisBuilds/terminaltexteffects
* search: “ROFLcopter”
* curl wttr.in/edmonton
A brief discussion about linux certification…
Random other:
* Did you know that shift middle-click = paste(?) (but only in certain environments)
* bat (a cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration): https://github.com/sharkdp/bat
* Shell app on Android = termux
Phone/desktop mirroring:
* KDEconnect
* MacOS+iPhone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeoLFLGWQzQ

ELUG Meetup: 23 May 2024

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Presenter: Lyndon
Topic: Nix the language, Nix the package manager, and Nix(OS) the operating system
Physical location: Edmonton Unlimited, 10107 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, room 119 “Tech+Den”

Lyndon attempted to explain everything nix: the operating system, the package manager, and the scripting language, all in the span of about an hour and a quarter…

(Apologies for having to cut the meeting a little short, as the Edmonton Unlimited meeting space was limited to 8pm.)

ELUG Meetup 25 April 2024

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Presenter: Robin
Topic: Review of “make”
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park

Robin gave us a whirlwind tour of the capabilities of the command-line tool make, “a utility for building and maintaining groups of programs (and other types of files) from source code.”

ELUG Meetup 28 March 2024

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Presenter: Everyone
Topic: Random
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library, Maple Room

Random chat about many things… HLS Downloader, KASM, Ollama, LibreOffice scripting, AppArmor.net, BSOD on systemd Linux, floppy drives, search engines, issues with AI and chatbots, and how does Stephen Hawking actually use his tech to actually speak?

ELUG Meetup: 29 February 2024

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Presenter: You! Everyone!
Topic: Show and/or tell
Physical location: Strathcona County Public Library; 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park https://maps.app.goo.gl/yhBzVWn4UoVTGW1T7

Basically a hangout chit-chat about random bits of tech and linuxy things…

Lyndon showed us how he uses “paperless”, a virtual document tracking app, for tracking receipts and bills and things. Very cool.