From jf2412 at columbia.edu  Wed Sep  3 14:38:23 2008
From: jf2412 at columbia.edu (Joshua S. Freeman)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:38:23 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
Message-ID: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>

Hi FBSD folk-

I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.

I want to run a X11 on the machine but...

Not only can I not find or run xf86config or XF86Setup ..

When I run sysinstall and try to add them as packages I don't even see them
as available packages!  I have searched and searched within sysinstall and I
cannot find them.

How can that be?

Any illumination appreciated!

Best wishes,

Joshua
-- 
Joshua S. Freeman
Director- CUIT Interactive Services
o: 212.854.2083 | m: 347.392.2560
Skype/YIM: karmester | Skype-In: 914.613.3132




From ike at lesmuug.org  Wed Sep  3 14:48:40 2008
From: ike at lesmuug.org (Isaac Levy)
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 14:48:40 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
References: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
Message-ID: <B21B6E9E-3170-4C8E-8044-822D8F96C43D@lesmuug.org>

Hi Joshua,

I'm not a big X11 user, but perhaps I can help with a few things:

On Sep 3, 2008, at 2:38 PM, Joshua S. Freeman wrote:

> Hi FBSD folk-
>
> I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.

Gah- many of your packages problems may be based on the FreeBSD 6  
install, FreeBSD 7 is the current production release- 6.3 is trailing  
off, a bit old now...

>
>
> I want to run a X11 on the machine but...
>
> Not only can I not find or run xf86config or XF86Setup ..
>
> When I run sysinstall and try to add them as packages I don't even  
> see them
> as available packages!  I have searched and searched within  
> sysinstall and I
> cannot find them.
>
> How can that be?

With that, my knee-jerk reaction (I may be wrong) to your response is  
that the binary packages for 6.x  are no longer being built- try using  
ports/csup (you'll need to compile things yourself, but it's still  
ports!)

>
>
> Any illumination appreciated!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Joshua

Aside from that, like I said, I'm not a big X user- so I could be  
wrong... but I hope that helps.

Best,
.ike




From pete at nomadlogic.org  Wed Sep  3 14:50:00 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (pete)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:50:00 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
References: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
Message-ID: <cb2985972df2906f25918d244994df53@nomadlogic.org>



On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:38:23 -0400, "Joshua S. Freeman"
<jf2412 at columbia.edu> wrote:
> Hi FBSD folk-
> 
> I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.
> 
> I want to run a X11 on the machine but...
> 
> Not only can I not find or run xf86config or XF86Setup ..
> 
> When I run sysinstall and try to add them as packages I don't even see
> them
> as available packages!  I have searched and searched within sysinstall
and
> I
> cannot find them.
> 
> How can that be?
> 
> Any illumination appreciated!

X.org.

the handbook is a fun thing to check out too...
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html


-pete


-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
310.869.9459



From jf2412 at columbia.edu  Wed Sep  3 16:05:04 2008
From: jf2412 at columbia.edu (Joshua S. Freeman)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:05:04 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <cb2985972df2906f25918d244994df53@nomadlogic.org>
Message-ID: <C4E46630.14385%jf2412@columbia.edu>

Thanks for the responses Pete and Isaac.

I'm just going to restart the install process and upgrade to 7!

I will want a GUI though!

:-)

J.


On 9/3/08 2:50 PM, "Pete Wright" <pete at nomadlogic.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:38:23 -0400, "Joshua S. Freeman"
> <jf2412 at columbia.edu> wrote:
>> Hi FBSD folk-
>> 
>> I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.
>> 
>> I want to run a X11 on the machine but...
>> 
>> Not only can I not find or run xf86config or XF86Setup ..
>> 
>> When I run sysinstall and try to add them as packages I don't even see
>> them
>> as available packages!  I have searched and searched within sysinstall
> and
>> I
>> cannot find them.
>> 
>> How can that be?
>> 
>> Any illumination appreciated!
> 
> X.org.
> 
> the handbook is a fun thing to check out too...
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html
> 
> 
> -pete
> 

-- 
Joshua S. Freeman
Director- CUIT Interactive Services
o: 212.854.2083 | m: 347.392.2560
Skype/YIM: karmester | Skype-In: 914.613.3132




From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Wed Sep  3 23:59:28 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:59:28 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <C4E46630.14385%jf2412@columbia.edu>
References: <C4E46630.14385%jf2412@columbia.edu>
Message-ID: <48BF5D20.1090300@ceetonetechnology.com>

Joshua S. Freeman wrote:
> Thanks for the responses Pete and Isaac.
> 
> I'm just going to restart the install process and upgrade to 7!
> 
> I will want a GUI though!
> 
> :-)

Then you missed the point. . . XFree86 has been gone for a long while.

7 will not solve anything.

Xorg and you will have your GUI

RTFM with what Pete sent.

g


From jf2412 at columbia.edu  Wed Sep  3 13:34:40 2008
From: jf2412 at columbia.edu (Joshua S. Freeman)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:34:40 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] HELP
Message-ID: <C4E442F0.1435C%jf2412@columbia.edu>

I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.

I want to run a GUI on the machine but...

Not only can I not find or run xf86config or XF86Setup ..

When I run sysinstall and try to add them as packages I don't even see them
as available packages!

How can that be?

Any illumination appreciated!

Best wishes,

Joshua
-- 
Joshua S. Freeman
Director- CUIT Interactive Services
o: 212.854.2083 | m: 347.392.2560
Skype/YIM: karmester | Skype-In: 914.613.3132




From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Thu Sep  4 08:34:12 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:34:12 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <48BF5D20.1090300@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <C4E46630.14385%jf2412@columbia.edu>
	<48BF5D20.1090300@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <48BFD5C4.1050302@ceetonetechnology.com>

George Rosamond wrote:
> Joshua S. Freeman wrote:
>> Thanks for the responses Pete and Isaac.
>>
>> I'm just going to restart the install process and upgrade to 7!
>>
>> I will want a GUI though!
>>
>> :-)
> 
> Then you missed the point. . . XFree86 has been gone for a long while.
> 
> 7 will not solve anything.
> 
> Xorg and you will have your GUI
> 
> RTFM with what Pete sent.

That was meant to be an "RTM", Josh. . .

:)

g


From jf2412 at columbia.edu  Thu Sep  4 14:34:59 2008
From: jf2412 at columbia.edu (Joshua S. Freeman)
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:34:59 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <48BFD5C4.1050302@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <C4E5A293.143E5%jf2412@columbia.edu>

Of course George.

I appreciate everyone's help and I know the spirit in which it's offered is
benevolent!

:-)

J.


On 9/4/08 8:34 AM, "George Rosamond" <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:

> George Rosamond wrote:
>> Joshua S. Freeman wrote:
>>> Thanks for the responses Pete and Isaac.
>>> 
>>> I'm just going to restart the install process and upgrade to 7!
>>> 
>>> I will want a GUI though!
>>> 
>>> :-)
>> 
>> Then you missed the point. . . XFree86 has been gone for a long while.
>> 
>> 7 will not solve anything.
>> 
>> Xorg and you will have your GUI
>> 
>> RTFM with what Pete sent.
> 
> That was meant to be an "RTM", Josh. . .
> 
> :)
> 
> g

-- 
Joshua S. Freeman
Director- CUIT Interactive Services
o: 212.854.2083 | m: 347.392.2560
Skype/YIM: karmester | Skype-In: 914.613.3132




From carton at Ivy.NET  Thu Sep  4 18:59:20 2008
From: carton at Ivy.NET (Miles Nordin)
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:59:20 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <C4E5A293.143E5%jf2412@columbia.edu> (Joshua S. Freeman's message
	of "Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:34:59 -0400")
References: <48BFD5C4.1050302@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<C4E5A293.143E5%jf2412@columbia.edu>
Message-ID: <oqbpz3qzzr.fsf@castrovalva.Ivy.NET>

begin  Joshua S Freeman <jf2412 at columbia.edu> quotation:

   jsf> I appreciate everyone's help and I know the spirit in which
   jsf> it's offered is benevolent!

yup, no one in here but us chickens.


From ike at lesmuug.org  Thu Sep  4 19:43:12 2008
From: ike at lesmuug.org (Isaac Levy)
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 19:43:12 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] blowfish hardware crypto?
Message-ID: <99E064C3-2161-4A10-81EB-84A91A794EF8@lesmuug.org>

Hi All,

Last night at the meeting, I was chatting with Nikolai briefly about  
the hardware crypto accelerators PCI cards that Soekris makes (Hi/fn),  
and I was wondering this:

Has anybody seen any similar hardware crypto cards that do blowfish?

Just curious...  Please feel free to tell me if this is a silly  
request for any technical reason...  I'm merely a cryptography user :)

Rocket-
.ike



--
For the record, the specs state that the Hi/fn cards do the following:
- Compression, LZS and MPPC at 420 to 510 Mbps
- Encryption, 128/192/256 AES, DES, 3-DES and RC4 at 210 to 460 Mbps
- Authentication, SHA-1 and MD5 at 325 to 360 Mbps
- Public Key, RSA, DSA, SSL, IKE and DH, 24 to 70 connections/sec  
using 1024 bit keys
- Hardware random number generator




From o_sleep at belovedarctos.com  Fri Sep  5 09:48:20 2008
From: o_sleep at belovedarctos.com (No Sleep)
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 09:48:20 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] I'm missing something here...
In-Reply-To: <C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
References: <AckN9D6WzMk/7/KEfUC0N/zGM6hd1g==>
	<C4E451DF.14370%jf2412@columbia.edu>
Message-ID: <bd16f26f0809050648t23b0d488w40cc51a23cdb11ad@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Joshua S. Freeman <jf2412 at columbia.edu>wrote:

> Hi FBSD folk-
>
> I recently installed FreeBSD6 on an old optiplex here at work.
>
> I want to run a X11 on the machine but...


Josh,

www.pcbsd.org (or desktopbsd) might fare better for you.  It's basically
freebsd but has targeted the desktop environment.

-Bjorn
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From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Fri Sep  5 12:46:17 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:46:17 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] NYCBSDCon registration
Message-ID: <48C16259.3000001@ceetonetechnology.com>

Registration is now open. . .

We're not putting out the general announce yet, and the schedule is not 
up yet. . . but go for it.

http://www.nycbsdcon.org/2008/register.html

George


From jamex1642 at gmail.com  Fri Sep  5 14:20:51 2008
From: jamex1642 at gmail.com (James Reynolds)
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 14:20:51 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] have you played a record backwards lately?
Message-ID: <29b2b1d0809051120u13410299h77817bfddec2d26@mail.gmail.com>

$ pwd
/usr/ports/audio/morseplayer
$ cat pkg/DESCR
The morseplayer utility reads from its standard input and plays
corresponding morse code sounds from an audio device.  The program has
the full character set for the ARRL/FCC Element 2 examination, and
generates the timing of  `dits',  `dahs', intra-element spacing,
character spacing, and word spacing as specified by the ARRL.
$ uname
OpenBSD
$ cat /bsd | morseplayer
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From mspitzer at gmail.com  Fri Sep  5 15:36:38 2008
From: mspitzer at gmail.com (Marc Spitzer)
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 15:36:38 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] have you played a record backwards lately?
In-Reply-To: <29b2b1d0809051120u13410299h77817bfddec2d26@mail.gmail.com>
References: <29b2b1d0809051120u13410299h77817bfddec2d26@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8c50a3c30809051236m47ba3d35j38cd1159930c0d04@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:20 PM, James Reynolds <jamex1642 at gmail.com> wrote:
> $ pwd
> /usr/ports/audio/morseplayer
> $ cat pkg/DESCR
> The morseplayer utility reads from its standard input and plays
> corresponding morse code sounds from an audio device.  The program has
> the full character set for the ARRL/FCC Element 2 examination, and
> generates the timing of  `dits',  `dahs', intra-element spacing,
> character spacing, and word spacing as specified by the ARRL.
> $ uname
> OpenBSD
> $ cat /bsd | morseplayer
>

You need a beer

marc
-- 
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
Albert Camus


From bonsaime at gmail.com  Sat Sep  6 11:28:20 2008
From: bonsaime at gmail.com (Jesse Callaway)
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 11:28:20 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Grab me a molson,
	this is what I like about OpenBSD 4.4, eh.
Message-ID: <aa9991030809060828q13124497xd29a75efbcb64cd7@mail.gmail.com>

I've been known to create bad volumes, accepting the defaults from the
installer...

disklabel(8)  no longer suggests offsets and sizes that would result
in partitions starting or ending outside the OpenBSD section of the
disk.


Cool new features to SSH

OpenSSH 5.1:

    * New experimental fingerprint ASCII art visualisation system for
easier verification of remote keys. (cool... who writes down the
fingerprints?)
    * Added chroot(2) support for sshd(8).  (the third party patch was
scary, nice that it's official)
    * Added an extended test mode (-T) to sshd(8).  (better than
making it run on an alternate port for testing)

New hardware, that's nice. Bigger news is the performance
improvements. It was so SLOW before ; ) Actually I have no idea. I've
never given OpenBSD anything taxing for disk or memory before....
maybe I will now.


-jesse


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Sat Sep  6 21:46:17 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:46:17 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] NYCBSDCon www banners
Message-ID: <48C33269.6070008@ceetonetechnology.com>

For anyone wanting to drop a link for the conference on a www site:

http://www.nycbsdcon.org/2008/web_banners/

Get the word out. . .

George


From brian.gupta at gmail.com  Sun Sep  7 20:36:48 2008
From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta)
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:36:48 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Recruiting debconf10 volunteers
In-Reply-To: <5b5090780809071723ub0b645dv2ad03fbd5757ad65@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5b5090780809071655g7a9d8ab9o8ed84265a914b7f9@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071723ub0b645dv2ad03fbd5757ad65@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>

I realize this is a bit offtopic, but I feel that all the local New
York tech groups are part of an extended family, and that anything we
can do to extend that family, and increase awareness of open source
software is a good thing.

One side note: The debian userspace is available for FreeBSD and
NetBSD, so I am not completely offtopic. :)
FreeBSD: http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ NetBSD:
http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/

I am a member of the local team preparing a bid to host DebConf10 in
New York City, and can really use some volunteers now to help with
planning, and later to help with logistics.

Here is the info for the bid:

http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/NewYork

Here is the video from DebConf8 where Jimmy Kaplowitz first presented
the draft of the bid.

http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2008/debconf8/low/601_DebConf_10.ogg

We have a few short months to flesh out a draft.

If you are interested, please register for the DebianNYC mailing list
and post your interest to the list.
http://vireo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debiannyc

We will be meeting here occasionally: IRC://irc.debian.org/debconf-nyc
Feel free to stop by and introduce yourself.

Also feel free to forward this to any interested parties.

Thanks,
Brian

P.S. - The DebianNYC user group gets together every month or two, so
if you are interested in joining other users and devs in the Debian
family, feel free to join.

--
- Brian Gupta


From ike at lesmuug.org  Mon Sep  8 02:49:52 2008
From: ike at lesmuug.org (Isaac Levy)
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 02:49:52 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Recruiting debconf10 volunteers
In-Reply-To: <5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5b5090780809071655g7a9d8ab9o8ed84265a914b7f9@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071723ub0b645dv2ad03fbd5757ad65@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0CE12008-426F-4C06-83E7-89499399F094@lesmuug.org>

Hi Brian,

Sorry to top-post, but your message is not NYC*BUG related, nor is it  
a technical BSD/UNIX post.

With that, please let me refer you to our mailing list rules:
http://www.nycbug.org/index.php?NAV=MailingLists

? Advertising
Advertising of non-NYCBUG related products or services is strictly  
prohibited and will result in an immediate ban if it is clear that the  
offender is advertising by spam.

We keep topics to either and BSD/UNIX related technical issues, or  
going off-topic, we tend to extend misc. things discussed at meetings  
by attendees.

--
Since you aren't quite a spammer, we of course won't ban you from the  
list- but this is not the right list for this kind of solicitation.

(Perhaps, I think most folks wouldn't have minded a 1 sentence post  
about this, but a full page about Debian meetings on a *BSD list?  I  
hope you understand I'm being polite when I say that this could evoke  
some acute reactions regarding support for the Debian Linux distro. :)

I appreciate your enthusiasm, best to you folks and your Debian  
conference!

Best,
.ike





On Sep 7, 2008, at 8:36 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:

> I realize this is a bit offtopic, but I feel that all the local New
> York tech groups are part of an extended family, and that anything we
> can do to extend that family, and increase awareness of open source
> software is a good thing.
>
> One side note: The debian userspace is available for FreeBSD and
> NetBSD, so I am not completely offtopic. :)
> FreeBSD: http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ NetBSD:
> http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/
>
> I am a member of the local team preparing a bid to host DebConf10 in
> New York City, and can really use some volunteers now to help with
> planning, and later to help with logistics.
>
> Here is the info for the bid:
>
> http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/NewYork
>
> Here is the video from DebConf8 where Jimmy Kaplowitz first presented
> the draft of the bid.
>
> http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2008/debconf8/low/601_DebConf_10.ogg
>
> We have a few short months to flesh out a draft.
>
> If you are interested, please register for the DebianNYC mailing list
> and post your interest to the list.
> http://vireo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debiannyc
>
> We will be meeting here occasionally: IRC://irc.debian.org/debconf-nyc
> Feel free to stop by and introduce yourself.
>
> Also feel free to forward this to any interested parties.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>
> P.S. - The DebianNYC user group gets together every month or two, so
> if you are interested in joining other users and devs in the Debian
> family, feel free to join.
>
> --
> - Brian Gupta
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>



From brian.gupta at gmail.com  Mon Sep  8 12:11:36 2008
From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta)
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:11:36 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Recruiting debconf10 volunteers
In-Reply-To: <0CE12008-426F-4C06-83E7-89499399F094@lesmuug.org>
References: <5b5090780809071655g7a9d8ab9o8ed84265a914b7f9@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071723ub0b645dv2ad03fbd5757ad65@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>
	<0CE12008-426F-4C06-83E7-89499399F094@lesmuug.org>
Message-ID: <5b5090780809080911t125502a3x4608429d7c2489de@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 2:49 AM, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
> Sorry to top-post, but your message is not NYC*BUG related, nor is it a
> technical BSD/UNIX post.
>
> With that, please let me refer you to our mailing list rules:
> http://www.nycbug.org/index.php?NAV=MailingLists
>
> ? Advertising
> Advertising of non-NYCBUG related products or services is strictly
> prohibited and will result in an immediate ban if it is clear that the
> offender is advertising by spam.
>
> We keep topics to either and BSD/UNIX related technical issues, or going
> off-topic, we tend to extend misc. things discussed at meetings by
> attendees.
>
> --
> Since you aren't quite a spammer, we of course won't ban you from the list-
> but this is not the right list for this kind of solicitation.
>
> (Perhaps, I think most folks wouldn't have minded a 1 sentence post about
> this, but a full page about Debian meetings on a *BSD list?  I hope you
> understand I'm being polite when I say that this could evoke some acute
> reactions regarding support for the Debian Linux distro. :)
>
> I appreciate your enthusiasm, best to you folks and your Debian conference!

My apologies, I did not realize that I would upset anyone. (It was
unclear to me, that I was advertising a "product or service", and the
guidelines you linked do not forbid what I have done, but if it is
considered bad form, I will avoid doing so in the future.)

I assumed that since there were two projects doing BSD/Debian mashups,
that there was some overlap in the communities.

I also thought that since this group has experience planning local New
York conferences, there would be a natural fit for certain folks
wanting to help make New York known as a more open source friendly
town.

(Just so you understand, I am not a core Debian contributor, I am
volunteering because I want to see more opensource conferences in New
York. I use FreeBSD, Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, MacOS, plus a handful of
embedded OSes and assumed that many other *nix folks were as
interested in seeing the local open source community thrive as I do.)
Putting together a bid for the first USA hosted debconf (ever) will
require people of all different backgrounds, and skillsets, with the
biggest requirements being locality to New York and
availability/desire to help out.

Cheers,
Brian

P.S. - If you need any help next month at NYCBSDCon, please feel free
to ask, as I am registered and will be attending.
P.S.S. - We have started putting together a cross technology "NYC User
Groups" Google Calendar. The info for that is here:
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=nycusergroups%40brandorr.com&ctz=America/New_York
(Hopefully we will be able to make that a shorter URL at some point in
the future). In the process we discovered that the NYCBUG iCal
calendar is about three months out of date.
P.S.S.S. - Based on your response, I have also come to the realization
that there needs to be a cross technology FLOSS mailing list for New
York City, as the crosspost interested geeks are there, but there is
also a group of geeks that don't want to hear about the other stuff
too. Until such time as this list exists, I will use very careful
consideration before posting to this mailing list.

> Best,
> .ike
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 7, 2008, at 8:36 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:
>
>> I realize this is a bit offtopic, but I feel that all the local New
>> York tech groups are part of an extended family, and that anything we
>> can do to extend that family, and increase awareness of open source
>> software is a good thing.
>>
>> One side note: The debian userspace is available for FreeBSD and
>> NetBSD, so I am not completely offtopic. :)
>> FreeBSD: http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ NetBSD:
>> http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/
>>
>> I am a member of the local team preparing a bid to host DebConf10 in
>> New York City, and can really use some volunteers now to help with
>> planning, and later to help with logistics.
>>
>> Here is the info for the bid:
>>
>> http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/NewYork
>>
>> Here is the video from DebConf8 where Jimmy Kaplowitz first presented
>> the draft of the bid.
>>
>>
>> http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2008/debconf8/low/601_DebConf_10.ogg
>>
>> We have a few short months to flesh out a draft.
>>
>> If you are interested, please register for the DebianNYC mailing list
>> and post your interest to the list.
>> http://vireo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debiannyc
>>
>> We will be meeting here occasionally: IRC://irc.debian.org/debconf-nyc
>> Feel free to stop by and introduce yourself.
>>
>> Also feel free to forward this to any interested parties.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Brian
>>
>> P.S. - The DebianNYC user group gets together every month or two, so
>> if you are interested in joining other users and devs in the Debian
>> family, feel free to join.
>>
>> --
>> - Brian Gupta
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk mailing list
>> talk at lists.nycbug.org
>> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>>
>
>



-- 
- Brian Gupta


From carton at Ivy.NET  Mon Sep  8 14:00:39 2008
From: carton at Ivy.NET (Miles Nordin)
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:00:39 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Recruiting debconf10 volunteers
In-Reply-To: <5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>
	(Brian Gupta's message of "Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:36:48 -0400")
References: <5b5090780809071655g7a9d8ab9o8ed84265a914b7f9@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071723ub0b645dv2ad03fbd5757ad65@mail.gmail.com>
	<5b5090780809071736n107cb423ub4c80311281a8262@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <oq4p4qo6uw.fsf@castrovalva.Ivy.NET>

>>>>> "bg" == Brian Gupta <brian.gupta at gmail.com> writes:

    bg> The debian userspace is available for FreeBSD and NetBSD,

sounds like a perfect match, since both Debian and BSD are so proud of
their glacial release pace.

    bg> Here is the video from [...blahblahblahmodeltrainsblahblah...]

    bg> http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2008/debconf8/low/601_DebConf_10.ogg
                                                                                                ^^^
<wipes away a tiny tear>

you guys are awesome.

murdoch:~$ ftp http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2008/debconf8/low/601_DebConf_10.ogg
Trying 2001:6b0:e:2018::173...
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

oh my god, fucking awesome.


[Ogg] stream 1: video (Theora v3.2.1), -vid 0
[Ogg] stream 2: audio (Vorbis), -aid 0
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From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Mon Sep  8 22:20:54 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:20:54 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] relevant fork: NYCBSDCon volunteers. . .
Message-ID: <48C5DD86.8060902@ceetonetechnology.com>

There's a number of areas in which we need volunteers for the 
conference.  Some of this was discussed at the last NYCBUG meeting.

1.  If you are on a campus, around some computer store or some coffee 
shop, download, print and post the flier.  Get the word out.

2.  The Friday Oct 10 social at Havanna Central we'll need some people 
to show up around 6 pm and make sure there's some critical mass for 
those arriving.  We'll have enough people later on, but lots of the 
out-of-town visitors may feel a bit confused in a Columbia-area bar 
early on a Friday night.

3.  Early Saturday 7:30 am, we will need a bunch of people to post the 
flier (to be updated with a campus map by Ike :) around. . . by the 1 
stop at 116th street. . . and all along the path to Davis Auditorium. 
And the security guards at 116th Street should be reminded about the 
conference, since they will inevitably be dealing with wandering 
con-attendees.

4.  As some people may remember, no food or drinks are allowed inside 
Davis Auditorium. . . help keep the place clean after the Saturday then 
the Sunday end sessions.  Having Columbia U for the con is an awesome 
privilege for us. . considering any hotel we looked at last year for 
"no-con" was many many times more expensive. . .

Please also pray, meditate, threaten TV weather commentators, whatever 
you can do to ensure that we don't have torrential winds and rain, Hamid 
Karzai (Afghan president) visiting, massive 7th avenue subway line 
repairs or other utter flukes happen years past.

g


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Tue Sep  9 12:07:00 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:07:00 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] NYCBSDCon 2008 Schedule
Message-ID: <48C69F24.4000900@ceetonetechnology.com>

So as of now, the tentative schedule is up online.

Besides a pretty heavy list, you'll see that we have socials each night, 
plus two BSD Certification exams happening.  Plus one BoF for PCBSD is 
already planned for Sunday lunch.

Time to register. . .

George


From brian.gupta at gmail.com  Tue Sep  9 14:21:56 2008
From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta)
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 14:21:56 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] relevant fork: NYCBSDCon volunteers. . .
In-Reply-To: <48C5DD86.8060902@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <48C5DD86.8060902@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <5b5090780809091121r3729fd59i866596dcfefb151@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:20 PM, George Rosamond
<george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
> There's a number of areas in which we need volunteers for the
> conference.  Some of this was discussed at the last NYCBUG meeting.
>
> 1.  If you are on a campus, around some computer store or some coffee
> shop, download, print and post the flier.  Get the word out.

I can print out flyers, but posting them is a bit out of my realm. One
thought, would you like me to contact the various user group leaders
in the area, and see if they are open to posting to their announce
lists?

> 2.  The Friday Oct 10 social at Havanna Central we'll need some people
> to show up around 6 pm and make sure there's some critical mass for
> those arriving.  We'll have enough people later on, but lots of the
> out-of-town visitors may feel a bit confused in a Columbia-area bar
> early on a Friday night.

This I can help with. Please keep me posted as to who I need to meet,
and what your expectations are.

> 3.  Early Saturday 7:30 am, we will need a bunch of people to post the
> flier (to be updated with a campus map by Ike :) around. . . by the 1
> stop at 116th street. . . and all along the path to Davis Auditorium.
> And the security guards at 116th Street should be reminded about the
> conference, since they will inevitably be dealing with wandering
> con-attendees.

7:30am is gonna be a bit (way too) early for me, but I am on W. 71st
so I am sorta in the neighborhood if you can't get enough volunteers.

> 4.  As some people may remember, no food or drinks are allowed inside
> Davis Auditorium. . . help keep the place clean after the Saturday then
> the Sunday end sessions.  Having Columbia U for the con is an awesome
> privilege for us. . considering any hotel we looked at last year for
> "no-con" was many many times more expensive. . .

Can you please elaborate?

> Please also pray, meditate, threaten TV weather commentators, whatever
> you can do to ensure that we don't have torrential winds and rain, Hamid
> Karzai (Afghan president) visiting, massive 7th avenue subway line
> repairs or other utter flukes happen years past.

Will do. ;)

> g
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>

-- 
- Brian Gupta


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Tue Sep  9 15:19:25 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:19:25 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] relevant fork: NYCBSDCon volunteers. . .
In-Reply-To: <5b5090780809091121r3729fd59i866596dcfefb151@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C5DD86.8060902@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<5b5090780809091121r3729fd59i866596dcfefb151@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48C6CC3D.4070304@ceetonetechnology.com>

Brian Gupta wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:20 PM, George Rosamond
> <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
>> There's a number of areas in which we need volunteers for the
>> conference.  Some of this was discussed at the last NYCBUG meeting.
>>
>> 1.  If you are on a campus, around some computer store or some coffee
>> shop, download, print and post the flier.  Get the word out.
> 
> I can print out flyers, but posting them is a bit out of my realm. One
> thought, would you like me to contact the various user group leaders
> in the area, and see if they are open to posting to their announce
> lists?

Sure. . . go for it.

Note that the www banners are on the nycbsdcon.org web site.

> 
>> 2.  The Friday Oct 10 social at Havanna Central we'll need some people
>> to show up around 6 pm and make sure there's some critical mass for
>> those arriving.  We'll have enough people later on, but lots of the
>> out-of-town visitors may feel a bit confused in a Columbia-area bar
>> early on a Friday night.
> 
> This I can help with. Please keep me posted as to who I need to meet,
> and what your expectations are.

Drink and be merry. . .

> 
>> 3.  Early Saturday 7:30 am, we will need a bunch of people to post the
>> flier (to be updated with a campus map by Ike :) around. . . by the 1
>> stop at 116th street. . . and all along the path to Davis Auditorium.
>> And the security guards at 116th Street should be reminded about the
>> conference, since they will inevitably be dealing with wandering
>> con-attendees.
> 
> 7:30am is gonna be a bit (way too) early for me, but I am on W. 71st
> so I am sorta in the neighborhood if you can't get enough volunteers.

Ok

> 
>> 4.  As some people may remember, no food or drinks are allowed inside
>> Davis Auditorium. . . help keep the place clean after the Saturday then
>> the Sunday end sessions.  Having Columbia U for the con is an awesome
>> privilege for us. . considering any hotel we looked at last year for
>> "no-con" was many many times more expensive. . .
> 
> Can you please elaborate?

We need to be nice and clean there so that they are happy with us. 
Pretty simple :)

> 
>> Please also pray, meditate, threaten TV weather commentators, whatever
>> you can do to ensure that we don't have torrential winds and rain, Hamid
>> Karzai (Afghan president) visiting, massive 7th avenue subway line
>> repairs or other utter flukes happen years past.
> 
> Will do. ;)

g


From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 13:11:34 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:11:34 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
Message-ID: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>

Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
the past week or two?

This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.

A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm.  I now limit inbound ssh
connections to max-src-conn 100, max-src-conn-rate 5/3.  With this
tuning for SSH they get one, maybe two, login attempts before PF adds
them to the block table.  That's below the threshold for BlockSSHd to
react and send me a block notice.  Looks to me like this tuning is doing
exactly what I want.  The reaction time to block an attack is now one
second or less.  My INBOX is not getting flooded any more.  And all the
legit traffic gets through just as before.  If not better since the
firewall/router doesn't have to work as hard.

I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.

-- 
Yarema


From max at neuropunks.org  Wed Sep 10 13:28:29 2008
From: max at neuropunks.org (Max Gribov)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:28:29 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <48C803BD.7020803@neuropunks.org>

Yarema wrote:
> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
> the past week or two?
>   
theres this:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210201115



> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>
> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm.  I now limit inbound ssh
> connections to max-src-conn 100, max-src-conn-rate 5/3.  With this
> tuning for SSH they get one, maybe two, login attempts before PF adds
> them to the block table.  That's below the threshold for BlockSSHd to
> react and send me a block notice.  Looks to me like this tuning is doing
> exactly what I want.  The reaction time to block an attack is now one
> second or less.  My INBOX is not getting flooded any more.  And all the
> legit traffic gets through just as before.  If not better since the
> firewall/router doesn't have to work as hard.
>
> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>
>   



From akosela at andykosela.com  Wed Sep 10 13:38:47 2008
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:38:47 +0200
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Yarema <yds at coolrat.org> wrote:
> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
> the past week or two?
> <snip>

The best defense against such attacks is just to allow SSH connections
only for specific hosts/subnets. If you really need to allow the whole
world to access your SSH port just use a nonstandard one and put it
behind some good firewall. We are using Juniper Netscreen for that.
Logs are clean.

If you can't put it behind firewall even editing /etc/hosts.allow can help.

Andy Kosela


From max at neuropunks.org  Wed Sep 10 14:06:06 2008
From: max at neuropunks.org (Max Gribov)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:06:06 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48C80C8E.5060803@neuropunks.org>

Andy Kosela wrote:
>
> The best defense against such attacks is just to allow SSH connections
> only for specific hosts/subnets. If you really need to allow the whole
> world to access your SSH port just use a nonstandard one and put it
> behind some good firewall. We are using Juniper Netscreen for that.
> Logs are clean.
>   

imho, its not a great idea to move something from privileged port range
to unprivileged one - now you have to modify your egress filtering to
allow connections to some random port >1024 on other networks, meaning
any user on a unix system can potentially bind any software to that port
on that remote system.. makes me feel a little weird about it.

i honestly believe that throttling (a la pf) and public keys is the best
mitigation for this bruteforce nonsense.. you can also argue that moving
smtp off port 25 will prevent spam - and it probably will, but will make
life a pain in the ass for a while



> If you can't put it behind firewall even editing /etc/hosts.allow can help.
>
> Andy Kosela
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>   



From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 14:09:27 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:09:27 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>

Andy Kosela wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Yarema <yds at coolrat.org> wrote:
>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>> the past week or two?
>> <snip>
> 
> The best defense against such attacks is just to allow SSH connections
> only for specific hosts/subnets. If you really need to allow the whole
> world to access your SSH port just use a nonstandard one and put it
> behind some good firewall. We are using Juniper Netscreen for that.
> Logs are clean.
> 
> If you can't put it behind firewall even editing /etc/hosts.allow can help.

Thanks, I do need SSH to be wide open.  The non-standard port method has
been debated many a time and I lean against security by obscurity.

I was just thinking that I need to look into Juniper stuff in case a
client requests a commercially supported firewall.  In my situation I
don't see what Juniper can do that I can't with the two CARPed FreeBSD
firewalls I'm running.  Juniper is based on FreeBSD after all.

Based on what I've seen in the logs, the problem with these attacks is
that not that I'm worried of a successful break in.  It's the
overwhelming resource clogging they cause.

Anyway the solution I described in my initial post gets the job done
admirably.  PF's reaction time to block an attacking IP is sometimes
faster than sshd can print the login prompt to the attacker.  This based
on multiple messages I'm now finding in the auth.log which read

sshd[nnnn]: Could not write ident string to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

PF with max-src-conn-rate set to no more than 5 connections within 3
seconds from the same IP kicks ass is all I gatta say!

-- 
Yarema


From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Wed Sep 10 14:23:37 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:23:37 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>

Yarema wrote:
> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
> the past week or two?
>
> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>
> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm. 
Glad I can help. I will send you the routing number for my Cayman Island 
offshore holding subsidiary
and you can just deposit my consulting fee into that

> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>   
Out of curiosity, would you be able to take the IPs you are blocking and 
try and figure out
the country most of these connections are coming from?

If you don't ever expect to get connections from China and Korea, you 
can load the following
into pf and pretend like they don't even exist.

http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/chinacidr.txt.gz
http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/koreacidr.txt.gz

SK




From chsnyder at gmail.com  Wed Sep 10 14:18:35 2008
From: chsnyder at gmail.com (csnyder)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:18:35 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <b76252690809101118o2237c3bbs680c13af32d196a3@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Yarema <yds at coolrat.org> wrote:

> PF with max-src-conn-rate set to no more than 5 connections within 3
> seconds from the same IP kicks ass is all I gatta say!

Once again, I find myself wishing there was some way to do this within
sshd itself, rather than rely on a firewall feature.

It's a great marketing strategy for the BSDs, though. "Running
OpenSSH? Then you need PF to protect it." Meh.


From max at neuropunks.org  Wed Sep 10 14:33:22 2008
From: max at neuropunks.org (Max Gribov)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:33:22 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <b76252690809101118o2237c3bbs680c13af32d196a3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>	<48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>
	<b76252690809101118o2237c3bbs680c13af32d196a3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48C812F2.1070206@neuropunks.org>

csnyder wrote:
>
> Once again, I find myself wishing there was some way to do this within
> sshd itself, rather than rely on a firewall feature.
>
>   
why?.. firewalls are in the kernel, sshd is in the userland - cheaper
and safer


> It's a great marketing strategy for the BSDs, though. "Running
> OpenSSH? Then you need PF to protect it." Meh.
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>   



From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 14:36:20 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:36:20 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org> <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
Message-ID: <48C813A4.5090405@CoolRat.org>

Steven Kreuzer wrote:
> Yarema wrote:
>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>> the past week or two?
>>
>> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
>> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
>> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
>> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>>
>> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
>> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm. 
> Glad I can help. I will send you the routing number for my Cayman Island
> offshore holding subsidiary and you can just deposit my consulting fee
> into that

:)

>> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
>> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>>   
> Out of curiosity, would you be able to take the IPs you are blocking and
> try and figure out the country most of these connections are coming from?

Based on a random sampling of the ones I ran through whois they seem to
be comming from all over the place.. Europe, South America..  they try
the same login from multiple IP addresses.

> If you don't ever expect to get connections from China and Korea, you
> can load the following into pf and pretend like they don't even exist.
> 
> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/chinacidr.txt.gz
> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/koreacidr.txt.gz

I use the China/Korea lists in my spamd setup..  Caused a humorous
incident when I filed a PR to update spamd and the maintainer couldn't
get back to me because he was emailing me from China.

-- 
Yarema


From akosela at andykosela.com  Wed Sep 10 14:57:04 2008
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:57:04 +0200
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <3cc535c80809101157p641a18c1k95a395746ce69918@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Yarema <yds at coolrat.org> wrote:
>
> I was just thinking that I need to look into Juniper stuff in case a
> client requests a commercially supported firewall.  In my situation I
> don't see what Juniper can do that I can't with the two CARPed FreeBSD
> firewalls I'm running.  Juniper is based on FreeBSD after all.

Yes, Juniper Netscreen line is impressive. We are running two of them
in an active-passive cluster, works like a charm. There are many
advantages of running hardware based firewalls like Juniper Netscreen,
or Checkpoint; the most obvious is that they can handle far more load
than PC's and I'm talking here about millions of packets per second.
Although small companies can do very well with OpenBSD/FreeBSD
solution.

And matter of fact, Netscreen is *NOT* based on FreeBSD. That's
completely different technology which they call ScreenOS. Actually
they acquired this technology when they bought Netscreen company.
JunOS which runs on their routers is based on FreeBSD though.

>
> Based on what I've seen in the logs, the problem with these attacks is
> that not that I'm worried of a successful break in.  It's the
> overwhelming resource clogging they cause.

Yes, brute force attacks are very seldom successful, but to minimize
the load it's wise just to limit allowable connection to specific
hosts/subnets. Even restricting access to a wide mask can dramatically
reduce the load.

-- 
Andy Kosela
ora et labora


From thomas at zaph.org  Wed Sep 10 15:11:05 2008
From: thomas at zaph.org (N.J. Thomas)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:11:05 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20080910191105.GQ12217@zaph.org>

* Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> [2008-09-10 19:38:47+0000]:
> > Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
> > the past week or two?
> 
> The best defense against such attacks is just to allow SSH connections
> only for specific hosts/subnets.

Another good suggestion is to use the "AllowUsers" option in
/etc/ssh/sshd_config to permit only specified users to log in. Useful if
you run a server where only a small number of users are allowed to log
in.

Thomas


From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 15:57:19 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:57:19 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C812F2.1070206@neuropunks.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>	<48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>	<b76252690809101118o2237c3bbs680c13af32d196a3@mail.gmail.com>
	<48C812F2.1070206@neuropunks.org>
Message-ID: <48C8269F.7040409@CoolRat.org>

Max Gribov wrote:
> csnyder wrote:
>> Once again, I find myself wishing there was some way to do this within
>> sshd itself, rather than rely on a firewall feature.

sshd does have the MaxStartups config option.

> why?.. firewalls are in the kernel, sshd is in the userland - cheaper
> and safer

But I'm with Max on this one.  blocking with the in kernel packet filter
is way more efficient than relying on the service to handle the load of
a brute force attack.

>> It's a great marketing strategy for the BSDs, though. "Running
>> OpenSSH? Then you need PF to protect it." Meh.



From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Wed Sep 10 17:00:30 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:00:30 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <20080910191105.GQ12217@zaph.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<20080910191105.GQ12217@zaph.org>
Message-ID: <48C8356E.9040703@exit2shell.com>

N.J. Thomas wrote:
> * Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> [2008-09-10 19:38:47+0000]:
>   
>>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>>> the past week or two?
>>>       
>> The best defense against such attacks is just to allow SSH connections
>> only for specific hosts/subnets.
>>     
>
> Another good suggestion is to use the "AllowUsers" option in
> /etc/ssh/sshd_config to permit only specified users to log in. Useful if
> you run a server where only a small number of users are allowed to log
> in.
>
> Thomas
>   
While AllowUsers is a very valuable layer of security, the problem with 
these ssh brute force attacks is that
your logs get spammed with failed connection attempts.

Whats even worse is if you are getting hit very hard, your machine will 
start to become unresponsive because of the amount
of failed connection attempts that need to be written to disk.

Your only real options are to drop the connection or move the port ssh 
is listening on.

SK


From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Wed Sep 10 17:05:40 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:05:40 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C8269F.7040409@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>	<48C80D57.7040800@CoolRat.org>	<b76252690809101118o2237c3bbs680c13af32d196a3@mail.gmail.com>	<48C812F2.1070206@neuropunks.org>
	<48C8269F.7040409@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <48C836A4.8040904@exit2shell.com>

Yarema wrote:
> Max Gribov wrote:
>   
>> csnyder wrote:
>>     
>>> Once again, I find myself wishing there was some way to do this within
>>> sshd itself, rather than rely on a firewall feature.
>>>       
>
> sshd does have the MaxStartups config option.
>
>   
>> why?.. firewalls are in the kernel, sshd is in the userland - cheaper
>> and safer
>>     
>
> But I'm with Max on this one.  blocking with the in kernel packet filter
> is way more efficient than relying on the service to handle the load of
> a brute force attack.
>   
Its much better to do the filtering in the kernel rather then in 
userland simply because you'll save
on the amount of context switching you will need to perform.

It really doesn't make sense to allocate all the resources necessary to 
accept an incoming connection
only to have the daemon drop. Its much cheaper to drop the connection as 
soon as possible, which
is why doing it in pf is the best solution to this problem in my opinion.

SK


From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 17:18:42 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:18:42 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org> <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
Message-ID: <48C839B2.4040208@CoolRat.org>

Steven Kreuzer wrote:
> Yarema wrote:
>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>> the past week or two?
>>
>> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
>> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
>> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
>> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>>
>> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
>> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm. 
> Glad I can help. I will send you the routing number for my Cayman Island
> offshore holding subsidiary
> and you can just deposit my consulting fee into that
> 
>> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
>> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>>   
> Out of curiosity, would you be able to take the IPs you are blocking and
> try and figure out
> the country most of these connections are coming from?
> 
> If you don't ever expect to get connections from China and Korea, you
> can load the following
> into pf and pretend like they don't even exist.
> 
> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/chinacidr.txt.gz
> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/koreacidr.txt.gz

Just found an interesting resource:
http://www.DShield.org/port.html?port=22

The Targets/Day graph for September correspond to what I've been
experiencing.  Any idea how they collect the data?


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Wed Sep 10 20:51:18 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:51:18 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C839B2.4040208@CoolRat.org>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org> <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
	<48C839B2.4040208@CoolRat.org>
Message-ID: <48C86B86.5010108@ceetonetechnology.com>

Yarema wrote:
> Steven Kreuzer wrote:
>> Yarema wrote:
>>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>>> the past week or two?
>>>
>>> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
>>> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
>>> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
>>> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>>>
>>> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
>>> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm. 
>> Glad I can help. I will send you the routing number for my Cayman Island
>> offshore holding subsidiary
>> and you can just deposit my consulting fee into that
>>
>>> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block anything,
>>> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>>>   
>> Out of curiosity, would you be able to take the IPs you are blocking and
>> try and figure out
>> the country most of these connections are coming from?
>>
>> If you don't ever expect to get connections from China and Korea, you
>> can load the following
>> into pf and pretend like they don't even exist.
>>
>> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/chinacidr.txt.gz
>> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/koreacidr.txt.gz
> 
> Just found an interesting resource:
> http://www.DShield.org/port.html?port=22
> 
> The Targets/Day graph for September correspond to what I've been
> experiencing.  Any idea how they collect the data?

I've peripherally followed DShield for a while. . . and not sure how 
they collect, but it's a cool project.  I am not using anywhere.

I mean, if you update spamd with Beck's list. . . you're using one large 
list he centralizes and updates. ..  DShield is doing the same with more 
complex data from a larger pool.  SANS has a nice network of people.

On the original thread issues. . . I do the following, usually:

1.  move sshd to a nonprivileged port. . . Max's point is valid, but 
those who argue that it's 'security through obscurity' miss the point. 
It's not about security, it's about not having annoying zombies eat up 
system resources and spam auth logs.  That's the goal of moving it to 
another port. . . nothing else.  I was convinced of this a while back 
when someone explained how they moved sshd to another port on a heavily 
hit box, and boom, system utilization plummeted.

2.  black listing certain countries.  There's a lot of countries no one 
needs access from. . . block them.  There's lots of links to find 
country net blocks. . . even if Nigeria is part of Britain and other 
confusions.  Dump them to text and put them in as a table in pf or 
/etc/hosts.allow.  (so so old school. . .)

3.  AllowUsers is cool also.  Nice tip from Max from that past NYCBUG 
meeting.

4.  Keys keys keys. . . that is *the* security component here that is 
meaningful.  2 & 3 lightly augment security, but this is the only thing 
that really matters, IMHO.

On the most recent attacks. . . I haven't seen them, since the zombies 
aren't hitting the alternate sshd port.

But I've seen that quirky attack before. . . it's basically a 
distributed ssh brute force zombie attack (aka DSBFZA? :)

Clearly, it's a bit more sophisticated than past zombie attacks, but 
inevitably it's just as meaningless as a security risk.

g



From yds at CoolRat.org  Wed Sep 10 22:30:45 2008
From: yds at CoolRat.org (Yarema)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:30:45 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C86B86.5010108@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org> <48C810A9.7070200@exit2shell.com>
	<48C839B2.4040208@CoolRat.org>
	<48C86B86.5010108@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <48C882D5.8090809@CoolRat.org>

George Rosamond wrote:
> Yarema wrote:
>> Steven Kreuzer wrote:
>>> Yarema wrote:
>>>> Hey, is anyone else seeing an upsurge in distributed SSH attacks over
>>>> the past week or two?
>>>>
>>>> This annoyed me enough to get me reading The Book of PF.  I've been
>>>> using the BlockSSHd script to block and send me notices by watching
>>>> auth.log.  Problem was that durring heavy attacks my INBOX would get
>>>> fooded.  And the reaction time was a bit slow.
>>>>
>>>> A couple of meetings ago Steven Kreuzer suggested I use PF's
>>>> max-src-conn method.  Works like a charm. 
>>> Glad I can help. I will send you the routing number for my Cayman Island
>>> offshore holding subsidiary
>>> and you can just deposit my consulting fee into that
>>>
>>>> I also use the pam_af plugin.  It never gets a chance to block
>>>> anything,
>>>> but provides useful info on when and where a login was coming from.
>>>>   
>>> Out of curiosity, would you be able to take the IPs you are blocking and
>>> try and figure out
>>> the country most of these connections are coming from?
>>>
>>> If you don't ever expect to get connections from China and Korea, you
>>> can load the following
>>> into pf and pretend like they don't even exist.
>>>
>>> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/chinacidr.txt.gz
>>> http://www.openbsd.org/spamd/koreacidr.txt.gz
>>
>> Just found an interesting resource:
>> http://www.DShield.org/port.html?port=22
>>
>> The Targets/Day graph for September correspond to what I've been
>> experiencing.  Any idea how they collect the data?
> 
> I've peripherally followed DShield for a while. . . and not sure how
> they collect, but it's a cool project.  I am not using anywhere.
> 
> I mean, if you update spamd with Beck's list. . . you're using one large
> list he centralizes and updates. ..  DShield is doing the same with more
> complex data from a larger pool.  SANS has a nice network of people.

Yeah, for spamd there's no better than using all the goodies Beck
provides.  I've been using his greyscanner script to preemptively
blacklist spammers for a few years now.  Good stuff.

> On the original thread issues. . . I do the following, usually:
> 
> 1.  move sshd to a nonprivileged port. . . Max's point is valid, but
> those who argue that it's 'security through obscurity' miss the point.
> It's not about security, it's about not having annoying zombies eat up
> system resources and spam auth logs.  That's the goal of moving it to
> another port. . . nothing else.  I was convinced of this a while back
> when someone explained how they moved sshd to another port on a heavily
> hit box, and boom, system utilization plummeted.

I get the point that it's about protecting CPU & IO resources.  I've
been under pretty much non stop attack for over a week now.  Today has
been especially heavy.  Starting around 9AM and they're still at it.
This level of attack used to bring my servers to their knees.  Unable to
log in at all, etc.  Today, with PF tuned to max-src-conn-rate 5/3 on
the ssh port, I wouldn't even know I was under attack if I hadn't been
watching how it behaves.

The only load spike on the firewall causing it to be unresponsive for a
minute or so was because I ran nmap -O in parallel on every IP address
in the blocked table.  Oops.  Should've had the patience to run it on
each IP at a time.  Lesson learned.  Don't background nmap in a loop
like this one:

pfctl -t badhosts -T show | while read adr
do { nmap -O ${adr} >& /tmp/${adr} &! }
done

:)  FreeBSD never dropped a packet and didn't fail over even though
system load shot up above 20 something and I couldn't type or log in
until it calmed down.

> 2.  black listing certain countries.  There's a lot of countries no one
> needs access from. . . block them.  There's lots of links to find
> country net blocks. . . even if Nigeria is part of Britain and other
> confusions.  Dump them to text and put them in as a table in pf or
> /etc/hosts.allow.  (so so old school. . .)

Not really an option for me cuz I serve users in countries I don't even
know, nor do I know why my clients have a presence there.  Same goes for
non standard ports.  Dealing with support issues on the level of
"someone put an icon on my desktop to run dreamweaver to update the
site.  What's ssh?" ... not something I wanna get into.

> 3.  AllowUsers is cool also.  Nice tip from Max from that past NYCBUG
> meeting.
> 
> 4.  Keys keys keys. . . that is *the* security component here that is
> meaningful.  2 & 3 lightly augment security, but this is the only thing
> that really matters, IMHO.
> 
> On the most recent attacks. . . I haven't seen them, since the zombies
> aren't hitting the alternate sshd port.
> 
> But I've seen that quirky attack before. . . it's basically a
> distributed ssh brute force zombie attack (aka DSBFZA? :)
> 
> Clearly, it's a bit more sophisticated than past zombie attacks, but
> inevitably it's just as meaningless as a security risk.

Dunno if it's all that much more sophisticated.  All I can tell is that
the DSBFZA is coordinated.  They go alphabetically and the same login
will be tried from many different IPs until they move on to the next
login.  I suppose that's how they get more than one crack at each login
since they're getting blocked now after one maybe two attempts.  They
are definitely more persistent and they probably have a larger pool of
zombies to unleash.  My badhosts table had at most 105 IPs blocked at
one time today.  I expire the blocked IPs after one hour.  I'll probably
raise that to a few more hours.  I wanted to ensure any false positives
would clear reasonably quickly if I wasn't around.

-- 
Yarema


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Wed Sep 10 22:48:13 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:48:13 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Conference request
Message-ID: <48C886ED.2040100@ceetonetechnology.com>

Does anyone have access to an icecast server for BSDTalk during the 
conference?

George


From KReiter at insidefsi.net  Thu Sep 11 10:30:20 2008
From: KReiter at insidefsi.net (Kevin Reiter)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:30:20 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Conference request
In-Reply-To: <48C886ED.2040100@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <0CF59C4890F7A04AAC3B1E798E6F86F303E0443B@fsi32.fsidp.insidefsi.com>

talk-bounces at lists.nycbug.org wrote:
: Does anyone have access to an icecast server for BSDTalk during the
: conference?
: 
: George

I can build one and make it available..


This message may contain confidential or proprietary information and is intended solely for the individual(s) to whom it is addressed.  If you are not a named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail or act upon the information contained herein.  Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.



From jamex1642 at gmail.com  Wed Sep 10 17:39:32 2008
From: jamex1642 at gmail.com (James Reynolds)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:39:32 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <48C8356E.9040703@exit2shell.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<20080910191105.GQ12217@zaph.org> <48C8356E.9040703@exit2shell.com>
Message-ID: <29b2b1d0809101439o9b5a11fg5d4cb8dc21bf254b@mail.gmail.com>

pf's synproxy is another useful feature.

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/filter.html
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From nycbug at cyth.net  Thu Sep 11 12:51:27 2008
From: nycbug at cyth.net (Ray Lai)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:51:27 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] SSH attacks
In-Reply-To: <29b2b1d0809101439o9b5a11fg5d4cb8dc21bf254b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <48C7FFC6.9080205@CoolRat.org>
	<3cc535c80809101038r1b4347b9ob953a0c59f64b9ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<20080910191105.GQ12217@zaph.org> <48C8356E.9040703@exit2shell.com>
	<29b2b1d0809101439o9b5a11fg5d4cb8dc21bf254b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7765c0380809110951n42b0cd48hb525ae9ec8d9a1b6@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 5:39 PM, James Reynolds <jamex1642 at gmail.com> wrote:
> pf's synproxy is another useful feature.
>
> http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/filter.html

Against syn floods, not against ssh brute force attacks, since they
complete the full TCP handshake.

-Ray-


From tux at penguinnetwerx.net  Thu Sep 11 21:39:10 2008
From: tux at penguinnetwerx.net (Kevin Reiter)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:39:10 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] OWASP NYC AppSec 2008 Conference - Sep 24 & 25
Message-ID: <48C9C83E.2060700@penguinnetwerx.net>

All,

I don't know if anyone is aware of the upcoming OWASP conference later this month, so I 
figured I'd send a plug out for it.  In the past, NJ/NYMetro OWASP, NYPHP and NYC*BUG have had 
a good relationship with respect to conferences and showing support for one another.

The conference location had to be changed due to the amount of people registered sofar (as of 
tonight over 800+ and counting!), so if you plan on attending, get your registration in soon.

Conference details and registration is here:

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_NYC_AppSec_2008_Conference


Thanks,
-Kev


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Sun Sep 14 16:22:34 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:22:34 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity
Message-ID: <48CD728A.8020605@ceetonetechnology.com>

Crazy stuff. . .

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html?tag=nl.e703

And huge thanks to SMB at Columbia for getting the word out:

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/2008-09/2008-09-04.html

Here's the paper that prompted the discussion:

http://politechbot.com/docs/itu.traceback.use.cases.requirements.091108.txt

Two quick points:

1.  Is the problem with DDOSs really tied to anonymity?  That's kind of 
laughable. . .

2.  Not that IPv4 NAT serves any real anonymity role in itself, but they 
must really be looking to speed up IPv6 changes here. . . So when your 
kid is born, you get a form for SSN and IPv6 net block?

;-)

George


From brian.gupta at gmail.com  Mon Sep 15 00:06:26 2008
From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:06:26 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] New Google calendar for New York based User Groups.
In-Reply-To: <5b5090780809141824i5d9a716cq20c21c8b7fced233@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5b5090780809141824i5d9a716cq20c21c8b7fced233@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5b5090780809142106hbb9d30fs919eefa6053a3586@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=nycusergroups%40brandorr.com&ctz=America/New_York

It's public, and you can also find it by searching Public Google
calendars for "NYC User Groups".

If you have an event that you want on the calendar feel free to let me
know. Or if you are a user group leader, I can set you up with write
access.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Brian

P.S. - NYCBSDCon is already on the calendar.
--
- Brian Gupta


From chsnyder at gmail.com  Sun Sep 14 23:14:50 2008
From: chsnyder at gmail.com (csnyder)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:14:50 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity
In-Reply-To: <48CD728A.8020605@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <48CD728A.8020605@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <b76252690809142014p6432c3d4ya962d0fd63634f99@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 4:22 PM, George Rosamond
<george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:

> So when your kid is born, you get a form for SSN and IPv6 net block?
>

My kid's computer may be participating in a DDOS attack, but if so,
there is a near-zero probability that she initiated it. Or at least, I
hope she's smarter than that.

To put it another way, you can trace back to a machine, but not to an
actual person. So what's the point?


From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Mon Sep 15 11:00:28 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:00:28 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] BSDCert Cram Session Speakers
Message-ID: <48CE788C.6090602@exit2shell.com>

Greetings-

As I am sure you are aware by now, one of the events we plan to have at 
NYCBSDCon is short 15 minute cram sessions on some of the topics
that are going to be covered on the exam.

If you happen to be familiar with the following topics and would like to 
host one of these cram sessions, please get in touch with me and I can 
fill you in on all the details

/* tar/pax/cpio
//* permissions (octal, symbolic, chmod, umask, etc.)
//* rc and sysctl//
/

We have the sessions scheduled during lunch and breaks, so you won't 
miss any of the talks going on in the main auditorium. You will also be 
helping folks pass the BSD certification exam, which is karma++

Many Thanks

SK


From carton at Ivy.NET  Mon Sep 15 15:12:52 2008
From: carton at Ivy.NET (Miles Nordin)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:12:52 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity
In-Reply-To: <48CD728A.8020605@ceetonetechnology.com> (George Rosamond's
	message of "Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:22:34 -0400")
References: <48CD728A.8020605@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <oqsks1gr4b.fsf@castrovalva.Ivy.NET>

>>>>> "gr" == George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> writes:

    gr> 1.  Is the problem with DDOSs really tied to anonymity?

One thing which makes the problem worse is the possibility of
single-homed ``lowly'' connections putting garbage into the <source
IP> field of their IP packets.  If ISP's prevented this (uRPF), the
<source IP> field might be more useful in filtering DDoS.  But it is
really ``might''---it depends on how the attacks evolve.

uRPF is sort of like DKIM (only more imperfect).  Binding physical
connections to assigned <source IP>'s makes possible other
imagineable-but-far-fetched schemes of stopping DDoS forever (or, more
likely, schemes of keeping your site partially available, maybe
available to Scheme Participants only, during a DDoS).

The schemes don't exist yet, and source IP spoofing might not be
common DDoS tactic now (not sure, haven't been DDoSed in a while).
But many imagineable schemes would fail once attackers noticed the
scheme and started spoofing source IP's again.  uRPF is step 1 in a
lot of imaginary schemes.

right now we have a bit of short-sighted circular logic: 

 1. why bother with uRPF when DDoS works without spoofing?  It won't
    fix anything.  The botnets are just too big to filter by hand.

 2. why bother with this complicated automated DDoS protection scheme
    that could protect unpopular publishers who can't afford
    $TONS_OF_BANDWIDTH when it'll never work without uRPF anyway?

 3. goto 1

 4.  did you notice you were in an endless loop?  Great.  Welcome!
     From now on, act wise and jaded, and just blame the victim.  it's
     easier and cheaper.

No, uRPF doesn't harm anonymity, because it's not possible to receive
traffic at a forged <source IP> anyway.  You can't communicate with
it, just bombard people with traffic from it.  It's already possible
to track down the _recipient_ of a packet, just not the sender, and
people posting anti-government comments on blogs can receive as well
as send.

If these guys are talking about more tracking than we already have for
the <destination IP>, well then I'm completely against it!  It would
be useless and evil.

but what really harms anonymity is AUP's that forbid wireless sharing,
and the nefarious scheme Verizon successfully used for locking down a
bunch of households: they mailed out those free wireless routers with
WEP pre-configured, and instructions making it sound like you were
``supposed'' to install it.  the free AP's must have been a fucking
bargain compared to all the new lines they sold.  but I think wireless
is a practical way for large numbers of casual dissidents to become
anonymous, at least in the US.  some kind of legal liability scheme
squashing this forever would be terrible for free speech.
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From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Mon Sep 22 22:11:38 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:11:38 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] 19 Days Until NYCBSDCon 2008
Message-ID: <48D8505A.7060804@ceetonetechnology.com>

for those who may be on talk, but not announce at . . . (not sure *why* you 
would be. . . )

Also, please note, we will *not* have an October meeting. . . but we'll 
be back November for Guy Fawkes day :)

*	*	*	*

NYCBSDCon begins in a few weeks, so make sure you register as soon as 
possible.

http://www.nycbsdcon.org/2008/register.html

NYCBSDCon brings together the best and brightest of the BSD communities 
from the New York area and beyond.

The conference costs $95, including breakfast and lunch on both days, in 
addition to a number of other extras.  Full-time students and Columbia 
University affiliates pay only $50 with valid identification.

This year's schedule is impressive: from file systems and the portable C 
compiler to system and network management, we are thrilled to be able to 
provide such strong content.  A full array of BSD developers and systems 
administrators are speaking, including Pawel Dawidek, Michael Lucas, 
Jason Wright and DragonFlyBSD's Matt Dillon.  And Jason Dixon looks to 
top his 2006 presentation on "Is BSD Dying?" with a look at "BSD versus 
the GPL."

While the conference officially begins on Saturday morning, October 
11th, attendees will be gathering on Friday night at Havanna Central, 
just across from Columbia University.

More information, including the schedule and transportation options, can 
be found at http://www.nycbsdcon.org.


From nikolai at fetissov.org  Thu Sep 25 10:18:43 2008
From: nikolai at fetissov.org (nikolai)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
Message-ID: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>

Folks,

I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card
that runs Solaris. I know the root password, but ...
root is not allowed over the network, so my only
option of getting into the box is serial. My trusty
old null cable doesn't seem to be working.

Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need
there (and where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.

Thanks.
--
 Nikolai


From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Thu Sep 25 10:35:28 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:35:28 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
Message-ID: <48DBA1B0.2090402@exit2shell.com>

nikolai wrote:
>  Folks,
>
>  I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card that runs
>  Solaris. I know the root password, but ... root is not allowed over
>  the network, so my only option of getting into the box is serial. My
>  trusty old null cable doesn't seem to be working.
>
>  Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need there (and
>  where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.

Hey Nikolai-

Sun's InfoDoc #73815 should help.

*http://tinyurl.com/3onarz*

In a nutshell, the v210 has two serial ports. One is marked 10101 and is 
used for general purpose data transfer
devices like printers or modems. Since you said you are using a null 
modem cable, I have a feeling this is what you are trying
to connect to.

There is another port marked "SERIAL MGT" that accepts an RJ-45 
connector. This is to access the ALOM and system console.
Try to connect to that and if you still get nothing on the console type 
#. to send a break to the ALOM

SK



From mikel.king at olivent.com  Thu Sep 25 11:46:46 2008
From: mikel.king at olivent.com (Mikel King)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:46:46 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
Message-ID: <7A0B1E69-8BC7-44B4-9479-DD602EF4E0D2@olivent.com>


On Sep 25, 2008, at 10:18 AM, nikolai wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card
> that runs Solaris. I know the root password, but ...
> root is not allowed over the network, so my only
> option of getting into the box is serial. My trusty
> old null cable doesn't seem to be working.
>
> Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need
> there (and where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Nikolai
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>

Nikolai,

	It's been years since I did Sun via serial console. From what I  
remember do not connect the keyboard to the server on which you plan  
to use serial console. Sun machines on power-up check the presence of  
the keyboard. If something is plugged in, they assume the console  
input device is the keyboard. If it doesn't see any keyboard, it  
redirects console input/output to serial port "A". I dug this out of  
my old book marks perhaps it will help I think it says something  
similar.

		http://www.obsolyte.com/sunFAQ/serial/

Cheers,
Mikel King
CEO, Olivent Technologies
Senior Editor, Daemon News
Columnist, BSD Magazine
6 Alpine Court
Medford, NY 11763
http://www.olivent.com
http://www.daemonnews.org
http://www.bsdmag.org
skype: mikel.king
t: 631.627.3055
m: 646.554.3660
+------------------------------------------+
How do you spell cooperation? Pessimists use
each other, but optimists help each other.
Collaboration feeds your spirit, while
competition only stokes your ego. You'll
find the best way to get along.
+------------------------------------------+




From slynch2112 at me.com  Thu Sep 25 13:05:25 2008
From: slynch2112 at me.com (Siobhan Lynch)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:05:25 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
Message-ID: <28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>

This should help:

http://www.softpanorama.org/Solaris/Startup_and_shutdown/serial_console_on_solaris.shtml

-Trish



On Sep 25, 2008, at 10:18 AM, nikolai wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card
> that runs Solaris. I know the root password, but ...
> root is not allowed over the network, so my only
> option of getting into the box is serial. My trusty
> old null cable doesn't seem to be working.
>
> Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need
> there (and where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Nikolai
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

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From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Sat Sep 27 10:32:07 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:32:07 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
Message-ID: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>

I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking the 
question "what *is* cloud computing?"

http://tinyurl.com/4kqz8t

g


From matt at thehour.com  Sat Sep 27 11:25:17 2008
From: matt at thehour.com (Matt Terenzio)
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:25:17 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <33C9E6D4AA2E9741B021194BBF4AF40D70C656@thehourexchange.thehour.com>


Perhaps I'm confused because I thought I understood it.

While there is some overlap and confusion between cloud an utility as descriptions of a type of service, isn't there a difference in taking a virtual share from an Amazon cluster than a dedicated server or a share of a dedicated server.

That, plus the abiltiy to scale you share easily.

I dont' disagree with Ellison that a lot of it is marketing, but ther term is meant to convey a different way in which hosting providers, Application Service providers and their customers will be approaching each other with regards to expectations and offerings.

Whether or not those offerings have been around for a while is also not the point, since they are just now becoming widely available and affordable and are probably actually bringing down the cost of hosting services in general.



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From pete at nomadlogic.org  Sat Sep 27 15:45:30 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright)
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:45:30 -0700
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>


On Sep 27, 2008, at 7:32 AM, George Rosamond wrote:

> I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking  
> the
> question "what *is* cloud computing?"
>

isn't it grid computing...oh wait i mean ebusiness on-demand..oh wait  
i mean it's like when the network *is* the computer.  right?

i don't know if i'd compare it to the world of women's fashion - but  
it is funny how many fundamental concepts keep getting repackaged and  
re-marketed and recycled every couple of years.

-p


From ike at lesmuug.org  Sat Sep 27 18:44:00 2008
From: ike at lesmuug.org (Isaac Levy)
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:44:00 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
Message-ID: <2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>

On Sep 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Pete Wright wrote:

> On Sep 27, 2008, at 7:32 AM, George Rosamond wrote:
>
>> I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking
>> the
>> question "what *is* cloud computing?"
>>
>
> isn't it grid computing...oh wait i mean ebusiness on-demand..oh wait
> i mean it's like when the network *is* the computer.  right?
>
> i don't know if i'd compare it to the world of women's fashion - but
> it is funny how many fundamental concepts keep getting repackaged and
> re-marketed and recycled every couple of years.

"Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/25/cloud_dziuba/

Rocket-
.ike




From af.dingo at gmail.com  Sun Sep 28 16:20:15 2008
From: af.dingo at gmail.com (Jeff Quast)
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:20:15 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
	<28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>
Message-ID: <c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>

I think this would help more than anything!

http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html

"the 5-in-1 network admin's cable: ethernet / crossover / modem / null
modem / Cisco console"

I ordered a pile of heads on my last network order, and sat down one
summer's day and made about a dozen sets of db9, 25, and "jumpers".
I've given all but one of them away since, because they are so useful.
I need to make quite a few more someday, you could say I have standing
orders for them!

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Siobhan Lynch <slynch2112 at me.com> wrote:
> This should help:
>
> http://www.softpanorama.org/Solaris/Startup_and_shutdown/serial_console_on_solaris.shtml
>
> -Trish
>
>
> On Sep 25, 2008, at 10:18 AM, nikolai wrote:
>
> Folks,
>
> I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card
> that runs Solaris. I know the root password, but ...
> root is not allowed over the network, so my only
> option of getting into the box is serial. My trusty
> old null cable doesn't seem to be working.
>
> Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need
> there (and where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Nikolai


From nikolai at fetissov.org  Sun Sep 28 17:34:32 2008
From: nikolai at fetissov.org (nikolai)
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:34:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
	<28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>
	<c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b9ed7e5ba6c4572d59f85bd1a49af4e5.squirrel@geekisp.com>

Thanks everybody,

All replies were really helpful. Since I never had to admin Cisco
or Sun boxes I had no idea about this weird serial cabling.
Already ordered couple of modular RJ45/DB9 adapters.

Thanks again.
--
 Nikolai


> I think this would help more than anything!
>
> http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html
>
> "the 5-in-1 network admin's cable: ethernet / crossover / modem / null
> modem / Cisco console"
>
> I ordered a pile of heads on my last network order, and sat down one
> summer's day and made about a dozen sets of db9, 25, and "jumpers".
> I've given all but one of them away since, because they are so useful.
> I need to make quite a few more someday, you could say I have standing
> orders for them!
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Siobhan Lynch <slynch2112 at me.com> wrote:
>> This should help:
>>
>> http://www.softpanorama.org/Solaris/Startup_and_shutdown/serial_console_on_solaris.shtml
>>
>> -Trish
>>
>>
>> On Sep 25, 2008, at 10:18 AM, nikolai wrote:
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> I inherited an old V210 with no cdrom and no video card
>> that runs Solaris. I know the root password, but ...
>> root is not allowed over the network, so my only
>> option of getting into the box is serial. My trusty
>> old null cable doesn't seem to be working.
>>
>> Can anybody enlighten me about what sort of cable I need
>> there (and where to get it :). Any pointers are welcome.
>>
>> Thanks.
>> --
>> Nikolai
>




From skreuzer at exit2shell.com  Sun Sep 28 19:18:55 2008
From: skreuzer at exit2shell.com (Steven Kreuzer)
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:18:55 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] BSD Cram Last Call
Message-ID: <48E010DF.4050002@exit2shell.com>

Greetings-

With the conference so close, I wanted to ping the list one last time to 
try and find people who would be interested in
giving 15 minute exam cram sessions for the BSD certification exam.

I am still looking to find someone for the following topics: 
tar/pax/cpio and basic unix tasks.

Let me know if you are interested

SK


From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Sun Sep 28 19:55:41 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:55:41 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] BSD Cram Last Call
In-Reply-To: <48E010DF.4050002@exit2shell.com>
References: <48E010DF.4050002@exit2shell.com>
Message-ID: <48E0197D.3030504@ceetonetechnology.com>

Steven Kreuzer wrote:
> Greetings-
> 
> With the conference so close, I wanted to ping the list one last time to 
> try and find people who would be interested in
> giving 15 minute exam cram sessions for the BSD certification exam.
> 
> I am still looking to find someone for the following topics: 
> tar/pax/cpio and basic unix tasks.
> 
> Let me know if you are interested
> 

Those who've never spoken publicly before are strongly encouraged to 
volunteer.

It's not intended for be a full long presentation. . . short sweet and 
to the point.

g


From carton at Ivy.NET  Mon Sep 29 00:41:30 2008
From: carton at Ivy.NET (Miles Nordin)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:41:30 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
	(Jeff Quast's message of "Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:20:15 -0400")
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
	<28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>
	<c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <oqiqsf8sxx.fsf@castrovalva.Ivy.NET>

>>>>> "jq" == Jeff Quast <af.dingo at gmail.com> writes:

    jq> http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html

That's interesting about Cisco's CTS/RTS being reversed in their
manual.  I've been keeping around separate yosts for Cisco and Sun,
but I guess the cisco ones I made are just wrong.
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From slynch2112 at me.com  Sun Sep 28 23:05:49 2008
From: slynch2112 at me.com (Siobhan Lynch)
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:05:49 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Serial cable for sunfire v210
In-Reply-To: <c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <92c0d22b9bba3be84928f2a5d4bafd5e.squirrel@geekisp.com>
	<28894DD8-A230-4BEC-9AFC-C46EC5051615@me.com>
	<c1feb8190809281320s6b778aeet7ae87b708361cbd9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <482F8868-A272-476F-9F89-3CB228061F73@me.com>



On Sep 28, 2008, at 4:20 PM, Jeff Quast wrote:

> I think this would help more than anything!
>
> http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html
>
> "the 5-in-1 network admin's cable: ethernet / crossover / modem / null
> modem / Cisco console"
>
> I ordered a pile of heads on my last network order, and sat down one
> summer's day and made about a dozen sets of db9, 25, and "jumpers".
> I've given all but one of them away since, because they are so useful.
> I need to make quite a few more someday, you could say I have standing
> orders for them!



Damn, I wish I wasn;t arthritic in my hands, I'd make these myself!

Anywhere I can order them?

-Trish




From pete at nomadlogic.org  Mon Sep 29 12:52:12 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (pete)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:52:12 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
	<2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>
Message-ID: <96b3aea7c5d5f2df0cb2cdf567ebd889@nomadlogic.org>



On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:44:00 -0400, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:
> On Sep 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Pete Wright wrote:
> 
>> On Sep 27, 2008, at 7:32 AM, George Rosamond wrote:
>>
>>> I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking
>>> the
>>> question "what *is* cloud computing?"
>>>
>>
>> isn't it grid computing...oh wait i mean ebusiness on-demand..oh wait
>> i mean it's like when the network *is* the computer.  right?
>>
>> i don't know if i'd compare it to the world of women's fashion - but
>> it is funny how many fundamental concepts keep getting repackaged and
>> re-marketed and recycled every couple of years.
> 
> "Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty"
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/25/cloud_dziuba/
> 
thanks for making my morning .ike!  i think the quote of the day is a a
toss up b/w:
"the Web 2.0 crowd...Javascript all-stars..." (although calling them
all-stars is a stretch IMHO)

and

"Energy-efficient computers powered by sunshine. This will be an instant
hit. There will be greenhouse gas output dashboards with neat little Ajax
widgets. You'll have calculators to figure out how much to pay for carbon
offsets each month. Don't believe me? Follow the money. "Green" technology
is the most efficient, modern way to capitalize on liberal guilt."

sad, but probably true - that's a shame...

-p

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
310.869.9459



From pete at nomadlogic.org  Mon Sep 29 14:11:58 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (pete)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:11:58 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <E444C035-E2BF-4467-9ECF-34A8407FE1F8@me.com>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
	<2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>
	<96b3aea7c5d5f2df0cb2cdf567ebd889@nomadlogic.org>
	<E444C035-E2BF-4467-9ECF-34A8407FE1F8@me.com>
Message-ID: <6e9853a2b89b90605b2b6aecab4085b6@nomadlogic.org>



On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:48:34 -0400, Siobhan Lynch <slynch2112 at me.com>
wrote:
> Seems like being cynical is a prerequisite for working with unix in  
> general - eh?

well - i'm not sure about that; but i think the point is this: the basic
operating principle(s) are not that new, and have been tried by a lot of
companies over time.  i think the joking bit is a side effect of the
cynical marketing that surrounds these efforts.


> While I somewhat agree - amazon is still in pioneering territory -  
> lots of companies built data rooms in their companies then came Exodus  
> and other colocation providers - lots of people built their own  
> "grids" or virtual machine computing with hypervisors and such in  
> their datacenters - now Amazon is in the same space metaphorically as  
> the colo providers - all they need is a decent SLA and a way to  
> recover fast.
> 

they my be pioneering in how they market this, or in their billing model;
but i remember working with IBM years ago to run my applications on their
managed clusters/grids/cloud etc, in IBM run DC's.  I'm sure IBM was not
the first to do this either.  unfortunately - for us we found that this did
not scale for us from a pricing/performance perspective.  

FWIW - this is coming from an HPC environment so it may have worked for
some other companies out there with different business models....but it
certainly did not work for us.

-pete

> 
> On Sep 29, 2008, at 12:52 PM, pete <pete at nomadlogic.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:44:00 -0400, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org>  
>> wrote:
>>> On Sep 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Pete Wright wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sep 27, 2008, at 7:32 AM, George Rosamond wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking
>>>>> the
>>>>> question "what *is* cloud computing?"
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> isn't it grid computing...oh wait i mean ebusiness on-demand..oh  
>>>> wait
>>>> i mean it's like when the network *is* the computer.  right?
>>>>
>>>> i don't know if i'd compare it to the world of women's fashion - but
>>>> it is funny how many fundamental concepts keep getting repackaged  
>>>> and
>>>> re-marketed and recycled every couple of years.
>>>
>>> "Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty"
>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/25/cloud_dziuba/
>>>
>> thanks for making my morning .ike!  i think the quote of the day is  
>> a a
>> toss up b/w:
>> "the Web 2.0 crowd...Javascript all-stars..." (although calling them
>> all-stars is a stretch IMHO)
>>
>> and
>>
>> "Energy-efficient computers powered by sunshine. This will be an  
>> instant
>> hit. There will be greenhouse gas output dashboards with neat little  
>> Ajax
>> widgets. You'll have calculators to figure out how much to pay for  
>> carbon
>> offsets each month. Don't believe me? Follow the money. "Green"  
>> technology
>> is the most efficient, modern way to capitalize on liberal guilt."
>>
>> sad, but probably true - that's a shame...
>>
>> -p
>>
>>
-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
310.869.9459



From pete at nomadlogic.org  Mon Sep 29 14:54:11 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (pete)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:54:11 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <5E9C19FB-08D7-4B6D-916D-4EB84C212DC8@me.com>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
	<2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>
	<96b3aea7c5d5f2df0cb2cdf567ebd889@nomadlogic.org>
	<E444C035-E2BF-4467-9ECF-34A8407FE1F8@me.com>
	<6e9853a2b89b90605b2b6aecab4085b6@nomadlogic.org>
	<5E9C19FB-08D7-4B6D-916D-4EB84C212DC8@me.com>
Message-ID: <999eaa8ef45a1cc05e1259e3ab114231@nomadlogic.org>



On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:48:50 -0400, Siobhan Lynch <slynch2112 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> On Sep 29, 2008, at 2:11 PM, pete wrote:
>>>
>>
>> well - i'm not sure about that; but i think the point is this: the  
>> basic
>> operating principle(s) are not that new, and have been tried by a  
>> lot of
>> companies over time.  i think the joking bit is a side effect of the
>> cynical marketing that surrounds these efforts.
>>
>>
>>> While I somewhat agree - amazon is still in pioneering territory -
>>> lots of companies built data rooms in their companies then came  
>>> Exodus
>>> and other colocation providers - lots of people built their own
>>> "grids" or virtual machine computing with hypervisors and such in
>>> their datacenters - now Amazon is in the same space metaphorically as
>>> the colo providers - all they need is a decent SLA and a way to
>>> recover fast.
>>>
>>
>> they my be pioneering in how they market this, or in their billing  
>> model;
>> but i remember working with IBM years ago to run my applications on  
>> their
>> managed clusters/grids/cloud etc, in IBM run DC's.  I'm sure IBM was  
>> not
>> the first to do this either.  unfortunately - for us we found that  
>> this did
>> not scale for us from a pricing/performance perspective.
>>
>> FWIW - this is coming from an HPC environment so it may have worked  
>> for
>> some other companies out there with different business models....but  
>> it
>> certainly did not work for us.
>>
>> -pete
>>
>>>
> 
> 
> See, I always thought IBM's thing was on thier own OS's and you were  
> locked into running on AIX or OS/400,, or whatever, where Amazon seems  
> to allow you to run whatever images you can get running on the EC2  
> system.
> 
nah - we could put any OS on it we wanted, and could choose from Intel or
PPC hardware.  they handled rebooting/hardware maint/RMA's etc and provided
a more realistic SLA than the Amazon offering.  the only problem was that
for what they charged it didn't make sense for us to run any real
production code, or simulations/renders on the kit they would have
provided.  maybe if we where a hedge fund or something like that with a
couple sim's running on a small cluster, and an ORA instance or two it
would have worked.

-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
310.869.9459



From slynch2112 at me.com  Mon Sep 29 13:48:34 2008
From: slynch2112 at me.com (Siobhan Lynch)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:48:34 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <96b3aea7c5d5f2df0cb2cdf567ebd889@nomadlogic.org>
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<9DE43714-8235-4841-85B4-B995BDFA39C8@nomadlogic.org>
	<2DF6E43F-CA75-44BD-BB10-2C075B5BDDC6@lesmuug.org>
	<96b3aea7c5d5f2df0cb2cdf567ebd889@nomadlogic.org>
Message-ID: <E444C035-E2BF-4467-9ECF-34A8407FE1F8@me.com>

Seems like being cynical is a prerequisite for working with unix in  
general - eh?

While I somewhat agree - amazon is still in pioneering territory -  
lots of companies built data rooms in their companies then came Exodus  
and other colocation providers - lots of people built their own  
"grids" or virtual machine computing with hypervisors and such in  
their datacenters - now Amazon is in the same space metaphorically as  
the colo providers - all they need is a decent SLA and a way to  
recover fast.

*shrug*

-Trish

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 29, 2008, at 12:52 PM, pete <pete at nomadlogic.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:44:00 -0400, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org>  
> wrote:
>> On Sep 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Pete Wright wrote:
>>
>>> On Sep 27, 2008, at 7:32 AM, George Rosamond wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think this says a lot. . . I don't think he's the only one asking
>>>> the
>>>> question "what *is* cloud computing?"
>>>>
>>>
>>> isn't it grid computing...oh wait i mean ebusiness on-demand..oh  
>>> wait
>>> i mean it's like when the network *is* the computer.  right?
>>>
>>> i don't know if i'd compare it to the world of women's fashion - but
>>> it is funny how many fundamental concepts keep getting repackaged  
>>> and
>>> re-marketed and recycled every couple of years.
>>
>> "Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty"
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/25/cloud_dziuba/
>>
> thanks for making my morning .ike!  i think the quote of the day is  
> a a
> toss up b/w:
> "the Web 2.0 crowd...Javascript all-stars..." (although calling them
> all-stars is a stretch IMHO)
>
> and
>
> "Energy-efficient computers powered by sunshine. This will be an  
> instant
> hit. There will be greenhouse gas output dashboards with neat little  
> Ajax
> widgets. You'll have calculators to figure out how much to pay for  
> carbon
> offsets each month. Don't believe me? Follow the money. "Green"  
> technology
> is the most efficient, modern way to capitalize on liberal guilt."
>
> sad, but probably true - that's a shame...
>
> -p
>
> -- 
> Pete Wright
> pete at nomadlogic.org
> 310.869.9459
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk


From carton at Ivy.NET  Mon Sep 29 19:04:49 2008
From: carton at Ivy.NET (Miles Nordin)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:04:49 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] Larry Ellison on "Cloud Computing"
In-Reply-To: <33C9E6D4AA2E9741B021194BBF4AF40D70C656@thehourexchange.thehour.com>
	(Matt Terenzio's message of "Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:25:17 -0400")
References: <48DE43E7.5080502@ceetonetechnology.com>
	<33C9E6D4AA2E9741B021194BBF4AF40D70C656@thehourexchange.thehour.com>
Message-ID: <oqr6727dv2.fsf@castrovalva.Ivy.NET>

    mt> actually bringing down the cost of hosting services in
    mt> general.

I was completely stunned by the cost of EC2 compared to dedicated
hosting.  (EC2 seems many times more expensive.)

same is true of gangusinternet and a couple other futuristic
pseudodedicated hosting companies i checked out---ludicrous prices
comared to hetzner.de.

so far the companies getting stamped by pundits ``cloud computing''
seem like very expensive ``control panel'' like cpanel or hsphere, but
for domU's instead of nonshell user accounts.  I think i don't fully
understand it w.r.t. its supposed revolutionary ``web-scale'' claims
because it seems useless for responding to load spikes without shared
access to a high-end load balancer.

In the end I think it'll be equivalent to Xen, and it'll become mostly
a way of choosing your operating system.  Rented hardware only works
well and quickly with the prebuilt image offered by the rented
hardware host, and installing stuff like Solaris and FreeBSD is just
an impossible pain in the ass now because even when you think it's
working you find some obscure stepping of some particular ethernet or
sata chip locks up once every two days and no one can fix it.  Also
people seem to have huge difficulty getting Xen hosts working for
themselves.  even BSD developers tend to use Mac OS X and then run
their *BSD OS inside a VM.  Even if you want just one box worth of
capacity, it's much easier to upload a domU to someone else who has
gotten the hardware working for you, even if it costs more for the
same performance.
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From george at ceetonetechnology.com  Tue Sep 30 00:03:47 2008
From: george at ceetonetechnology.com (George Rosamond)
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:03:47 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] on a 'lighter note' about cloud computing
Message-ID: <48E1A523.1010701@ceetonetechnology.com>

RMS himself stands with Ellison :)

http://tinyurl.com/4otvb6

And the full Guardian article:

http://tinyurl.com/4h9o2h

George


From pete at nomadlogic.org  Tue Sep 30 13:14:18 2008
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (pete)
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:14:18 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] on a 'lighter note' about cloud computing
In-Reply-To: <48E1A523.1010701@ceetonetechnology.com>
References: <48E1A523.1010701@ceetonetechnology.com>
Message-ID: <6c9183447d14f03f7282d7ed75d6c623@nomadlogic.org>



On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:03:47 -0400, George Rosamond
<george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
> RMS himself stands with Ellison :)
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/4otvb6
> 
ah - now i'm just confused.  i've never really agreed with RMS before... :P
 

> And the full Guardian article:
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/4h9o2h
> 

although i think he's taking exception with the whole ASP (application
service provider ala gmail and salesforce.com etc) side of things - whereas
i'm just being a grumpy old man tired of sales pitches ;)

ok - i'll go away now, thanks for feeding my inner troll gman!  heh.

-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
310.869.9459



From mikel.king at olivent.com  Tue Sep 30 13:39:58 2008
From: mikel.king at olivent.com (Mikel King)
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:39:58 -0400
Subject: [nycbug-talk] BSD on PPC
Message-ID: <35C2F931-46D1-44F5-892E-4BBFD8B536ED@olivent.com>

Greetings all. If there is anyone interested in doing BSD development  
on PPC. I happen to have 3 PowerMac G4 towers of various origins, and  
unknown working order beyond that they do boot into some form of Mac  
OS X. They are free to a good home (first come first served basis), on  
the condition that be utilized for helping Free, Net, Open or some  
other BSD improve their standing on the PowerPC architecture.

The machines are located on 14th Street near Union Square. Ideally I  
would like to see these disappear close of business today.

Image of one of the machines is available here:
http://www.olivent.com/donation.php

Regards,
Mikel King
CEO, Olivent Technologies
Senior Editor, Daemon News
Columnist, BSD Magazine
6 Alpine Court
Medford, NY 11763
http://www.olivent.com
http://www.daemonnews.org
http://www.bsdmag.org
skype: mikel.king
t: 631.627.3055

+------------------------------------------+
Do You know where your towel is?
+------------------------------------------+




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