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"Heartbleed" OpenSSL bug in pictures
by Chuck Anderson April 12, 2014

April 12, 2014

Today's XKCD comic explains in pictures how the "Heartbleed" OpenSSL bug works: http://xkcd.com/1354/

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Mail User Agent: mail (/bin/mail)
by Larry Camilli April 11, 2014

April 11, 2014

This message has two parts. The first is about the basic mail program. The second (which is more important to me) is about how to avoid having to use the mail program. Part I: The Basic mail program (I'm running CentOS.) I asked last night about the basic mail program - specifically about navigating through the headers. Chuck looked up some documentation and said that the "h+" and "h-" commands should do it. And, somebody came up to me with his laptop and showed the "z" command.) Here's what the help file within mail shows about the "z" command: (Yes. -It says nothing about the z command.) Here's what I found with the h+ and h- commands: When I invoke mail, it displays the headers of 38 unread messages (numbers 1 - 38) and a prompt ("&"). (The terminal window is 132 characters wide by 42 lines long.) If I type h+, it displays the same 38 headers again. (h- gets "Referencing before 1") If I type h7865782365, I get "Invalid message number". If I type h 1-a, I get "Non-numeric second argument". If I type h 1-4, I get the first 38 headers. The program seems to be parsing what follows an "h", but royally screws up acting on what it finds. If I type "39", I get message 39. (There doesn't seem to be a "LAST" command to see the last message - and find out its number. So, typing, say, 100, gets an error because there's no such message.) Anyway, after viewing message 39, if I THEN type h, it shows headers for messages 39 - 51. (h+ shows the same headers, 39 - 51.) But, h- now shows the first 38. (That makes sense.) But, after using h- to get back to the 1 - 38 list, h+ shows the first 38 messages again. After displaying the first 38 headers, the "z" command DOES cause the next set of headers to be displayed (39 - 51). I figured that, until I figure out how to set things up to forward the logwatch mail to a gmail account, I could tolerate using a separate, basic mail program to check the logs. But, this is crap. People were asking about the guy who screwed up the OpenSSL heartbeat code. What about the guy who wrote this piece of crap? It's very basic stuff that doesn't work. Not too difficult to test... Part II: Getting EMail Forwarded from the Linux System as a Client I have two interests here. One is just academic. -Understanding how to use the mail program, despite (or because of) its suckiness. The other is so I can see the messages that the log scrapers send via /bin/mail to the root account's email. Ideally, I would set things up to have all of root's email get forwarded to, say, a gmail account. But, my setup seems to place some limits on what I can do. I set up an MTA on my VMS box long ago. I used to be able to send email directly from that system. But, it stopped working at some point, and I found that Verizon reports all of the DHCP addresses that they allocate to residential DSL customers as spam sources, so everything was getting blocked. I have written programs (in PHP) that use a PEAR class/API to send email from the Linux box, via a gmail account, to arbitrary addressees. [It requires such information as host (smtp.gmail.com) port (587), username & password for the gmail account...] So, I'm not sure if an MTA is what I really need. Can at MTA be set up to send email as a client of sorts to a real MTA (e.g., google mail)? Or do I need some other type of utility? Sure, I can write my own, but I would hope that somebody else has already done it. (Well, as long as it's not the person who wrote "mail".)

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Sr SW Engineer contract openings - C++, Linux kernel, drivers
by John Spencer April 10, 2014

April 10, 2014

Our client in Chelmsford, MA has 2-3 contract openings for Sr Software Engineers with a strong background with C++ and low level Linux kernel and drivers experience. These are 6 month contracts. Must be able to interview and work on site as well as pass background check and drug test. Consultants will be responsible for Linux driver and kernel development and board bring up. Any experience with VxWorks is a plus Please feel free to forward this email to your friends and associates If interested, please send a copy of your resume to jspencer (at) connectedsp.com Your resume will not be sent anywhere without your prior approval. Regards, John Spencer Connected Systems Partners Connecting Top Talent with Top Companies Office: 978-455-5550 x208 Cell: 978-621-9743 jspencer(a)connectedsp.com www.connectedsp.com GET CONNECTED! Unless otherwise explicitly instructed by sender, all information in this email is considered confidential and intended for the view and use of the recipient(s) only.

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Simpleton Question
by Colin Novick April 9, 2014

April 9, 2014

WLUG folk, You guys crunch heavy issues, and I have a cream puff of an issue I just can't crack, and I am not too ashamed to admit it. There is a site with a series of m4v (Quicktime) files I want to be able to at least stream, if not download, but I have two problems. The first is that the site www.worcestercatholictv.com has set the permissions on the files so that they will only play embedded in their webpage, AND they have the files as invisible unless the embedded web page searches for them, and as a result, standalone items like VLC can't touch it, and I can't download it. The second is that the issue seems to be related to my running Ubuntu 12.0.4 LTS, and a buddy is having no issues reportedly in 13.X It makes no difference if it is Chromium of Firefox that tries to playback. Default User Agent Switcher has been installed to see if that was generating a conflict, but that doesn't seem to be it either. Totem 3.0.1 Gecko-mediaplayer 1.0.4 I have searched for similar issues and don't seem to come up with anything. I have scanned help files and that doesn't seem to address this either. At this point, if I had a guess, it is the result of funny permissions on a file that no one is worried about being Linux compatible. Thoughts are most welcome, Colin

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Meeting on Wednesday?
by Tim Keller April 8, 2014

April 8, 2014

I presume we're having a meeting on Wednesday? Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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LOPSA-East Keynotes Announced!
by Evan Pettrey April 3, 2014

April 3, 2014

Hello once again folks, LOPSA-East is proud to announce this year's keynote speakers! Friday evening Keynote: Vish Ishaya, CTO of Nebula Inc. Title: OpenStack in the Datacenter For better or worse, cloud is arriving in the datacenter. The massive growth of OpenStack is paving the way for an onslaught of private clouds. Cloud will be the second datacenter revolution this century. Virtualization changed the way that machines are provisioned and managed, and cloud promises an even more radical set of changes. Come hear Vish discuss the history of OpenStack, cloud versus virtualization, and get guidance for dealing with the specific challenges that cloud creates for system administrators! Bio: Vish Ishaya is Chief Technology Officer of Nebula, Inc. He is a highly prolific developer who was one of the founding engineers of OpenStack. He was elected to the first OpenStack Technical Committee, where he has served consistently since. He was also elected to four consecutive terms as the OpenStack Compute Project Technical Lead and is currently on the board of OpenStack Foundation. In addition to his programming and systems skills, Vish has spent over a decade teaching, most recently classes in object oriented analysis and design. Saturday closing Keynote: Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph Title: Universal Design for Tech: Improving Gender Diversity in our Industry Universal Design is a principle in accessibility thataccessible design makes things better for everyone. A key example of which are curb cuts and door openers which help those who are disabled but also folks with luggage and parents with strollers. Elizabeth will discuss ideas on how to improve gender diversity in our industry, but many of the tips will help everyone beyond improvements that come through diversity. From offering formal education for systems administration to offering flexible schedules and work arrangements, there are many things that can be done to attract much-needed talent. Bio: Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph is an Automation and Tools Engineer at HP working on the OpenStack Infrastructure team. She has been involved with open source communities for over a decade and turned that passion into a profession when she began working as a professional systems administrator in 2006. In addition to her work on OpenStack, she is a member of the Ubuntu Community Council and is a co-author of the upcoming 8th edition of The Official Ubuntu Book. At home, she serves on Board of Directors for Partimus.org, a non-profit in the San Francisco Bay Area providing Linux-based computers to schools in need. LOPSA-East is a regional sysadmin conference in New Brunswick NJ, May 2-3, 2014. Two days of world-class training on a diverse range of topics plus community-selected talks: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/schedule Best, Evan & the rest of the LOPSA-East 2014 Committee http://lopsa-east.org/2014 Register today!

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LOPSA-East Early Bird Deadline Extended!
by William Bilancio March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014

Great news everybody! We have recieved a number of requests to extend discounted pricing from people either waiting on approval from their boss, or who just didn't get a chance to register beefore today. We've decided to give everybody one final opportunity to register at this greatly discounted rate - Early Bird pricing will be honored through Monday, March 31st. Don't miss this great value - register today! LOPSA-East is a regional sysadmin conference in New Brunswick NJ, May 2-3, 2014. Two days of world-class training on a diverse range of topics plus community-selected talks: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/schedule Best, William, Evan, & the rest of the LOPSA-East 2014 Committee http://lopsa-east.org/2014 Register today!

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LOPSA-East Exclusive! Sneak peek at Tom Limoncelli's new book!
by Evan Pettrey March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014

Did you hear? Tom Limoncelli has announced a new book and the only conference to get a sneak preview will be LOPSA-East! You may know Tom as the author of "Time Management for System Administrators" and co-author of "The Practice of System and Network Administration". We're very excited that he has selected our conference for this! The announcement is here: http://everythingsysadmin.com/2014/03/sneak-preview.html LOPSA-East is a regional sysadmin conference in New Brunswick NJ, May 2-3, 2014. Two days of world-class training on a diverse range of topics plus community-selected talks: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/schedule Looking forward to seeing you all there! Best, Evan & the rest of the LOPSA-East 2014 Committee http://lopsa-east.org/2014 Register today!

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Early Bird Discount Reminder! LOPSA-East SysAdmin Conference, May 2-3 2014, New Brunswick, NJ
by Evan Pettrey March 18, 2014

March 18, 2014

Greetings! Just a reminder to everybody that the Early Bird Discount to LOPSA-East 2014 registrations ends on Sunday, March 23rd at 11:59pm - Register now before it's too late! http://lopsa-east.org/2014/register-for-lopsa-east-14 LOPSA-East is a regional sysadmin conference in New Brunswick NJ, May 2-3, 2014. Two days of world-class training on a diverse range of topics plus community-selected talks on everything from Active Directory to Code Review for Sys Admins! We have a very exciting lineup of tutorials and talks this year, you can find all of the exciting content at: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/schedule/ Looking forward to seeing you all there! Best, Evan & the rest of the LOPSA-East 2014 Committee

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OPENING - Jr SW Engineer - C, Linux kernel - direct hire in Waltham, MA
by John Spencer March 14, 2014

March 14, 2014

Our client in Waltham, MA has a direct hire opening for a Software Engineer with 0-3 yrs of commercial design and development experience. Must be able to interview and work on-site. Our client cannot sponsor visas at this time. Jr Software Engineer Software Engineer with relevant Linux Driver experience. Responsible for design, develop and test of Linux drivers for high-speed network/communication products. Required: - BSCS/BSEE - Hands-on experience developing and interfacing with Linux drivers - Experience with Linux kernel and strong C background - Experience implementing Linux for TCP/IP Ethernet and related Please send your resume to jspencer@connectedsp (dot) com Your resume will not be sent anywhere without your prior approval Regards, John Spencer Connected Systems Partners Connecting Top Talent with Top Companies Office: 978-455-5550 x208 Cell: 978-621-9743 jspencer(a)connectedsp.com www.connectedsp.com GET CONNECTED! Unless otherwise explicitly instructed by sender, all information in this email is considered confidential and intended for the view and use of the recipient(s) only.

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