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Reminder! Next meeting April 11th, 2024 Topic: TBD, xz, net_filter, etc..
by Tim Keller April 9, 2024

April 9, 2024

Hey Gang, We've got a meeting next week on the 11th! Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA Time: 7PM Virtual Location: TBD.. Topic: TBD, though there's a whole bunch of security stuff to talk about! Obviously, we'd all be remiss if we didn't talk about xz. We should also talk about kernel root bug as well: https://pwning.tech/nftables/ Beyond that, I'm sure we'll get off on a bunch of different topics. If there's something you want to talk about, by all means bring it up! As usual, we'll have snacks and refreshments available and we'll head off for dinner and continue the conversation! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Meeting next week! March 14th 2024!
by Tim Keller March 16, 2024

March 16, 2024

Hey Everybody! We've got a meeting next week! I think it's really worth talking about Self hosting. It's come up a couple of times, I think it's worth talking about what the options are, what they might cost and what can be hosted both using on prem hardware and your own cloud instances, options for networking, etc. I'd like people's ideas, caveats, etc. What have people hosted? Plex, etc. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Meeting Tonight, March 14th 2024. Topic: "self hosting"
by Tim Keller March 14, 2024

March 14, 2024

Time: 7pm. Date: March 14th 2024 Location: Technocopia 44 Portland St. Worcester MA. Virtual Location: hopefully hosted independently, but at https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA For now.. We are increasingly living in a world where our data isn't ours anymore. Everything is a service being hosted by some entity, subjected to the whims of that entity. Come to love some service? They're discontinuing it. Your data? They're using it to train some AI that you don't control. Functionality? Ever changing.. Costs? To change without warning and your data is now hostage. To that end.. What are people doing? What would people like to do? What options are out there? What's worked in the past and now doesn't? There's also SOAF "significant other acceptance factor" to consider.. If you own the data but it's so horrific to manage that it sends everybody around you fleeing back to some service, that's no good either. I expect this to be a pretty lively debate. As usual, we'll head out for dinner and continue the conversation. I'll have snacks and refreshments available. Thanks, Tim.

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fun crashing and burning in Google Earth Pro's Flight Simulator
by Doug Mildram March 13, 2024

March 13, 2024

Hey all (from doug in the boonies, retired = too much time on my hands) Brief my-nonexistent-skills-history: I've avoided fun/gaming on computers/screens forever. Well, ~ 1997 I bought a joystick and a couple windows games. Lost the joystick, but probably wouldn't help me in flight...? I did better with the 1990's era MS Excel97? magic escape to flight simulator that easily flew me on the moon, to a monolith. Fast forward to now. While looking for my town's GIS tax maps, (which I never found, just PDF's w/ lot lines, no owner names, no tax $info. Every town is different.) Then, under clueless town "Tax Maps" webpage, I found this note: *Please note*: Parcel boundaries are intended to be used for the purpose of property assessment and should not be considered survey accurate. You will need to have Google Earth <http://earth.google.com/> installed to view this data. For help using Google Earth go to the Help Center..... and forget all about tax maps ( I added that here-doug) doug> I got Earth help, yes! I have no joystick, so keyboard and mouse. Pardon doublespacing below. Some copy/paste's do odd things for my gmail edits (now I'm in tiny font in a battle to un-do the big effect of the above paste :) Stumbled into install cmds for google EARTH PRO (free), worked on Linux Mint20. 1) wget https://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-pro-stable_curre… (result: GOT a 58mb file named google-earth-pro-stable_current_amd64.deb) 2) sudo dpkg -i google-earth-pro-stable_current_amd64.deb (output: Preparing to unpack google-earth-pro-stable_current_amd64.deb ... Unpacking google-earth-pro-stable (7.3.6.9796-r0) ... Setting up google-earth-pro-stable (7.3.6.9796-r0) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24+linuxmint1) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ... (DONE). LAUNCH TO OUTER SPACE: 3) $ google-earth-pro If you see a few continents from space, good but here's the fun: ========First zoom to somewhere you know, use upper LH Search, enter your address or fun place. Adjust eyes, or ignore briefly, fuzzy view of map,streets,trees,whatever. The fuzziness disappears or changes, if you enter Flight Simulator from here. ==== PULL DOWN MENU for "Tools" has "Enter Flight Simulator". Choose the slower plane, not the F-16 jet if you suck like I do. The mouse now flies the plane. I want to skim over my hood. I use my four arrow keys , mouse-moves work too but I flip out. I know I'm missing some kind of flight/plane control, should RTFM. I thought Flaps controlled pitch/up/down, but my Flaps stay at 40% and I crash in hilarious various mistakes every minute or so. What fun! Resume Flight brings all control back so off you go to die again.... I'll try to shut up now and find out if any of you already mastered? this. Lots cheaper than a drone! Fast, Cheap, Good.... all 3? --doug

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(old?) Dell power-edge rackserver power supplies
by Michael Voorhis Feb. 26, 2024

Feb. 26, 2024

Hello all, I have a number of spare power supplies for old Dell power-edge rackservers. If anyone has an old rack server and they're looking for spare parts to extend its lifespan, I've got the following dell power supplies. Listed are # I have, the server they supposedly work with, and the power-supply model number: 6x pe-1950 PS, mod d670p 4x pe-r415 PS, mod d500e 2x pe-r710 PS, mod a870p 2x pe-???? PS, mod d750p. 2x pe-r200 PS, mod ?ps5341? 1x pe-r210-ii PS, mod. L250e Take them if you're going to use them. Please don't take them just re-sell 'em... --MCV.

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Zoom Safety-Privacy-Security Question on Ubuntu
by THE HAMMER Feb. 23, 2024

Feb. 23, 2024

Hey Gang, Is the Zoom meeting client a relatively safe thing to download unto a machine running Ubuntu? I thought I should ask here, as googling will gives me different responses. Thanks Ron

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Reminder: WLUG Meeting tonight: Topic ProxMox / Turning Pi 2
by Tim Keller Feb. 16, 2024

Feb. 16, 2024

Hey Everybody! We've got a meeting tonight! Time: 7pm Date: February 8th, 2024 Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA For a topics, We've got two. Topic #1: Turing Pi 2 hardware Wlug member Zori Babroudi recently bought a Turning Pi 2 and a bunch of Pi and Rocks compute modules. Currently, it's a work in progress, but eventually once things are totally working on it, I'd like to show it off in its full glory. But in the meantime, we can marvel at the hardware. Ultimately, the plan is to run k8s on it and do some LLM based AI stuff as well. Topic #2: ProxMox With BroadCom's purchase and destruction of VMware, many of us are scrambling to look for alternatives to VMware Esxi. One great contender is ProxMox. It's a debian based distro that's focused on providing a great interface to manage vms running on kvm. It also has great support for video card pass through (something I know Brandon is *very* interested in). I've got a 3 node proxmox cluster that I will show off. John Stoffel has also been experimenting with it as well so both of us can talk about the good/bad/ugly of it. As usual, the conversation will be lively and focused around linux, FOSS, fair use and who knows what! Afterwards we'll head off for some dinner and keep the conversation going! I hope to see you there! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Firewalld/iptables/nftables question
by Patrick McEvilly Feb. 8, 2024

Feb. 8, 2024

All First off, I’m in way over my head. $dayjob we have a redhat 8 box. We are looking to take in syslog messages and sent them out to one/two different IP addresses. We tried using https://github.com/sleinen/samplicator and while it works perfectly and a one banana job to setup, we seem to be dropping a significant amount of traffic on the box. At least 10% of the logs are missing and we have not loaded up the system yet. We tuned out the network buffers and added 25MB of memory without any improvement. https://github.com/sleinen/samplicator/issues/72 Seems at a high rate of logs (which I think we would fall under) there seems to be some issues. We looked at this option - https://zapier.com/engineering/iptables-replication/ Redhat 8 seems to be using firewalld and backended with nfttables so we can’t directly use this method so we tried this. firewall-cmd --permanent --direct --add-rule ipv4 mangle PREROUTING 0 -i ens192 -p udp --dport 514 -j TEE --gateway 127.0.0.1 firewall-cmd --permanent --direct --add-rule ipv4 nat PREROUTING 1 -i ens192 -p udp --dport 514 -j DNAT --to-destination 10.137.241.79:514 firewall-cmd –reload With no luck, packets are not getting sent to 10.137.241.79. When it works with samplicator this is what we get. 11:53:04.382233 IP 10.240.136.4.24277 > 10.240.1.1.syslog: SYSLOG local7.notice, length: 670 11:53:04.382408 IP 10.240.136.4.24277 > 10.137.241.79.syslog: SYSLOG local7.notice, length: 697 sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1 IP Forwarding is enabled. I’m not at all familiar with any of this and cutting and pasting from the internet and chatgpt has come up empty. Anyone have any suggestions on what we are doing wrong? Patrick

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3 million smart toothbrushes were just used in a DDoS attack. Really
by Tim Keller Feb. 7, 2024

Feb. 7, 2024

My favorite part of the story.. "While the details are scarce, we know that the compromised toothbrushes were running Java." We are officially living in the dumbest time line. My only hope is that the servers at the far end of that DDOS attack at least had a minty smell to them.. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Proxmox!
by Tim Keller Jan. 26, 2024

Jan. 26, 2024

Hey Gang, As many of us have been watching the news, BroadCom has been gleefully destroying vmware at scale. I've been exploring FOSS replacements for esxi and one of those is Proxmox. It looks pretty cool and has a pretty awesome set of features. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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I just bought a Pi5.. we'll see if I actually get it.
by Tim Keller Jan. 18, 2024

Jan. 18, 2024

They say estimated delivery of Jan 9th - Jan 11th.. So, who knows.. I bought the 4GB model, so it should be functional as a desktop, my plan is to experiment with it as a daily drivers. Beyond that, what do people think would be a good benchmark to experiment with? Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder!! Meeting January 11th at 7pm Topic: Pi5! Location: Technocopia
by Tim Keller Jan. 9, 2024

Jan. 9, 2024

Hey Everybody! We've got a meeting at Technocopia on January 11th 2024 at 7PM! The topic is going to be the pi5! I've gotten my hands on one and I'm going to do a show and tell. I've also got an 8GB pi4 as well so it'll be good to do a bit of a side by side as well. Time: 7PM Date: January 11th 2024 Physical Location: 44 Portland St. 6th Floor Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA As usual we'll grab some dinner after the meeting and keep up the conversation. Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Thanks for an amazing 2023, more fun to be had in 2024!
by Tim Keller Jan. 6, 2024

Jan. 6, 2024

Hey Everybody, Happy New Year! Thanks for sticking with WLUG! It's been a year of change and challenges. We found ourselves a new home at Technocopia and make some new friends along the way. This is going to be another amazing year of talks and demos, lively conversations and general geeking out on all things. I look forward to many more WLUG meetings to come. Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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SMTP 25 license plate
by Michael Voorhis Jan. 3, 2024

Jan. 3, 2024

About a week ago while commuting I was trapped in gridlock behind another vehicle with the license plate "SMTP 25." I think in the past I have seen also a license plate "RTFM" but that was a long time ago. It seemed to me at the time that the owner of the SMTP-vehicle would probably be on this mailing list. --MCV.

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Dec meeting.. not the 14th! 21st or 28th?
by Tim Keller Dec. 20, 2023

Dec. 20, 2023

Hey wlug folk, I've got a conflict on the 14th. Does the 21st or the 28th work for people? Thanks, Tim.

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Reminder!!! WLUG Meeting Tomorrow at Technocopia!
by Tim Keller Dec. 20, 2023

Dec. 20, 2023

Hey Everybody! We've got a WLUG Meeting tomorrow at Technocopia! Time: 7PM Location: Technocopia 44 Portland st. 6th floor Worcester MA. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Possibly free VPNs and other solutions! Hey everybody! I thought we'd talk about VPNs that are available for various linux distributions. I'd love to hear what people are using and what's available! I've been looking at Proton: https://protonvpn.com/support/official-ubuntu-vpn-setup/ It's been a great year for linux and WLUG. Thanks for everybody who's been showing up in person and virtually! I'll bring refreshments and snacks and we can talk about what we'd like to do for 2024! Afterwards we'll head out for some dinner! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Great meeting last night!
by Tim Keller Nov. 10, 2023

Nov. 10, 2023

Last night we had a great meeting! I spoke about my trials and tribulations in using FOSS to run my mini mill. I was good to get back to the presentation format! We talked about cad and cam, controllers, gcode and degrees of freedom, closed loop vs open loop. I then showed off the mill making a wlug logo! Saw dust everywhere!! See you at the next meeting! Tim.

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Reminder: We've got a meeting tomorrow! (11/9/2023) Location: Technocopia
by Tim Keller Nov. 10, 2023

Nov. 10, 2023

We've got a meeting tomorrow! Location: Technocopia <https://technocopia.org/> 44 Porland St 6th Floor. Worcester MA 01604 Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Time: 7pm Date: 11/9/2023 Topic: FOSS for desktop manufacturing. For my birthday last year I bought myself a cheap desktop CNC machine so I could learn about subtractive manufacturing. The goals were to use as much FOSS software as possible to run the machine. This talk will be a high level presentation about additive vs subtractive manufacturing, and from there we'll get into the nitty gritty. If things going well, it'll finish with the machine doing some milling. Snacks and refreshments will be provided and we'll head off for dinner afterwards. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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WLUG Meeting tonight! Topic: FOSS for desktop manufacturing! Location: Technocopia
by Tim Keller Nov. 9, 2023

Nov. 9, 2023

We've got a meeting Tonight!!! Location: Technocopia <https://technocopia.org/> 44 Porland St 6th Floor. Worcester MA 01604 Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Time: 7pm Date: 11/9/2023 Topic: FOSS for desktop manufacturing. For my birthday last year I bought myself a cheap desktop CNC machine so I could learn about subtractive manufacturing. The goals were to use as much FOSS software as possible to run the machine. This talk will be a high level presentation about additive vs subtractive manufacturing, and from there we'll get into the nitty gritty. If things are going well, it'll finish with the machine doing some milling. Snacks and refreshments will be provided and we'll head off for dinner afterwards. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder: Next Meeting Nov 9th, 2023! Location: Technocopia
by Tim Keller Nov. 8, 2023

Nov. 8, 2023

Hey Everybody! We've got a wlug meeting at Technocopia on Thursday Nov 9th, 2023. I had hoped to have a pi5 and be using it as my daily driver, but I've been foiled in that attempt. Another option if people would be interested in it, I could bring my desktop cnc mill. My whole goal has been to use as much FOSS as possible in the entire toolpath so I'm not entangled with a particular company that might go out of business. If this is something people might be interested in, let me know. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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So about that Pi5..
by Tim Keller Nov. 8, 2023

Nov. 8, 2023

I went to microcenter on the 23rd of October and they said sorry and said the 3rd of November, and today before I even left the house they say "sold out." I can only speculate on how before they were even on the shelves they were sold out.. but there we are.. With that said, the orange pi 5 keeps looking even more interesting, though it completely blows the price point out of the water at $100.. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Ubuntu with SSSD
by Kevin Harrington Oct. 20, 2023

Oct. 20, 2023

I have a lab full of Ubuntu 22.04 machines and have (finally) set them all up with AD login via SSSD As i was testing, new SSSD users were added to the Gnome3 Greeter bage. Somewhere along the way with testing, new users stopped being added to the greeter page. The ones added previously automatically are still there, but new ones are not being added. I was wondering what configurations effects this behavior? I want the little kids names added to the list so they can just click on their name and enter their password. Here is my setup script: https://github.com/BancroftSchoolOpenSource/UbuntuSetupScript Any tips would be helpful! -- Bancroft School 110 Shore Dr, Worcester, MA 01605 *T:* 508-853-2640 | *F*: 508-853-7824 www.bancroftschool.org <http://www.bancroftschool.org>

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Jitsi..
by Tim Keller Oct. 17, 2023

Oct. 17, 2023

Last night it was brought to my attention that Jitsi has decided to become more "zoom" like. That sucks. Moreover, and I've noticed this as well, their free instance's performance is all over the place.. some meetings the performance is spot on, other meetings, like last night, it was not so great. There should be zero barriers to people joining the meeting. To this end, I'm going to explore what it's going to take to stand up my own Jitsi instance. Likely hosted in some cloud provider with possibly a nice DNS entry. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! Meeting tomorrow @ 7pm @ Technocopia!
by Tim Keller Oct. 17, 2023

Oct. 17, 2023

Hey gang, We've got a meeting tomorrow. I'm dying to talking about the pi5, but rudely those chaps from the U.K. decided to release it at the end of the month! Later, Tim.

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Debian 12 networking
by Mike Long Oct. 15, 2023

Oct. 15, 2023

I installed Debian 12 on a PI4. I got rtl_433 working and receiving data while connected to the pi4 using ssh. Once that was accomplished I rebooted via "sudo shutdown -r now" to verify that all the settings would survive a reboot. When the pi rebooted it was no longer available on the network. I connected to the pi4 console directly and received this message at the login screen "filtering via arp/ip/ip6tables is no longer available by default". I am new to debian and not having ifconfig available is a real handicap for me. Can someone please offer some advice or point me to resources that will help me fix this issue. Searching the internet has not offered any helpful resources so far. Thanks, Mike

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