Please note our current meeting location:
In light of the current concerns over COVID-19 and the risk of infection,
and current directives from the
University of Winnipeg,
MUUG meetings will take place online (typically using BigBlueButton)
until further notice.
Meeting link will be provided on the home page,
prior to meeting start time.
This month, we had a couple short RTFM-style presentations:
First, Brad Vokey presented on bpytop/btop++.
Next, Trevor Cordes (who normally prefers working quietly behind the scenes
on coding or newsletter editing) presented on configuring rsyslog
to suppress annoying log messages.
Bpytop - a Python port and continuation of bashtop(1)
This month Brad Vokey gave us a quick demonstration of
byptop,
as well as its new sibling,
btop++.
Bpytop is a colorful, efficient, responsive, terminal resource monitor
that shows usage and stats for your processor, memory, disks, network
and processes.
Written in Python by the original author of
bashtop,
the author claims it is faster and much better supported.
(Btop++ is essentially a rewrite in C++.)
Add some bling to your original old
top(1) command!
Fighting the PHPower with rsyslog
Help! The new PHP8 has made normal, everyday scripting practices an
error on screen or in the logfiles.
Fight the power and reclaim your PHP sanity using
rsyslog
and its filtering options.
But beware, rsyslog itself is a minefield of inexplicableness.
Trevor Cordes led us on a quick and easy path to victory over PHP,
and any other daemon you may disagree with!
Trevor has made his presentation slides, as text files in a
.tar.bz2 archive,
available online.
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B,
is a modern aircraft safety system that broadcasts an aircraft's identification
and position data to other aircraft and ground stations.
Using an off-the-shelf
RTL-SDR receiver and a RaspberryPi,
we can decode these messages to track aircraft in our vicinity.
Wyatt showed how to install the dump1090 software used to decode
the messages, and the different third-party aggregation sites that collect
ADS-B information to provide real-time flight tracking around the world,
notably FlightAware.com
(with its PiAware software)
and ADSBexchance.com.
Kevin McGregor presented one possible way to back up and restore a
MediaWiki
site using common Unix and Linux tools for local use or disaster recovery.
RTFM: micro(1)
Brad Vokey gave us a quick demo of
micro.
Micro is a terminal-based text editor that aims to be easy to use and intuitive,
while also taking advantage of the full capabilities of modern terminals.
As the name indicates,
micro aims to be somewhat of a successor to the nano editor
by being easy to install and use,
but also aims to be enjoyable to use right from the start,
with modern universal keyboard shortcuts
(Ctrl-S, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Z etc.).
AGM
Plus, this month's meeting was the MUUG annual general meeting,
which included the election of the MUUG board of directors for the 2022-2023
year (by acclamation, again this year).
MUUG was happy to announce an in-person pot-luck event!
We continued (or resumed) the tradition of making the
December meeting more of an informal, social gathering.
The meeting was hosted by Skullspace, which allowed for some mingling between
members of MUUG and Skullspace, as well as a chance for MUUG members to
get a tour of Skullspace and their various maker-space tools.
We were serenaded with holiday music on button accordion,
thanks to Mark Jenkins, as we mingled.
We also simulcast the live round-table and lightning talk
on YouTube for those that couldn't attend in person for any reason,
whether snow, or sleet, or illness.
Lightning Talk: MUUG Online Lore & History
This month, our server committee also showed off some quick LibreNMS stats
and history of our latest MUUG Online 8.0 server,
which is western Canada's largest and fastest open source software mirror.
In his last presentation,
Trevor Cordes showed us how to use syslog with journald,
and filter out unwanted log lines.
However, those bazillion unwanted lines being filtered out
are still being written to disk,
causing major wear and tear on your precious, limited-life SSD!
In this follow-up presentation,
Trevor discussed minimizing SSD writes and wasted space
by using the journald RAMdisk and size-limiting options.
RTFM: nmap(1)
Wyatt Zacharias gave a quick overview of some of the basic features of nmap.
Alberto Abrao presented
CheckMK,
a great platform for monitoring various IT infrastructure components.
It has powerful tools to monitor all different kinds of devices
that comprises a regular Enterprise IT environment.
Agents are available for Linux, *nix (AIX, Solaris), *BSD, Windows, VMware,
AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, among others.
These can be easily enhanced with plug-ins for custom functionality.
It also allows for the monitoring of devices that support SNMP.
Easy to get started with, but packed with features and infinitely customizable,
CheckMK is an excellent choice for the monitoring of any IT environment.
Linux KVM (Kernel-Based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution
for Linux, using hardware accelerated virtualization extensions
to provide near physical performance.
New users of KVM may find the command line interface daunting
and difficult to understand.
Even the majority of KVM tutorials online rely on the GUI
to do the initial installation and setup of your virtual machines,
but what if we don't have a GUI?
As Linux admins, we are accustomed to doing most of our work
in a remote terminal,
most of our servers don't even have a keyboard or monitor plugged in,
and are located in remote data centers.
In this presentation,
Wyatt Zacharias presented the basics of how to use the libvirtd/KVM
command line tools to create and setup a new virtual machine from scratch.
Wyatt has made his presentation slides, in
PDF and
PPTX format,
available online.
This month, we went for a foray into Linux gaming, presented by Chris Audet.
Chris discussed Valve's Steam Deck, and similar handheld computers.
He also covered some notable gaming Linux distros, such as Lakka,
and ChimeraOS.
RTFM: termdown - turn your terminal into a countdown timer (or stopwatch)!
For this month's RTFM,
Brad Vokey gave us a quick demonstration of some of the features of
termdown,
a python countdown timer for the terminal
which he has used in the past to count down the
MUUG virtual meeting breaks.
"AWX provides a web-based user interface, REST API,
and task engine built on top of Ansible."
In this presentation,
Alberto Abrao showed how to set it up, and basic usage.
This month, Chris Audet provided a brief overview of BTRFS deduplication,
as well as demonstrate a practical application -
a large HDD consolidation being planned for later this year.
MUUG had another summer BBQ and everyone was invited!
For the second year in a row MUUG hosted another BBQ event,
but this time at Assiniboine Park!
Burgers, hot dogs, and pop were provided by MUUG,
with guests invited to bring their own food to share with others
and their own beverages as well.
We had 17 people show up, which is our best turn-out for a BBQ in many years.
Thanks to all who came!
The meeting room will be open by 7:00 pm,
with the actual meeting starting at 7:30 pm.
If driving, enter the lot using the most north east entrance
and drive around to the south west corner of the building.
You can use any of the free, ample, and safe parking spots that say
"reserved" in front of units #1 through #4 before entering unit #2.
Bus stops #30814 and #30880 (route 77) are only 150 meters away.
The last bus leaves for Polo Park at 10:15 pm and for Garden City at 10:31 pm.
Logan Ave. bus routes #19, #26, and #27 are a 600 meter (8 minute)
walk to the south.
MUUG meetings also take place online (typically using BigBlueButton)
for those who can't be there in person.
Meeting link will be provided on the home page,
prior to meeting start time.
