- Roundtable - muug.ca

Anybody try out PC BSD 8.0?
by Mike Pfaiffer 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

I downloaded it and tried it in a VM. I've got to the point where (after installation) it boots. At that point it comes back and presents a boot menu. FreeBSD and PXE are the only options. Neither produce anything meaningful. FreeBSD just says it can't find something and PXE won't find something from the net (obviously). I could try installing FreeBSD from the same CD but if I wanted to run FreeBSD (which I do - but not right now) I'd grab a copy of that... Later Mike

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MUUG Meeting, March 9, 7:30pm -- Marvell SheevaPlug
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 02 Mar '10

02 Mar '10

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 9. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Marvell SheevaPlug This month, Kevin McGregor will be presenting a "show and tell" of the Marvell SheevaPlug, a Linux-based computer which fits in a power adapter. With a 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, RAM, flash memory, gigabit Ethernet, USB and more, all at under 7 watts, this small device has enormous possibilities! Kevin will talk about his particular experience with the SheevaPlug and his planned use for it. Before the break, as this month's RTFM topic, Samuel Pauls will be covering the vim(1) command. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $5.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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Re: [RndTbl] new phone passes 250dpi mark
by Glen Ditchfield 27 Feb '10

27 Feb '10

On 2010-Feb-26 08:49, Shawn Wallbridge wrote: > The Nokia 770 had an 800x400 display as well, > but it was 4.13" diagonally. 800X480, for 225 dpi. The N900 tablet/phone has a 3.5" 800x480@267 dpi screen. ... And Adam wrote > I believe some of our members own > N-series units of varying vintages. This was pecked out on an N800.

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Re: [RndTbl] new phone passes 250dpi mark
by Adam Thompson 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

On 2010-Feb-26 08:49, Shawn Wallbridge wrote: > The Nokia 770 had an 800x400 display as well, but it was 4.13" diagonally. I thought the N-series were a little under 150dpi, but my calculations actually indicate it was just over 200dpi (216dpi if the screen was 2:1 with square pixels; that's probably close but not quite right) - which is quite a bit higher than I had thought. Good catch. The jump from 216dpi to 252dpi isn't all that big. The Nokias also run Linux, and, of some practical importance, are actually available in Canada. I believe some of our members own N-series units of varying vintages. -Adam

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new phone passes 250dpi mark
by Adam Thompson 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

Apparently the new Google Nexus One phone made by HTC has a 400x800 OLED display that works out to 252.15 pixels per inch - while the iPhone 3GS has a pretty high-res display, I think this is a new record for a production, mainstream product. Other than backlighting-related issues (causing eye fatigue faster than reflective displays) this would probably make a pretty darn good e-book reader. And phone. And music player. And almost everything else. FYI, it comes with a 1GHz CPU. Sure, it's not going to be a great CPU but 1GHz is also, AFAIK, a new record in the standard phone form-factor. What I find interesting is that it took us almost twenty years to come out with a reasonably-available high-resolution display again. IBM had a (approx.) 200dpi display available in the early '90s. I think they sold well into the double-digit unit quantities :-). (It was probably still profitable - I remember the unit price being around $160k at the time.) Since then, mainstream displays ramped from 75dpi up to 100dpi fairly quickly - and stayed there for 15 years. Almost every LCD you can buy today (excluding "digital signage" models) is between 96dpi and 108dpi. Oh, and the phone is Android-based - which means it's running on Linux. -Adam

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popularity of linux distros
by Kelly Leveille 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

Hey all, The following article has some interesting stats on the popularity of the various Linux distros over the last few years: http://lunduke.com/?p=1023 UBUNTU #1, UBUNTU #1 - Wooooo! ;-) Kelly

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Firewalls in VMs
by Adam Thompson 23 Feb '10

23 Feb '10

It's perhaps worth noting that any example of IaaS (Infrastructure As A Service) deals with the same issues that Kelly will be dealing with. This is typical of "cloud" computing; in fact, Amazon EC2 is perhaps the largest public cloud provider, and any firewalls, A-V scanners, IDS engines and other security-related pieces of infrastructure are running in VMs, whether that's immediately evident to the end user or not. (Linux-based EC2 instances are all, AFAIK, Xen DomU instances. I suspect Windows EC2 instances also run under Xen, but I've never researched that.) So, at the very least, a whole bunch of quite large companies have decided that yes, it *is* OK to host security services on virtualized hardware. By the same token, I'm quite certain that Citrix provides a *very* different level of support to Amazon than they'll provide to you or me! -Adam

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Inventory software
by Adam Thompson 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Someone (I think it was Montana?) was asking recently about inventory software. I just saw a reference that jogged my memory regarding one of the standards in the field: OCS-NG. Check it out at http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/ -Adam

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firewall/router in a VM
by Kelly Leveille 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Hi All, I'm considering setting up a firewall/router in a virtual machine to seperate a couple networks in my home. I intend to dedicate one of the host NICs to the WAN port of the router VM & will not load a TCP stack for that NIC in the host OS (ESXi supports this config). In theory, this configuration is as secure as a hardware router because packets can only be routed via the VM. My questions are: Have any of you had any good/bad experiences with this type of setup & are there potential security risks I'm not considering? Also, if you think this is not as secure as a hardware based solution, please explain why not. I'm not doing it to save money. I am aware that I could do the same thing with a consumer router. I'm just interested in the possibility. Thanks, -- Kelly

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Re: [RndTbl] firewall/router in a VM
by Adam Thompson 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

The potential intrusion vector is, as you've guessed, through the hypervisor. (Or the host OS, where applicable.) The fact that no-one can even articulate a coherent attack plan hasn't prevented the entire security industry from generating Microsoftish amounts of FUD. You'll have to evaluate for yourself - how much do you trust your VM vendor to write bug-free code to handle incoming packets and pass them on? This does touch on almost every facet of a hypervisor, so it's not an academic question. Logically, you aren't exposing any new vulnerabilities. In fact, though, you are opening up a new potential intrusion vector. As far as I can tell, everyone in the argument seems to derive their authority from one comment by Schneier; if anyone has any sources with actual data (empirical, theoretical or experimental) please let me know. Personally, I trust VM programmers to get patches out quickly, and I trust the paranoiacs to blatt about news of any new compromise, enough to be willing to do the sort of thing you're talking about. (Having said that, although I'm *willing* to, I will note that I *don't* do so in real life.) The one aspect to it, though, is that compromise of the hypervisor essentially means instant, complete, utter, irreversible compromise of *all* the VMs (including non-running disk images!) that server has direct access to. That is a little bit worrisome. -Adam

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