Capital Area BSD Users Group

Jason Dixon has created a new Blog engine called Blogsum. He and I have worked to migrate the CapBUG site from Wordpress to Blogsum. This is a work in progress, but the site should be usable at this point.

Filed under:   CapBUG

The Capital Area BSD Users Group is a group of BSD users and developers getting together to discuss, promote and share BSD related topics and free/open software.

If you're interested in joining and/or contributing, you are welcome to join our misc mailing list. If you have topic suggestions for future meetings, please suggest them on the list. We're also at #capbug on chat.freenode.net.

Filed under:   CapBUG

The purpose of the misc mailing list is to discuss Capital Area BUG related topics. Some off-topic chatter is allowed, but within reason. For more general BSD discussions, please join us at talk@metabug.org.

There are three types of subscriptions to the list: normal (receive each message as sent), digest (receive a daily digest of messages) and nomail (no messages are received, but this subscription can post to the list).

• Subscribe:
  • Normal (each message): misc+subscribe@capbug.org
  • Digest (daily digest): misc+subscribe-digest@capbug.org
  • Nomail (no messages): misc+subscribe-nomail@capbug.org
• Unsubscribe:
  • Normal (each message): misc+unsubscribe@capbug.org
  • Digest (daily digest): misc+unsubscribe-digest@capbug.org
  • Nomail (no messages): misc+unsubscribe-nomail@capbug.org
• Archives:
  • http://capbug.org/archive/misc/

Filed under:   CapBUG

We're meeting on Thursday again this month.

This month, we're meeting Thursday, November 19 (6:30 PM EDT) at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]).

This is a special meeting time to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday.

I will demonstrate my Nagios configuration again and Devon will talk about something cool.

Then we'll head to Victoria Gastro Pub for some extremely healthy food, beer, cider, and wine. See you there!

Filed under:   Events News

We're meeting on Thursday again this month.

This month, we're meeting Thursday, October 29 (6:30 PM EDT) at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]).

Jonathan Andersen will be giving a talk/demo of his 3D printer.

Then we'll head to Victoria Gastro Pub for some extremely healthy food, beer, cider, and wine. See you there!

Filed under:   Events   News

I have made reservations for ten people at Victoria Gastro Pub for October 15 at 6:00 PM. There are currently 8 seats still available. Reply to the mailing list to save a spot.

I've asked Victoria's if we can switch the reservation to 6:30 (it wasn't available at OpenTable) and will update this post (and send an email to the list) if we change to 6:30.

See you there!

Filed under:   Events   News

We met at OmniTI again this month. Thank you, OmniTI!

I gave a talk [slides] about my recent migration for my mail/web server from i386 to amd64. I also discussed how I installed a ral(4) card in my Soekris to make it a wireless access point. Unfortunately, I think the card overheated my Soekris and crashed my firewall more than once. I have since removed the card.

Equipment:

• MiniPCI Ralink RT2860
• 10 cm pigtails (card to antenna) times 3
• Triple external antenna

After the meeting, we adjourned to Victoria Gastro Pub for dinner and libations.

Filed under:   Meetings

We're moving to Thursdays!

This month, we're meeting (today) Thursday, September 24 (6:30 PM EDT) at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]).

I will be giving a talk summarizing my recent experience migrating from my i386-based Mac Mini to my amd64-based PowerEdge 840 for erdelynet.com/capbug.org/metabug.org's mail & web.

Edit: I'll also be showing some pictures of my recent attempt to make my Soekris into a WAP.

Then we'll head to Victoria Gastro Pub for refreshments. See you there!

Filed under:   Events   News

We met again at OmniTI (thank you for hosting us).

I (Mike Erdely) gave a short talk about using Bacula's encryption mechanisms to store data encrypted on the storage media. Devon O'Dell gave an informal but very interesting talk about the differences between pre-emptive and co-operatively scheduled threading. Then, Jason Dixon introduced us to his new creation: Blogsum. Keep a look out for capbug.org to be using it in the near future. Finally, I gave another short talk describing my experiences with turning off greylisting in OpenBSD's spamd(8).

After the awesome talks, we adjourned to Victoria Gastro Pub for some food and drink. A good time was had by all.

Filed under:   Meetings

Our monthly meeting is next Tuesday, August 25 (6:30 PM EDT) at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]). We'll have a series of short talks by different speakers.

• Devon O'Dell - Differences between pre-emptive and co-operatively scheduled threading (high-level talk)
• Jason Dixon - Introducing Blogsum, a simple blog written for OpenBSD
• Mike Erdely - Bacula encrypting data before sending to Storage Daemon & erdelynet.com spamd/spamassassin setup and results (edit: merdely 200908202211)

Afterwards we'll adjourn to Victoria Gastro Pub for refreshments. See you there!

Filed under:   Events   News

I have made reservations for ten people at Victoria Gastro Pub for August 13 at 6:00 PM. There are currently 8 seats still available. Reply to the mailing list to save a spot.

See you there!

Filed under:   Events   News

This month we met at OmniTI again. I gave a talk entitled "Taking the plunge: A guide to tmux for screen users" (slides). It was a very informal talk with a lot of Q&A and some demonstrations. It should be noted that I love tmux.

After the talk we went to Victoria Gastro Pub for some food and libations.

Filed under:   Meetings

After a month off, we will be meeting on July 28 at 6:30 PM EDT at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]).

I will be giving a talk entitled "Taking the plunge: A guide to tmux for screen users".

After, we will adjourn to a local establishment for refreshments.

Filed under:   Events   News

We again met at OmniTI this month. Jason gave a very good introduction to packet filters in general and OpenBSD PF (slides). After everyone was up to speed on the basics of OpenBSD PF, we used OmniTI's lab computers loaded with an OpenBSD 4.5 LiveCD that Jason created to get hands-on experience with PF. The lab computers were already booted to the CD, so all we had to do was log in. The computers were connected to a switch in the lab that was configured with two VLANs. Jason gave us tasks geared towards learning PF:

1. Configure vlan100 interface to use DHCP
2. Configure vlan200 interface with a static IP
3. Nat on vlan100 for vlan200's network
4. Allow SSH from outside to a host on the vlan 200 network
5. Block all other inbound traffic
6. Bonus: Give SSH priority over HTTP

Read more...

Filed under:   Meetings

This month, we will be meeting on May 26 at 6:30 PM EDT at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]). (NOTE: Be sure to go to OmniTI and not SRA/RABA!)

This month Jason will be doing a firewall/networking interactive lab. We will be using OmniTI's lab machines along with a custom OpenBSD 4.5 Live CD that Jason created to play with VLANs and PF. Jason has been kind enough to make enough CDs so that you can take one home with you.

After, we will adjourn to a local establishment for refreshments.

Filed under:   News

We had a good turnout for the OpenBSD 4.5 Release Party. Seven CapBUG members and one wife met at Victoria Gastro Pub. In addition to celebrating OpenBSD's 4.5 release, to be fair we also celebrated Amanda's 2.6.1p1 release, DragonFlyBSD 2.2.1, NetBSD 5.0, FreeBSD 7.2, Firefox 3.0.8, 3.0.9, and 3.0.10.

We were also able to bask in the glory that is Jason's new laptop. While there are BSD files on the disk, we won't mention what OS he runs (it's definitely not Debian).

Thanks to everyone that attended and see you on the 26th.

Filed under:   Meetings

This month we met for the first time at OmniTI. Thank you to Jason, Devon and Theo S. for allowing us to meet at your office.

Devon gave an excellent talk about Plan 9: Plan Nizzle is tha Shizzle. At our next meeting, we'll take a vote as to whether we should rename CapBUG to CapP9UG and how to pronounce it.

Thank you to Dru Lavigne for posting CapBUG events to her Twitter Feed for BSD Events. We gained a new member to CapBUG and #metabug (freenode) from April's meeting announcement.

After the talk, we met at Victoria Gastro Pub where we enjoyed some good drinks and good food (mmmm.... duck fat fries!)

Filed under:   Meetings

CapBUG is hosting an OpenBSD 4.5 Release Party at Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia, MD [map] on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 6:30 PM EDT.

Please join us for a Lagunitas Undercover Investigation Shut-down Ale (or some other beverage).

Please RSVP either by replying on the mailing list (or email info@capbug.org if you are not subscribed).

This gathering is in addition to the not-yet-planned monthly meeting schedule for Tuesday, May 26.

Filed under:   Events   News

This month, we will be meeting on April 28 at 6:30 PM EDT at OmniTI's Columbia Office ([Google Maps]).

NOTE THE CHANGE IN VENUE!

One of our new members, Devon O'Dell, will be giving an introduction to Plan 9. He will be showing off some of the basics:

(stuff about using rio, mouse chording, editing the terminal buffer, etc). It'd get into plumbing (e.g. RFC:1234 + middle click = you get to read RFC 1234), private namespaces (goodbye $PATH), and importing / exporting the network stack, which will be demonstrated to work both ways using different network stacks.

If time permits, I might get a bit into some of the differences between Plan 9's implementation of C and its C library as well. (For instance, Plan 9 has polymorphism in structs, and a `typestr' keyword which allows for operator overloading, among other things).

This sounds interesting. Thanks, Devon.

After the meeting, we'll find a nearby place to grab some food and drink.

Filed under:   Events   News

After a month off, CapBUG is back. This month we met at SRA/Raba Center again in Columbia, MD. We had 9 attendees including two new members: welcome.

Patrick started us off demonstrating PC-BSD. He described the goals of the project, demonstrated the installation process in a VM and showed us a running system on a desktop PC he brought with him. Then, Jason showed us scrotwm running on OpenBSD -current on his new Thinkpad X400. As a scrotwm user myself, I chimed in whenever possible. Finally Maki showed us BSDAnywhere, an OpenBSD LiveCD.

After the meeting, we went to Victora Gastro Pub for dinner and drinks. It was a nice meeting with a good turnout. Thanks to everyone that joined us.

Filed under:   Meetings

This month we'll be meeting on Tuesday, March 31, 6:30pm EDT at SRA/Raba in Columbia, MD (Suite 205).

We'll discuss using BSD on the desktop (or laptop). Feel free to bring a machine for a demonstration. I will, of course, be demonstrating scrotwm on top of OpenBSD. Like you didn't already know that.

After the meeting, we'll head to a nearby watering hole for refreshments.

Filed under:   Events   News

I'm sad to report that there will be no February meeting this year.

I have some personal issues that came up this weekend that will be taking all my time this week. Plus school. Plus I have to figure out how to work my job in sometime too.

We'll try to plan the March 2009 meeting as soon as life calms down in the next week or so.

Filed under:   Meetings   News

DC*BSDCon was a booming success. In just three short months, Jason put together a polished, well run conference. The speakers gave very interesting talks and the space for the conference was organized very well. The main conference area held plenty of seats for the attendees and the speakers were easy to hear.

The Frack Room was set up for gaming, but I'm not sure how much gaming was done in the room. Brad brought donuts and coffee and I'm sure that's what most people visited the Frack Room for. :)

Read more...

Filed under:   News

We had a short meeting this month to prepare for DC*BSDCon. Jason doled out responsibilities and we made preliminary plans for setting up the conference area.

We went to Frisco Burritos for food and beers (mmm.... good beers).

Filed under:   Meetings

Meeting Update

The Tuesday meeting (for Jan. 27) is postponed to Thursday!

Because of bad weather, we're moving our meeting this month to Thursday, January 29, 6:30pm EST at SRA/Raba in Columbia, MD (Suite 205).

We will still be discussing final details about DC*BSDCon. If you can, please join us to talk about how you can help with the conference.

After, we'll go out for beers at Frisco Burritos.

Stay warm.

Filed under:   Events   News

Update: This month we'll be meeting on Thursday, January 29, 6:30pm EST at SRA/Raba in Columbia, MD (Suite 205).

Assuming we're not all snowed in, we'll be meeting to discuss final details about DC*BSDCon. If you can, please join us to talk about how you can help with the conference.

After, Jason will take all of us out for beers at Frisco Burritos. That, or you have to pay your own way. It depends on if you're hallucinating or not. :)

Filed under:   Events   News

As usual, we met at my office in Columbia. Patrick gave a very interesting presentation on RADIUS and discussed how it can be used to authenticate wireless connections.

After the meeting, we adjourned to the Green Turtle for dinner and drinks.

Filed under:   Meetings