Utah Open Source Podcast

PLUG: May 2009 - The Open Source Data Center

Clint Savage — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:40:00 -0600

During the last 10 years of system administration I have been involved in a number of data center migrations and build-outs. As these projects came and went I began to see patterns emerge in the set of services and software required to run a successful operations infrastructure. This presentation will describe these patterns, and provide an overview of the Open Source software available to implement them. About Dan: Dan Hanks has been involved with Linux System administration since 1998, when he worked for EagleNet Online, a small ISP in Provo, which, in a sense, was the birthplace of PLUG. After EagleNet he worked as a systems and database administrator for Nothsky/About.com/Primedia/United Online and is currently a system administrator for Omniture. He has varied interests, ranging from computers and technology to astronomy, geology, music, art, and family history research. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from BYU, and is the father of 4 adventuresome children. He (occasionally) blogs at http://brainshed.com, and tweets as @danhanks.

Provo Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Presentation Slides ::

File Download (84:01 min / 122 MB)

Ubuntu Utah: May 2009 - Partitions, Filesystems, LVM and RAID

Clint Savage — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:45:00 -0600

The presentation was on partitions, filesystems, LVM and RAID by Aaron Toponce. The focus of my topic will by system administration, rather than for new beginners to the distribution, but it will be benificial for them as well learn how to properly work with their filesystems.

Ubuntu Utah ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth

File Download (127:22 min / 193 MB)

PLUG: April 2009 - Control 4

Clint Savage — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:58:00 -0600

Ryan Erickson works for Control4 (http://www.control4.com), and has worked and played with Home Automation for over 10 years. He will present an introduction to Home Automation, and discuss Control4's Home Automation products. Ryan will cover: # What is Home Automation? # How does it work? # Open Source Home Automation projects # DIY vs. 'Professional' # Control4's approach to Home Automation

Provo Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Control 4 ::

File Download (80:34 min / 96 MB)

Ubuntu Utah - March 2009: Puppet, Systems Building Systems

Clint Savage — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:11:00 -0600

Andrew Shafer works full time on the Open Source system management framework, Puppet. He brings with him a background in computational science, embedded Linux development, web frameworks and Agile methods. Andrew has been an Open Source user and advocate since the late 90s. He was a speaker at the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference.

Ubuntu Utah ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Slides ::

File Download (62:57 min / 47 MB)

PLUG - March 2009: Parrot

Clint Savage — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:58:00 -0600

Parrot is a virtual machine designed to efficiently compile and execute bytecode for dynamic languages. Parrot currently hosts a variety of language implementations in various stages of completion, including Tcl, Javascript, Ruby, Lua, Scheme, PHP, Python, Perl 6, APL, and a .NET bytecode translator. Parrot is not about parrots, though we are rather fond of them for obvious reasons. Guru at Guru Labs for 1.5 years. I teach, work on courseware, and assorted Perl programming. In my spare time I work on Parrot and recently a roguelike. I've been working on Parrot for about a year, in which time I've written a LOLCODE and Ruby compiler and done a lot of work on Exceptions and some work implementing features in Perl 6. I'd like to talk about Parrot and/or Perl 6! That's about as specific as I get. If nobody has any more-specific requests, I'd like to run through implementing a simple language and the parts of a Parrot compiler. Maybe scheme? I haven't decided yet.

Provo Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Guru Labs :: Presentation Sponsor
Center 7 :: Podcast / Streaming Hosting
Video of this podcast ::

File Download (80:42 min / 99 MB)

PLUG - February 2009: Git by Barry Roberts

Clint Savage — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:18:00 -0600

I've been a programmer and sometimes sysadmin for Xactware Solutions for over 13 years. I program in Java, groovy, Python, Perl, bash and C#. Shockingly, the division I work for has become an island of Linux in a sea of Windows servers. I've been researching replacing CVS for over 5 years now. Last April, I helped all our developers and testers switch to Git. I've been the internal support person for Linux and Windows git clients since then. In this presentation I hope to use concrete examples and experience to convince every programmer that not using git is shortening your life, frightening your children, and contributing to the current economic malaise. We will also look at some cool git-related tools including a cross-platform gui I've done some minor hacking on to keep Windows users happy.

Provo Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth

File Download (71:05 min / 76 MB)

Utah Python - March 2009: GridBackup

Clint Savage — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:01:00 -0600

Shawn Willden presents on GridBackup: A peer to peer backup system built on top of the allmydata.org Tahoe distributed file system.

Utah Python User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Presentation Slides ::
White Paper ::

File Download (99:30 min / 77 MB)

Ubuntu Utah - February 2009: OpenVPN by Will Smith

Clint Savage — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:01:00 -0700

The meeting focused around the simple setup for OpenVPN. Including the configuration files, commands and certificates.

Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Tier Four :: Podcast/Streaming Bandwidth Sponsor
Ubuntu Utah ::

File Download (58:56 min / 55 MB)

SLLUG - January 2009: GPS with gpsbabel, gpicsync and Google Earth

Clint Savage — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:39:00 -0700

Marc Christensen presents on Geo Tagging pictures and overlaying GPS Data aligned with photos on Google Map and Google Earth

Salt Lake Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth

File Download (70:50 min / 67 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Drupal: From blank to blog in 30 minutes by Dirk Howard

Clint Savage — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:32:00 -0700

Drupal is an extensible Content Management System (CMS) that is used for blogs, forums, photo galleries and many other uses. Installing Drupal on a blank website can be done in as little as 30 minutes. All you need is a web server that can handle PHP, a MySQL or PostgreSQL database, and either FTP or shell access to the web server. Within 30 minutes you can be blogging on your own site that you can customize anyway you want.

File Download (60:54 min / 48 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Google App Engine 101 by Jonathan Ellis

Clint Savage — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:36:00 -0700

Google launched the App Engine service earlier this year to immense interest from the web development community. App Engine allows running applications on Google infrastructure, including BigTable, Google’s non-relational, massively scalable database. App Engine is appealing both at the low end, where small shops don’t want to have to deal with hardware procurement and systems administration, and at the high end, where the kind of “instant scaling” App Engine promises to deal with bursty traffic is the holy grail of infrastructure planning. This tutorial will cover the basics of App Engine development, including development and deployment of a simple application. If time permits we will cover some more advanced aspects of the SDK, such as the caching API. Please sign up for an App Engine account and download the SDK ahead of time so we can jump right in to the code. Basic Python knowledge will be assumed. If you are already an experienced programmer, I recommend “Dive Into Python.” If you str s complete novice, I recommend “Python for Dummies,” which despite the name really is the best basic text I’ve seen. And if you are somewhere in between, I recommend “Learning Python,” 3rd ed. “Dive into Python” is available in print and free on the web; the others are only available in print.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Xmission Internet :: Presentation Sponsor
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Tier Four :: Podcast Bandwidth Provider

File Download (29:15 min / 23 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Automated System Management with Puppet by Andrew Shafer

Clint Savage — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:40:00 -0700

Puppet is a free open source system configuration framework. Automated configuration enables a new level of operational effectiveness. Complexity can be minimized when systems are modeled and those living specifications can be executed. This lowers the real cost of change management and enables IT as a differentiator. This presentation will introduce the motivation and philosophy behind the project, followed by practical representative examples of Puppet style automation.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Tier Four :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Mozy :: Presentation Sponsor

File Download (57:51 min / 39 MB)

PLUG - December 2008: SELinux by Stuart Jansen

Clint Savage — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:56:00 -0700

The traditional Unix security model is simple and beautiful. For decades it has been good enough for most people. However, it is starting to show its age. In the highest security settings, a more fine grained control system is needed. In the past, this meant using expensive, complicated, special purpose versions of Unix: trusted systems. (Trusted Solaris, Trusted AIX, Trusted HP-UX) SELinux, created by the NSA, is the most mature and complete response to the need for Trusted Linux systems. Unfortunately, because of the difficulty creating and maintaining trusted systems, their success has been limited. This is no longer acceptable. Today, even desktop systems and cell phones need high quality security. Imagine being able to sandbox your Web browser and e-mail client. The traditional Unix model makes this difficult and only partially possible. SELinux, on the other hand, makes fine grained security available to everyone. When it first appeared, SELinux was hard to learn and mysterious to troubleshoot. As a result, many people fear it. However, SELinux and the tools to manage it have come a long way. It's time to lay fear aside. Stuart will teach what SELinux is, why it is great, basic troubleshooting and maintenance.

Provo Linux User Group ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Center 7 :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Guru Labs :: Presentation Sponsor

File Download (87:15 min / 62 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Open Source in Government Panel Discussion moderated by Jason Hall

Clint Savage — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:03:00 -0700

A panel discussion with Phil Windley (former Utah CTO) and Pete Ashdown (US senatorial candidate) of the Utah political and technical scene. We will discuss the use of open source software in government operations, as well as open source philosophy is the political process.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source ::
Tier Four :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Governors Office of Economic Development ::

File Download (66:23 min / 60 MB)

UTOSC 2008: What I learned from Oggify by Scott Paul Robertson

Clint Savage — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:47:00 -0700

This presentation will be an overview of various tips and good practices I’ve learned from writing and managing Oggify. From it’s humble beginnings as a shell script, the various states in Perl for version 1.0, and the newly rewritten in Python for version 2.0. Topics will range from tips about version control selection and use to following style conventions and learning to take advantage of your tools. The presentation will be geared toward people of beginning to intermediate experience who are looking to start a project or improve habits with an existing project. Code examples will include: sh, perl, python, and ruby. Tools covered will be git (with some mention of bzr, hg, and svn), vim, and zsh. Focus will not be on any language or tool, but principles and practices. By having good habits and avoiding common pitfalls your code will be more powerful, flexible, and sharable.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source ::
Tier Four :: Streaming/podcast bandwidth
KnowledgeBlue ::

File Download (59:23 min / 42 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Monitoring your Data Center using Apache and Ganglia

Clint Savage — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:15:00 -0700

Brad Nicholes presents the insightful session on Data Center Monitoring.

As an IT professional or systems administrator, one of the most important aspects of your job is to know and understand at all times what is going on in your data center. What is the health status of your hardware? Are your resources overloaded? What are your hardware utilization trends and how can your resources be better utilized? These are just some of the questions that must be answered in order to be sure that your data center is running smoothly. Fortunately there are ways to anwser these questions which will allow you to stay on top of what is going on. By deploying a pure Open Source solution using Apache as a frontend to the Ganglia monitoring system on the backend, this solution will provide the necessary information to monitor the status of your data center. Through Apache and Ganglia, you will be able to monitor statistics such as CPU utilization, memory consumption, network throughput, disk I/O and much more. Additionally, since the Ganglia monitoring system is built on top of the Apache Portable Runtime libraries, it is able to be deployed on a wide variety of operating systems giving you total data center coverage. The graphical web frontend displays a series of summary or per-machine trending graphs that can be customized over hours, weeks or months. This presentation will provide you with an overview of how Apache and Ganglia can be used to monitor your data center and the various ways in which the solution can be customized or extended to meet your data center needs.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source ::
Tier Four :: Streaming/podcast bandwidth

File Download (52:36 min / 75 MB)

UTOSC 2008: KVM/QEMU Virtual Machines by Jim Petersen and David Mair

Clint Savage — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:23:00 -0700

Host/Guest installation and configuration for KVM/QEMU virtual machines.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source ::
Tier Four :: Streaming/podcast bandwidth

File Download (55:33 min / 76 MB)

UTOSC 2008: Voice Over IP for fun and profit by Chris Cameron

Clint Savage — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:06:00 -0600

Chris Cameron will show how to setup a voice over IP phone system from beginning to end. Using open source software we will explore how simple it is to have a high end phone system running in little time and on commodity hardware. We will take a computer and some inexpensive phones and install and configure the system through the presentation. Using web based administration tools to easily configure an upstream Voice Over IP trunk and make and receive calls.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source ::
Tier Four :: Streaming/podcast bandwidth
Utah OpenTech ::

File Download (65:45 min / 54 MB)

UTOSC 2008 Linux Media and Home Automation by Brandon Beattie

Josh Tolley — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:47:00 -0600

This will be a discussion about what hardware and software is available and compatible with Linux to automate your home. Video Surveillance, Lighting Control, Personal Weather Stations, Multimedia Integration, Security System Integration and other automation methods. This will be a more advanced course since integration does require decent hacking and scripting skills.

Presenter information / slides ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Tier Four :: Streaming / podcast bandwidth
XMission :: Sponsor of this presentation

File Download (68:51 min / 53 MB)

UTOSC 2008: The Dark Art of Autotools by John Jolly

Clint Savage — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:11:00 -0600

Open Source Software has many challenges, but one of the most intimidating is providing a solid build system for the project. Build system tools such as autoconf and automake can cause you to throw your hands up in exasperation. This presentation will take you step-by-step on how to use autotools to build your already-existing project. From explaining the interaction between each tools, to showing you how to create shared libraries, this presentation will have you using these utilities like a pro.

Presentation Information / Slides ::
Utah Open Source Foundation ::
Tier Four :: Providing streaming/podcast bandwidth
Mozy ::

File Download (61:37 min / 51 MB)