The UNIX® CRONicle

January 2000

Official Publication of the STL!/unix/usr/group

UNIX® is a registered trademark of the Open Group
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
Online version: http://www.sluug.org/cronicle/


Table of Contents


Next Meeting Details

Wednesday, January 12, 2000 at 6:30 PM
Sunnen Products, 7910 Manchester

6:30 PM Tutorial Name That Command - Stan Reichardt
6:30 PM Guru Gathering Smoke and Mirrors - Rich Seible
7:00 PM Announcements (Standard Introductions & Procedure )

7:05 PM Call For Help (An opportunity for you to ask technical questions of the group)

7:15 PM Break Social, off-line conversations, & book sales

7:20 PM Admittance to building may no longer be possible See Meeting Directions

7:30 PM Presentation Secure Shell by Steven Blythe

Tutorial

Name That Command - Stan Reichardt

Abstract:

For our tenth aniversary celebration and in lieu of a regular tutorial we will have a little fun. A little competition to test your Unix knowlege. Show off your brain cells and win a book from our end of day inventory!


Biography:

Stan Reichardt is the volunteer Editor for The UNIX®CRONicle, the Official Publication of the STL!/unix/usr/group, i.e., the St. Louis Unix User's Group newsletter.

Stan has been using Linux for several years. He started out years ago coding COBOL on a national WANG VS-100 network. Over the years he has been known to administer various Unix/Novell/LAN systems and support desktop PC users. He tolerates main frames and would like to avoid Micro$oft in all forms. He provides 24/7 PC and Internet support to family and friends. Contributing his point of view to the SLUUG steering committee and to the SLUUG UNIX® CRONicle newsletter are secondary to his fascination with books and Linux. He loves his wife and son. He tolerates their dog.

Oct 1999 presentation on "What is an IP Address and Internet Addressing",
Jul 1999 presentation on "Learning VI Editing Commands" and his
Mar 1999 tutorial was on "Running the Satan Security Tool under Linux".

For more info contact Stan Reichardt by sending mailto:stan@mail.sluug.org .


Guru Gathering

Smoke and Mirrors in The Guru's Corner - Rich Seible

Abstract:

This month a small group of those that are bored with the tutorials will meet in the secondary room, behind the main presentation area. Attendance will not be by invitation; but, lurkers and wantabees will be embarassed and urged to leave. Subject matter will be refereed by Rich Seibel.

Suspenders and pocket protector optional. Bring your slide rules.

Do you have what it takes to run with the Guru? A book will be awarded from the end of day inventory.


Biography:

Rich Seibel is a consultant for Advanced Resources Inc. Rich was trained as an electrical engineer at Purdue University in 1966. He started out maintaining computers 25 years ago and moved into software and tracking technology. He is currently developing software for client server systems.

He has been a SLUUG board member and steering committee member in the past and has been doing tutorials for the Unix Users Group for quite a few years. Currently he is the organization's Secretary and general recorder.

His July 1999 tutorial was on "The History of Editors" and was a co-presentor in June 1999 of "The Micro$oft Anti-Trust Case."

Please contact Rich Seibel by sending mailto:rich@mail.sluug.org if you have suggestions for this experiment.


Presentation

Secure Shell by Dr. Stephen Blythe

Abstract:

"How Secure Shell Protects Remote Logins,"
or "How to Publicly Broadcast Your Password to everyone on the WWW by Using Telnet"

This presentation will introduce the advantages of using secure shell for remote access to computer systems. A discussion of how previous methods (i.e. telnet) work and how they are inherently insecure will be given. Since these methods are insecure, the addition of encryption will be discussed along with the drawbacks of basic (one key) encryption. Public/private key encryption will be introduced, as used by secure shell. Lastly, a brief discussion of some simple secure shell usage will be given.


Biography:
Dr. Blythe earned the BS degree in Computer & Information Sciences from the University of Delaware in 1990. He worked in the MIS field for a little over one year before attending graduate school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), where he earned an MS in Computer Science in 1993 and a PhD in Computer Science in 1997.

He is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the Computer Science Department at Parks College of Engineering and Aviation at St. Louis University, where he is currently honored as the "Parks College Outstanding Faculty of the Year".

For more info contact Dr. Stephen Blythe by sending mailto:blythe@cs.slu.edu .

[ Editor's Notes:

Normal network connections are transmitted in the clear. Secure shell encrypts everything.
---- ]


Special Promotion(s)

blue triangle right Title of the Month

The 25% discount special will be on all JAVA books. Get a free Tee Shirt with any $30 purchase.

All regularly priced titles are 10% off retail cost at the general meeting.
(Excludes featured, or specially priced or promotional items)
O'Reilly Logo

The O'Reilly and Associates line of books is available at each monthly general meeting as a convenience to our members.

Each month features a book related to that month's presentation or tutorial topic.

Discounts off retail cost are offered to all members and each month's featured book(s) may be additionally discounted. Usually, all titles are discounted 10%, while special titles are discounted 25%.


Upcoming Events

Perl Mongers
  • [Not part of SLUUG]
January 6, 2000 at 7:00 PM
See http://stlouis.pm.org/
( TOPICS: ) To Be Announced
CAIT, Training Room 024,
5 N Jackson Ave at Forsyth Blvd,
Clayton, MO

Macintosh Users January 11, 2000
See http://www.gamug.org/

[St. Louis UNIX Users Group stuff]
SLUUG General Meeting January 12, 2000 at 6:30 PM
Sunnen Products
7910 Manchester (at Hanley)
St. Louis, MO

Steering Committee January 18, 2000 at 6:00 PM
Daugherty Systems
One City Place (2nd floor)
Creve Coeur, MO

Linux SIG January 20, 2000 at 7:00 PM
See http://www.sluug.org/sluugls/
( TOPIC: ) Something Really Good by Some One
Indian Trails Library
8400 Delport Drive (at Midland)
St. Louis, MO

Perl Mongers February 3, 2000
See http://stlouis.pm.org/

SLUUG General Meeting February 9, 2000

Steering Committee February 15, 2000

Linux SIG February 17, 2000

KC Linuxfest June 20-24, 2000
See http://www.linuxfest.net/
Overland Park, KS


Meeting Directions

The STL!/unix/usr/group meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month at Sunnen Products, 7910 Manchester Blvd, just east of Hanley on Manchester.

Directions From Downtown

  1. Take 40 West to the Hanley exit.
  2. Turn left (south) onto Hanley.
  3. Turn left (east) onto Manchester, then turn right ASAP into the Sunnen Products driveway.

See map at http://www.sluug.org/info/sunnen.html

(NOTE: A security guard from Sunnen is scheduled to be at the door from 6:20 PM to 7:20 PM to allow entry. After 7:20, the door will be unattended and attendees may not be able to enter.)

The SLUUG Steering Committee meets the Tuesday following the general meeting at 6:00 PM in the 2nd floor training room of Daugherty Systems, One City Place in Creve Coeur.

The SLUUG Linux SIG (SLUUGLS) meets the 3rd Thursday of every month at the Indian Trails Public Library.

See map at http://www.stllinux.org/directions/


Article(s): The following article(s) express(es) personal opinions and SLUUG exerts no more editorial control over such content than does a public library, bookstore, or newsstand. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or Content expressed herein are those of the respective author(s) and not necessarily supported by SLUUG. SLUUG does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content, nor its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.
Elections Approaching by Gary Meyer

Elections are rapidly approaching. SLUUG holds officer elections at our February meetings. If you are interested in an officers position, or would like more information about the administrative duties for the organization, please visit our website at http://www.sluug.org/

Please contact Rich Seibel by sending mailto:rich@mail.sluug.org if you need more specific information on the offices or other aspects of the SLUUG professional association.


Attendance Survey Results - Reverse Holes

Below are results of the attendance & survey sheets collected at the...

SLUUG General meeting on 8 December 1999:

Results of each question on our OPTIONAL survey/questionaire:

1. Presentation (there was NO tutorial this month): High Speed Home Internet Access by a panel of five companies

2. What would you like presented

SLUUG COMMENTS:


SLUUG Linux Special Interest Group meeting on 16 December 1999:

Results of each question on our OPTIONAL survey/questionaire:

1. Linux SIG Topic: Linux Certification by Rod Hauser

2. Psychological Assessment of Presenter.

3. I think Linux certification is:

Linux SIG COMMENTS:

OBSERVATIONS:
Lots of new faces with new user questions. About half of the crowd had not been to the previous SIG meeting. Judging from the questions asked, they would have gotten a lot out of it.

Using the attendance sheets to draw for a book at end of meeting might get much better response.

OPINION:
Bad projector display dampened the audience.


Quotations

Putting a computer in front of a child and expecting it to teach him is like putting a book under his pillow, only more expensive. -- Anon.



Linux Certification Info submitted by Rod Hauser

>From: Rod Hauser [mailto:rhauser@wavetech.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 10:24 AM
>To: Matthew Feldt [matthew@redbird.cs.umsl.edu]
>Cc: Stan Reichardt [stan@mail.sluug.org]
>Subject: Re: Linux SIG December 1999 Meeting Announcement

Matthew,

I hope you had a good ski trip.
I told Stan that I would send you a list of the links that I mentioned in my
presentation, in hopes that you could broadcast it to the list (several
people requested it). Here they are:

Certifying Organizations:

LPI: http://www.lpi.org/
Red Hat: http://www.redhat.com/products/training.html/
SAIR ("zhair") GNU Linux certifications: http://www.linuxcertification.com

Other Stuff:
Wave Technology: http://www.wavetech.com/

Ottawa Linux Symposium talks (mp3). I handed about 15 CD's with 600MB's out,
but wouldn't give them to people with DSL [I'm not jealous... really :> ] so
they wanted the link...
http://www.ottawalinuxsymposium.org/
ftp://ftp.ottawalinuxsymposium.org/ols1999

and a single CD of suites and things:
FrameMaker (beta) for Linux:
http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/fmlinux.html
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/framemaker/unix/5.x/beta/fmlinux.tar.gz

Word Perfect:
http://linux.corel.com/products/linuxproducts_wp8.htm
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.1/cnet/win95/business/GUILG/GUILG00.GZ

StarOffice 5.1
http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/get.cgi

Applix Demo:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.1/cnet/win95/business/applixdemo2-v441-x86-glibc-linux.tar.gz

I hope that's all...
Thanks!

Rod Hauser
Curriculum Manager - Linux
rhauser@wavetech.com
314-692-1916

For more info contact Rod Hauser by sending mailto:rhauser@wavetech.com .


A Brief History of SLUUG, ITEC, and O'Reilly submitted by Dave Mills

SLUUG started its relationship both with ITEC and O'Reilly & Associates (publishers of computer books since 1985) in early 1991, and first participated at the ITEC Computer show in May 91. Because we were not for profit, we obtained a no-cost booth and provided our own booth furniture - two tables with neither carpet nor chairs.

Our presentations then were simple, (1) WHY UNIX? (2) HOW YOU CAN UTILIZE UNIX IN YOUR BUSINESS, and (3) UNIX OFFICE AUTOMATION (if I remember correctly). Enthusiasm ran high as we launched these two new endeavors - ITEC, and our business relationship with O'Reilly. We were a young group. Our membership was growing. Exciting things were happening.

In successive years, we built on our early experiences. We polished and improved our program and procedures, planned more sophisticated presentation topics, paid transportation costs for out of town speakers (often O'Reilly authors), and usually received TWO free booths for all our volunteers and book displays. O'Reilly provided free freight on book shipments. We were also required to pay for the very expensive booth furniture as the "commercial" booths did - the book sale profits usually just about covered our expenses.

The effort that was required to make each show a success increased, but as more SLUUG members participated and ITEC attendance grew, the effort seemed to be very worthwhile. Enthusiasm remained high as volunteers provided the help needed to make our participation of the show a success.

In recent years, the number of new volunteers has decreased, leaving many of the same SLUUG members to manage and coordinate the show. Predictably, some of the enthusiasm has faded. Whether or not SLUUG will continue to participate in ITEC depends, as always, on the needs, opinions, and voluntarism of the members.


SLUUG Participation at ITEC? submitted by Dave Mills

It is time for us to decide if SLUUG will participate at ITEC (Information Technology Expositions & Conferences) again this year. This decision is critical to the group. The ITEC event has, since 1991, become our principle interaction with the St. Louis area public and business community. Members, please guide us in this decision!

(See companion article entitled A Brief History of SLUUG, ITEC, and O'Reilly.)

The objectives of participation are:

  • promotion of open systems and UNIX within the community,
  • exposure of our group to the community itself,
  • increased membership, and revenue from book sales.

    There is no downside to participating as long as we effectively meet the objectives. However, the members must support ITEC, and provide the effort required to meet the objectives. Support appears to have been waning in recent years.

    Are we interested in participating again this year? Do we have the resources required to make our participation a success? Will we retain our relationship with O'Reilly & Associates if we do not participate? Are there more effective ways to promote open systems? What are your ideas suggestions?

    Many of the members realize that our inventory of O'Reilly books is the best in St. Louis (perhaps the best in the U.S.?). We have truly been fortunate to have O'Reilly as a business partner. However, because our ITEC sales run about 40% of our annual book sales, we face the realization that our partnership might easily be terminated if we discontinue selling the books at ITEC -- unless we develop other means of increasing sales.

    Please email your thoughts, availability, and capacity to help by mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org by 1/15/2000. We must make the ITEC decision at the next Steering Committee Meeting.


    ITEC Volunteer Duties Overview: submitted by Dave Mills & Gary Meyer

    If we do participate at ITEC, volunteers will be needed to manage, coordinate, and administer the SLUUG effort at ITEC, as well as work in the booth. There are several ways to organize our program so that no one person is over burdened, but one suggestion would be to have a central manager with 2 or 3 area managers. Area managers could be (1) Presentation Manager, (2) Booth Manager, (3) Book Sales Manager, and (4) Linux Install-fest Manager.

    Following are a sample of duties required for ITEC, based on the area manager concept.

    (1) Central Manager - ASM (American Show Management) contact, responsible for overall ITEC coordination, chairs and coordinates group meetings with area managers, develops show theme, negotiates and schedules booth(s) and presentation rooms, attend kickoff breakfast, orders and distributes tickets

    (2) Presentation Manager - develops two to four presentations, finds, schedules, and coordinates presenters and presentations, advertises presentations, takes attendance at presentations, may develop contests, prizes

    (3) Booth Manager - determines furniture needs orders furniture, obtain volunteer name tags, coordinates booth set-up and tear-down, recruits members to man booth, develop forms for new members, provide extra copies of past editions of the Cronicle, SLUUG brochures, other handouts, may develop contests, prizes

    (4) Book Sales Manager - determines book order, orders books, develops pricing, sales procedures, sales training materials, delivers and installs books and displays, de-installs books and displays after show ends. Picks up books, assists in preparing excess book returns to O'Reilly.

    (5) Booth Personnel - describes SLUUG to attendees, promotes open systems, and UNIX, sells books, works under direction of Booth Manager

    (6) Linux Install Fest - its been suggested that we might want to do an install-fest. Perhaps we would do this instead of the presentations. Since this is an event of timely interest, we may attract much attention! It would certainly take work in advance to organize so it needs a manager and volunteers.

    Are you interested in our continued participation at ITEC? Do you have ideas about other formats we might use to promote open systems? Most importantly, what resources can YOU provide for either scenario? Can you be the Central Manager or an Area Manager? We need your input to the above questions. Our group lives ONLY through the participation of its members.

    Please email your thoughts, availability, and capacity to help by mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org by 1/15/2000. We must make the ITEC decision at the next Steering Committee Meeting.


    Personal Commentary submitted by Almost Anybody

    The following PERSONAL COMMENTARY expresses personal opinions and SLUUG exerts no more editorial control over such content than does a public library, bookstore, or newsstand. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or Content expressed herein are those of the respective author and not necessarily supported by SLUUG. SLUUG does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content, nor its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.

    Seen on Slashdot:

    Windows hasn't increased computer literacy. It's just lowered the standard.


    Special Interest Groups (SIGS)

    As our membership grows, we have had some inquiries about the possibility of having Special Interest Groups in several areas. If you are interested in starting or participating in a SIG for System Administration, Networking, C, Object Oriented Programming, a specific vendor, etc., please call Dave Mills at 230-5151, extension 103, or contact any officer of the group.


    St. Louis Unix Users Group - Linux SIG (SLUUGLS)

    Visit the Linux SIG home page (http://www.stllinux.org/) for the latest meeting details.

    LOCATION DIRECTIONS:
    Indian Trails Public Library
    8400 Delport Drive
    (at Midland)
    (314)-428-5424
    Follow 170: Exit Page east to North-South Rd., go left on North-South Rd. to Midland, go left on Midland one block to Delport, the Library is on your left (see map at http://www.stllinux.org/directions/).

    For more information on SLUUGLS refer to the WWW home page for the group at http://linux.feldt.com or contact Matthew Feldt by mailto:linux@www.feldt.com


    Computer Telephony Integration User's Group (SLUUG CiTI)

    The CTI SIG is no longer having regular meetings and is currently using a webboard format.

    The Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Users Group is a non-profit organization open to developers, end-users, sales people, and others who share the common interest of melding the telecommunications and computing worlds.

    For more information on SLUUG CiTI contact Tony Zafiropoulos by mailto:tonyz@ctitek.com or (314)878-9855.


    Digital Alpha SIG

    The Digital Alpha SIG is for those interested in Digital UNIX and the DEC Alpha architecture. Visit the Digital Alpha SIG's home at http://www.sluug.org/~newton/asighome.html for more information.


    St. Louis UNIX Users Group Steering Committee

    The SLUUG Steering Committee meets the Tuesday following the general 2nd Wednesday meeting at 6:00 PM in the 2nd floor training room of Daugherty Systems, One City Place in Creve Coeur. The guard can direct you to the meeting location. Anyone is welcome to attend. If you would like to become more involved in the planning of SLUUG, feel free to join us at the next Steering Committee meeting. Meetings usually last 1.5 to 2 hours.


    Sponsors

  • Analysts International http://www.analysts.com/
  • Andersen Consulting http://www.ac.com/
  • CIBER, Inc. http://www.ciber.com/
  • Cypress Systems, Ltd. http://www.cypress-systems.com/
  • Daugherty Systems http://www.daugherty.com/
  • Informix Corporation http://www.informix.com/
  • Maryville Data Systems, Inc. http://www.maryville.com/
  • O'Reilly & Associates http://www.ora.com/
  • Phoenix Networks http://www.pnix.net/
  • Phoenix Networks http://www.phoenixnetworks.net/
  • Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. http://www.rens.com/
  • Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com/
  • Sunnen Products http://www.sunnen.com/
  • Sykes Enterprises, Inc. http://www.sykes.com/
  • Venmar Systems, Inc. http://www.venmar.com/

  • The Law Offices of Rich McLennan, send mailto:mclennan@mail.sluug.org

    For more information about sponsoring the St. Louis UNIX Users Group, contact Ed Wehner, send mailto:wehner@mail.sluug.org.


    SLUUG on the World Wide Web

    The St. Louis UNIX Users Group maintains a WWW page at http://www.sluug.org/. Visit us to learn more about who we are and what we do, visit other UNIX user groups' WWW pages, sign up for a SIG, or just to browse.


    SLUUG Administration is volunteer based.

    SLUUG is looking for volunteers to help with presentations, web page development, managing corporate sponsorships, and many other tasks. If you would like to help out, contact Chris Wanta by mailto:cfw1@mail.sluug.org or visit http://www.sluug.org/~cfw1/help.html.


    /usr/groups/other

    We publish other user group meeting schedules on a reciprocal basis. If you are a member of another non-profit group, please inform them of our policy and invite them to exchange meeting information by mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org, or call any of the SLUUG officers.


    Contacts

    BBS Questions Jim (Knight) Ford mailto:knight@mail.sluug.org
    Corporate Sponsors Ed Wehner mailto:wehner@mail.sluug.org
    Newsletter
    Submissions
    Editorial team: mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org
    Publisher Sanjiv Bhatia Home: (314)519-9272
    Work: (314)516-6520
    FAX: (314)516-5400
    mailto:sanjiv@aryabhat.cs.umsl.edu
    Editor Stan Reichardt Home: (314)298-1183
    mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org
    http://www.sluug.org/~stan
    mailto:stan@mail.sluug.org
    O'Reilly Books Dave Mills Work: (314)230-5151, extension 103
    mailto:mills@mail.sluug.org
    Presentations Open Position Send info/ideas to mailto:gary@mail.sluug.org
    Steering Committee
    Information
    Gary Meyer Home: (314)781-8644
    mailto:gary@mail.sluug.org
    SLUUG Secretary Rich Seible mailto:rich@mail.sluug.org
    SLUUG Treasurer Mike Kriz mailto:kriz@mail.sluug.org
    Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

    Computer Telephony
    Integration (CTI)
    Tony Zafiropoulos Phone: (314)878-9855
    http://www.ctitek.com/ctiusers/ctiusers.html
    mailto:tonyz@ctitek.com
    Linux Matthew Feldt Home: (314)429-5433
    http://www.feldt.com
    mailto:linux@www.feldt.com

    Submitting Articles to the SLUUG CRONicle

    If you would like to submit an article to the CRONicle of general interest to the members of the St. Louis UNIX Users Group,send mailto:editor@mail.sluug.org The deadline for article submissions is two weeks before the next general meeting.


    SLUUG PO Box

    The St. Louis UNIX Users Group has a P.O. box. All official correspondence with SLUUG should now be sent to:

        St. Louis UNIX Users Group
        P.O. Box 411302
        Creve Coeur Post Office
        St. Louis, MO  63141-9998