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

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Online version: http://www.sluug.org/cronicle/

Table of Contents

• Next Meeting Details
• Presentation: Ethernet - the Rest of the Story by Gary Meyer and Rich Seibel
• Tutorial: Spong by James Chapman
• Book Special(s): TCP/IP for Unix and TCP/IP for Windows NT
• Upcoming Meetings
• Meeting Directions
• Article(s)
  • Elections Now!
  • You want to subscribe to new LISTSERVERS!
  • All the news that's fit to Print
  • IBM, HP, & Compaq announce more LINUX products.
  • Linus Torvalds releases Linux kernel 2.2
  • "It's DejaVu All Over Again" in The Bookworm's Corner by Stan Reichardt
  • "Microsoft trial judge troubled by MS's videotape." excerpt submitted by Gary Meyer
  • "Internet net law declared unconstitutional" excerpt submitted by Gary Meyer
• Special Interest Groups (SIGS)
  • Linux SIG (SLUUGLS)
  • Computer Telephony Integration SIG (SLUUG CiTI)
  • Digital Alpha SIG
• Steering Committee
• Sponsors
• SLUUG on the World Wide Web
• SLUUG Administration is volunteer based.
• /usr/groups/other
• Contacts
• Submitting Articles to the SLUUG CRONicle
• SLUUG PO Box

Wednesday, February 10, 1999 at 6:30 PM
Sunnen Products, 7910 Manchester

100B-TX 
Switched
Full dup
100B-FX
Gigabit 1000B-T
Aggressive devices
Performance expectations
Auto-Negotiate
Cable spec
      Cat 5
      EIA/TIA-568a/b for RJ-45

Simple System/Network Monitoring - Spong v1.1

This is a simple system monitoring package called spong. It has the following features:

* client based monitoring (CPU, disk, processes, logs, etc...) 
* monitoring of network services (smtp, http, ping, pop, dns, etc...) 
* grouping of hosts (routers, servers, workstations, PCs) 
* host specific contact information 
* host specific downtime information 
* configurable on a client by client basis 
* results displayed via the web 
* history of problems 
* messaging (via email or pager) when problems occur 
* verbose information to help diagnosis problems 

This is hopefully a *simple* tool. It does not compete with Tivoli, OpenView, UniCenter, or any other commercial packages. It is not SNMP based, it communicates via simple TCP based messages. It is written in Perl, so hopefully it can be run on multiple systems (including NT - although it has not been ported yet).

Hopefully this package is as simple as possible (but no simpler). There are just 5 "pieces", 1 program that runs on "client" machines, and 4 programs that run on your web server (where the results are displayed). There are also only 2 config files, one that defines OS and system specific information, and one that defines what hosts you want to monitor, and who to contact when there is a problem.

Title of the Month TCP/IP for UNIX and TCP/IP for Windows NT Both titles will be 25% off at the 10 February 1999 meeting.

All regularly priced titles are 20% off retail cost at meeting. Excludes specially priced items or promotional items

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

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

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.

(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 2nd Wednesday 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.

SLUUG holds officer advisory elections at our February meetings.

Currently running for offices are:

President - Gary Meyer
Vice President - Ed Wehner
Secretary - Rich Seibel
Treasurer - Christine Wanta

We have 3 e-mail lists ready to play. They are called: discuss, steercom, and announce.

You can subscribe by sending an e-mail message to {x}-request@mail.sluug.org. where {x} is one of the above list names. When mailing into {x}-request just put the single word 'subscribe' as the body of your message.

We encourage anyone and everyone to participate. To limit spam, announce will only be posted to by the management. Discuss is intended for the general discussion of any UNIX topic that tickles your fancy.

http://www.slashdot.org- news for nerds - stuff that matters!
http://www.freshmeat.net- daily updates of Internet software releases.
(check out the "Appendix" button).
http://www.linuxtoday.com- daily news of mostly (but not only) Linuxevents.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com- for detailed followup on the demise of BYTE.

InfoWeek, in its 25 January issue, reports 3 companies with new LINUX initiatives.

IBM will be supporting Tivoli, as well as DB2 and Transarc under LINUX.

HP will be supporting HP OpenView under LINUX.

Compac will be supporting LINUX on the DEC ALPHA architecture.

Must be official. Byte magazine is dead. Got a postcard from CMP Media Inc., wanting to know if I wanted to finish out my subscription by reading WinDoZE pabulum. I just want my money back.

If anyone cares about the whole tragedy see the SLUUG September 1998 newsletter and http://www.jerrypournelle.com/fiasco.html coverage.

For those mesmerized by G. Hussain Chinoy's fascinating January SLUUG tutorial on XML see the November 1998 issue of Linux Journal (LJ) magazine to get more information. The LJ had a two page (64-65)article "XML, the eXtensible Markup Language" which reinforces those points covered in the tutorial.

I enjoyed Barry Flachsbart's future view of technology at our January SLUUG session so much that I can't hardly wait for his return presentation. Audience participation was the most interesting part. We also gave him some interesting areas to consider in return -- security, encryption, privacy vs. data mining, Open Source Software and GPL (no cost) licensing.

For those that just can't get enough of any presentation, no matter how detailed or good, see the January 1999 issue of LJ to get more information on Lyx. The January presentation by Dr. Roland Krause at the SLUUG Linux SIG was one of the most complete and informative given to date. Tremendous in depth coverage was given by following the internal Lyx tutorial. The live demonstration was presented along with experienced information. Most everyone could follow the strengths and demands of this powerful editor. It is most understandable why the Lyx WYSIWYG editor is considered both liberating and restrictive. Lyx may not be for everyone; but, it has considerable power that may be worth the learning curve for using it's features.

On Wed 3 Feb, Paul Kangas on the Nitely Buisness report said that the judge in the Microsoft case was concerned about the video tape submitted as evidence by Microsoft. I believe I heard him say that the tape was a demonstration of how easy and undamaging it is to remove MS's Internet Explorer browser. I believe I heard Mr. Kangas say, the government attorneys pointed out inconsistencies in the videotape.

Apparently there is at least one federal judge left who has read the constitution. On Mon. 1 Feb. Lowell A. Reed, a federal judge in Philidelphia, declared the Online Child Protection Act a violation of our rights under the 1st amendment. This ruling followed some weeks of consideration.

The OCPA was also refered to as CDA 2 or Communications Decency Act 2, a name relating to its predecessor that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last fall.

The OCPA was passed and signed last October with no publicity nor debate of which I'm aware. It was trickfully worded to try to escape the ruling of the court on CDA.

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.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY: First, this secrecy by the congress and president should be disturbing to all of us. Why couldn't this be publically debated instead of "snuck in" at the last minute before the election?

Secondly, all of us should be upset at this attempt by the government to regulate our 1st amendment rights as a ploy of relieving parents of their responsibilities.

I've heard that Clinton's original Solicitor General quit in part over his embarrasment at the original CDA and his desire not to attempt to defend it. (The Solicitor General number 3 man in the justice department. Its his job to make the administration's arguments before the Court.)

Thirdly, besides their sneakiness and the unconstitutionality of it, we should think of the economic effects. The CDA would have made an ISP responsible for ALL the content crossing its lines. If anyone didn't like someones web-page he could call it obscene and take any ISP or carrier that transfered the page to court...tying up the ISPs and our courts!

Only large corporations would likely be able to maintain the legal staff to defend themselves and the technical staff to police their membership. Prices for service would go up. Small ISPs would likely not survive.

There are software packages such as NetNanny and SurfWatch or a customer can simply buy service from an ISP that does provide editorial monitoring of content. If a customer wants this service, let the customer pay for it. Protect your ISP charges... ...Protect your tax dollars... ...and protect our Bill of Rights!!

---Gary Meyer

ANY OPOSING COMMENTS MAY BE SENT TO "editor@sluug.org" for consideration for future publication.)

    St. Louis UNIX Users Group
    P.O. Box 1184
    Fenton, MO  63026-1184