Michigan!/usr/group

Virtualization with XCP-ng

Join the ZOOM meeting

This month, Tom Lawrence will be giving a presentation on XCP-ng, the Opensource virtualization platform.

XCP-ng is a Linux distribution of the Xen Project, with pre-configured Xen Hypervisor and the Xen API project (XAPI) working out-of-the-box. The project was born in 2018, following the fork of Citrix XenServer (which became “Citrix Hypervisor” and now “XenServer” again).

Tom has given several talks for MUG in the past.

From his bio on his LinkedIn profile:

I create tutorials focused on network engineering, security, and IT, drawing from my real-world experience implementing solutions. My goal is to empower people through educational tutorials to configure things securely and effectively.

Technology pushes the boundaries of our vision as we reach toward the future. I love thinking about and discussing ways we can use technology to move us towards more than just a human story.

I’m a Detroit-born technology professional who started my journey with an Atari 2600, a Tandy TRS-80, and a desire to learn how things work. I launched Lawrence Systems in 2003, growing it into a globally-recognized IT consulting and content creation band.

I’m passionate about network engineering, security and Homelab projects, and share what I’ve learned via my YouTube channel and being a part of the IT community.

We’re also going to have a quick talk about Shell history and the fc command.

1-Wire

Need a way to monitor things like temperature, or read the status of switches?
Want to be able to turn things on and off? Then the 1-Wire interface may be
for you! In this presentation, we discuss how to make your computer interface
to the outside world… easily.

Scott Balneaves is a retired systems administrator who continues to tinker with
hardware and software.

We’re also going to have a quick talk about Redirection in the shell.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, December 10, 2024, 6:30pm EST

QRCodes

This month we’ll be talking about QRCodes.

We’ll explain what they are and show a few ways to create them.

You should walk away with a much better understanding of what those things are and how you can use them.

We’re also going to have a quick talk on the Unix grep utility.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 6:30pm EST

Debugging

This month we’ll be talking about debugging.

As a special treat, for everyone who shows up to the meeting, we’ll have a free copy of Julia Evan’s Pocket Guide to Debugging.

If you don’t know about Julia Evan’s, you are in for a surprise. She creates illustrated PDFs that she calls `Zines.

Her Debugging ‘Zine is fantastic and it would normally cost you $12, but we’ve worked out a deal with Julia that allows us to give a copy to everybody who attends our meeting. The trick is, you actually have to join the meeting, either through Zoom or the Live Youtube streaming event. During the meeting, we’ll ask that anyone who wants a copy give us their email address, either through the Zoom chat or through our Mastodon channel.

We’re also going to have a quick talk on the Unix find utility.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 6:30pm EDT

Run Your Own Mail Server

It’s impossible to run your own email! Not quite. But you must do it
carefully and correctly.

This talk discusses the current state of email, with a focus on the
small independent server operator. What do you need to run your own
mail? How can you use protocols like DKIM and DMARC without wrecking
either your ability to communicate with the outside world, or your
sanity?

It can be done. It’s not actually that hard, once you understand
what’s important and what you can ignore.

About the speaker:

Michael W Lucas’ new book is, coincidentally, Run Your Own Mail
Server. He’s giving this talk on the tenth anniversary of his becoming
a full time writer, so the meeting will end with cake. It’s a virtual
meeting, so you need to bring your own cake.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, September 10, 2024, 6:30pm EDT

Unix/Linux: The basics

We’ve had a lot of requests for an Intro to Linux type of presentation so this month, we’re going to jump in and have some fun.

Here’s what we plan to cover:

• Brief History of Unix/Linux
• Entering commands at the command line
• Filesystems
• Users, Groups, permissions and sudo
• Intro to package installation
• Getting started editing files
• ssh and remote file copy (sftp,scp)
• Questions and Answers

If you are new to Unix/Linux or want to get into it, this meeting should help you get started.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 6:30pm EST

Operating System upgrades in a High Performance Computing environment: The long and winding road to Ubuntu

View the video on Youtube

Joe Ryan will be discussing how the High Performance Computing Cluster at Michigan State University transitioned to Ubuntu 22.04 from CentOS 7 and the operating system upgrade process. Constraints, challenges, OS evaluation, and a brief overview of how we transitioned users to the new operating system will be discussed.

After a full career as a U.S. Army Pilot, Joe transitioned to the technology sector and currently works as a Linux sysadmin using multiple automation tools to manage a 1000+ node High Performance Computing Cluster at Michigan State University. He’s been learning programming languages since the 80s, but he’s never had a professional developer role. In addition to playing with open source technologies in a home lab, he enjoys riding motorcycles, bicycles, and being on the water sailing or paddling.