Wed, 08 Mar 2006
IRC Quotes From bash.org - Command Line Tool
One of my guilty pleasures is reading through IRC quotes. I hate to think how much time I've spent reading my way through bash.org and qdb.us. While playing with
Template::Extract today I found myself needing a simple,
structured site to experiment with. And it resulted in the bash_quotes command line
tool.
The script is pretty simple, if you call it without an argument it gets
the quotes from the "Latest" page. If you call 'bash_quotes
-r' then it'll fetch a random set. You can then run it numerous
times to fill any amount of spare time. Which may not be a good thing.
I'm quite impressed with Template::Extract, it's a very neat way of
extracting data from websites without doing a lot of state retention in
your own code.
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Posted: 2006/03/08 21:11 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
LPI Exams - How do you learn best?
This years FOSDEM had some representatives from the LPI conducting exams. LPI also
did something similar at last years Linux Expo, and each time people seemed
to really like the chance to take the exams cheaply and discuss their
preparation with other candidates before the session. And then come out
bonded from the pressure :)
To me this seems to be a perfect opportunity for some group collaboration at a LUG level. The only question is how do people learn best?
After thinking about it for a while there are two ways of doing this that appeal to me. The first one is for the more advanced Linux users who just want the cert. Have a one day LPI cram (possibly on a Saturday as if it were a normal GLLUG) where people quiz each other on the different objectives and then do the exam the next day. If enough people are interested then it should be possible to get an LPI rep in to oversee the exam taking.
The downside to this is that the more advanced users, who this approach would target, don't typically come together to do things like this. From the people I've spoken to they'd be more interested in meeting up a couple of hours before the exam for some last minute chatting and then take the exam.
The second approach would be a longer term, and more suitable for people less... confident... with their skills. The group'd agree on a decent book (maybe LPI in a Nutshell 2nd Edition from O'Reilly) and then put together a rough time line, a mailing list and a (ew) wiki for people to discuss the topics, ask questions, share flashcards etc. and then study group through the objectives.
At a predetermined date get the LPI people in for an afternoon and have them conduct an exam locally. Possibly with the more advanced, self-study people, coming in for the discounted exams.
This wouldn't even have to be a single LUG thing. All the learning would be either in the privacy of your own home or on 'Net based resources (list and wiki). The only time your physical location would count is when the exams are to be taken. I assume the LPI people require a certain number of candidates before they'll send someone along. It's only in the idea stages for now but it does interest me.
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Posted: 2006/03/08 20:53 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
AppArmour Presentation - Done and Dusted!
With a mere two days notice the London Linux/Unix community managed to
pull together an impressive 22 people to see Crispin Cowan, chief
architect of AppArmor (and previously CTO and co-founder of Immunix)
present AppArmor.
The talk went down well, you can now get a video of the material from the FOSDEM AppArmor presentation and see for yourself, and afterwards the speaker came out to the pub and managed to keep a crowd entertained until the witching hour. I enjoyed it, from feedback the audience enjoyed it, and the speaker seemed to have a good time.
People to thank, for this one are: Fotango for providing a venue on short notice. Crispin for actually speaking and the audience for coming out on a cold night without much notice.
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Posted: 2006/03/08 20:49 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Know Thy Open Network ports
Which ports do your servers have open right now? How did you check?
Netstat? Are you really sure that it's doing the right thing? What the host
claims to be exporting isn't always the same as what other hosts on the
network see. When did your DNS server start exposing that TCP port? Has it
always been there?
I want a tool that keeps track of what ports a machine has open and shows me changes (and tracks when things change). It has to scan the whole port range from top to bottom and it needs to do UDP scans in under a couple of hours. Think of tripwire but for network ports. Changes have to be approved or they keep being flagged as suspicious. As a side effect it'll also show you when things go away. Hard to write? Not really. But why don't most of us already have it built and running?
It's also worth pointing out that this isn't the same role that programs like Nagios fill. You tell Nagios what to watch and it picks up changes in that limited scope. I want something to watch the whole (finite) port range and show me things I didn't think about.
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Posted: 2006/03/08 20:45 | /security | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
