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At the GTALUG AGM: How we handle Internet services
by Evan Leibovitch 14 Dec '22

14 Dec '22

[Apologies if you received this message more than once] Hello everyone, By now you may have read or heard elsewhere about the announcement of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Greater Toronto Linux User Group (GTALUG), to be held virtually <https://blue.lpi.org/b/eva-zjc-gjy-kgl> on Tuesday December 13. Along with other AGM business, we will be discussing how GTALUG goes forward with our online services. TL;DR: A number of the people who used to set up and run our online services (mainly the website and mailing lists) have left the GTALUG Board, and those who remain have neither the time to fix nor familiarity with the tools currently running these services. As Google has provided to GTALUG its nonprofit services which include full access to commercial Google Workplace (formerly G Suite), the Board has been investigating migrating some of our online services there. While to some such a move would be controversial, the status quo is unsustainable. So either we need new people to step forward to operate what exists, or we need to move to a service -- provided free of charge -- that can dramatically simplify operations. The Board wants to have an open discussion on the issue before deciding, and the issue will be raised at the AGM. We look forward to hearing your views. While responses to this email will certainly be read, the full discussion will take place at the AGM. Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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speaker ideas for upcoming meetings
by Erica Peterson 13 Dec '22

13 Dec '22

As Evan requested during the meeting, here are two suggestions: https://mstdn.ca/@chad -- this person from Edmonton runs the mstdn.ca Canadian Mastodon instance. Probably has some interesting things to say regarding open protocols, distributed social media, and the twitter migration. Daniel Micay, lead developer of GrapheneOS (security hardened Android), local to Toronto. Cheers, Erica

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RAID SATA controller card recommendation?
by Aurelian Melinte 13 Dec '22

13 Dec '22

Hello, I am looking to get a RAID card to put my SATA HDDs in a mirror. Has to be hardware RAID for that particular machine which is quite old. Can anyone please recommend a reliable one, $250 or less? Thanks! -- -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

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How to keep using an old CIFS device
by Stewart Russell 12 Dec '22

12 Dec '22

Ever since NTLM support was removed from the kernel <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?…> last year, I've been unable to access my network scanner. It's quite old (~ 2012), but it has a huge scan area and I have a colour-calibrated workflow for it, and there's no way I could afford a suitable replacement. Curiously, for something so old, it supports AirScan, so I could resort to that, only the colour calibration is off and it needs my computer's full attention to pull scans over the network as they happen. I know no-one here has a crystal ball about where projects are going, but I'm getting a little worried that the only other way to access the scanner is via smbclient and the following options in my smb.conf: client min protocol = CORE client use spnego = no ntlm auth = ntlmv1-permitted Every time I access the share, I get the dire warning that 'The "client use spnego" option is deprecated'. The documentation has even more dire warnings about these features being removed entirely. Are there other ways to access a CIFS share? I thought there might be a fuse driver, but I can't find one. I really don't want to have to trash perfectly good hardware that's never shared outside my local LAN. thanks, Stewart

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Re: [GTALUG] At the GTALUG AGM: How we handle Internet services
by Stewart C. Russell 02 Dec '22

02 Dec '22

On 01/12/2022 02.30, ac via talk wrote: > > When "directors" or "boards" or "leaders" make decisions on policy it > affects operations. Always. and many times it is "politics" and ... Note that in our case, GTALUG directors are very close to the users. Generally, the services we have are the ones the users were interested in. I've been on the board twice, I've seen all the little cogwheels turning ... > ... then you need more automation/scripts - seriously, it cannot take that > much of your time Part of the problem is that a whole bunch of GTALUG services are held together by legacy scripts. Which the maintainer has moved on from. Which the new operator may not understand, or even know they are there. We may have lost the documentation (though it's probably in the GTALUG github, somewhere - most likely last edited by Chris). So more automations will solve some problems and create new ones too. You also can't automate moderation in any useful way There are no 'clock' problems: everything here is a 'cloud' (to appropriate Karl Popper's concept of defined, soluble problems vs indeterminate, insoluble ones). The board is burned out. It's good that folks are stepping up, but it might not be enough. Thanks, Evan, for your thoughtful answers. Whatever system we end up using must have public, web-accessible archives, as anything locked behind a user login is not a useful resource. Stewart

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Re: [GTALUG] At the GTALUG AGM: How we handle Internet services
by Evan Leibovitch 01 Dec '22

01 Dec '22

On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 5:03 AM ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > to admin a vps or two with apache/nginx and mailman with a few thousand? > subscribers is, imnsho, not a major thing and in terms of vps costs is > maybe like 10 bucks a month (for two vps) if even two is really needed > The issue is not the server or its cost, but the care and feeding of web services: - Email (multiple lists) - Aliases - Forms and surveys (*) - Website - Shareable calendar (*) The ones marked with (*) We would LIKE to do but don't yet have the tools and/or time and/or smarts to do. I have been on the mailing list for ten? years now and I do not remember > any month where gtalug had any volume that exceeds what a five bucks per > month vps can carry and a properly configured mailman (which is very > mature and can be battle hardened) We've had some very smart people running mailman and it still doesn't work to anyone's satisfaction. Or maybe it's our SMTP server, I don't know which one it is. The existing people on the Board have just become exhausted and the volunteers with the tech skills and keys to everything aren't always reachable. As volunteers I don't expect immediate tech support, but it just makes the process of constant firefighting more than we are prepared to bear. cannot take more than an hour or two per month to admin. I can only tell you that this is nowhere near the effort required, which is an insane amount of effort required for a small group like ours. > > Anything we host ourselves bears both admin resources and financial > > hosting cost. Right now we're using mailman and frankly, I see the > > bounce messages and it's almost impossible to keep track of. > > (Hint: I tried mailing this Sunday night but that bounced). I really > > don't like mailman anymore. There are better ways to filter spam. > > > if your own email to mailman is bouncing, this is probably not what you > think it is :) > It probably isn't. But I'm tired of running after other people to diagnose. > That said, I'm in no position to guarantee anything. > > > and this sentence is the crux of it. personally I do not trust google. > I can't guarantee that I'll be alive tomorrow, either. There is no reason to believe that Google for Nonprofits is going away any time this decade, and if there is I'd love to hear it. If they tried it, the outcry from the charitable world would be deafening. There are many reasons and ways to mistrust Google; this isn't one of them. it would be far easier to pay 10 bucks and get three sysadmins to each donate > an hour a month (and their scripts :) ) > That's the whole point of this conversation. We're already paying a nominal hosting fee and have volunteer sysadmins and things are still constantly borked. IT IS NOT EASIER, let alone FAR easier, our real-world experience to date bears that out. so, if you decide to continue having an emailing list and self hosted services > I would gladly donate some of my time (at least four hours a month [...] If all we had to do is threaten to move services to Google in order to get more people to volunteer, we could have done that ages ago. We're well past that. Your four hours a month are still very much valued, but we need that energy for more things than just keeping things running -- especially when we have an offer, at no cost, of commercial-grade online services. providing that there is at least one (or two) other high/senior skill > dev/sys/ops also? > See? Every volunteer effort comes with strings and limitations. So does mine. So does that for everyone else on the Board. A group this small should not need to be spending so much of its behind-the-scenes energy just herding cats. There's too much else to do that isn't being done just so we can keep the virtual lights on. - Evan

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Re: [GTALUG] At the GTALUG AGM: How we handle Internet services
by Erica Peterson 01 Dec '22

01 Dec '22

What about something like this? https://www.mailmanlists.net/en $50/year (USD) for a list with up to 1000 subscribers (prices go up from there). I'm not sure how many are on this list. I'll happily help administer if the hosting is taken care of (ie, the hosting provider handles server admin, patching, etc). Cheers, Erica ------- Original Message ------- On Thursday, December 1st, 2022 at 2:30 AM, ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 11:30:46 -0500 > Evan Leibovitch evan(a)telly.org wrote: > > <snip> > > > We've had some very smart people running mailman and it still doesn't > > work to anyone's satisfaction. Or maybe it's our SMTP server, I don't > > know which one it is. > > So, this is the place to start. > > When "directors" or "boards" or "leaders" make decisions on policy it > affects operations. Always. and many times it is "politics" and > "feelings" and without a proper understanding of the underlying real > issues. > > Some background: Re Email: GOOGLE relays almost all of the email on the > planet, with Microsoft trailing in second place and the rest of the > planet as a small minority. > > This has come about mainly because of the initial vast difference in > how abuse was handled in the past. Google and Microsoft simply > re-writes bounce messages or simply deletes/loses transmission. to be > fair most of the surviving email providers like myself, now does > exactly the same thing. We are all now lying as this is the new normal > and the other new normal is that whenever you receive any incoming relay > from Google or Microsoft there are gambling odds that it is rubbish. > Google wants and does relay vast amounts of electronic email BUT they > do not receive or act on abuse complaints via electronic mail :) > Microsoft still receives abuse complaints via email, but, in my own > personal opinion: much of the submitted email abuse complaints are > meaningless and a waste of time. > > Anyway Evan, you said that you tried sending an email to this list on > Sunday: I do not know if you received a bounce notification or if your > email just disappeared - but the nett result was probably that your > email to the list was not distributed. So, on my smtp servers what > happened would depend on the reason. For example if the Google server > Google used to relay your email was also hacked and sending out malware > not yet in anti virus strings, your email would just have silently been > deleted and you would not even have received a bounce notice - as Google > would have probably either deleted the bounce notification themselves or > they would have re-written it to something obtuse stating that failure > is due to an administrative prohibition at the recipient mail server (as > they never accept responsibility and always blame the victim for their > own abuse) > > Also, I heard the first time in 1989 that email is dead, after that > there has been a thread or news discussion almost every year stating > that email is dead. But email is just so unique in that it is > imperfect, like us and I am not so sure that it will go quietly into the > night anytime soon. Mailing lists however maybe will die, but the level > of signal to noise is just so high on other platforms (which is why IRC > never killed mailing lists..) that should a group allow their mailing > list to die, or fall into disuse, it may affect the quality, diversity > and activity of the group. > > Regarding your issues with either mailman or smtp server, you do not > seem to know or be sure: imo it is more probably the smtp server and > also probably not the smtp server itself, but the settings and > configuration policies of external free data providers. > > Also, it is quite possible that the smtp server is behaving correctly > by, for example rejecting your Sunday email - as the server your > provider may have been using may have been a compromised server and > could have been listed on RBL like Spamcop or sorbs DUL or some other > high trust DROP list. > > How these things are handled is different in different providers, but > what works best is to simply drop everything from the hacked server. > So, if for example a Google server becomes hacked and is pumping out > malware with an email from Evan, it is all rejected or dropped, > depending on policy. > > It sounds like gtalug does not have policies supported by majority of > users? > > (Should Evans email from a blocked public server be bounced - or not - > and which free block lists does gtalug trust and use for drop - how is > drop handled (bounce or nay?) etc etc etc. > > If you move the mailing list to Google you will also not have to worry > about control or policies as these will be set by Google. > > It also means that when there are REAL issues (You would not believe > this but Google is not perfect...) > 1. You will probably not know about it > 2. You will not be able to do anything about it > 3. You will probably not understand it > 4. You will do whatever Google says to resolve the issue > (Recently I had to create another @gmail account as part of the > "resolution" of a technical issue - and it took three weeks to > resolve...) > 5. etc etc etc. > > > The existing people on the Board have just become exhausted and the > > volunteers with the tech skills and keys to everything aren't always > > reachable. As volunteers I don't expect immediate tech support, but > > it just makes the process of constant firefighting more than we are > > prepared to bear. > > Well, I have also now volunteered. As I am in a different time zone > maybe this could help as I could be available when others are not? > > > cannot take more than an hour or two per month to admin. > > > > I can only tell you that this is nowhere near the effort required, > > which is an insane amount of effort required for a small group like > > ours. > > then you need more automation/scripts - seriously, it cannot take that > much of your time and even now, I have zero understanding of what you > are saying is constantly borked or what you are doing in terms of > spending so much time on? > > > > > Anything we host ourselves bears both admin resources and > > > > financial hosting cost. Right now we're using mailman and > > > > frankly, I see the bounce messages and it's almost impossible to > > > > keep track of. (Hint: I tried mailing this Sunday night but that > > > > bounced). I really don't like mailman anymore. There are better > > > > ways to filter spam. > > > > if your own email to mailman is bouncing, this is probably not what > > > > you think it is :) > > > > It probably isn't. But I'm tired of running after other people to > > diagnose. > > If the actual problem is at your chosen sender and not at gtalug - what > is the policy? > > imnsho - Policy: If the sender (You or your provider) is at fault - > there is nothing to "diagnose" or resolve at gtalug - the sender can > send again, whenever the sender provider actually works - but this is > not the current policy? - the current policy is to diagnose the issue > at gtalug or try to "whitelist" the sender (and then something else > breaks?) or what is the current policy? > > > > That said, I'm in no position to guarantee anything. > > > > > > and this sentence is the crux of it. personally I do not trust > > > google. > > > > I can't guarantee that I'll be alive tomorrow, either. > > There is no reason to believe that Google for Nonprofits is going > > away any time this decade, and if there is I'd love to hear it. If > > they tried it, the outcry from the charitable world would be > > deafening. There are many reasons and ways to mistrust Google; this > > isn't one of them. > > > > it would be far easier to pay 10 bucks and get three sysadmins to > > each donate > > > > > an hour a month (and their scripts :) ) > > > > That's the whole point of this conversation. We're already paying a > > nominal hosting fee and have volunteer sysadmins and things are still > > constantly borked. > > IT IS NOT EASIER, let alone FAR easier, our real-world experience to > > date bears that out. > > > I think I understand the "constantly borked" issues? > > You do know that the issues are very unlikely to be technical issues, > right? > > It sounds like POLICY issues and not a technical issues? > > For one, if a gtalug is attempting to relay to the list from an abusive > @google server how should this be resolved? > > - I would suggest that it is not whitelisted > - as this would also mean that there will be other issues :) > > - I would suggest a policy that the user or board member or whomever > tries re-sending or sending from a non blocked server... > > I seriously just do not understand what is constantly borked? and I am > 100% sure that whatever issues there are can be easily fixed. > > Regading wordpress hosting - It is so simple to admin a vps with > gtalug wordpress on apache with modsec rules. When combined > with cloudflare and other free services (matomo etc) and properly > configured and hardened it simply is not difficult at all. > > But again, what breaks wordpress is when there are no set rules and > when any plugin or theme from anywhere is allowed/used without someone > actually reading the code. > > imho policies, rules and protocols (if you are in control thereof) is > crucial to the non borking of anything. > > > so, if you decide to continue having an emailing list and self hosted > > services > > > > > I would gladly donate some of my time (at least four hours a month > > > [...] > > > > If all we had to do is threaten to move services to Google in order > > to get more people to volunteer, we could have done that ages ago. > > We're well past that. Your four hours a month are still very much > > valued, but we need that energy for more things than just keeping > > things running -- especially when we have an offer, at no cost, of > > commercial-grade online services. > > > > providing that there is at least one (or two) other high/senior skill > > > > > dev/sys/ops also? > > > > See? Every volunteer effort comes with strings and limitations. So > > does mine. So does that for everyone else on the Board. > > A group this small should not need to be spending so much of its > > behind-the-scenes energy just herding cats. There's too much else to > > do that isn't being done just so we can keep the virtual lights on. > > > > - Evan > > > --- > Post to this mailing list talk(a)gtalug.org > Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

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Forced off DSL by Bell
by Michael Galea 28 Nov '22

28 Nov '22

Hi, Bell notified me that they will soon be shutting down my copper telephone service, no options. My DSL to TekSavvy will go with it. Joy. I run my own NAT/mail/vpn server firewall and I want to keep it. Apparently, others have been able connect to Bell by turning on PPPoE pass through on the Bell (HH4000) modem. Has anyone on the list gone this route? Is Bell still dreadful, even on fibre? Am I crazy to look at Rogers? PS: I pay ~$40/Mo for landline, which looks to increase to $52 after the change! Robbers! -- Michael Galea

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Laptop made by Intel ?
by William Park 25 Nov '22

25 Nov '22

I just noticed "INTEL NUC M15 EVO Platform Consumer Notebook" on sale at Canada Computers. I know about NUC box, but didn't know Intel made a laptop also. Anyone heard anything bad about them?

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Volunteer for GTALUG!
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 18 Nov '22

18 Nov '22

[This is not an official announcement, just a personal request.] GTALUG could use more people on the Board of Directors. The Board is what organizes GTALUG. How to get on the board: The normal way of getting on the board is to stand for election at the Annual General Meeting. That meeting will be part of our normal December meeting. The formal annoucement should say how to put your name forward. What does a board member do? - formally: part of the governance of GTALUG - take part in monthly board meetings - members do most of the behind-the-scenes organization (organize speakers, meeting venues, web site, banking, book-keeping, outreach, and anything else that comes up) What do I do? I'm not on the board but I'm part of the "Operations Team" maintaining the web site. The board welcomes me to board meetings. If you too would like to help but don't feel up to being a director: - don't worry -- it's not that hard. But you do have to attempt to do what you promise. - voluteer to the board and they'll surely find something that you could contribute. Of course other roles are important too: - dues-paying members - meeting attendees - mailing-list participants.

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