[kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Puppet

Paul Nijjar paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca
Sat Mar 3 05:19:41 EST 2012


As you may know, systems administration is the ideal vocation for
those who aspire to become despotic rulers of small countries.
Managing computers requires mercilessly controlling machine
configuration, wresting away power from errant users, and fortifying
armaments with hardened package configuration and frequent upgrades.
While I'm sure Eric Gerlach does not have despotic intentions, there
is no question that he is a master of puppets -- or rather, of Puppet,
the configuration management system that allows sysadmins to manage
configuration, template new deployments, and tightly control package
management on armies of machines using a collection of text files and
a diabolical understanding of resource dependencies. In this month's
KWLUG presentation Eric will show us how we can use the Puppet
configuration system to manage our own fiefdoms of servers, as well as
how to use Nagios to monitor your installations for disobedience and
dissent.

Speaking of pulling strings, this month's FLOSS Fund nomination is the
curl/libcurl project, which provides flexible, scriptable ways to
fetch webpages from the Internet. It is a valuable tool for writing
scripts that deal with webpages, and you can read more about it at
http://curl.haxx.se . If you are so inclined, you can made a donation
at the meeting, or by contacting me.

Speaking of crawling faster, the next long-term release of Ubuntu is
scheduled to come out at the end of April, and if you read this
message in time you might be able to help make it better. The local
chapter of Ubuntu Canada (aka Darcy?) is holding an Ubuntu Global Jam
this Saturday (that's today!) at Kwartzlab. They will be testing out
the 12.04 beta and fixing things.
http://www.kwartzlab.ca/2012/02/ubuntu-global-jam-saturday/

Speaking of veins that pump with fear, the WatPy folks would like you
to know that Python training is happening. It will be held on March
19 at Kwartzlab, starting at 7pm. See http://watpy.ca for more
information.

Speaking of life burning faster, assorted Canadian legislation that
relates to privacy and copyright are making their way through the
House of Commons. A (largely non-technical) group in town called
TransitionKW is interested in running a "Conversation Cafe" on
Internet Democracy, and they are looking for people interested in the
topic to help participate and organize the event. If you are
interested, please contact Alisa at resiliantcommunities at
transitionkw.ca .

Speaking of crumbling away, this obscure reference is just about
spent, so why don't I just tell you where the meeting will be held?

St John's Kitchen
97 Victoria Street N
(Corner of Victoria and Weber)
Kitchener

There are maps and pictures on the website, some car parking at the
Worth A Second Look parking lot, and marionnette parking along the
side of the building.

- Paul




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