srw
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Minutes of the Board Meeting of Wednesday, September 27, 1995
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Oct 6 04:33 UTC 1995 |
Minutes of the Board Meeting of Wednesday, September 27, 1995
Z. The meeting was called to order by Valerie Mates at 7:15 PM in the
cafeteria of ITI on Hubbard Road. In attendance were the following board
members:
Valerie Mates (popcorn) - President
Steve Weiss (srw) - Secretary
Dan Romanchik (danr) - Treasurer
John Remmers (remmers), Steve Gibbard (scg)
Rane Curl (rcurl), STeve Andre' (steve)
And the following members of the public:
Jan Wolter (janc), Mark Conger (aruba), Dave Lovelace (davel),
Scott Helmke (scott), Rob Argy (ajax)
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Y. Treasurer's report.
Danr reported that we have been doing well, and have $3000 in the bank.
He expressed concern though, that some of our down months yield insufficient
funds to pay our monthly operating costs. Dan suggested that perhaps we
should have a membership chair, and push just a little harder to get a
broader base of support.
Dan announced that he will be filing our required annual report shortly.
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X. 501(c)(3) Committee report
Rane Curl reported that there has been no progress. Rane inquired how
close we were to the level of $15000 income over 3 years. Dan indicated that
for the three years ending with 1995, we will exceed that amount for the
first time.
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W. Rehabilitation Committee report
Rane reported that he now has 4 to 5 computers set up at his house.
He needs to contact the recipients next. He is saturated with hardware, but
he does have recipients line up to receive these machines.
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V. Publicity Committee report
Misti Anslin was not present but Valerie stated that Misti had reported
by email that the "Grex Handbook" that she has been working on is almost
done.
MOTION: (steve,scg) Allocate $50 for reproduction costs for Misti's
"Grex Handbook".
PASSED (7-0)
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U. Technical Committee report
U1. There was a 24 hour period during which numerous reports came in from
people who connected to Grex via dialup and found themselves already logged
in as someone else. STeve explained that it was his hope that this was
an isolated incident due to a quirk in the OS. STeve said that he had edited
ttytab that day while the system was up, which changed the size of utmp.
If the system had failed to log people out properly this might have caused
it. There have been no repetitions.
As a consequence of this problem, Valerie and Scott worked on the modems
in an attempt to reduce the contents of the S-10 register. They found that
the modems would not remember the setting though, so this effort was in
vain.
Staff is closing this incident, in the absence of any evidence that it
is continuing.
U2. Grex has received a gift of a 16 line terminal server. Many, many thanks
to Rob Argy (ajax) for this. STeve said he has gone through the documentation,
and plans to configure a single line for a terminal (non-modem) to test
its function. STeve is only concerned about SunOS throughput if we bring
it up before the Sun-4. Nevertheless he plans to experiment with it shortly.
Scott Helmke pointed out that we could not use a limitation on ptys
to limit access to Grex from the internet if we went to this terminal
server, because users of the terminal server will also consume ptys.
Staff will think about this one.
U3. Telnetd problems - STeve reported that twice now telnetd has failed.
Failure of telnetd leaves the system up and everyone who is logged in
is unaffected, but no one can subsequently telnet to Grex, as connection
will be refused. STeve said he would post in the staff conference the correct
way for staffers to restore normal function when this happens.
U4. Dungeon Floor problems - there is now a hole in the floor, and STeve
is worried about the dust. STeve suggested we might need to use the urethane
again. Srw pointed out that tenants had complained about the odor from the
last time we did that. Scott pointed out that in some sections the floor
has a hollow sound, as if it is not supported properly. If this is the
case e can expect cracks in the floor to continue to form.
U5. Phone cable on West Liberty Street - STeve reported that he noticed a
trio of Ameritech people working on the cable. STeve talked to them and
reported that they said the phone line noise problems we have been
experiencing are likely to be improved.
U6. There is a source for Sun VME cards, who is selling them for $20,
although in lots of 5. STeve expressed the desire to pick up some SCSI
cards and possibly serial cards. Serial cards may be of no value if we
take the terminal server route, though. The board took no action.
U7. Heating - With the Sun-4 coming to the dungeon, there will be more need
to remove heat from the enclosed area. The plan is to put in a bigger fan
and exhaust it directly to the basement.
U8. The SUN-4 Software preparation -
There are 4 major areas where there is work to be done in preparing software
for the Sun-4:
(1) Marcus's code - Marcus has the code for sendmail, shadow, login, passwd,
picospan, and finger (and perhaps one or two other things).
(2) /usr/local/bin - a lot of things have been ported in this area,
but STeve promised to make a list of the things that have not been done
yet, so that staffers can divide it up and finish the job.
(3) Security Patches - CERT and other lists of security patches must be
in place, so that we are protected from the vast array of cookbook hackers
on the net.
(4) Kernel blocking patches - even though we could bring the Sun-4 up
without these (Greg has already installed our current blocking patch),
many felt that we should hold up the Sun-4 until this has been done, as
it is over a year overdue.
When the software is ready, the system will be moved to the dungeon,
and further testing will be done.
The target date for this is the last weekend in October, which is admittedly
aggressive.
U9. Certain users sharing a single ID have been causing problems on Grex
by engaging in obnoxious behavior in party, and by generally harassing other
users. Staff reports that these users were identified, and two of the three
were interviewed. They expressed remorse for what they had done, or at
least for getting caught. Perhaps they learned something valuable from this
experience.
U10. We installed a circuit breaker clamp to prevent the circuit breaker from
being reset manually. It will still reset itself if automatically if
overloaded.
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T. Verification Policy - John Remmers passed around a verification policy
which he had formulated. A few words were modified, but there was a long
discussion about whether it should be possible for trusted people, such
as staff, to relay information to the verifier. Ultimately, the wording
in this respect was left intact.
Here is the final wording of the motion:
MOTION: (remmers, steve)
(1) Anyone requesting access to Grex services for which verification
is required shall present proof of his or her identity. Members and
non-members will be held to the same verification criteria. In order
to be considered verified, a person shall submit a photocopy of an
item of acceptable identification and a signed letter requesting the
access.
(2) The acceptable items of identification are government-issued ID,
school-issued ID, library-issued ID, or a personal check written to
Cyberspace Communications Inc. by the person requesting access. To be
accepted, the item must be currently valid (i.e. not expired), must
identify the person by name, and must include additional identifying
information other than a photograph (such as home address,
passport number, or name of school).
(3) There shall be one individual, referred to hereafter as "verifier",
who is responsible for accepting verification requests and ID,
notifying the appropriate staff member(s) so that access may be
granted if the criteria of (1) and (2) are met, and notifying the
requester if the ID is not acceptable.
(4) The board shall solicit volunteers and appoint the verifier. The
term of office is one year and is renewable. Any verified user is
eligible for the post of verifier. If a volunteer for the post is not
currently verified, then for the purpose of gaining eligibility he or
she may present identification to the board that meets the criteria
enumerated in (2).
(5) In the case of personal checks submitted to the treasurer of
Cyberspace Communications Inc., the treasurer may also verify a user,
provided the check meets the criteria of (2) and is accompanied by a
signed letter as required in (1).
(6) An individual whose request for verification is denied may
appeal the decision to the board. The board's ruling on appeals
is final.
PASSED: 7-0
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S. Newsletter Report - Rane explained that there are two issues related to
newsletter progress. (1) A runoff vote, which John Remmers should arrange
to conduct before we need the vote program for a board election, and (2)
Getting the editors to start working on the first edition. An email alias
now exists - it is:
editor@cyberspace.org
And it expands to nephi, mta, lilmo, and hross. Articles or ideas for
articles should be sent to this address.
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R. Grex Manual - Danr reported that he had taken the summer off, but was
gearing up to get started on this once again. There was no progress to
report.
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Q. JCC Sale - John Remmers reported that he had rented two tables at the
upcoming JCC sale, at the cost of $80. Also Rob Argy has agreed to act
as the JCC sale coordinator. Thanks, Rob!
MOTION: (popcorn,danr) Reimburse John Remmers $80 for the rental of the
tables.
PASSED: 6-0 (remmers was temporarily absent and did not vote)
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P. Root Accounts and Dungeon Keys
At the last staff meeting the staff voted to recommend three new roots
to help with reboots, fsck cleanups, etc. All three are already on staff
in one capacity or another.
MOTION: (popcorn,steve) Authorize root access for Dave Lovelace (davel),
Rob Henderson (robh), and Scott Helmke (scott), and to authorize keys for
all root staff.
PASSED: 7-0
Commentary: There was some disagreement about whether it
was necessary to approve the issuance of keys to people with root, but
in order to make sure, that clause was added. Not all authorized keys are
actually issued. Only root staff who want and need keys will actually get
them. Danr is in charge of keeping track of the keys.
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O. Trade Marks / Service Marks
We were running late and decided to skip this item.
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N. New Business
N1 (steve) : Steve wanted to set up a group to discuss the next platform
after the Sun-4. The board decided not to take any action.
N2 (rcurl) : Rane offered this point of information:
Rane has submitted an entry for Grex to be listed on the SBI list of
privately owned Bulletin Boards. Rane asked if there had been any confirmation
to staff mail. There had not.
N3 (ajax) : Rob Argy reminded the board that he has a hard drive in our
Sun-4, which he had offered to sell to Grex for $500.
MOTION: (popcorn,scg) To authorize $500 to reimburse Rob Argy (ajax) for
the 1.7GB drive we have been using.
PASSED 7-0
N4 (ajax) : Rob asked if staff would be interested in reducing the pty
count by a few, in an attempt to experiment with controlling the worst
cases of high load. STeve pointed out that the load actually starts to get
bad when we have about 30 logged on, and he felt that this would have little
effect. The rest of the participants seemed to feel that Rob's suggestion
was a good one, because the last few ptys really do seem to make the system
even worse than when running at the level STeve would call "slow".
All agreed that this was a staff issue, but the sense of the board was
that it would work to our advantage if, within limits, we reduced the load
even if at the expense of turning people away during the heaviest times.
No action was taken.
N5 (popcorn) : Valerie reported that although the budget meeting held
last Sunday had prioritized the items, prices were not available for all
of them, so only a partial set of requests for spending was being offered.
She then offered this motion:
MOTION: (popcorn, scg): Authorize the purchase of a VME 32MB memory card
(max $500) and installation of a staff line ($40 for RJ-11 breakout box,
$0 for Ameritech installation, $20/month Ameritech monthly rate).
PASSED: 7-0
N6 (popcorn) : Kenn Capman (wolfmage) had sent her some material describing his
proposal to raise money for Grex by putting on a show. Some members said
that we need to look for any way we can to raise money, but it was late,
and there was some concern as to what Grex would need to do to make this
happen. This was tabled until next month.
M. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 PM.
Respectfully submitted, Steven R. Weiss, Secretary. (srw@cyberspace.org)
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