Hello everyone!
I just posted info about our next meeting in our slack channel. Please take
a look. If you can't access the channel, please let me know ASAP!
rich
Hello everyone!
I just posted a link to a survey in our Slack channel. We want to know what operating systems you are using in your labs. If you don't have access to our channel in Slack, please let me know ASAP.
Thanks
rich
Hello everyone!
I created a channel in the CS @ VT slack called lableads. It is a private
channel. I believe I invited/granted everyone access to that channel today.
Take a look and let me know if you don't have access. I will fix
immediately.
In the next few days we are going to put out a poll to gather some info to
help us plan upcoming training sessions.
Thanks everyone!
rich
Lab leads,
Welcome, I think we had a very productive start with our meeting. I
wanted to give you a list of departmental resources available for your
use that might help with your role as a lab lead administrator.
* Backups
We offer a robust rsync based backup solution for departmental owned
machines. We have separate deployments for research and departmental
depending on the usage. If any sensitive data is involved such as FERPA
or PII then we have to be more careful, but I just put in place an
encrypted at rest backup location. Backups will be your best recovery
option in case of a direct hack or ransomware attack. Email
techstaff(a)cs.vt.edu to get started backing up a machine.
* CS Auth
We have started to let groups use our CS authentication service for
logins to departmental machines. This would save you the burden of
having to maintain local accounts and password policies on machines. We
can create a custom group for your lab to restrict logins to just group
members if needed.
* VMs
In addition to the research VMs that Rob maintains, I have resources to
offer some VMs for departmental use. These VMs would not be appropriate
for direct research use, but could be useful as a tool for helping
administer your lab. For example, setting up a simple, VPN restricted,
Linux machine to use as a central configuration console (ansible)
instead of using your personal desktop.
* Wiki
https://wiki.cs.vt.edu is our central location where we put all of our
public documentation. This resource is available for you use as well,
just log in with your CS username/password and you will be able to
create your own documentation. This could also be used as a knowledge
database to share, even if it is just a list of links to helpful
documentation you found around the web.
* Ansible
Ansible https://www.ansible.com/ is a very powerful configuration
management tool for Linux. You can create fairly simple scripts that
will consistently configure multiple machines at once. Once VT IT
finalizes their security recommendations we (Techstaff) will likely
generate ansible based scripts to meet their recommendations and we can
share those with you. Having ansible already set up and ready to use
will save you a lot of time. Here is an example of ansible that you can
use right away: https://version.cs.vt.edu/techstaff/linux-audit It is a
stand alone version of ansible meant to run locally to meet older VT
security standards.
* Version (gitlab)
https://version.cs.vt.edu/ is an additional Gitlab deployment in the
department (https://git.cs.vt.edu is meant for teaching). I use it to
keep versioned copies of my ansible roles and scripts. It could also be
used to create documentation if you prefer Markdown instead of Mediawiki.
Chris
