Minutes for the LUG meeting.
Of July 2000.

These minutes are late. Very Late. First they got kinda stuck, then the mailing lists crashed, and then I plain forgot. Oops. Well, here goes....

Anticlimax. That would be the simplest way to describe the 22nd July Meeting of the ILUG Bangalore. There had been heated discussion and flame wars galore on the mailing list prior to this meeting regarding the formalization and organization of the ILUG Bangalore. This meeting was specifically not sponsored in order to ensure a more realistic picture of the response of the folks from Bangalore.

The meeting began with Atul in his ramble mode, who apart from other things noted that our strength had dropped from the century (yes, ONE hundred + )last time to about 75 this time. Not good! The registration issue fizzled out, and even the excitement went out as not one person disagreed or raised a point?.. nevermind! In any case, registration has become completely voluntary, so that solution solves that problem. Well, he soon handed the stage to Prof. Gurunandan Bhat, who is no stranger to the ILUG Bangalore.

Prof. Bhat first conveyed greetings from the GLUG (Goa LUG !?. : - ) ) to the ILUG Bangalore and then started an in-depth and extensive presentation of PHP. In his inimitable style, he conveyed a fantastic presentation that was replete with his accurate observations and his humorous observations. To quote just one ?? which experienced and professional CGI programmers will have no problem in doing. Will all the experienced and professional CGI programmers please stand up??..?. His presentation covered what PHP is, what is it capable of doing, and how it compares with various techniques such as Perl/CGI, JavaScript and ASP. His presentation was complete along with code that worked, unlike last time!) and a full demonstration. He finally covered session management (with a cookie less demo !) and other features of PHP4, including Zend, the optimizer for PHP.

Dr. Soundarajan then took the stage to complete and round up the firewall series that had been initiated by Gopi Garge. In another fine and extensive presentation, Dr. Soundarajan covered all aspects of firewall design right from hardware to software requirements, including a extensive coverage of one such system which he had been involved with. This was serious hand on stuff, with configuration files and other details specific to setting up a firewall. It is interesting to note that a port scan of a machine at CMACCS Bangalore(home to NAL, apart from other things) revealed serious security issues, and a complete lack of fire walling! He finally wound up his very interesting and extremely complete presentation with a set of links that could be of more use.

Atul finally completed the ongoing series on security by outlining some policy issues and management factors that are typically concerned with network security. This broad and general talk included various elements including the effect of adding services to a network, planning for the network and it?s future, dealing with various scenarios that a network administrator is likely to face when trying to run a large network and how to ensure that the network is both secure and effective.

The meeting closed with very excellent food (don?t ask me, I just ate and ate- perhaps Hotel Ashraya realizes that the LUG Bangalore can?t be taken for granted!) and some more general conversation. Some informal Q&A took place while the food was being consumed. On the whole, this meeting was a very focussed and well attended (quality, not quantity is important!). The presentations were of top quality, setting very high standards for the folks to follow. Prof. Bhat remarked later that he had rarely seen such focus and attention from a crowd as he had enjoyed during his presentation. Well, thanks Prof. Bhat for making it here and being with us!