Computer Science | Grinnell College

This Friday at CS Table, we discuss a recent security failure in Unix, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems: the Shellshock bug. Our reading is:

• Wheeler, David A. “Shellshock.” October 20, 2014. http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/shellshock.html

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. We meet on Fridays from 12:10 to 12:50 in Rosenfield 224A (the Day PDR). Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

Contact John Stone for a copy of this week's reading.

On Thursday, October 3, Adam Arsenault 2016, Jordan Yuan 2015, and Shaun Mataire 2016 will describe their summer work in MathLAN system administration:

Over the summer, we pursued a series of projects relevant to the general maintenance of a GNU/Linux network:

• configuring Puppet, an open source configuration management tool, which provided a way of centralizing package management and system configuration on all the machines in the network;
• creating and maintaining a way of installing Debian over the network to the machines in MathLAN, which dramatically sped up installation times; and
• researching new programs which would be beneficial to our end users, both the novices and the power users, and refreshing the list of system applications.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “MathLAN system administration,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

On Thursday, October 28, in Noyce 3821, Martin Dluhos 2012 will describe one of the major system-administration projects he carried out this summer: configuring and using software that automate the installation of a new version of Debian GNU/Linux on the workstations in the MathLAN, in order to make the entire process less tedious and less repetitive.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, Squeezing the MathLAN, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!