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Article by Peter Czanik, from Fedora Community Hungary.

Source page: https://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/2012/11/security-spin-preview-as-syslog-ng-3-3-7-is-part-of-the-upcoming-fedora-18/

The beta of Fedora 18 was supposed to be released earlier… sadly it was postponed again by two weeks, but as there are some great news regarding Fedora and syslog-ng, so I did not wait for the official release. I rather downloaded a nightly build to check it out. I did not research why the release was postponed, but personally I ran only some minor cosmetic problem during installation

As I tested in a virtual machine, the regular Fedora release was not really optimal for me, as it uses Gnome3 and needs 3D acceleration. As I don’t have 3D support, don’t like Gnome3 and I’m interested in security anyway, I downloaded the so called “security spin”. This raises two questions for those not familiar with Fedora, for which I quote the security spin website:

What is a spin? “Fedora Spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application sets and other customizations.”

What is the security spin? “The Fedora Security Lab provides a safe test environment to work on security auditing, forensics, system rescue and teaching security testing methodologies in universities and other organizations.”

Luckily for me, the security spin is equipped with LXDE, which is a light weight Desktop Environment. It does not need 3D or much system resources and it runs very fast. All of the tools are collected under the “Security Lab” menu, which is further divided based on point of interest, ranging from code analysis to wireless network security. Some of these are graphical tools, many of them console based, but even these are easily available from the menus and a console window is started for them. Most of my favorite tools are available: nmap for port scanning, nwipe for securely wiping partitions, iptraf & co for looking at network traffic and many more.

The current look and feel of the security spin is now quite boring. Just a simple blue background with some stripes on it. But it will be changed in the next few weeks, as one of the guys from the Hungarian Fedora team (which invited me to FUDcon Paris) did a very nice new artwork. It will be worth to try the security spin just for this

Now back to the reason why I originally downloaded the Fedora installer: syslog-ng. The good news is that syslog-ng 3.3.7 is now part of the release. I installed it and gave it a quick try and everything worked as expected. A big thanks goes to JPO (José Pedro Oliveira) and Mrunge (Matthias Runge), who maintain the package inside Fedora!

This story might also become part of my FOSDEM presentation next February about upstream – downstream relations: syslog-ng 3.3 used a forked version of the ivykis library instead of upstream. The syslog-ng package could not be updated to 3.3.X in Fedora until this problem was resolved and upstream ivykis worked instead of the bundled forked version. This needed a lot of work both on the syslog-ng and the ivykis side, but version 3.3.6 solved this problem and 3.3.7 entered Fedora last week.

If you want to see why to upgrade to this latest version, see the announcement blog at http://bazsi.blogs.balabit.com/2011/10/syslog-ng-3-3-1-released/

Looking forward to the next Fedora release – in my opinion will be awesome.

I think it’s time to renew and breath new life into our Freemedia Project, and this can be an good opportunity to help out our users, who are unavailable to obtain one of our media. Here at Hungary there are some people also, who has only a limited bandwith mobile access for the internet, so I have decided to help out FrancisoD – and made the hungarian version of the Freemedia Mailer template, and offered the testing if necessary….

Oh, you don’t know what is the Freemedia mailer template? Well, basically this is nothing more than an software and an printable envelope, that could protect an disc, and you are able to send with it (y)our media without any further packaging. The software [1] is targeted to fill out the template with your FAS data automagically (yes, similarly as our business card applet), and finishes with an ready to print template. FranciscoD has already made huge steps ahead with the software that creates this template [2], and the initial form looks awesome (that also proofs that we have awesome designers, thx design team!). Btw – I printed out samples, and it fits amazingly – even with sleeve. Take a look over here:

After I’m an translator – I would like to take the task to get more translation for this template, and merge it – it really everybody deserves to have one Fedora disc nearby – and the ambassadors will get one more tool to support our users out there. There are not much to translate, and takes only 10 minutes, but it makes already easier to make versatile tests, and support more of our users. So, if you want to support us – please look for me, and I will return to you the text parts that need to be translated.

[1] http://ankursinha.fedorapeople.org/fedora-freemedia-tool/

[2] http://ankursinha.fedorapeople.org/fedora-freemedia-tool/fedora-freemedia-tool-0.2-1.fc16.x86_64.rpm

Here we go, the long time awaited, and wished cheatcubes has been arrived.

I have awaited an huge, really heavy package because estimatedly 15 kg was predicted to me. So when I received the phone, that they are coming with my delivery, I just hoped that I don’t need an trolley. I report that mailman was XXL guy, and strong like an elephant, so no trolley was needed

Let’s see: the package – (counted, just for sure) 500 pcs all together from each type – english and german. 4 x 250 pcs/packages, perfectly made, cutted to form. All you need to do is glue it together (sorry two-side envelope tape for this boxes can be expensive, so a little bit DIY is needed – also it’s easier to deliver bigger amount – perhaps at next incoming amount will be made so). Folding will be not a problem, because I have asked for eased folding possbility, so where it needs to be folded – it has a spline, and you could DIY without torn in/out the cube parts. I have to mention also that all the cubes has protective film on surface, that makes shiny on the boxes, and so scratch will not harm them. After long time, we have to do is share the basic commands, and gather more and more contributors…

I think we have to talk about sharing, so if anybody needs for the upcoming events, please drop me an mail. I have already spoken with Kital, and possibly he will help me to share both types.

I would like to thank you the support from Famsco, and everybody who has helped me to make it real this package of cheatcubes.

See you guys,

Zoltan

PS: I would like to make also some stickers, usually ones – and special ones too for the keyboard later on if my time allows. But, will see.

Few weeks before I have red an call for experienced web developers, with Drupal knowledge to create our Fedora Insight. As far as I know the work with Fedora Insight flows as it’s should. But, I would like to mention something interesting – again – from Hungary, Szeged.

A group from the university has started an project, where you could freely design your own skin for drupal. So if you are interested, and maybe this could ease the design process for all fedorians who works on FI – then check it.

Target is here: http://drupalthemecreator.org/

Have a nice theming!

I have dropped the liberation fonts, because I wanted see how the new fonts are working. So, I have thought big, I have changed to default system-wide settings to Comfortaa. I could tell you that font is awesome, so amazing that I want to keep it! I feel that my search after an *clear and sharp* font has ended, but I will see it – so far, so good. All hungarian chars are included, correct, and even under 8 pt size is readable (on my 14,1 col lcd), and not blurry, spaced correctly.

I think this font is far better than anything that I have tried or used before. I think also that it has only few special char pairs has size problems (like: ˇ and  ^ or – where just drops out an “not a quite dot” in firefox tab when editing this blog entry), but that’s it. You could have an perfect generally usable font.

What I really miss from this set is a mono type version of that, but I know – couldn’t be so greedy.

Johan Aakerlund, thank you!

I know, not usual thing about to write an new contributor arrival to our Fedora planet, but I feel that has real potential to must do it. I have earlier made successful contact an with an new contributor, who wants to be a part of our Design team. I have heard about her works, and tried to reach her – because she and their classmates are creating awesome patterns, graphics, and paintings. Not many times happens that a girl directly wants to contribute their designs to our disposal under CC-BY-SA license. When we first time met, we talked a lot, and tried to show our works around Fedora – and it seemed to me that she really likes it. Her name is Sylvia (on the left), and she is the first artist from our Western Hungarian University, Szombathely – Art & Design faculty with handcraft specialisation, as textile technician. She loves creating patterns (even as beloved hobby), and mainly dealing with silk screen techniques and their implementation at school. But she has also an degree as an qualified clothes technician. As she says:

“My life now revolves around patterns and textiles. This is a most serious hobby. In my free time I like painting, sewing, batik textiles. But of course, all this while I am open to many things. I like to challenge myself. I have already into signed FAS account, and Zoltan will lead through rest of the process as my time allows (and get acquainted with Fedora Design spin), and I hope that I gain more help from Fedora designers.”

We have agreed that I need to and must visit this university to have an talk about Fedora and our Design spin. By the way, I’m not a pro in design and graphics, but I really would like to have someone who makes talk here once if I gain more contacts and succeed, because I have asked that let us in into their classroom later on.

Oh, and here is one more thing what Sylvia has left to our community through me. Her first free wave of patterns. Yeah, and she promised that there will be more, what includes clothes designs too. Currently I have these files zipped at my fedora people FTP, so if you need such files – go grab it from here. So, I’m really happy to have her on our side – and I will be on it that to get more contributors as she is.