Mumd

A multi-user, multi-desktop (MUMD) computer running Ubuntu GNU/Linux that you can log into and access thousands of useful gui, terminal-based, and line-based applications on. A "shell" server for the modern age.

Why?

To bring back the old hacker culture of time sharing that was eclipsed by personal computers. From a practical perspective, this provides a central place where you can keep an active work environment going that you can access at any time, anywhere. There's liberation to be found in not having to lug a portable computer around and not being chained to a specific desk in a specific place.

Howto

Claim your account from the skullspace LAN via http://claimid.mumd.markjenkins.ca

Accounts are for members only and will be verified. Please include information in the claim process to help us verify you.

Login using ssh from the skullspace LAN to mumd.markjenkins.ca (192.168.1.10) . Login from offsite using external.mumd.markjenkins.ca

RSA key fingerprint is a4:7b:20:25:48:d8:33:41:db:ce:fb:cd:23:5a:8b:44.

VNC over ssh recommend for graphical access. (fixme: document how to do this this on Windows and GNU/Linux for noobs)

Hardware

An old AMD Athlon (family 6, model 8) clocked at 1250MHZ with 256 KB L2 cache. Asus Motherboard. 1GB of DDR SDRAM, single channel. 80GB hard disk. Property of Skullspace.

A donation of additional RAM (1G DDR DIMM), hard disk, or a better motherboard/CPU would be quite welcome.

Security challenge

Non-disruptive attempts to discover security flaws are welcome if disclosed on discovery. A possible fruitful area to look at is the claimid system, as it escalates to root via sudo to add the accounts and set the password. See if you can break it despite the paranoia that went into it, see /var/www/claimid/cgi-bin/claimid.cgi

Backups

We'll try and take some LVM snapshots from time to time and copy off site. Don't count on it, backup your stuff.

Future plans

• Get mumd.skullspace.ca delegated (again), get rid of mumd.markjenkins.ca host names
• Get a bug tracker up
• Get SMTP relaying working
• Make the system multi-user, multi-*distro* as originally planned with chroot as the choice of light-weight pseudo-virtualization. (Open to suggestions for other Linux based virtualization approaches that don't engage in system partitioning, we want users to have the chance to use all CPU and all RAM at their shared disposal. E.g., don't propose Xen or KVM). Other GNU/Linux distros that would be nice to add: Debian unstable, Arch, Gentoo, and Fedora.
• Get a web-page up where folks can log in using one of those HTML5/JS based ssh clients or the old classic Java Applet based VNC client.
• Set-up some dedicated graphical X-terminals and create a separate mumd.skullspace.ca LAN for them to run over.
• Provide a service where user's can provide their own alternative net-boot images to be PXE/tftp fed on the above described LAN, e.g. Beowolf experiments
• Organize a major capital campaign to buy a really good machine, something way better than we could hope to have donated, something that only very-well-off hackers can afford to buy personally. A top of the line machine so good that it will make the benifits of time-sharing really apparant again, as sharing something super good can sometimes be better than having something crappy all to yourself. We'll want to lock it away in the server room.
• Once we have a really great machine as per above, we can supplement the graphical terminals by installing a few consoles on the outer edge of the server room and do some structured wiring from the server to create some spots where there are USB and HDMI/DVI jacks in the wall to plug monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. into. This will allow folks to have that direct, hands on experience (not to mention the use of graphics chips) without being able to touch the server itself.