Hello lab volunteers and friends...

RealityLabs, the community computer lab sponsored by the Gainesville Counseling Center and located at the Highlands Community Center is making progress towards our grand opening in later this year. 

We need some board members to help steer the progress and efforts of the lab, please let me know if you are interested.  

We will meet from 10a - 4p this Saturday the 22nd with the hope to start or accomplish some or all of the items below:

• Test the recent cable drops / verify network access
• Start a shared network diagram ( I love Visio but Lucidchart is where it's at for collab), document the current FW setup.
• Get some sort of VPN up so that we can remotely access devices at the lab
• Test WiFi Access Points
• Load an internal DNS/DHCP Linux server

We are starting to discuss and plan our grand opening in early 2022. We will definitely announce that here first with weeks to spare so hopefully you can join us for that kickoff.

Lunch will be provided (typically it's pizza or subs)

...and now, the obligatory blurb about RealityLabs...

RealityLabs Background
While there are several computer rooms around Gainesville that are labeled as labs, many of them are focused on computer and internet usage, applying for jobs, building resumes, or doing minor software based web work.  Although there will be some workstations available for that type of thing, RealityLabs will provide an opportunity for those who are interested in undertaking more in-depth projects surrounding servers, networking, or cybersecurity applications as well as offering classes and help on community chosen topics for popular interests.  

Some of the projects that are planned for 2022...

• Building a wireless mesh network with 20 WiFi access points to cover the Highlands Community Center campus.
• Setting up a honeypot to trap attackers and see what techniques they use to attempt to exploit systems
• Becoming a mirror site for certain Linux and BSD distributions
• Becoming a global ntp peer
• Running a ProxMox Cluster Management system that allows for the automatic spin-up of VMs of various operating system types.

How can I get involved?
Show up at one of our workdays and meet some like minded folks and help out!  We are figuring this out as we go and the more we communicate about what each of us thinks this should look like the closer we'll get to the reality of it.

When you come for a workday, please bring tools if you have them and wear clothes that can get dirty.  A device that can get online may also be helpful (smartphone, tablet, laptop).  If you plan on working on networking gear, please bring a console cable.

The Lab is located at the end of the hallway at Highlands Community Center, which is at 1001 NE 16th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601.  Workdays are Saturdays and typically last from 10a until 3p.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.   If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this email and request to be removed. 

If you know someone who you think would like to receive updates on RealityLabs, please forward this to them (and if you're getting this but it's a forward, reply to me and ask to be on the list proper like).

We are looking for board members!  If you think you'd like to have a voice about how RealityLabs evolves, please email me and ask to be on the board.

Additional emails will follow in the upcoming weeks with a schedule when the lab will be open as well as opportunities to learn things.  At this point in time, the workdays are on Saturdays.

Thanks