Check out the new USENIX Web site.
LISA 2000: 14th Systems Administration Conference, 
New Orleans, December 3-8, 2000
Conference Home  | At a Glance  | Register/Hotel  | Tutorials  | Technical Sessions  |  | Exhibition  | Organizers  | Activities

Tutorials: Overview | By Day (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) | By Instructor | All in One File

Sunday, December 3, 2000    

S1 Blueprints for High Availability: Designing Resilient Distributed Systems
Evan Marcus, VERITAS Software Corporation

Who should attend: Beginning and intermediate UNIX system and network administrators, and UNIX developers concerned with building applications that can be deployed and managed in a highly resilient manner. A basic understanding of UNIX system programming, UNIX shell programming, and network environments is required.

This course will explore procedures and techniques for designing, building, and managing predictable, resilient UNIX-based systems in a distributed environment. Hardware redundancy, system redundancy, monitoring and verification techniques, network implications, and system and application programming issues will all be addressed. We will discuss the trade-offs among cost, reliability, and complexity.

Topics include:

  • What is high availability? Who needs it?
  • Defining uptime and cost; "big rules" of system design
  • Disk and data redundancy; RAID and SCSI arrays
  • Host redundancy in HA configurations
  • Network dependencies
  • Application system programming concerns
  • Anatomy of failovers: applications, systems, management tools
  • Planning disaster recovery sites and data updates
  • Security implications
  • Upgrade and patch strategies
  • Backup systems: off-site storage, redundancy, and disaster recovery
  • Managing the system: managers, processes, verification

Evan Marcus (S1) marcus_evan_l is a senior systems engineer and high availability specialist with VERITAS Software Corporation. Evan has more than 12 years of experience in UNIX systems administration. While employed at Fusion Systems and OpenVision Software, Evan worked to bring the first high availability software application for SunOS and Solaris to market. Evan is the author of several articles and talks on the design of high availability systems.




S2 Advanced Topics in EDNS and BIND9 NEW
Paul Vixie, Internet Software Consortium

Who should attend: Name-server administrators and software developers who need a deeper understanding of the DNS protocol and of the internals of BIND. Participants should already be responsible for the operation of at least one campus or ISP name-server farm, should be familiar with Internet protocols such as TCP and UDP, and should know the basic theories of public- and private-key encryption.

This tutorial will explain how EDNS, DNSSEC, etc., differ from classic DNS, and how BIND9 differs from classic BIND4/BIND8.

Topics include:

  • Incremental zone transfer
  • Real-time change notification
  • Dynamic updating
  • Current status of BIND and ISC
  • Using TSIG for queries and updates
  • An overview of DNS security
  • The politics of DNS
  • BIND Version 9

Upon completion of the course, attendees will know what the IETF has been up to lately, and what to expect in upcoming BIND releases. This tutorial will not be a rehash of prior material--new subjects will be covered.

Paul Vixie (S2) vixie_paul was the maintainer of the BIND software system through version 8. BIND, the Berkeley Internet Name Domain, includes the name server ("named") used everywhere on the Internet. Paul is also a coauthor of Sendmail: Theory and Practice (Digital Press, 1995).





S3 Topics for System Administrators, 1 NEW
Evi Nemeth, University of Colorado;
Ned McClain, XOR Network Engineering;
Tor Mohling, University of Colorado; and Adam Boggs, Sun Microsystems

Who should attend: This class will cover a range of timely and interesting UNIX system administration topics. It is intended for system and network administrators who are interested in picking up several new technologies in an accelerated manner. The format consists of five topics spread throughout the day.

Topics in file systems: This section will cover features of modern file systems and how they affect the life of a system administrator. We will survey existing file systems, ending with a brief discussion of the future of file systems and storage.

Machine room design: With the ever-increasing popularity of the Web as well as the general necessity for reliable data-access, more and more sites are requiring 24x7 server availability. We will look at the transition from small machine room to (large) data center, and what you can do to make it easier to manage cables, power, A/C, and so on.

What's new in BIND9? BINDv9 includes a long laundry list of features needed for modern architectures, huge zones, machines serving a zillion zones, co-existence with PCs, security, and IPv6--specifically, dynamic update, incremental zone transfers, DNS security via DNSSEC and TSIG, A6, and DNAME records.

Security topics: We will cover a hodgepodge of topics relating to host- and network-based security, including:

  • CFS, the crypto file system
  • TCFS, CFS's new, faster cousin
  • ipfilter: firewalling on a UNIX host
  • nmap, security auditing tool or (depending on your perspective) security hacking tool

Wireless networking: A brief look at local area networking via wireless bridges. We look at installation, compatibility, range, price, and throughput.

Evi Nemeth nemeth_evi (S3, T3), a faculty member in computer sci ence at the University of Colorado, has managed UNIX systems for the past 20 years, both from the front lines and from the ivory tower. She is co-author of the UNIX System Administration Handbook.




Ned McClain mcclain_ned (S3, T3) is a lead engineer at XOR Network Engineering. He is currently helping with the 3rd edition of the UNIX System Administration Handbook (by Nemeth, Snyder, and Hein). He has a degree in computer science from Cornell University and has done research with both the CS and Engineering Physics departments at Cornell.





S4 Hacking Exposed: LIVE! NEW
George Kurtz and Stuart McClure, Foundstone, Inc.

Who should attend: Network and system administrators, security administrators, and technical auditors who want to secure their UNIX/NT—based networks.

Is your UNIX/NT—based network infrastructure up to meeting the challenge of malicious marauders? In this tutorial we'll present the methodologies used by today's hackers to gain access to your networks and critical data. We'll demonstrate a typical attack exploiting both well-known and little-known NT-based vulnerabilities. We'll show how NT attackers can leverage UNIX vulnerabilities to circumvent traditional security mechanisms. And, during the attack, we'll identify opportunities to better secure the host and networks against more esoteric attacks. All examples will be demonstrated on a live network.

Topics include:

  • Footprinting your e-commerce site
    • Port scanning
    • Banner grabbing
  • Exploiting common configuration and design weaknesses in NT networks
    • Enumerating user and system information from NT 4 and Windows 2000 hosts
    • Exploiting Web services
    • Logging on to NT using only the password hash
    • Routing through IPX and NetBEUI networks
    • Grabbing remote shells on NT
    • Hijacking the GUI
    • Hidden trojans: executing streamed files
  • Bypassing routers and firewall filtering
    • Using source ports
    • Leveraging port redirection
    • 101 uses for Netcat
  • Linking NT and UNIX vulnerabilities for maximum exploitation
  • Securing NT systems

George Kurtz (S4) kurtz_george has performed hundreds of firewall, network, and e-commerce­related security assessments throughout his security consulting career. He is a regular speaker at many security conferences and is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, InfoWorld, USA Today, and the Associated Press and is a co-author of the widely acclaimed Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions.



Stuart McClure (S4), president and CTO of Foundstone, has over ten years of IT and security experience. He specializes in security assessments, firewall reviews, e-commerce application testing, hosts reviews, PKI technologies, intrusion detection, and incident response. For the past two years, Stuart has co-authored a weekly column on security for InfoWorld magazine. For the past four years, he has worked both with Big 5 security consulting and the InfoWorld Test Center, where he tested dozens of network and security hardware and software products. Before InfoWorld, Mr. McClure spent over seven years managing and securing networks and systems, including Cisco, Shiva, Novell, Solaris, AIX, AS/400, Window NT, and Linux, in corporate, academic, and government environments.


S5 Configuring and Administering Samba Servers NEW
Gerald Carter, VA Linux Systems

Who should attend: System and network administrators who wish to integrate Samba running on a UNIX-based machine with Microsoft Windows clients. No familiarity with Windows networking concepts will be assumed.

Samba is a freely available suite of programs that allows UNIX-based machines to provide file and print services to Microsoft Windows PCs without installing any third-party software on the clients. This allows users to access necessary resources from both PCs and UNIX workstations. As Samba makes its way into more and more network shops all over the world, it is common to see "configuring Samba servers" listed as a desired skill on many job descriptions for network administrators.

This tutorial will use real-world examples taken from daily administrative tasks.

Topics include:

  • Installing Samba from the ground up
  • The basic Microsoft networking protocols and concepts, such as NetBIOS, CIFS, and Windows NT domains (including Windows 2000)
  • Configuring a UNIX box to provide remote access to local files and printers from Microsoft Windows clients
  • Utilizing client tools to access files on Windows servers from a UNIX host
  • Configuring Samba as a member of a Windows NT domain in order to utilize the domain's PDC for user authentication
  • Using Samba as a domain controller
  • Configuring Samba to participate in network browsing
  • Automating daily management tasks

Gerald Carter carter_gerald (S5, M9) has been a member of the Samba Team since 1998 and is employed by VA Linux Systems. He is currently working with O'Reilly Publishing on a guide to LDAP for system administrators. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Auburn University, where he was also previously employed as a network and systems administrator. Gerald has published articles with various Web-based magazines such as Linuxworld and has authored instructional course for companies such as Linuxcare. He acted as the lead author of Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours (Sams Publishing.)


S6 Network Administration NEW
Bryan C. Andregg, Red Hat, Inc.

Who should attend: This tutorial is directed at system administrators who are implementing network services and are looking for a background in the configuration of those services, and for the basics of the protocols and performance tuning. Attendees should have used or been the client of an IP network and have a basic knowledge of systems administration, but do not need to be experienced network administrators. Both new network administrators and gurus will leave the tutorial having learned something.

System administrators are increasingly being tasked with bringing their office environments on-line, with the meaning of "on-line" ranging from a stand-alone client attached to the Internet to a distributed network of Web servers. The prospect of the network services to be configured can be daunting to administrators who aren't familiar with the applications. Configuration examples, discussed with brief overviews of the underlying protocols, can be taken away for direct application at home.

Topics include (with a special emphasis on security):

  • Networking overview
  • Client networking
  • Serving networked clients
  • Network services, including SSH, FTP, HTTP, SMTP, NFS, and DHCP
  • Network troubleshooting
  • Neat network tricks
  • Up-and-coming topics: VPN, IPv6

Attendees should leave the course feeling confident in their ability to set up and maintain secure network services. The tutorial will be conducted in an open manner that encourages questions at all times.

Bryan C. Andregg andregg_bryan (S6, M6) works for Red Hat, Inc. In the past three years Bryan has worked in or with almost every position at the company, sometimes to a good end. His current projects include Coffee Making 101 and Linux for Land Rovers. Prior to Red Hat, Bryan was the systems and network administrator for an ISP. His current title is "Smoke Jumper."




S7 Windows NT/2000 Performance Monitoring, Troubleshooting, and Crash Dump Analysis NEW
Jamie Hanrahan, Azius Developer Training

Who should attend: Windows NT/2000 administrators and users who want to keep their systems up and running at peak efficiency.

Why isn't my application performing as it should? Why does the file server hang after it's been up for a while? Why does this machine keep crashing? This tutorial presents various Windows NT/2000 system monitoring tools and methods from the point of view of application developers, system administrators, or IT support personnel with problems to solve. We'll review the relevant principles of the operating system and then present a number of system-failure and performance-problem scenarios, each carefully designed to illustrate the value and use of a particular analysis technique. Yes, crash dump analysis is included, but it's by no means our only focus.

Topics include:

  • Review of key principles of WinNT/Win2K operating system internals
  • Types of application-oriented problems
  • Analyzing performance bottlenecks
  • Detecting and analyzing "leaks" (memory, handles, threads, etc.)
  • Types of system failures
  • Analyzing crash dumps and system "hangs"
  • Setting up the kernel debugger and WinDbg
  • Typical and not-so-typical bugcheck codes

Jamie Hanrahan (S7) hanrahan_jamie provides Windows NT driver development, consulting, and training services to leading companies. He is co-writing a book on Windows NT device drivers, to be published by O'Reilly and Associates. He also has an extensive background in VMS device drivers and internals. He is co-author of VMS Advanced Driver Techniques and received the Instructor of the Year award while teaching VMS device drivers and internals courses for Digital.



S8 Network Security Profiles: A Collection (Hodgepodge) of Stuff Hackers Know About You
Brad Johnson, SystemExperts Corporation

Who should attend: Network, system, and firewall administrators; security auditors and those who are audited; people involved with responding to intrusions or responsible for network-based applications or systems that might be targets for crackers (determined intruders). Participants should understand the basics of TCP/IP networking. Examples will use actual tools and will also include small amounts of HTML, JavaScript, and Tcl.

Network-based host intrusions, whether they come from the Internet, an extranet, or an intranet, typically follow a common methodology: reconnaissance, vulnerability research, and exploitation. This tutorial will review the tools and techniques crackers use to perform these activities. You will learn what types of protocols and tools they use, and you will become familiar with a number of current methods and exploits. The course will show how you can generate vulnerability profiles of your own systems. Additionally, it will review some of the important management policies and issues related to these network-based probes.

The course will focus primarily on tools that exploit many of the common TCP/IP— based protocols, such as WWW, SSL, DNS, ICMP, and SNMP, which underlie virtually all Internet applications, including Web technologies, network management, and remote file systems. Some topics will be addressed at a detailed technical level. This course will concentrate on examples drawn from public-domain tools that are widely available and commonly used by crackers.

Topics include:

  • Profiles: what can an intruder determine about your site remotely?
  • Review of profiling methodologies: different "viewpoints" generate different types of profiling information
  • Techniques: scanning, on-line research, TCP/IP protocol "mis"uses, denial of service, cracking clubs
  • Important intrusion areas: discovery techniques, SSL, SNMP, WWW, DNS
  • Tools: scotty, strobe, netcat, SATAN, SAINT, ISS, mscan, sscan, queso, curl, Nmap, SSLeay/upget
  • Defining management policies to minimize intrusion risk

Topics not covered:

  • Social engineering
  • Buffer overflow exploits
  • Browser (frame) exploits
  • Shell privilege escalation

Brad Johnson (S8) johnson_brad is a vice president of SystemExperts Corporation, a consulting firm that specializes in system security and management. He is a well-known authority in the field of secure distributed systems and has recently served as a technical advisor to both Dateline NBC and CNN on network security matters. He has participated in seminal industry initiatives, including the Open Software Foundation, X/Open, and the IETF, and has often published about open systems.Brad was one of the original members of the OSF DCE Evaluation Team. He has a B.A. in computer science from Rutgers University and an M.S. from Lesley College.


S9 Storage Area Networking NEW
Dan Pollack, AOL Inc

Who should attend: System administrators and system engineers responsible for the design and implementation of storage systems. Attendees should be aware of storage systems concepts; a basic familiarity with SAN is helpful but not required.

This tutorial, taking a hands-on approach, will provide practical guidelines for the design and implementation of a functional SAN. Beginning with fundamental SAN concepts, we will work through to the implementation of a SAN. A particular focus of the tutorial will be on design models and decisions, the physical and logical SAN layout, and control and monitoring of a SAN.

The goal of the tutorial is to enable the attendee to make effective design choices for a SAN and then proceed to a successful SAN implementation, including control and monitoring of the implemented SAN.

Dan Pollack (S9) pollack_dan was introduced to UNIX in 1988 and has been a system administrator of one sort or another since 1990. He has worked in the financial, government, and on-line service industries. For the past four years he has been designing and implementing storage systems for database applications. He currently resides at America Online Incorporated in Reston, Virginia, where he is a Principal System Administrator.




S10 Perl for System Administrators NEW
David Blank-Edelman, Northeastern University College

Who should attend: System administrators with at least advanced-beginner to intermediate experience with Perl, who would like a clear understanding of how to use Perl to make their job easier.

Perl was originally created to help with system administration, so it is a wonder that there isn't more instructional material available for helping people in our field use Perl to advantage.

This tutorial hopes to begin to remedy this situation by presenting a solid three hours of instruction on using Perl for systems administration. You are also likely to deepen your knowledge of Perl.

Based on the instructor's just-published O'Reilly book, this tutorial will take a multi-platform approach to the subject. We'll be exploring cutting-edge and old standby systems-administration topics as they manifest themselves on both UNIX and Windows NT/2000 platforms.

Topics include:

  • Secure Perl scripting
  • Files and file systems (including source control, XML, databases, and log files)
  • SQL databases via DBI and ODBC
  • Email as a systems administration tool (including spam analysis)
  • Network directory services (including NIS, DNS, LDAP, ADSI)
  • Network management (including SNMP and WBEM)

David N. Blank-Edelman blank-edelman (S10, S14) is the Director of Technology at the Northeastern University College of Computer Science and the author of the new O'Reilly book Perl for System Administration. He has spent the last 14 years as a system/network administrator in large multi-platform environments including Brandeis University, Cambridge Technology Group, and the MIT Media Laboratory. He has served as Senior Technical Editor for the Perl Journal and has written many magazine articles on world music.



S11 Legal Issues for System Administrators
Daniel Appelman, Heller, Ehrman, White, and McAuliffe

Who should attend: This tutorial is designed for system administrators at all levels of experience and without regard to particular employment situations. Of course, the legal situation of the system administrator and the appropriate resolution of legal issues may vary depending on many factors, including the status of the employer. We will attempt to address these variations as they become relevant during the tutorial.

This tutorial presents an overview of the laws of cyberspace, with particular emphasis on system administrators' rights and liabilities. It then focuses on those current legal and policy developments that are most relevant to system administrators.

The format allows plenty of time to ask questions. The course aims to provide attendees with a better understanding of how the law views system administrators, of the sensitive legal issues and potential liabilities they face, and of ways they can help their employers minimize their liability.

Topics include:

  • Overview of the law and its effect on system administrators
  • Employer rights vs. employee rights
  • Defamation liability
  • Intellectual property rights
  • Your responsibilities on the job
  • How to deal with potential legal issues as they arise

Daniel Appelman appelman_dan (S11, S15) is a lawyer with a major Silicon Valley law firm. He has been practicing in the areas of cyberspace and software law for over fifteen years. Dan is the attorney for the USENIX Association and for many high-tech companies.





S12 Professional Conduct and Computer Ethics
Lee Damon, Amazon.com

Who should attend: Anyone who is a system administrator or has access to confidential information, and anyone who manages system administrators or makes policy decisions about computer systems and their users.

This introductory tutorial will start by examining some of the ethical responsibilities that come along with access to other users' data, accounts, and confidential information. We will look at several case studies, and all attendees will be encouraged to participate in the discussion. Numerous viewpoints will be considered, in order to give students a perspective from which to develop their own reasoned response to ethical challenges.

The SAGE Ethics statement will serve as our model.

Topics include:

  • Implicit expectations of ethical behavior: A sysadmin reads another person's email to see how that person feels about someone or something
  • Coercion to violate ethics: Your manager, to "get the dirt" on another manager, asks you to examine her email and files for anything "wrong"
  • Well-intentioned violations of privacy: An ISP manager asks that a customer's home directories be examined for kiddy porn
  • Collection, retention, and protection of personal data: Your site collects names, addresses, and other information on-line. What should you do or not do with that data?
  • Your fellow employee has been terminated "for cause" and their account disabled. Your manager wants you to look through their files. Should you protect their privacy? If so, how?
  • Your company buys a one-seat license for some very expensive software and tells you to duplicate it on all 1,000 hosts on your network

The answers to these and other problems are often far more complicated than one would initially guess. After completing this tutorial, you will be better able to resolve questionable situations and will have the means to support your decisions.

Lee Damon damon_lee (S12, T4) holds a B.S. in speech communica tion from Oregon State University. He has been a UNIX system administrator since 1985 and has been active in SAGE since its inception. He is a member of the SAGE Ethics Working Group and was one of the commentators on the SAGE Ethics document. He has championed awareness of ethics in the systems administration community, including writing it into policy documents.




S13 Linux: From Pieces to Prompt NEW
Ed DeHart, Prism Servers, Inc.

Who should attend: Linux enthusiasts and administrators who want to build their own systems from scratch. Hardware experience is helpful but not necessary. No previous Linux experience is needed, but you should know how to use a screwdriver.

This tutorial will help you understand what hardware will be best for your applications, so that you can avoid both underpowering your system and overstressing your budget. You will learn how to avoid certain hardware problems and still find your niche in the cheap/fast/good triad.

Topics include:

  • Finding the correct motherboard and CPU chip
  • Selecting a power supply and case
  • Picking size and speed for your disk
  • Choosing the best video board
  • Avoiding IRQ conflicts
  • Sizing the swap space
  • Loading Linux

When you have completed this tutorial, you should be able to comfortably purchase your computer hardware, load Linux, and log into the server.

Ed DeHart dehart_ed (S13, M7) is a former member of Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center, which he helped found in 1988. Ed has also owned an ISP, Pittsburgh OnLine Inc., which operated several UNIX servers. Currently, Ed is President of Prism Servers, Inc., a manufacturer of Internet firewalls and UNIX-based Internet servers.




S14 Perl Saves the Day: Writing Small Perl Programs to Get Out of Big SysAdmin Pinches NEW
David Blank-Edelman, Northeastern University College

Who should attend: System administrators with at least advanced-beginner to intermediate Perl skills.

Perl is an excellent language for rapid development and prototyping. Thanks to the power of the core language and the large body of additional modules, it is often possible to write quick programs to solve pressing problems. System administrators have no shortage of pressing problems, so knowing how to wield this "Swiss Army chain saw" can be a lifesaver.

Centered around a set of "battle stories" and the Perl source code used to deal with them, we'll discuss various approaches to solving systems administration crises using Perl. The code will be mostly UNIX-related, with a sprinkling of Windows NT/2000 examples, but the approaches won't be specific to any particular operating system. Students are welcome to bring their own pressure-cooker problems (solved or not) for class discussion.

David N. Blank-Edelman blank-edelman (S10, S14) is the Director of Technology at the Northeastern University College of Computer Science and the author of the new O'Reilly book Perl for System Administration. He has spent the last 14 years as a system/network administrator in large multi-platform environments including Brandeis University, Cambridge Technology Group, and the MIT Media Laboratory. He has served as Senior Technical Editor for the Perl Journal and has written many magazine articles on world music.



S15 Privacy and the System Administrator NEW
Daniel Appelman, Heller, Ehrman, White, and McAuliffe

Who should attend: System administrators in any employment situation and at any level of experience. Of course, the legal situation of the system administrator and the appropriate resolution of legal issues may vary depending on many factors, including the status of the employer. We will attempt to address these variations.

This tutorial focuses on the developing right of privacy in cyberspace and on how privacy expectations often conflict with other demands, including those of law enforcement generally, the protection of special categories of users such as children, and the unrestricted use of information available on the Net. We will examine the current status of privacy as an enforceable legal right and see how it fares in competition with other legal rights, such as the rights of speech and press, national security, and fair use of published information.

Particular emphasis will be put on addressing how far the system administrator's duties go in policing and enforcing the privacy rights of others. We will discuss real-life situations and the methodology for analyzing and resolving legal issues.

Daniel Appelman appelman_dan (S11, S15) is a lawyer with a major Silicon Valley law firm. He has been practicing in the areas of cyberspace and software law for over fifteen years. Dan is the attorney for the USENIX Association and for many high-tech companies.





S16 Documentation Techniques for SysAdmins NEW
Mike Ciavarella, Cybersource Pty Ltd

Who should attend: System administrators who need to produce documentation for the systems they manage or who need to improve their documentation skills.

This tutorial covers basic techniques for writing effective documentation and improving existing documentation practices. Particular emphasis is placed on documentation as a time-saving tool rather than a workload imposition.

Topics include:

  • Why sysadmins need to document
  • The documentation lifecycle
  • Targeting your audience
  • An adaptable document framework
  • Common mistakes
  • Useful tools

Mike Ciavarella (S16) has been producing and editing technical documentation since he naively agreed to write application manuals for his first employer in the early 1980s. He has been a technical editor for MacMillan Press and has been teaching system administrators about documentation for the past four years. Mike has an Honours Degree in Science from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and is currently a Senior Partner with Cybersource Pty Ltd, where he heads Cybersource's Security Practice. In his spare time, Mike is a caffeine addict and photographer. Attendees should be able to make immediate practical use of these techniques.

Monday, December 4, 2000    

M1 Network Design for High Availability NEW
Vincent C Jones, Networking Unlimited, Inc.

Who should attend: System and network designers and administrators who want to improve the availabiity of their network infrastructure and Internet access, and anyone looking for a survey of how IP networks can fail and techniques for keeping critical network services available despite failures. Attendees should already be familiar with basic network terminology and concepts, TCP/IP protocols, and the role of routers and switches. (This tutorial is designed to complement Tutorial S1, "Designing Resilient Distributed Systems--High Availability.")

No matter how the price is measured, downtime impacts the bottom line. As organizations grow ever more dependent upon computers and their support networks, hardware and software failures that interfere with business operations are increasingly seen to be unacceptable. Availability has become a key network performance metric, commensurate with throughput and delay.

We will discuss how to select and configure appropriate redundancy for common production network needs. The emphasis will be on how to take advantage of standard capabilities to make the network more reliable and to minimize the need for emergency manual intervention. Proven solutions based on open standards and protocols will be provided for a wide range of application requirements.

Topics include:

  • Providing bullet-proof network access to servers
  • Forcing dial backup calls on soft as well as hard link failures
  • Tuning popular routing protocols to speed up failure recovery
  • Building very large hub and spokes networks with small spoke routers
  • Routing around firewall failures without sacrificing security
  • Making Internet connectivity immune to the loss of a router, link, or ISP
  • Continuing to provide services despite loss of an entire facility

Vincent C. Jones (M1) jones_vincent_c is the founder and principal con sultant of Networking Unlimited, Inc., a network design consulting firm specializing in network performance and reliability enhancement. Vince has been applying the theory of networking to the solution of real-world problems for almost three decades and is the author of High Availability Network Design, to be published later this year by Addison-Wesley.




M2 System and Network Performance Tuning
Marc Staveley, Soma Networks, Inc.

Who should attend: Novice and advanced UNIX system and network administrators, and UNIX developers concerned about network performance impacts. A basic understanding of UNIX system facilities and network environments is assumed.

We will explore techniques for tuning systems, networks, and application code. Starting from a single-system view, we'll examine how the virtual memory system, the I/O system, and the file system can be measured and optimized. We'll move on to Network File System tuning and performance strategies. Detailed treatment of network performance problems, including network design and media choices, will lead to examples of network capacity planning. Application issues, such as system call optimization, memory usage and monitoring, code profiling, real-time programming, and controlling response time will be covered. Many examples will be given, along with guidelines for capacity planning and customized monitoring based on your workloads and traffic patterns. Analysis periods for particular situations will be provided.

Topics include:

  • Performance tuning strategies
    • Practical goals
    • Monitoring intervals
    • Useful statistics
    • Tools, tools, tools
  • Server tuning
    • Filesystem and disk tuning
    • Memory consumption and swap space
    • System resource monitoring
  • NFS performance tuning
    • NFS server constraints
    • NFS client improvements
    • NFS over WANs
    • Automounter and other tricks
  • Network performance, design, and capacity planning
    • Locating bottlenecks
    • Demand management
    • Media choices and protocols
    • Network topologies: bridges, switches, routers
    • Throughput and latency
    • Modeling resource usage
  • Application tuning
    • System resource usage
    • Memory allocation
    • Code profiling
    • Job scheduling and queuing
    • Real-time issues
    • Managing response time

Marc Staveley (M2) staveley_mark recently left Sun Microsystems Enterprise Services to join a start-up, where he is applying his 16 years of experience with UNIX development and administration. Previously Marc was an independent consultant and has held positions at NCR, Princeton University, and the University of Waterloo. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of standards-based development, multi-threaded programming, systems administration, and performance tuning.



M3 Sendmail Configuration and Operation (Updated for Sendmail 8.11)
Eric Allman, Sendmail, Inc.

Who should attend: System administrators who want to learn more about the sendmail program, particularly details of configuration and operational issues (this tutorial will not cover mail front ends). This will be an intense, fast-paced, full-day tutorial for people who have already been exposed to sendmail. This tutorial describes the latest release of Berkeley sendmail, version 8.11.

We begin by introducing a bit of the philosophy and history underlying sendmail.

Topics include:

  • The basic concepts of configuration: mailers, options, macros, classes, keyed files (databases), and rewriting rules and rulesets
  • Configuring sendmail using the m4 macro package
  • Day-to-day management issues, including alias and forward files, "special" recipients (files, programs, and include files), mailing lists, command-line flags, tuning, and security
  • How sendmail interacts with the Domain Name System

Eric Allman allman_eric (M3, T9) is the original author of sendmail. He is the author of syslog, tset, the -me troff macros, and trek. He was the chief programmer on the INGRES database management project, designed database user and application interfaces at Britton Lee,and contributed to the Ring Array Processor project at the International Computer Science Institute. He is a former member of the USENIX Board of Directors.




M4 Auditing--Enlisting Management Support for Change
Geoff Halprin, The SysAdmin Group

Who should attend: System administrators who are responsible for developing strategy for their sites, performing system reviews, planning improvements, or proposing expenditures to improve practices, and consultants wishing to develop their skills in planning work and communicating with clients.

As a system administrator, you know when there is a problem. But how can you convince the higher-ups that something needs to be done? The audit is the most valuable tool in your arsenal when it comes to dealing with management, because it forces a rigorous assessment of the current situation, evaluates alternatives, and results in a document that cogently addresses the problems. Audits also have the side effect of uncovering problems you didn't even know existed! An audit enables you to prove your point and also cover your back. It should be your primary tool for:

  • Convincing management that a problem exists
  • Educating management as to the true nature and complexity of your role, and how much effort is involved in doing that job well
  • Planning technical improvements to a site, including obtaining management sign-off on these projects

Audits come in many shapes and sizes. They are a basic mechanism for system review and control over entropy. This tutorial introduces the concepts and principles of audits and will examine in detail how to conduct an audit, including interviews and system inspections, and how to present the results of that work to management in the form of a formal audit report.

Topics include:

  • What an audit is
  • Audit concepts and terminology
  • Three audit perspectives
  • The 4-step audit process
  • The 5-step controlled improvement process
  • A detailed look at interviews, site inspections, and tools
  • The audit report

Geoff Halprin (M4) halprin_geoff is the principal consultant at The SysAdmin Group. He has been a system administrator for the past 15 years and a consulting system administrator for over 10. Geoff specializes in data security and systems management disciplines and in the evaluation and improvement of systems management practices. He has acted as consultant to a wide variety of organizations, including government, large corporations, and several major ISPs. Geoff is also the vice-president of the System Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and is a member of the SAGE Executive Committee.


M5 Windows NT and UNIX Integration: Problems and Solutions
Phil Cox, SystemExperts Corporation

Who should attend: System administrators who are responsible for heterogeneous WinNT- and UNIX-based systems. Attendees should have user-level knowledge of both OSes, and, preferably, systems administration experience in at least one of them.

Today's organizations choose computing solutions from a variety of vendors. Often, integrating the solutions into a seamless enterprise is a task left up to system administrators. This course covers specific issues in administering a mixture of NT and UNIX-based systems. The focus will be on practical solutions to real administration problems.

Topics include:

  • Overview of NT and UNIX
    • Basic homogeneous setups
    • Services: what's offered, and how
    • Similarities
    • Differences
    • Potential sticking points
  • Areas of interest
    • Electronic mail
    • Web servers
    • User authentication
    • File serving
    • Printing
    • Faxes and modems
    • Host-to-host connectivity
    • Remote administration
    • Backup and restore

For each of the areas we will cover:

  • Current uses in homogeneous environments
  • Where integration can happen
  • Integration solutions, how to choose one, some useful tools
  • Security considerations

Phil Cox cox_phil (M5, T2) is a consultant for SystemExperts Corporation, a consulting firm that specializes in system security and management. Phil frequently writes and lectures on issues bridging the gap between UNIX and Windows NT. He is a featured columnist in ;login;, the USENIX Association Magazine and has served on numerous USENIX program committees. Phil holds a B.S. in computer science from the College of Charleston, South Carolina.




M6 Linux Systems Administration
Bryan C. Andregg, Red Hat, Inc.

Who should attend: This tutorial is directed at system administrators who are planning on implementing a Linux solution in a production environment. Course attendees should be familiar with the basics of systems administration in a UNIX/Linux environment: user-level commands, administration commands, and TCP/IP networking. The novice administrator and the guru should both leave the tutorial having learned something.

From a single server to a network of workstations, the Linux environment can be a daunting task for administrators knowledgeable about other platforms. Starting with a single server and ending with a multi-server 1000+ user environment, case studies will provide practical information for using Linux in the real world.

Topics include (with a special emphasis on security):

  • Installation features
  • Disk partitioning and RAID
  • Networking
  • User accounts
  • Services
  • NFS and NIS
  • High-availability environments
  • The workplace
  • Up and coming in the Linux world (CODA, LVM, etc.)

Upon completion of the course, attendees should feel confident in their ability to set up and maintain a secure and useful Linux network. The tutorial allows for questions at all times.

Bryan C. Andregg andregg_bryan (S6, M6) works for Red Hat, Inc. In the past three years Bryan has worked in or with almost every position at the company, sometimes to a good end. His current projects include Coffee Making 101 and Linux for Land Rovers. Prior to Red Hat, Bryan was the systems and network administrator for an ISP. His current title is "Smoke Jumper."




M7 Internet Security for UNIX & Linux System Administrators
Ed DeHart, Prism Servers, Inc.

Who should attend: UNIX and Linux system and network administrators and operations/support staff. After completing the tutorial, you should be able to establish and maintain a site that allows the benefits of Internet connectivity while protecting your organization's information.

You will learn strategies to reduce the threat of Internet intrusions and to improve the security of your UNIX and Linux systems connected to the Internet, as well as how to set up and manage Internet services appropriate to your site's mission.

Topics include:

  • Latest news on security problems
  • UNIX and Linux system security
  • TCP/IP network security
  • Site security policies

Ed DeHart dehart_ed (S13, M7) is a former member of Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center, which he helped found in 1988. Ed has also owned an ISP, Pittsburgh OnLine Inc., which operated several UNIX servers. Currently, Ed is President of Prism Servers, Inc., a manufacturer of Internet firewalls and UNIX-based Internet servers.




M8 Topics in Windows NT/2K Systems Administration: Hot & Cool NEW
Aeleen Frisch, Exponential Consulting

Who should attend: System administrators responsible for Windows servers.

Topics include:

  • What's new in Windows 2000: An overview of the new features from a system administrator's point of view.
  • Effective group policies: How to use the new group policies in Windows 2000 as a powerful management and security tool
  • Disk management and optimizing I/O performance, including:
    • NTFS version 4 vs. 5
    • Fault tolerance and volume management features
    • Monitoring/tuning I/O performance
  • Automating administrative tasks: We will consider several levels, ranging from unattended OS installations, through the automation facilities included with the OS, to creating your own scripts and services.
  • Securing and monitoring: Windows 2000's initial release included a security vulnerability during installation. We'll look at what's needed to secure a Windows NT/2000 system and ways of monitoring to keep it secure.

Aeleen Frisch frisch_aeleen (M8, T6) has been a system administra tor for over 15 years. She currently looks after a very heterogeneous network of UNIX and Windows NT systems. She is the author of several books, including Essential Windows NT System Administration.





M9 Exploring the Potential of LDAP NEW
Gerald Carter, VA Linux Systems

Who should attend: Administrators and programmers interested in the potential of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and in exploring issues related to deploying an LDAP infrastructure. This tutorial is not designed to be a how-to for a specific LDAP server, nor is it an LDAP developers' course. Rather, it is an evaluation of the potential of LDAP to allow the consolidation of existing deployed directories. No familiarity with LDAP or other Directory Access Protocols will be assumed.

System administrators today run many directory services, though they may be called by such names as DNS and NIS. LDAP, the up-and-coming successor to the X500 directory, promises to allow administrators to consolidate multiple existing directories into one. Vendors across operating-system platforms are lending support.

Topics include:

  • The basics of LDAP
  • Current technologies employing LDAP services
  • Replacing NIS using LDAP
  • LDAP interoperability with other proprietary Directory Services, such as Novell's NDS and Microsoft's Active Directory
  • Programming tools and languages available for implementing LDAP support in applications

Gerald Carter carter_gerald (S5, M9) has been a member of the Samba Team since 1998 and is employed by VA Linux Systems. He is currently working with O'Reilly Publishing on a guide to LDAP for system administrators. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Auburn University, where he was also previously employed as a network and systems administrator. Gerald has published articles with various Web-based magazines such as Linuxworld and has authored instructional course for companies such as Linuxcare. He acted as the lead author of Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours (Sams Publishing.)


M10 Introduction to Domain Name System Administration
William LeFebvre, CNN Internet Technologies

Who should attend: System or network administrators who have been exposed to the Domain Name System only as users. A basic understanding of the IP protocols, TCP and UDP, data encapsulation, and the seven-layer model will be beneficial.

DNS, the primary method the Internet uses to name and number machines, is used to translate names like "www.usenix.org" into addresses like 131.106.3.253. Any site that is serious about joining the Internet community will need to understand how to configure and administer DNS.

This tutorial will describe the basic operation of DNS and will provide instructions and guidelines for the configuration and operation of DNS on UNIX platforms using the BIND software distribution. This class is designed for the beginner and is intended to provide a foundation for the tutorial on "Intermediate Topics in Domain Name System Administration."

Topics include:

  • DNS and BIND
  • The DNS Name Hierarchy
  • The four components of DNS
  • Iterative vs. recursive querying
  • Essential resource records: SOA, A, PTR, CNAME, NS
  • Zone transfers and secondaries
  • Vendor-specific differences

William LeFebvre lefebvre_bill (M10, M13) has been using UNIX and Internet technologies since 1983. He has written many articles on UNIX, networking, and systems administration issues. Currently he writes the monthly "Daemons & Dragons" column for UNIX Review. William is the editor of the SAGE series "Short Topics in System Administration." He has taught tutorials since 1989 for such organizations as USENIX, the Sun User Group (SUG), MIS Training Institute, IT Forum, and Great Circle Associates, and he is a certified Cisco Systems Instructor. William is the primary programmer for the popular UNIX utility top and has contributed to several widely used UNIX packages, including Wietse Venema's logdaemon package. He can be reached at wnl@groupsys.com or via https://www.groupsys.com/.


M11 Communicating with Everybody NEW
Stephen Johnson, Transmeta; Dusty White, Consultant

Who should attend: Managers and prospective managers, people who deal with a large customer base, and anyone who is interested in how people communicate and how to communicate more effectively.

When you communicate with people, do you wait for them to meet you halfway? Are you disappointed and feel at a loss if they don't? This course gives some simple-to-learn but powerful techniques to help you communicate better with everyone, even those who don't want to communicate with you. The techniques are easy and practical--we'll demonstrate them in class, then you can go practice during the conference.

Topics include:

  • Rapport: what it is and how to get it
  • Different ways people organize information, and how to communicate using each kind of representation
  • How to organize written or spoken material to be most easily understood by all kinds of people
  • Giving feedback, positive and negative
  • Intention and responsibility for communication

Stephen Johnson johnson_steve_BW (M11, M14, T11, T14) has been a technical manager on and off for nearly two decades, in both large and small companies. At AT&T, he is best known for writing Yacc, Lint, and the Portable C Compiler. He served as the head of the UNIX Languages Department at AT&T's Summit Labs. He has also been involved in a number of Silicon Valley startup companies. He served for ten years on the USENIX Board of Directors, four of them as president. He presented an invited talk on management at LISA three years ago, he has taught USENIX tutorials on technical subjects, and he has led management training seminars at LISA and the USENIX Annual Conference, as well as at Transmeta.


M12 Deploying a Console Server Application NEW
David K. Z. Harris and Bryan Stansell, Certainty Solutions

Who should attend: System administrators supporting many UNIX hosts; network administrators with large, distributed networks; security architects looking for alternative ways to control secure devices; senior administrators looking for mentoring and collaboration tools, or just trying to do more with less.

The serial console port on a host or device can give you valuable security data and allow configuration you cannot access via the operating system on most devices. Using standard equipment and the free Conserver application, you can provide your site with managed, secure remote access to the serial consoles of your hosts, network equipment, and even non-networked devices. This class will cover implementation models and Conserver installation and configuration. It will take the mystery out of hooking most serial devices up to your terminal servers.

Topics include:

  • Why use serial consoles?
  • Why use terminal servers?
  • What a client-server solution can do for you
  • How to mine information from logs
  • How to install and configure Conserver
  • How to connect all of your devices to your terminal servers

David K. Z. Harris harris_david (M12) has been a network plumber "for more than a decade," and he
likes many kinds of puzzles. He's been a member of the Technical Staff at GNAC for nearly three years. Connecting various devices together (like making networks work, or hooking up serial consoles) is just another interesting puzzle.



Bryan Stansell stansell_bryan (M12) was one of the first members of the GNAC staff and is the current keeper of the Conserver code tree, as an extension of his love of computers and programming.






M13 Intermediate Topics in Domain Name System Administration
William LeFebvre, CNN Internet Technologies

Who should attend: Network administrators with a basic understanding of DNS and its configuration, those whose need to learn how to create and delegate subdomains, and administrators planning to install BIND8. Attendees are expected either to have prior experience with DNS, including an understanding of basic operation and zone transfers, or to have attended the "Introduction to Domain Name System Administration" tutorial.

Attendees will move beyond the basics into a more thorough understanding of the overall design and implementation of DNS.

Topics include:

  • Subdomains and delegation
  • Resource records: NS, RP, MX, TXT, AAAA
  • Migration to BIND8
  • DNS management tools
  • DNS design
  • DNS and firewalls

William LeFebvre lefebvre_bill (M10, M13) has been using UNIX and Internet technologies since 1983. He has written many articles on UNIX, networking, and systems administration issues. Currently he writes the monthly "Daemons & Dragons" column for UNIX Review. William is the editor of the SAGE series "Short Topics in System Administration." He has taught tutorials since 1989 for such organizations as USENIX, the Sun User Group (SUG), MIS Training Institute, IT Forum, and Great Circle Associates, and he is a certified Cisco Systems Instructor. William is the primary programmer for the popular UNIX utility top and has contributed to several widely used UNIX packages, including Wietse Venema's logdaemon package. He can be reached at wnl@groupsys.com or via https://www.groupsys.com/.


M14 Dealing with Difficult People
Stephen Johnson, Transmeta; Dusty White, Consultant

Who should attend: Anyone who needs to deal with difficult people on the job, especially managers and those who deal with difficult clients.

Difficult co-workers may be clients, employees, peers, or managers. This tutorial will discuss what makes people difficult, and how you can deal more easily with them without knuckling under.

Topics include:

  • Reaching agreement with negative people
  • Fitting loners into your group
  • Dealing with people who do not like to plan or attend meetings
  • Giving feedback constructively
  • Dealing with difficult bosses
  • How to know when to disengage from difficult people

Stephen Johnson johnson_steve_BW (M11, M14, T11, T14) has been a technical manager on and off for nearly two decades, in both large and small companies. At AT&T, he is best known for writing Yacc, Lint, and the Portable C Compiler. He served as the head of the UNIX Languages Department at AT&T's Summit Labs. He has also been involved in a number of Silicon Valley startup companies. He served for ten years on the USENIX Board of Directors, four of them as president. He presented an invited talk on management at LISA three years ago, he has taught USENIX tutorials on technical subjects, and he has led management training seminars at LISA and the USENIX Annual Conference, as well as at Transmeta.

Tuesday, December 5, 2000    

T1 Advanced Solaris Systems Administration Topics
Peter Baer Galvin, Corporate Technologies

Who should attend: UNIX administrators who need more knowledge of Solaris administration.

We will discuss the major new features of recent Solaris releases, including which to use (and how) and which to avoid. This in-depth course will provide the information you need to run a Solaris installation effectively. Updated to include Solaris 8 and several other new topics.

Topics include:

  • Installing and upgrading
    • Architecting your facility
    • Choosing appropriate hardware
    • Planning your installation, filesystem layout, post-installation
    • Installing (and removing) patches and packages
  • Advanced features of Solaris 2
    • File systems and their uses
    • The /proc file system and commands
    • Useful tips and techniques
  • Networking and the kernel
    • Virtual IP: configuration and uses
    • Kernel and performance tuning: new features, adding devices, tuning, debuggingcommands
    • Devices: naming conventions, drivers, gotchas
  • Enhancing Solaris
    • High-availability essentials: disk failures and recovery, RAID levels, uses and performance, H-A technology and implementation
    • Performance: how to track down and break up bottlenecks
    • Tools: useful free tools, tool use strategies
    • Security: locking down Solaris, system modifications, tools
    • Resources and references

Peter Baer Galvin (T1) galvin_peter is the chief technologist for Corporate Technologies, Inc., and was the systems manager for Brown University's Computer Science Department. He has written articles for Byte and other magazines, is systems admnistration columnist for SunWorld, and is co-author of the Operating Systems Concepts and the Applied Operating Systems Concepts textbooks. As a consultant and trainer, Peter has taught tutorials on security and systems administration and has given talks at many conferences.



T2 Windows 2000 Security NEW
Phil Cox, SystemExperts Corp.; Paul B. Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Who should attend: System and network administrators who will need to implement or maintain Windows 2000—based systems and networks, and site managers charged with selecting and setting site security requirements.

The security implications of a large Windows 2000 (Win2K) deployment are not yet well understood. This tutorial presents the problems and solutions surrounding Win2K and the security of the networks it runs on. It will cover the design of Win2K from a security standpoint and outline what Win2K has "out of the box" for security, along with Win2K-related risks and appropriate countermeasures. It will conclude with specific recommendations on firewalling Win2K and offer pointers on how to "harden" the system.

Topics include:

  • Overview of Win2K
    • Domains/Active Directory
    • Authentication: Kerberos, NTLM, smart cards, certificates, PKI
    • Authorization: Group policies
    • Auditing: Event auditing, WEBM, WMI, SNMP
    • Network services
  • Security threats
    • What are the threats?
    • Who are the hackers?
    • Methods of attacks
    • Win2K—specific threats
  • Win2K countermeasures
    • Defining security
    • Authentication
    • Authorization
    • Auditing
    • Protective measures
    • Detecting and dealing with attacks
    • User and group security management
    • File system security and resource sharing
  • Firewalling Win2K
    • Defensive strategies
    • What you need to filter
  • Steps to hardening Win2K

Phil Cox cox_phil (M5, T2) is a consultant for SystemExperts Corporation, a consulting firm that specializes in system security and management. Phil frequently writes and lectures on issues bridging the gap between UNIX and Windows NT. He is a featured columnist in ;login;, the USENIX Association Magazine and has served on numerous USENIX program committees. Phil holds a B.S. in computer science from the College of Charleston, South Carolina.



Paul B. Hill (T2) is a programmer/analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working in Information Systems. He has been involved with the development of MIT's Kerberos implementation since 1991. Paul has been working with Microsoft operating systems since 1982 and has worked with all version of Windows NT. He is is the senior programmer on MIT's Project Pismere, a project to provide an academic computing environment on Windows 2000 that is integrated into MIT's existing Athena computing environment. Paul also consults on system security.


T3 Topics for System Administrators, 2 NEW
Evi Nemeth, University of Colorado;
Ned McClain, XOR Network Engineering;
Tor Mohling, University of Colorado; and Adam Boggs, Sun Microsystems

Who should attend: This class will cover a range of timely and interesting UNIX system administration topics. It is intended for system and network administrators who are interested in picking up several new technologies in an accelerated manner. The format consists of five topics spread throughout the day.

SNMP: An introduction to SNMP, followed by discussion and live examples of popular SNMP agents for Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, and others. We will look at packaged agents, freely available ones, and also command-line SNMP tools.

RRDtool and Cricket: These free network monitoring tools can be combined to create a highly customizable Web-based network management system. Those familiar with Perl will be able to apply examples from this section to almost any monitoring scenario. Although everyone understands the value of UNIX system logs, many organizations are still in the Stone Age of log management. This section will discuss popular logging strategies and several free tools to help facilitate their use.

Host security: Although the specific configuration tips apply to Linux and Solaris, the concepts are generic, applying well to other UNIX operating systems. The section will include technical discussion designed to help administrators determine weak points in their own installations.

Firewall configuration: This section will integrate ideas from the rest of the day. Examples will be drawn from Cisco and Checkpoint, but the focus will be on generic firewalling strategy. Several tools to check firewall configuration will be demonstrated.

Evi Nemeth nemeth_evi (S3, T3), a faculty member in computer sci ence at the University of Colorado, has managed UNIX systems for the past 20 years, both from the front lines and from the ivory tower. She is co-author of the UNIX System Administration Handbook.




Ned McClain mcclain_ned (S3, T3) is a lead engineer at XOR Network Engineering. He is currently helping with the 3rd edition of the UNIX System Administration Handbook (by Nemeth, Snyder, and Hein). He has a degree in computer science from Cornell University and has done research with both the CS and Engineering Physics departments at Cornell.





T4 Large Heterogeneous Networks: Planning, Building, and Maintaining Them While Staying Sane NEW
Lee Damon, Amazon.com

Who should attend: Anyone who is designing, implementing or maintaining a UNIX environment with 2 to 20,000+ hosts. System administrators, architects, and managers who need to maintain multiple hosts with few admins.

This tutorial won't propose one "perfect solution." Instead, it will try to raise all the questions you should ask in order to design the right solution for your needs.

Topics include:

  • Administrative domains: Who is responsible for what? What can users do for themselves?
  • Desktop services vs. farming: Do you do serious computation on the desktop, or do you build a compute farm?
  • Disk layout: How should you plan for an upgrade? Where do things go?
  • Free vs. purchased solutions: Do you write your own, or do you outsource?
  • Homogeneous vs. heterogeneous: Homogeneous is easier, but will it do what your users need?
  • Master database: What do you need to track, and how?
  • Policies to make your life easier
  • Push vs. pull: Do you force to each host, or wait for a client request?
  • Quick replacement techniques: How to get the user back up in 5 minutes
  • Remote install/upgrade/patching: How can you implement lights-out operation? Handle remote user sites? Keep up with vendor patches?
  • Scaling and sizing: How do you plan?
  • Security vs. sharing: Users want access to everything. So do crackers. Where and how do you draw the line?
  • Single sign-on: Can one-password access to multiple services be secure?
  • Single system images: Can you find the Holy Grail? Should each user see everything the same way, no matter what environment they're working in, or should each user's access to each service be consistent with his/her own environment?
  • Tools: What's free? What should you buy? What can you can write yourself?

The class will concentrate on UNIX, but integration with NT/2000 will also be discussed.

Lee Damon damon_lee (S12, T4) holds a B.S. in speech communication from Oregon State University. He has been a UNIX system administrator since 1985 and has been active in SAGE since its inception. He is a member of the SAGE Ethics Working Group and was one of the commentators on the SAGE Ethics document. He has championed awareness of ethics in the systems administration community, including writing it into policy documents.




T5 Wireless Networking Fundamentals: WANs, LANs, and PANs NEW
Jon Rochlis, The Rochlis Group, Inc.; Chris Murphy, MIT

Who should attend: Anyone involved with network design, implementation, and support, and content providers who need familiarity with wireless technologies and how those technologies can affect their service offerings. A basic understanding of wired network architecture over local and/or wide areas is required.

For years people have dreamed of "unwired" access--anywhere, anytime--to networks and the data they contain. Recently, the advent of standards for wireless LANs, the development of powerful handheld devices, and widespread deployment of services such as digital cellular systems have made the promise of wireless networking more realizable than ever before.

Topics include:

  • Wide-area networks
    • CDPD
    • Cellular modem
    • PCS
    • GSM
    • pager
    • satellite
  • Local-area networks
    • 802.11
  • Personal-area networks
    • Bluetooth
    • IrDA
  • Home vs. office use
  • Standards and interoperability
  • Integration with wired networks and services
  • Cost: Budget salvation, or sinkhole?
  • Support: Will you need new skills?
  • Security
  • Product survey
  • Future trends and possibilities

Jon Rochlis (T5) rochlis_jon_a is a independent consultant, providing high-level advice to large and small businesses in the areas of networking, network security, distributed systems design and management, and electronic commerce. He has been a senior consultant with SystemExperts Corp., an engineering manager with BBN Planet (now GTE), Director of the Cambridge Technology Center of OpenVision Technologies, and a technical supervisor for the Development Group of MIT's Distributed Computing and Network Services (DCNS), the follow-on to Project Athena. Jon has also served on the NEARnet Technical Committee. He holds a B.S. degree in computer science and engineering from MIT.

Chris Murphy (T5) murphy_chris is a network engineer in the Network Operations Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and his colleagues manage the design, implementation, and operation of a campuswide TCP/IP and Appletalk network of over 25,000 hosts and 18,000 users. He was responsible for the design and implementation of MIT's dial-up PPP service, Tether. Currently he is involved with an evaluation of wireless technologies in the MIT environment. Mr. Murphy is also a co-manager of MIT's Desktop Products team, which evaluates and recommends computing systems for use at the Institute.


T6 Linux Administration in Production Environments
Aeleen Frisch, Exponential Consulting

Who should attend: Both current and prospective Linux system administrators. It will cover configuring and managing Linux computer systems in production environments, with a focus on the administrative issues involved in deploying Linux systems for real-world tasks and problems arising from both commercial and R&D contexts.

Topics include:

  • Why Linux? How to justify a free operating system in a production environment
  • High-performance I/O: advanced file systems (Coda, logical volumes), disk striping, optimizing I/O performance
  • Linux and enterprise-level networking
  • High-performance compute-server environments: Beowulf, clustering, parallelization environments and facilities, CPU performance optimization
  • High-availability Linux: fault-tolerance options, UPS configuration
  • Databases and Linux
  • Linux systems in office environments
  • Automating Linux installation and configuration
  • Integrating with (other) UNIX and non-UNIX systems
  • Security considerations and techniques for production environments

Aeleen Frisch frisch_aeleen (M8, T6) has been a system administra tor for over 15 years. She currently looks after a very heterogeneous network of UNIX and Windows NT systems. She is the author of several books, including Essential Windows NT System Administration.





T7 Forensic Computing NEW
Steve Romig, Ohio State University

Who should attend: People who investigate computer crimes and are familiar with systems or network administration and the Internet.

This tutorial will explain where evidence can be found, how it can be retrieved securely, how to build a picture of the "crime scene," and what can be done beforehand to make investigations easier and more successful. Examples are drawn from UNIX, Windows NT, and telecommunications hardware.

Topics include:

  • Basic forensic science
    • What evidence is
    • How evidence is used in an investigation
    • The investigation game plan
    • How to collect and process evidence
  • Where the evidence is
    • How computers and networks work
    • Examples of incidents and location of evidence
  • Host-based investigations
    • Memory and swap space
    • Processes
    • Network activity
    • Files and file systems
  • Network-based investigations
    • Host-based network service logs
    • Network activity logs
    • Authentication logs
    • Telco logs, including pen registers, phone traces, caller ID
  • Tying it all together

Steve Romig (T7) romig_steve is in charge of the Ohio State University Incident Response Team, which provides incident response assistance, training, consulting, and security auditing service for The Ohio State University community. He is also working with a group of people from Central Ohio businesses to improve Internet security response and practices. In years past Steve has worked as lead UNIX system administrator at one site with 40,000 users and 12 hosts and another site with 3,000 users and over 500 hosts. Steve received his B.S. in mathematics (computer science track) from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983. You can reach him by phone at 1-614-688-3412 or by email at romig@net.ohio-state.edu.


T8 Advanced Topics in Perl Programming NEW
Tom Christiansen, Consultant

Who should attend: Perl programmers interested in honing their existing Perl skills for quick prototyping, system utilities, software tools, system management tasks, database access, and WWW programming. Participants should have several months' experience of basic Perl scripting.

Topics include:

  • Complex data structures
  • References
  • Memory management and anonymous data structures
  • Packages and modules
  • Namespaces, scoping, and extent
  • Classes and objects
  • Object-oriented programming
  • Process control and management
  • Pipes and signals
  • Advanced I/O techniques and file locking
  • Assorted tips and tricks to use Perl effectively

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Develop standard and OO modules
  • Understand complex and hierarchical data structures
  • Understand Perl's facilities for file locking
  • Use Perl for multi-process and daemon programming
  • Understand inheritance, closures, and scoping in Perl

Tom Christiansen (T8) christiansen_tom has been involved with Perl since day zero of its initial public release in 1987. Lead author of The Perl Cookbook, co-author of the second editions of Programming Perl and Learning Perl, and co-author of Learning Perl on Win32 Systems, Tom is also the major caretaker of Perl's online documentation. He holds undergraduate degrees in computer science and Spanish and a master's in computer science. He now lives in Boulder, Colorado.



T9 Sendmail and Security
Eric Allman, Sendmail, Inc.

Who should attend: This fast-paced tutorial is intended for UNIX administrators who are already familiar with configuring and administering sendmail and who want to learn how to convert to sendmail 8.11 or who want to understand sendmail security better, particularly on firewalls and other similar systems.

Sendmail is a powerful Mail Transport Agent that can be configured for many different environments, from firewalls through workstation mail servers. These environments have different security requirements; in particular, in a pure relay configuration (with no local user accounts or delivery) sendmail can be configured to relinquish root permissions.

Topics include:

  • How to configure sendmail on systems that have special security requirements, such as firewalls
  • How to run sendmail as anon-root
  • Running sendmail in a "chroot"ed jail
  • How and when to relax sendmail's file security checks

Eric Allman allman_eric (M3, T9) is the original author of sendmail. He is the author of syslog, tset, the -me troff macros, and trek. He was the chief programmer on the INGRES database management project, designed database user and application interfaces at Britton Lee,and contributed to the Ring Array Processor project at the International Computer Science Institute. He is a former member of the USENIX Board of Directors.




T10 Administering Backups with Legato NetWorker
W. Curtis Preston, Collective Technologies

Who should attend: System administrators involved in the design, implementation, and administration of Legato NetWorker. Participants should be familiar with basic NetWorker installation and administration. Participants who are planning to use, but are not yet using, NetWorker should review the NetWorker documentation.

Anyone who has implemented a medium to large installation of any commercial backup software package understands the challenges of such a project. This tutorial will focus on the challenges unique to Legato NetWorker, with a heavy emphasis on automation, monitoring, and reporting. The tutorial will also answer questions all NetWorker administrators find themselves asking, and it will provide scripts that can be used to automate NetWorker.

Topics include:

  • Legato architecture
    • Master servers and storage nodes
    • Media and browse index
    • NetWorker's dynamic parallelism
  • System design
    • Setting client, server, and device parallelism for optimal performance
    • Determining the future size of your Networker client indexes
    • Deciding whether a client should back up to its own library or to a remote library
    • Setting up storage node fail-over
    • Determining the number of clients to put in a class
    • Deciding how many pools to use, and why
    • Designing the bootstrap backup to reduce disaster recovery time
  • System automation and FAQs
    • How does cloning really work? How do I clone just my full backups, or clone backups that take longer than a day to clone?
    • Why does my index get corrupted, and how can I protect against it?
    • How can I improve NetWorker's email capabilities to send my bootstrap reports somewhere other than my printer? to use a different subject line when the backup fails? to send the report to my pager if the backup fails?
    • Can NetWorker tell me when I'm low on volumes, instead of waiting until I'm out?
    • How do I automate the importing, exporting, and labeling of library volumes?
    • Can NetWorker back up a Veritas snapshoted file system?
    • How do I back up Network Appliance and Auspex systems?
    • What does the Tower of Hanoi have to do with backups?
    • How to make NetWorker automatically retry failed backup jobs?
    • Is there a better way than mmrecov to recover my NetWorker server?

After completing this tutorial, participants will be able to answer these questions, will know how to avoid common pitfalls, and will have the tools necessary to completely automate their NetWorker installation.

W. Curtis Preston preston_curtis (T10, T13) is a Practice Principal for Collective Technologies and manages their Backup and Recovery Practice. He has been specializing in backup and recovery for over seven years and has designed, implemented, and audited enterprisewide backup and recovery systems for many Fortune 500 and e-commerce companies. His O'Reilly & Associates book, UNIX Backup & Recovery, has sold over 20,000 copies, and he writes a regular column for UnixReview online and SysAdmin magazine. Curtis's Web address is https://www.backupcentral.com, and he can be reached at curtis@backupcentral.com.


T11 Management 101--The Basics NEW
Stephen Johnson, Transmeta; Dusty White, Consultant

Who should attend: Newly promoted technical managers and those who expect promotion in the near future.

So you have done well at your technical job and have been asked to take on some management responsibility. You understand the technical side of the jobs your group is doing. What do you need to succeed as a manager?

This class and the accompanying "Management 102" will orient you, introduce you to the skills you will need to be most effective, and suggest ways you can guide your own growth as a manager. (N.B.: The tutorial "Communicating with Everyone" is highly recommended, but not essential.)

Topics include:

  • How to find out what your job really is
  • Developing a new definition of job satisfaction and success
  • Delegation and coaching
  • Developing your people
  • Performance reviews
  • Why being right is not enough
  • Common mistakes technical managers make

Stephen Johnson johnson_steve_BW (M11, M14, T11, T14) has been a technical manager on and off for nearly two decades, in both large and small companies. At AT&T, he is best known for writing Yacc, Lint, and the Portable C Compiler. He served as the head of the UNIX Languages Department at AT&T's Summit Labs. He has also been involved in a number of Silicon Valley startup companies. He served for ten years on the USENIX Board of Directors, four of them as president. He presented an invited talk on management at LISA three years ago, he has taught USENIX tutorials on technical subjects, and he has led management training seminars at LISA and the USENIX Annual Conference, as well as at Transmeta.


T12 What's New in Sendmail 8.11 NEW
Gregory Neil Shapiro, Sendmail, Inc.

Who should attend: UNIX system and network administrators already familiar with or responsible for sendmail, who want to learn how to move their sites to sendmail 8.11 or who want to better understand sendmail security, particularly on firewalls and other similar systems.

Sendmail 8.11, the latest release of Open Source sendmail, has many new features. In many cases mail administrators can just compile the new release of sendmail and use their old configuration files, but "power users" may wish to utilize the many new capabilities of version 8.11.

Topics include:

  • SMTP authentication, allowing users to gain additional privileges, such as ability to relay
  • Performance improvements, including multiple queues, memory-buffered pseudo-files, and more control over resolver timeouts
  • The new "message submission agent" port, as defined by RFC 2476
  • Ability to connect to servers running on named sockets
  • Changes to support IPv6
  • Better LDAP integration and support for LDAP-based routing
  • Improved support for virtual hosting
  • Several new map classes, including ph, arith, and macro

Time permitting, musings on the future direction of sendmail will be indulged in.

Gregory Neil Shapiro (T12) shapiro_gregory began his professional career as a system administrator for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) after graduating from WPI in 1992. During his tenure as senior UNIX system administrator, he became involved with beta testing the BIND name server, the sendmail mail transfer agent, and other UNIX utilities such as emacs and screen. He contributed the secure zones functionality included in BIND 4.9.X. When presented with the opportunity to join Sendmail, Inc., he packed his bags and headed west. As lead engineer at Sendmail, Inc., he has continued to support the open source version while working on Sendmail Pro and Sendmail Switch, the commercial versions.


T13 Oracle Backup and Recovery NEW
W. Curtis Preston, Collective Technologies

Who should attend: UNIX administrators who need to back up and recover their Oracle 7 or 8 database, and NT engineers who need to know more about Oracle architecture and recovery.

Topics include:

  • Oracle architecture
    • The power user's view
    • The administrator's view
  • What is a storage manager?
  • Physical backups without a storage manager
    • Cold backups
    • Hot backups
    • Automating backups with oraback.sh
  • Physical backups with a storage manager
    • Vendor-supplied managers
    • Oracle managers
    • rman scripts
  • Managing the archived redologs
  • Recovering Oracle: Steps 1—30
  • Logical backups
    • Performing a logical backup
    • Recovering with a logical backup

W. Curtis Preston preston_curtis (T10, T13) is a Practice Principal for Collective Technologies and manages their Backup and Recovery Practice. He has been specializing in backup and recovery for over seven years and has designed, implemented, and audited enterprisewide backup and recovery systems for many Fortune 500 and e-commerce companies. His O'Reilly & Associates book, UNIX Backup & Recovery, has sold over 20,000 copies, and he writes a regular column for UnixReview online and SysAdmin magazine. Curtis's Web address is https://www.backupcentral.com, and he can be reached at curtis@backupcentral.com.


T14 Management 102--Empowerment NEW
Stephen Johnson, Transmeta; Dusty White, Consultant

Who should attend: New technical managers or those who expect to be managers soon. (This is a companion tutorial to "Management 101." The tutorial on "Communicating with Everybody:" is also recommended, but not required.)

Many managers report that their job seemed very powerful when before they took it, does not feel that way now. This tutorial offers practical techniques that allow people to empower themselves and others. True empowerment comes from within and can be developed even in a hostile environment. Empowering yourself also helps you empower your employees and your boss.

Topics include:

  • A theory of power and empowerment
  • How to empower yourself, or, better said, to experience how empowered you already are
  • Common disempowering mistakes and how to remain empowered in spite of them
  • Empowerment and trust
  • How to gain and keep agreement
  • Techniques for gaining and increasing trust

Stephen Johnson johnson_steve_BW (M11, M14, T11, T14) has been a technical manager on and off for nearly two decades, in both large and small companies. At AT&T, he is best known for writing Yacc, Lint, and the Portable C Compiler. He served as the head of the UNIX Languages Department at AT&T's Summit Labs. He has also been involved in a number of Silicon Valley startup companies. He served for ten years on the USENIX Board of Directors, four of them as president. He presented an invited talk on management at LISA three years ago, he has taught USENIX tutorials on technical subjects, and he has led management training seminars at LISA and the USENIX Annual Conference, as well as at Transmeta.


?Need help? Use our Contacts page.
Last changed: 18 Oct 2000 bleu
LISA 2000 index
Events calendar
USENIX home