Self-Guided Training in the LISA Lab
The LISA Lab returns this year to bring you self-guided classes you can use to learn new skills, brush up on current skills and test your knowledge. There are no quizzes or fantastic prizes for completing the self-guided classes; just a challenge for yourself to see what you can learn.
But you won't be alone. The LISA Lab leaders will be there every step of the way to help you through your class. This isn't a competition, it's about hands-on learning and experimentation. We'll have a myriad of topics to explore. Labs can be as quick as 10 minutes and you can make them more challenging by asking the LISA Lab leaders for more options.
New this year, attendee-submitted demos! Motivated to show off your mad mad skills? Email lisa18lab@usenix.org to sign up to demo your clever project. Ready to be awed? Come by and see what others are working on. Have a great half-baked idea? Interested in sharing it with others and getting feedback? Stop by and join the couch track and discuss anything from web scale to emacs’ superiority.
Any way you look at it, there is something for everyone in the LISA Lab!
Self-Guided Training Class List
Classes listed in alphabetical order
Amazon EKS Lets Us Skip the Boring Installation Process and Get Right to the Fun Stuff!
Peter Dalbhanjan
Some of the questions that will be covered in this workshop are:
- How do we create and manage a Kubernetes cluster (we will provide instructions but also offer an option to use a self-contained environment with Kubernetes cluster already launched in the interest of time)?
- How an application is mapped to Kubernetes abstractions
- How does service discovery work between different applications?
- How to scale, generate logs, and monitor an application
- How to create a CI/CD pipeline
- How to package and deploy your application using helm charts
- How to store application configuration data in configmaps and secrets
- How to use AWS IAM roles for your application so that they can securely use other AWS services
- How to deploy and configure ingress controllers for your applications
In this code-driven workshop, you will learn how to package, deploy, scale, and monitor your application using Kubernetes and the AWS cloud.
Peter Dalbhanjan
Peter Dalbhanjan is a Solutions Architect for AWS based in Herndon, VA. Peter has a keen interest in containers, devops culture and open source. At AWS, Peter helps with designing and architecting variety of customer workloads.
Beginning Ansible
Branson Matheson, Cisco
This course will be designed as an introduction to the power of ansible across systems in a lab environment. Students will learn the basics of how ansible works, how to secure it and how to use integrations with simple services to create a powerful system to reduce risk and improve workflow.
Branson Matheson, Cisco
Branson is a 30-year veteran of system architecture, administration, and security. He started as a cryptologist for the US Navy and has since worked on NASA shuttle and aerospace projects, TSA security and monitoring systems, secure mobile communications, and Internet search engines. He has also run his own company while continuing to support many open source projects. Branson speaks to and trains sysadmins and security personnel world wide; and he is currently a senior technical lead for Cisco Cloud Services. Branson has several credentials; and generally likes to spend time responding to the statement "I bet you can't...."
DevOps with Kubernetes and Helm
Jessica Deen, Microsoft
In this session, we will show you how you can use standard DevOps practices such as infrastructure as code, continuous integration & continuous deployment, automated release and more in conjunction with Kubernetes (AKS) and Helm. For those who don’t know, Helm is a tool that streamlines installing and managing Kubernetes applications; it’s like homebrew for Kubernetes, but it’s also so much more.
Jessica Deen, Microsoft
Jessica is a Cloud Developer Advocate for Microsoft focusing on Azure, Infrastructure, cloud, and OSS. Prior to joining Microsoft, she spent over a decade as an IT Consultant / Systems Administrator for various corporate and enterprise environments, catering to end users and IT professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jessica holds two Microsoft Certifications (MCP, MSTS), 3 CompTIA certifications (A+, Network+, and Security+), 4 Apple Certifications, and is a former 4-year Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Windows and Devices for IT. In 2013, she also achieved her FEMA certification from the U.S Department of Homeland Security.
Docker Basics
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
In this lab you will learn how to install Docker, find and download a container, connect and disconnect from that container, and attach networking and storage.
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
Steve Anthony is the Systems Administrator for Lehigh University's Research Computing group, which provides High Performance Computing, storage, and related services to the University's faculty and students.
HA InfluxDB
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
In this lab you will install and configure HAproxy and influx-relay to convert the InfluxDB installation you built in the "Metrics with Influx/Grafana" lab to be replicated and load balanced, ensuring high availability.
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
Steve Anthony is the Systems Administrator for Lehigh University's Research Computing group, which provides High Performance Computing, storage, and related services to the University's faculty and students.
Kali Linux for Sysadmins: Offense
Branson Matheson, Cisco
This class will work in a structured environment and teach a student how to perform basic security tasks in a closed environment. The student will use nmap to discover vulnerabilities on a host, discuss methods to validate the vulnerabilities, and use basic command-line tools as well as metasploit to exploit these vulnerabilities.
Branson Matheson, Cisco
Branson is a 30-year veteran of system architecture, administration, and security. He started as a cryptologist for the US Navy and has since worked on NASA shuttle and aerospace projects, TSA security and monitoring systems, secure mobile communications, and Internet search engines. He has also run his own company while continuing to support many open source projects. Branson speaks to and trains sysadmins and security personnel world wide; and he is currently a senior technical lead for Cisco Cloud Services. Branson has several credentials; and generally likes to spend time responding to the statement "I bet you can't...."
Kali Linux for Sysadmins: Defense
Branson Matheson, Cisco
Kali linux is a swiss-army toolkit with many great tools that sysadmins can leverage to improve the operation and security of their environment. This will be a self-guided training session that introduces the student to the basics of network and host based scanning to evaluate a system security footprint.
Branson Matheson, Cisco
Branson is a 30-year veteran of system architecture, administration, and security. He started as a cryptologist for the US Navy and has since worked on NASA shuttle and aerospace projects, TSA security and monitoring systems, secure mobile communications, and Internet search engines. He has also run his own company while continuing to support many open source projects. Branson speaks to and trains sysadmins and security personnel world wide; and he is currently a senior technical lead for Cisco Cloud Services. Branson has several credentials; and generally likes to spend time responding to the statement "I bet you can't...."
Linux Container Internals: Lab 3 & 4
Scott McCarty, Red Hat
Have you ever wondered how Linux Containers work? How they really work, deep down inside? How does sVirt/SELinux, SECCOMP, namespaces, and isolation really work? How does the Docker Daemon work? How does Kubernetes talk to the Docker Daemon? How are container images made?
Well, we will answer these questions and more. If you want a deep technical understanding of containers, this is the lab for you. Join Red Hat engineers as we walk you through the deep, dark internals of the container host and what’s packaged in the container image. These hands on labs will give you the knowledge and confidence it takes to leverage your current Linux technical knowledge and apply it to Containers.
Scott McCarty, Red Hat
At Red Hat, Scott McCarty helps drive the roadmap around container runtimes, tools, and images within the OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. He also liaises with engineering teams, both at the product and upstream project level, to help drive innovation by using feedback from Red Hat customers and partners as drivers to enhance and tailor container features and capabilities for the real world of enterprise IT.
Metrics with Influx and Grafana
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
In this lab you will install and configure a basic InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Grafana installation, enabling you to collect metrics from the host machine and track internal performance of InfluxDB.
You will also learn how to add InfluxDB as a data source in Grafana, and create basic graphs and dashboards. Finally, you'll take your system dashboard and use the Grafana templating engine to abstract the graphs so that you can use them with multiple systems.
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
Steve Anthony is the Systems Administrator for Lehigh University's Research Computing group, which provides High Performance Computing, storage, and related services to the University's faculty and students.
SaltStack for Configuration Management
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
In this lab you will learn how to install a Salt master node, add minions to be managed by the master, write and apply state files for configuration, and template those states for more general use.
Steve Anthony, Lehigh University
Steve Anthony is the Systems Administrator for Lehigh University's Research Computing group, which provides High Performance Computing, storage, and related services to the University's faculty and students.