Large Installation Systems Administration
Ellie Young
ellie at usenix.ORG
Thu Sep 13 08:55:38 AEST 1990
Large Installation Systems Administration IV
Conference and Tutorial Program
October 17-19, 1990
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Wednesday, October 17
TUTORIAL: Topics in Large Installation Systems Administration
INSTRUCTORS: Rob Kolstad, Jeff Polk, Sun Microsystems
Evi Nemeth, Trent Hein, University of Colorado
A two-track tutorial program will be held in conjunction
with the Conference. This program allows attendees
to choose which sections of the tutorials most interest them.
Participants can change between the tracks at each topic change to the
session which appears most interesting to them. The tutorial notes will
include viewgraphs from both tutorial tracks. A box lunch is included
in the registration fee.
9:00 +---------------------------------------------------------+
| PERL, part 1 |
10:15 |- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
| [break] |
10:40 |- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
| PERL, part 2 |
11:30 |---------------------------------------------------------|
| Network Functionality | |
| SNMP, BIND | sendmail 1 |
12:30 |---------------------------------------------------------|
| - - - - l u n c h - - - - |
1:30 |---------------------------------------------------------|
| Dynamic Routing Strategies | |
| gated/egp/rip | sendmail 2 |
| NTP (time Protocol) | |
2:30 |----------------------------|----------------------------|
| Case studies: | |
| SLIP | Ethics, patents, |
| optimal NFS configs | privacy, security |
3:30 |----------------------------|----------------------------|
| [break] |
4:00 |----------------------------|----------------------------|
| Security: | question |
| Kerberos IV | and |
| COPS | answer |
5:00 +---------------------------------------------------------+
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PERL
UNIX gurus are often considered to be the "local experts"
on the entire gamut of UNIX tools: "awk", "sed", shell scripts,
and C. Each of these has its strengths and
weaknesses, along with various idiosyncrasies.
Larry Wall (famous for authoring "patch") has written another
fine program - - a complete interpretive language, called "PERL",
(Practical Extraction and Report
Language). It combines all the best features of C, "sed", "awk",
shell programming, database access, and text manipulation into one
giant, kitchen-sink language.
This combined track will leverage your C programming skills
into the PERL environment and supply you with dozens of examples so
that you can start using its power as soon as it is up on your
system.
This is a new offering.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK FUNCTIONALITY
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP):
Today it is possible to query and configure gateways and other
network building blocks from the comfort and convenience of your own
keyboard, thanks to SNMP. A brief overview of SNMP as well some
examples will be presented.
BIND (named & friends):
Dynamic name resolution is essential to any modern site
connected to the Internet as well as large independent networks.
The most popular method of name resolution is via BIND (Berkeley
Internet Name Domain server). This session will discuss how to
configure and debug the primary daemon associated with BIND
(named(8)), the resolver library routines, and debugging tools such
as nslookup(1). Familiarity with the domain hierarchy and host
addressing is assumed.
This is a new offering.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
sendmail
This session will concentrate on modifying, programming,
and debugging sendmail configuration files. Not only will syntax and
semantics be covered but also test and verification techniques. The
full two hours will allow examination of several exemplary pieces of
configuration files and a complete explication of testing and verifying
sendmail configuration files.
This is an expanded version of previous sendmail talks by Evi
Nemeth and Rob Kolstad.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DYNAMIC ROUTING STRATEGIES
How do you set up a network with redundant gateways so that if
one goes down the other steps in as a backup?
What is RIP and EGP, and when should you use them? How do you
conjure up a gated configuration file? This session will answer
these questions and more.
Network Time Protocol (NTP)
Is network time synchronization important to you? It is if your
site uses NFS and utilities like make(1). More accurate and reliable
than traditional timed(8), NTP is available for most popular machines.
Here we'll discuss what it is, and how to install and configure
it.
This is a new offering.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CASE STUDIES
SLIP: You too can have a workstation at home on the Internet!
System administrators and users alike are having
IP connectivity at home or at remote sites via a serial link. Case
studies presented in this session will describe both a single host
and a network of hosts connected (via dialup or dedicated line) to
an existing computing center via SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol).
NFS optimization: Should you put filesystems on user's local
disks or centralize them? What about in-core filesystems? What is
best for your site? This short case study discusses
a few configurations and how they worked in light and heavy networking
environments.
This is a new offering.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETHICS, PATENTS, PRIVACY, SECURITY
Dealing with large user communities leads to new problems in
data collection, patents, software licensing, security, and ethics.
This session will discuss scenarios and techniques that can be applied
by managers of large systems to insure happy, healthy and ethical user
communities.
This session is a repeat of one given at past USENIX
conferences and workshops.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
STATE-OF-THE-ART SECURITY
Kerberos IV -- Network Authentication for the 90s:
Developed at MIT/Project Athena, Kerberos is a network
authentication package which can add both security and convenience
to your networked workstation environment. This session will present
an overview of the Kerberos system and steps to install the package at
your site.
COPS -- A security sanity tool that's easy and fun to use:
A collection of tools which can be used to verify security
on UNIX machines, COPS is available from the comp.sources.unix archive.
What it checks, what its output really means to you, and
other basic UNIX security ideas will be discussed.
This is a new offering.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
This is your chance to ask a panel of "experts" your questions
about system administration.
*******************************************************************
TENTATIVE TECHNICAL PROGRAM - OCTOBER 18 - 19, 1990
Thursday, October 18
9:00 - 10:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks
Steven C. Simmons, Industrial Technology Institute
Keynote Address: Structural Revelation: Towards a
Mythology of the System
Anne G. Leonard, IBM
10:00 - 10:30 Break
10:30 - 12:00 USERS, USERS, USERS
ACMAINT: An Account Creation and Maintenance System
For Distributed UNIX Systems
David Curry, SRI International
UDB - User Data Base System
Roland J. Stolfa and Mark J. Vasoll, Oklahoma State
University
Gaud: RAND's Group and User Database
Michael Urban, The RAND Corporation
newu: Multihost User Setup
Stephen P. Schaefer, MCNC
UNIQNAME Overview
Bill Doster, University of Michigan
12:00 - 1:30 Lunch
1:30 - 2:30 PANEL: WHY DO WE KEEP RE-INVENTING THE WHEEL (AND
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?)
2:30 - 3:00 Break
3:00 - 4:30 MANAGING OUTSIDE SOFTWARE
The Depot: A Framework for Sharing Software
Installation Across Organizational and UNIX
Platform Boundaries
Ken Manheimer, Barry Warsaw, Steve Clark,
Walter Rowe, National Institute of Standards
and Technology
Guidelines and Tools for Software Maintenance in
a Productional Environment
Kevin C. Smallwood, Purdue University Computing
Center
Keeping up with the Manual System
Kevin Braunsdorf, Purdue University Computing Center
The Answer To All Man's Problems
Tom Christiansen, CONVEX Computer Corporation
Life Without Root
Steven C. Simmons, Industrial Technology Institute
Friday, October 19
9:00 - 10:30 TOOLS FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR
Trouble-MH: A Work-Queue Management System For
A >3-ring Circus
Tinsley Galyean, Trent Hein, Evi Nemeth,
University of Colorado
A Console Server
Thomas Fine, Ohio State University
Network Monitoring By Scripts
Katy Kislitzin, Computer Sciences Corporation
Using expect to Automate System Administration Tasks
Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and
Technology
Policy as a System Administration Tool
Elizabeth D. Zwicky, SRI International
Steven C. Simmons, Industrial Technology Institute
Ronald E. Dalton, Industrial Technology Institute
10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 12:00 PANEL: AUTOMATED SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION - HOW
DESIRABLE, HOW MUCH, HOW SOON
12:00 - 1:30 Lunch
1:30 - 3:00 MAIL AND BACKUPS - OLD PROBLEMS WITH NEW FACES
Integrating X.500 Directory Service into a Large
Campus Computing Environment
Timothy Howes, University of Michigan
A Domain Mail System on Dissimilar Computers -
Trials and Tribulations of SMTP
Helen E. Harrison, SAS Institute, Inc.
Backup At Ohio-State, Take 2
Steve Romig, Ohio State University
The AFS 3.0 Backup System
Steve Lammert, Transarc Corporation
3:00 - 3:30 Break
3:30 - 5:00 WORKS IN PROGRESS, CLOSING REMARKS
The registration fees are $225 for the tutorial and $200 for
USENIX members ($240 for non-members) for the technical sessions.
The conference brochure with full details has just been mailed.
For more information regarding registration for the tutorials,
technical sessions, and hotel please contact:
USENIX Conference Office
22672 Lambert Street
Suite 613
El Toro, CA 92630
TEL 714-588-8649
FAX 714-588-9706
EMAIL: judy at usenix.org
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