---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash USENIX Systems Administration Conference (LISA VI) (Oct 19-23, 1992) SunFLASH Vol 45 #4 September 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: carolyn@usenix.ORG (Carolyn Carr) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix,comp.org.sug, comp.org.uniforum, comp.os.misc, comp.misc, comp.unix.admin, comp.sys.sun.admin, comp.unix.large Subject: USENIX Systems Administration Conference (LISA VI) Organization: Usenix Association Office, Berkeley October 19-23, 1992 Long Beach, California IMPORTANT CONFERENCE DATES & SCHEDULE OF EVENTS HOTEL RESERVATION DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 28, 1992 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 6;00pm - 9:00pm Opening Registration and No Host Reception MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 9:00am - 5:00pm Triple Track Systems Administration Tutorial TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 9:00am - 5:00pm Triple Track Systems Administration Tutorial 6:00pm - 10:00pm Birds of a Feather Sessions WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21 9:00am - 5:30pm Technical Sessions 6:00pm 10:00pm Birds of a Feather Sessions 3:00pm - 9:00pm Table Top Vendor Displays THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 9:30am - 5:30pm Technical Sessions 6:00pm - 8:00pm Conference Reception FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 9:30am - 5:30pm Technical Sessions LISA VI TUTORIAL PROGRAM Monday - Tuesday, October 19 and 20 The tutorial program at Long Beach is divided into three tracks with a total of six half-day tutorials on each day. Attendees selecting the Monday program will receive class notes from all Monday tracks. Tuesday's program attendees receive all Tuesday track notes. Each day, attendees will be permitted to change tracks if they feel that they would be better served with a different selection. However, to ensure adequate seating, and as a courtesy to your fellow students, we request these changes be kept to a minimum. Please note, although some prior knowledge may be needed for the advanced tutorials, each tutorial is presented as a stand-alone class (for example, a student may take "X and the Administrator - Part 2" without taking "X and the Administrator Part 1", if their knowledge or experience level permits). The USENIX tutorial program continues to experience high demand for its offerings. Several tutorials sell out before pre-registration closes. Attendance is limited, and pre-registration is strongly recommended. On-site registration is possible ONLY if space permits. Room 1 Room 2 Room 3 +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ |Kolstad,Polk| |Christiansen| | Hein,Kolstad,Nemeth | | | Intro | | Intro | | Networking | | PERL | | Sys Admin | Monday AM | Part 1 | | | | Part 1 | | | | | | | +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ |O'Neal,McNutt | Nemeth | |Hein,Kolstad,Polk | X Admin | | Domain | | Intro | | Part 1 | | Name | | Sys Admin | Monday PM | | | System | | Part 2 | | | | | | | +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ Hein,Nemeth ,Polk |Christiansen| |Hein,Kolstad,Nemeth,Polk | Networking | | Advanced | | NEW | | Part 2 | | PERL | | Topics | Tuesday AM | | | | | Part 1 | | | | | | | +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ |O'Neal,McNutt | Kolstad | |Hein,Nemeth,Polk | | | Sendmail | | NEW | | X Admin | | | | Topics | Tuesday PM | Part 2 | | | | Part 2 | | | | | | | +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ Introductory System Administration - Part 1: This half-day of intermediate material covers everything you need to know about logins (creating users and manipulating the administration files) and backups (including short descriptions of the various commercial heterogeneous backup solutions). Additionally, the session includes an introduction to the problems of security at your site and the COPS security analysis system. Introductory System Administration - Part 2: This half-day of intermediate material covers setup and operation of C news; setup and operation of your machine room; and set up and operation of the UUCP package for connecting your computer to the outside world. Networking - Part 1: This first half of the networking track includes an overview of networking and how it works; a description of how packets are switched throughout the internet; an introduction to transporting packets around your site via routers, bridges, and gateways; and a discussion of the new high speed modems and how they can foster fast, inexpensive communication. Networking - Part 2: The second half of the networking track concentrates on administration of users on a network. It includes discussions of the Network Filesystem and its configuration in addition to the use of automounters to reduce administrative overhead on medium and large networks. The last part of the day discusses SLIP, a scheme for using serial lines as a low to medium speed network connectivity tool. NEW Topics in System Administration - Part 1: The popular Topics in System Administration Series continues with all new material. The first half discusses site maintenance using rdist for shuttling files among many systems, how to organize filesystems in large, heterogeneous environments, source tree management for multiple architectures, quick configuration and installation of workstations, and accounting. NEW Topics in System Administration - Part 2: The second half of the all new material includes: use of daemons to increase privileges of non-root users, trouble management systems, text processing previewers, console concentrators, NNTP (the network news transfer program which can reduce netnews traffic on your LAN), maintenance of large mail gateways, and electronic mail privacy. NEW X and the Administrator - Part 1: This tutorial is targeted at system administrators who already know how to use X, but want to learn more about what goes on Rbehind the scenes.S It includes an overview of the different components that make up X Windows (server, clients, different vendor products, etc.). We discuss where the files required to run X are usually located and what they do. We also discuss in detail how to configure a user's environment (e.g., all the different RdotS files and environment variables). We then cover how to administer X terminals and what to look for when buying an X terminal. Finally, we discuss the tasks involved in maintaining the X source code distribution from MIT. There is also a troubleshooting section which includes hints and tips for resolving problems. NEW X and the Administrator - Part 2: This tutorial builds on the concepts learned in part 1 (or through experience administering X) and includes everything you need to know about fonts: useful utilities, converting between different font formats, and using the X11R5 font server. We include discussions on using imake and how to manage multiple versions of X. We discuss some of the security issues associated with X and what you can do to deal with these issues. We also examine how to manage X in a distributed environment with multiple server and host types. Finally, we conclude with some advanced hints and tips for troubleshooting. The Domain Name System: The Domain Name System, DNS, is a distributed database to handle hostname to IP address lookups and to help in routing mail. This session includes a look at how it arose, the problems of scale it was trying to solve, how to configure it, routine maintenance and debugging. We detail how to set-up include files, establishing primary server configuration, using tools for maintaining the forward and reverse files, configuring a resolver, handling MX records, and a bit about designing a robust name service scheme for your organization. Introduction to Perl Programming: Perl is a publicly available and highly portable interpreted programming language occupying the large niche between shell and C programming, and as such is excellent for many system management tasks. This tutorial is suitable for individuals who have never looked at Perl before or have only just begun to use it. Students with a background in UNIX shell programming and regular expressions will benefit most from this course. Topics of this tutorial include detailed descriptions and numerous examples of the syntax and semantics of the language, its data types, operators, control flow, regular expressions, and I/O facilities, and using the Perl debugger. Advanced Perl Programming: This brand-new course is designed for programmers already experienced with Perl who would like to expand their Perl expertise about sophisticated datatypes, complex networking, and advanced code conversion. Students with a firm background in both Perl and UNIX C programming will benefit most from this course. Topics of this tutorial include packages to create your own libraries, using pointers to synthesize complex data types (such as lists of lists or arrays of records), the bit vector data type and the select() system call, using h2ph and c2ph to convert and access C code, socket programming, the ioctl and fcntl system calls, and exception handling. 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 extended time will allow examination of several exemplary pieces of configuration files and a complete explication of testing and verifying sendmail configuration files - including a verification suite. The session also covers a bit of IDA Sendmail, a net-supported, rapidly evolving version of sendmail originally based on 4.3 BSD sendmail. It gives the administrator the flexibility of direct access to dbm files (among other things) and comes ready to install "as is" on almost any system. You may want to consider IDA Sendmail as the "total sendmail solution" for your site. ================================================================= About the instructors: Tom Christiansen earned a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1987 he joined CONVEX Computer Corporation where his duties have included customer support, training, systems administration, UNIX utilities and kernel development, C2 security, and creation of software tools. Tom is a member of the USENIX Association's Board of Directors, and has been teaching courses in UNIX programming and systems administration for 8 years. Trent Hein is a consultant with XOR Network Engineering, a Colorado-based firm specializing in network engineering and system administration. He is a card-carrying member of the System Administration mafia from the University of Colorado. In the past, he spent a summer with CSRG at Berkeley. Trent has taught a number of tutorials at past USENIX conferences. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science. Dr. Rob Kolstad teaches system management in a wide set of venues in addition to writing the Daemons & Dragons column for Unix Review. He is past-Secretary of the USENIX Association and editor of its newsletter, ;login:. Rob currently manages the software development program at Berkeley Software Design, Inc., a startup company marketing operating systems based on the works of Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group. Dinah McNutt is a Customer Services Consultant at TIVOLI Systems, a company specializing in distributed system administration software. Dinah is currently program manager of release 1.2 of the TIVOLI system administration software. She also consults with both customers and developers on defining requirements for system administration applications. She has been doing UNIX system administration for five years and has written articles for SunExpert Magazine, RS/Magazine, the X Resource Journal, and is currently on the staff of UNIX Review. Dinah is also on the board of directors of the Sun User Group. Dr. Evi Nemeth spent last year at Dartmouth College on leave from the University of Colorado at Boulder where she is on the Computer Science faculty. She is co-author of The UNIX System Administration Handbook, published by Prentice Hall and is a well-known authority on system administration. Miles O'Neal is a Senior Software Engineer at Pencom Software, a company specializing in UNIX software development and consulting. He is currently contracted to IBM doing customer technical support in their Advanced Workstation Division. He has also written for SunExpert Magazine and the X Resource Journal. Jeff Polk honed his system administration skills at Convex Computers, ill-fated Prisma, and Sun Microsystems before joining Berkeley Software Design, Inc., as their chief customer service agent. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Jeff co-authored CVS, the Concurrent Version System for release control, and was test engineer for Sun's Backup CoPilot. *************LISA VI TECHNICAL PROGRAM*************** WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21 9:00 - 10:00 Keynote Address: A Retrospective on Downsizing Taking a company with dozens of large mainframes into the world of workstations is the promise of 'Open Computing'. This talk discusses such an experience at a large Wall Street trading firm. Doug Kingston, Morgan Stanley and Company, Inc. Doug Kingston left Ballistic Research Laboratories to join Morgan Stanley and Company in its quest to move toward Open Systems. Doug has contributed several different software packages to the freely redistributable domain and is a pioneer in the administration of the high-pressure environments typified by Wall Street. 10:00 - 10:30 Break 10:30 - 11:30 SESSION 1A: NFS AND WORKSTATION PERFORMANCE Effective Use of Local Workstation Disks in an NFS Network Paul Anderson, University of Edinburgh Optimal Routing of IP Packets to Multi-Homed Servers Karl L. Swartz, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 11:30 - 1:00 Lunch 1:00 - 2:00 SESSION 1B : NFS AND WORKSTATION PERFORMANCE LADDIS: A Multi-Vendor and Vendor-Neutral SPEC NFS Benchmark Bruce Nelson and Andy Watson, LADDIS Group & Auspex Systems, Inc. NFS Network Loading Hal L. Stern, Brian L. Wong, Sun Microsystems Computer Company 2:00 - 2:30 Break 2:30 - 4:00 SESSION 2: UNIX AS THE ALL-PURPOSE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT Dropping the Mainframe Without Crushing the Users: Nine Months >From a Mainframe to Distributed UNIX Peter Van Epp, Bill Baines, Simon Fraser University Deployment of a Tool to Bridge Platforms at a Medium Sized Installation Grace F. Downey, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University Is Centralized System Administration the Answer? Peg Schafer, BBN 4:00 - 4:30 Break 4:30 - 5:30 SESSION 3: SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR TRAINING AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Customer Satisfaction - Metrics and Measurement Carol Kubicki, Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group Request: A Tool for Training New Sys Admins and Managing Old Ones James M. Sharp, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 9:30 - 10:30 SESSION 4A: MASS HOST CONFIGURATION AND DUPLICATION Beyond Cloned Hosts Elizabeth D. Zwicky, SRI International So Many Workstations, So Little Time Helen Harrison, SAS Institute, Inc. 10:30 - 11:00 Break 11:00 - 12:00 SESSION 4B: MASS HOST CONFIGURATION AND DUPLICATION Mkserv - Workstation Customization and Privatization Ezra Peisach, MIT AUTOLOAD: The Network Management System Dieter Pukatzki, Johann Schumann, lett - Computer GmbH 12:00 - 1:30 Lunch 1:30 - 3:30 SESSION 5 - SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION POTPOURRI I ipasswd - Proactive Password Security Jarkko Hietaniemi, Helsinki University of Technology DeeJay: The Dump Jockey and Daemon of the Jukebox A Heterogeneous Network Backup System Melissa Metz, Howie Kaye, Columbia University Dealing with Lame Delegations Bryan Beecher, University of Michigan Majordomo: How I Manage 17 Mailing Lists Without Answering "-request" Mail D. Brent Chapman, Great Circle Associates 3:30 - 4:00 Break 4:00 - 5:30 SESSION 6 - DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT I SysView: A User-Friendly Environment for the Administration of Distributed UNIX Systems Philippe Coq, Bull S.A. (France) Depot: A Tool for Managing Software Environments Walter Wong and Wallace Colyer, Computing Services, Carnegie Mellon University Software Distribution and Management in a Networked Environment Raj Varadarajan, AT&T FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 9:30 - 11:00 SESSION 7: DISTRIBUTED CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT Nightly: How to Handle Multiple Scripts on Multiple Machines with One Configuration File Jeff Okamoto, Hewlett Packard Overhauling Rdist for the '90s Michael A. Cooper, University of Southern California doit: A Network Software Management Tool Mark Fletcher, SAS Institute Inc. 11:00 - 11:30 Break 11:30 - 12:30 SESSION 8: MONITORING SYSTEM AND USER PROBLEMS PITS: A Request Management System David Koblas, Consultant; Paul M. Moriarty, cisco Systems, Inc. Buzzerd - Automated Monitoring on a Network Darren R. Hardy and Herb M. Morreale, XOR Network Engineering, Inc. 12:30 - 2:00 Lunch 2:00 - 4:00 SESSION 9: SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION POTPOURRI II bbn-public - Contributions from the User Community Peg Schafer, BBN user-setup: A System for Custom Configuration of User Environments, or Helping Users Help Themselves Richard Elling and Matthew Long, Auburn University License Server Access Controls Craig Fields and Lucien Van Elsen, MIT Information Systems TCL and Tk: Tools for the System Administrator Karl Lehenbauer, Neosoft; Steve Ough and Richard Sonnier, Paranet, Inc. 4:00 - 4:30 Break 4:30 - 5:30 SESSION 10: DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT II Concurrent Network Management with a Distributed Management Tool Robert C. Lehman, Geoff Carpenter and Nguyen C. Hien, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center nlp: A Network Printing Tool Mark Fletcher, SAS Institute Inc. LISA WORKSHOP TRACK The LISA Workshop Track is a series of mini-workshops on special topics of interest to systems administrators. These workshops will run concurrently with the technical sessions. Each workshop is led by one or two people who have either special expertise or special interest in the topic. The attendees are expected to participate in the workshop, they attend. The workshops are very informal. Each workshop will discuss the problems people have had with a given area and will share and suggest solutions to those problems. Each workshop will have a recording secretary who will produce a report for publication in electronic form. Already scheduled are workshops on mailing list management and regional mail and news services. Some of the workshop slots are reserved for issues which arise at the conference, other are slated in advance. If you would like to schedule an item for the Workshop Track, please contact : Steve Simmons Inland Sea 9353 Hidden Lake Circle Dexter, MI 48130 email: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us Telephone: (313) 769-4086 *********************************************************************** USENIX LISA VI CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FORM *********************************************************************** REGISTRATION VIA EMAIL IS NOT ACCEPTED. This form is provided for your convenience only and MUST be faxed or mailed to the Conference Office. PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN this form along with full payment to: USENIX CONFERENCE 22672 Lambert St., Suite 613 El Toro, CA 92630 Telephone: (714) 588-8649 FAX: (714) 588-9706 Office hours: 8:30am - 5:00pm Pacific Time ************************************************************************ * Please type or print clearly. * Please duplicate this form as needed. * If you don't want the address you are providing to be used for all future USENIX mailings, check here ____. * If you do NOT want to appear in the attendee list check here ____. * Is this your first USENIX Conference? ____yes ____no * What is your affiliation: ____Academic ____Commercial ____Government NAME: (first) _____________________ (last) ___________________________ FIRST NAME for BADGE: _______________________________________________ COMPANY OR INSTITUTION: ______________________________________________ MAILING ADDRESS: ______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ CITY: __________________________ STATE: ________ COUNTRY: __________ ZIP:________ PHONE: ____________ NETWORK ADDRESS: ____________________ ************************************************************************ TUTORIAL REGISTRATION FEES- October 19 -20 Pre-registration deadline is September 30. On-site fees apply after that date. One full-day triple track tutorial - $290 $___ Two full-day triple track tutorials - $530 $___ Late fee applies if postmarked after September 30. Add $50 $___ TECHNICAL SESSIONS REGISTRATION FEES - October 21 - 23, 1992 Pre-registration deadline is September 30. On-site fees apply after that date. *Current Member Fee $255 $____ The member rate applies to current individual members of the USENIX Association, Sun User Group, EurOpen and AUUG. (If you wish to join USENIX Association, please pay the non-member fee and check membership area below.) ** Non-member Fee $345 $____ Full-time Student Fee $ 75 $____ (must provide copy of student ID) Late fee applies if postmarked after September 30. Add $50 $____ *If you are a current USENIX Member and wish to join SAGE check here[__] Add $25 $____ **If you wish to join USENIX/SAGE check here [___] Please take $90 of my non-member fee conference registration fee to pay for a one year individual membership in USENIX/SAGE. Total Amount Enclosed $____ ********************************************************************* PRE-REGISTRATION DEADLINE: September 30, 1992: TUTORIAL & TECHNICAL SESSIONS REGISTRATION FEES INCREASE BY $50 EACH AFTER SEPTEMBER 30, 1992 ********** PAYMENT MUST ACCOMPANY REGISTRATION FORM ***************** ********** REGISTRATION VIA EMAIL IS NOT ACCEPTED **************** *Purchase orders and vouchers are not accepted. ____ Payment enclosed. (US Dollars) ____ Charge my:____VISA____Mastercard____American Express___DinersClub Account Number: _________________________ Exp. 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