USENIX - LISA 2001 - Technical Sessions


Technical Sessions   

All Technical Sessions will be held in the San Diego Town and Country 
Resort Hotel and include:

Keynote: Greg Bear (Wednesday morning)
Keynote: Ernest Prabhakar (Thursday afternoon)
Invited Talk: CNN.com: Facing a World Crisis (Thursday afternoon)

Refereed Paper Track (Wednesday - Friday)
Invited Talks 1 Track (Wednesday - Friday)
Invited Talks 2 Track (Wednesday - Friday)
Network/Security Track (Wednesday - Friday)
Guru Is In Track (Wednesday - Friday)
LISA Quiz Show (Friday afternoon)



WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2001


8:45 am - 10:30 am    

Opening Remarks,
Awards, and Keynote

Keynote Address:  Slime vs. Silicon

Greg Bear, Science Fiction Author

The computer-savvy engineer dreams of being relieved of the burden of 
being encased in an expendable and fragile carbon-based unit, of 
uncertain but limited lifespan, and with an irritating propensity to 
fail at unexpected moments. The alternative: a silicon-brained 
metallic or polyalloy ("Liquid Metal") body unit with a 1000-year 
rechargeable powerpack, unlimited warranty, and infinite upgrade 
capability. Into this unit the engineer will be ported with high 
speed and complete efficiency, to live a long, long uptime of 
adventure and discovery, while retaining or perhaps enhancing the 
ability to attract members of the opposite sex. Greg Bear will 
discuss the philosophical, biological, and practical aspects of this 
vision, and try to guess whether the U.S.'s current Republican 
administration will fund research into such endeavors.

10:30 am - 11:00
am   Break

11:00 am - 12:30
pm    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS

Stirring the Matrix: Organizational System Administration
Session Chair: Eric Anderson, University of California, Berkeley

Defining the Role of Service Manager: Sanity Through Organizational Evolution
Mark Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

New Technologies for Small and Medium Businesses (SMB)
Dejan Diklic, Venkatesh Velayutham, Steve Welch, and  Roger Williams, 
IBM Almaden Research Center



INVITED
TALKS 1


Security for E-Voting in Public Elections
Avi Rubin, AT&T Labs-Research

In this talk Avi will discuss the security considerations pertaining 
to remote electronic voting in public elections. In particular, he'll 
examine the feasibility of running national federal elections over 
the Internet. The focus of this talk is on the limitations of the 
currently deployed infrastructure in terms of the security of the 
hosts and the Internet itself.


INVITED
TALKS 2

Zope
Michel Pelletier, Digital Creations

Zope is an open-source Web application server written in Python and C 
and published by Digital Creations. Michel  is a software developer 
and documentation writer for DC who has worked with Zope for over two 
years and is co-author of the New Riders publication The Zope Book. 
He will be presenting some of the cooler features Zope has to offer 
to the presentation designer, content manager, programmer, and system 
administrator.

NETWORK/SECURITY

Illuminating the Dark Side: Short Topics on Security Issues (1 Talk, 3 Papers)
Session Chair: Tom Perrine, San Diego Supercomputer Center

Where Has All the Crypto Gone? Long Time Coming: A Speculative and 
Historical Talk
Greg Rose, Qualcomm Australia

SUS, an Object Reference Approach to Delegating UNIX Super User Privileges
Peter D. Gray, University of Wollongong

IPSECvalidate: A Tool to Validate IPSEC Configurations
Arup Acharya, Mandis Beigi, Raymond Jennings, Reiner Sailer, and 
Dinesh Verma, IBM

ScanSSH: Scanning the Internet  for SSH Servers
Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman, CITI, University of Michigan


GURU SESSIONS

LDAP
Gerald Carter, Hewlett-Packard

Gerald Carter has been a member of the SAMBA Team since 1998
and is employed by VA Linux Systems.  He is currently working on
a guide to LDAP for system administrator's with O'Reilly
Publishing.  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.  In addition to this, he acted as the lead
author of "Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours" by Sams Publishing.

12:30 pm - 2:00
pm   Lunch (on your own)

2:00 pm - 3:30
pm    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS


Technologies Indistinguishable from Magic: Analytical System Administration
Session Chair: Mark Burgess, Oslo University College

A Probabilistic Approach to Estimating Computer System Reliability
Robert Apthorpe, Excite@Home, Inc.

Scheduling Partially Ordered Events in a Randomised Framework: 
Empirical Results and Implications for Automatic Configuration 
Management
Frode Eika Sandnes, Oslo University College

The Maelstrom: Network Service Debugging via "Ineffective Procedures"
Alva Couch and Noah Daniels, Tufts University

INVITED
TALKS 1

2001: A Communications Anniversary
Peter Salus, Matrix.Net

We are at the end of a year that provided a flood of important 
anniversaries important to LISA attendees. Peter will discuss the 
anniversaries and the significance of this confluence. Among them:

1676: Leibnitz's mechanical calculator
1876: Bell's telephone
1901: Marconi's trans-Atlantic message
1951: The junction transistor
1951: UNIVAC, first commercial
computer
1976: John Lions and students install UNIX
1976: 63 hosts on the ARPAnet
1991: Phil Zimmerman posts PGP
1991: Tim Berners-Lee posts what we now call www
1991: Linus Torvalds posts Linux .01
What a ride!


INVITED
TALKS 2

If I Could Talk to the Animals--What Sysadmins Can Learn About 
Diagnostic Skills from Another Profession
David N. Blank-Edelman, Northeastern University
Who, outside system administration, really understands our diagnostic 
processes and how to teach them to others?
Of all of the professionals in the world, a veterinarian must command 
diagnostic skills closest to those of a system administrator. After 
explaining this premise, this talk presents some of the concrete 
wisdom the much older veterinary profession has gained with an eye 
toward its application to our field. It concludes with an exploration 
of how vets are taught diagnostic skills and how we can apply those 
teaching techniques.

NETWORK/SECURITY

Whither End-to-End: Placing Bandwidth and Trust at the Edge
Gordon Cook, The Cook Report

Gordon will look at what went wrong with our infrastructure builds. 
Why the distinction between bellhead and nethead has become blurred 
in a race for consolidated control over infrastructure and content. 
An examination of the Canadian way: light waves for end users, 
customer-owned networks, mandated open access at carrier-neutral 
co-los, an outline for cost-effective fiber to the business and 
neighborhood through municipalities using control over rights of way. 
Suggestions for the USA's policy that would create a community-owned 
sanctuary, an edge-controlled Internet.

GURU SESSIONS

AFS
Esther Filderman, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Garry Zacheiss, 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Having worked for Carnegie Mellon University since 1988 Esther
has been working with AFS since it's toddlerhood, and is currently
a Senior Systems Mangler and AFS administrator for the Pittsburgh
Supercomputing Center.  Esther has been helping to bring AFS content
to LISA conferences for four years. Garry Zacheiss has spent three 
years working for MIT Information Systems doing both development and 
systems administration. As a member of the Athena Server Operations 
team, he works on maintaining and expanding the AFS cells used by 
Athena, MIT's Academic Computing Environment, as well as enhancing 
Moira, MIT's host and user account management system.


3:30 pm - 4:00
pm   Break

4:00 pm - 5:30
pm     5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS

Monte LISA Overdrive: Empirical System Administration
Session Chair: William Annis, University of Wisconsin


Performance Evaluation of Linux Virtual Server
Patrick O'Rourke and Mike Keefe, MCLX

Measuring Real-World Data Availability
Larry Lancaster and Alan Rowe, Network Appliance


Simulation of User-Driven Computer Behaviour
Hrek Haugerud and Sigmund Straumsnes, Oslo University College


INVITED
TALKS 1 and 2

Internet Measurement: Myths About Internet Data
kc claffy, Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis

Current papers that propose new techniques and protocols often make 
assumptions about traffic characteristics that are simply not 
validated by real data. Hypotheses about the level of fragmented 
traffic, encrypted traffic, topology characteristics, traffic 
favoritism, path symmetry, DOS attack prevalence, address space 
utilization and consumption, directional balance of traffic volume, 
routing protocol behavior and policy, and distribution statistics of 
path lengths, flow sizes, packet sizes, prefix lengths, and routing 
announcements therefore yield questionable analytical results. Even 
in cases where analysis is based on data attainable by a researcher 
on his or her local campus, attempts to generalize typically lose 
integrity in the face of more complete or representative data sets.
This talk will show several examples of measurements that shed doubt 
on several commonly assumed Internet myths. The implication is that 
the community could make much better use of its collective 
intellectual resources if we could validate ideas against a larger 
variety of empirical data sets before investing research and 
development time and energy on certain studies.
You'll also see pretty pictures of network data stuff, as always.


NETWORK/SECURITY

Crypto Blunders
Steve Burnett, RSA

Cryptography has emerged as an enormously important component of the 
networked world. People are hesitant to trust the Web and e-commerce 
without the protections crypto provides. More and more applications 
are now built with crypto core components. Many cryptographic 
algorithms are almost unbreakable . . . if used properly.


This presentation will describe some  blunders, famous and not so 
famous. Some may be a little humorous--to those not involved. If 
nothing else, the audience will learn what not to do in their 
products.

GURU SESSIONS

Infrastructure Architecture
Steve Traugott, TerraLuna, LLC

Steve helped pioneer the term "Infrastructure Architecture",
and has worked towards industry acceptance of this "SysAdmin++"
career track for the last several years.  He is a consulting
Infrastructure Architect, and publishes tools and techniques for
automated systems administration.  His deployments have ranged from
financial trading floors and NASA supercomputers to web farms and
growing startups.



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2001   


9:00 am - 10:30
am    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED PAPERS

Seeing How the LAN Lies: Network Monitoring
Session Chair: John Sellens, Certainty Solutions

Specific Simple Network Management Tools
Jrgen Schnwlder, Technical University of Braunschweig

Gossips: System and Service Monitor
Victor Gtsch, Albert Wuersch, and Tobias Oetiker, Swiss Federal 
Institute of Technology

CoralReef Software Suite as a Tool for System and Network Administrators
David Moore, Ryan Koga, Ken Keys, Dan Plummer, Colleen Shannon, 
Edouard Lagache, and kc claffy, CAIDA/SDSC/UCSD


INVITED TALKS 1

150/5,000 Years of (E-)Commerce: History Repeats Itself Again
Dan Klein, LoneWolf Systems

Commerce has been around for at least 5,000 years, and e-commerce has 
arguably existed for nearly 150 years. Amazingly, the evolution of 
e-commerce has closely paralleled the evolution of "real" commerce. 
But it's in Internet time: 5,000 years of mistakes, failures, and 
successes in commerce have been repeated in less than 1% of the time.
This talk will look at that parallel evolution, with numerous amusing 
examples. Then we'll see how people actually make money on the Net. 
We'll wind up with some speculations on the future (you should bring 
your own grains of salt).

INVITED TALKS 2

The Problem with Developers
Geoff Halprin, e-smith, inc.

There is a problem out there: developers (still) don't develop 
maintainable, production-ready, manageable code. This failure must 
then be handled by system administrators who must second-guess the 
developers, both as to their intent and on the behavior of the 
implemented system. This is not acceptable!

This talk examines the area of production operations requirements. It 
then looks at how we can engage and educate the development 
community, working with them to ensure that their results are more 
manageable and maintainable.

NETWORK/SECURITY

Control Central: Three Talks on New Approaches to Security Management
Session Chair: Tom Perrine, San Diego Supercomputer Center


A Non-Traditional Approach to Network Security Control
Mark Epstein, Ponte Communications, Inc.

Beyond File Permissions: Controlling User Actions
Aeleen Frisch, Exponential Consulting

Are Baseline Computer Security Standards the Answer?
Hal Pomeranz, The Center for Internet Security

GURU SESSIONS

PKI/Cryptography
Greg Rose, QUALCOMM, Inc.

Greg Rose is a Principal Engineer for QUALCOMM International, based in
Australia, where he works on cryptographic security and authentication for
third-generation mobile phones and other technologies. He holds a number of
patents for cryptographic methods and has successfully cryptanalyzed widely
deployed ciphers.

10:30 am - 11:00
am   Break

11:00 am - 12:30
pm    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED PAPERS

Level 1 Diagnostics: Short Topics on Host Management
Session Chair: Adam Moskowitz, Menlo Computing

Global Impact Analysis of Dynamic Library Dependencies
Alva Couch and Yizhan Sun, Tufts University

Deriving Tools to Administer Domain and Type Enforcement
Phil Kearns and Serge Hallyn, The College of William and Mary

Solaris Bare-Metal Recovery from a Specialized CD and Your Enterprise 
Backup Solution
Lee Amatangelo, Collective Technologies

Accessing Files on Unmounted Filesystems
Willem A. (Vlakkies) Schreuder, University of Colorado, Boulder

INVITED
TALKS 1

Rules of Thumb of System Administration
Steve Simmons and Elizabeth Zwicky

Every profession accumulates some condensed wisdom, whether it's in the form of
Zen koans or laws of engineering. This presentation is a tour through the
condensed wisdom of system administration, in the form of pithy sayings
supported by educational stories (some of them, of course, stolen from other
professions, including Zen koans and laws of engineering).

INVITED
TALKS 2

PHP for System Administration
Shane Caraveo, ActiveState

PHP is a popular scripting language for developing Web applications. 
Unlike Perl, PHP is not widely regarded as a scripting language for 
system administration. Yet its Web-oriented functionality is ideally 
suited to provide HTML interfaces for performing administrative tasks 
and monitoring systems and networks remotely over HTTPS. This talk 
will discuss using PHP to provide Web-based remote administrative 
access to system services such as email, SQL, and LDAP servers. We'll 
also discuss monitoring network services via SNMP (Simple Network 
Management Protocol).

NETWORK/SECURITY

The Packet Crackdown: Talks on TCP Performance Tuning and Packet Capture
Session Chair: Tom Perrine, San Diego Supercomputer Center

TCP Performance Tuning
Tom Hacker, Center for Parallel Computing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

BPF Meets UVM
Michael Stolarchuk, Arbor Networks

GURU SESSIONS

Writing Papers for Usenix Refereed Track
Tom Limoncelli, Lumeta

Thomas A. Limoncelli is a Unix sysadmin and network administrator,
author, and activist.  He has had many papers accepted by LISA and
has presented many Invited Talks and recently co-authored a book
with Christine Hogan titled "The Practice of System and Network
Administration", which is now in stores.  He has served on the LISA
Program Committee many times, including two years as Invited Talks
Co-Chair.  He is currently the Director of Operations at Lumeta
Corporation in Somerset, New Jersey USA.

12:30 pm - 2:00
pm   Lunch (on your own)

2:00 pm - 3:30
pm    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS

To Your Scattered PCs Go! Distributed Configuration Management
Session Chair: Jon Stearley, University of New Mexico

Automating Infrastructure Composition for Internet Services
Todd Poynor, HP Labs Palo Alto

TemplateTree II: The Post-Installation Setup Tool
Tobias Oetiker, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

The Arusha Project: A Framework for Collaborative UNIX System Administration
Matt Holgate, Glasgow University, and Will Partain, Arusha Project



INVITED
TALKS 1

What Sysadmins Need to Know About the New Intellectual Property Laws
Lee Tien, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Suddenly, intellectual property laws are directly affecting millions 
of people, and one of the emerging chokepoints for intellectual 
property holders are sysadmins. Often, IP holders attempt to convince 
the sysadmin or ISP to take down their Web site, threatening 
liability suits against them for "contributing" to infringement or 
circumvention. How valid is this threat? What is society's risk if 
sysadmins comply? If we don't like the answers, what can be done?



INVITED
TALKS 2

Hardening Windows 2000
Phil Cox, SystemExperts Corporation

This session will cover the steps necessary to harden Windows 2000 
systems. Phil will step through the entire hardening process, showing 
the actual tools and steps (as appropriate). In particular, he will 
cover the use of IPSec filters and security configuration files. This 
talk is based on the "Hardening Windows 2000" document that Phil 
released in early 2001.

NETWORK/SECURITY

Inspection, Detection & Deflection: Armoring the Next Wave of 
Security Technology
John S. Flowers, nCircle Network Security
Efforts to solve existing network security problems are failing. 
There exists a need for a new, more proactive approach to the issues 
of insertion, evasion, and denial of service against network security 
technologies. This talk will describe an approach to solving the 
problem of network security, with particular attention to the 
reduction of false positives and the concept of target awareness.

GURU SESSIONS

Backups
Preston, W. Curtis, Storage Designs

Curtis is the owner of Storage Designs, a consulting company
dedicated entirely to selecting, designing, implementing, auditing,
and educating people about storage systems.  Curtis has nine years
experience designing storage systems for many environments, both
large and small.  He has developed a number of freely available
tools, including ones that perform live backups of Oracle, Informix,
and Sybase. Curtis is the administrator of the NetBackup, and 
NetWorker FAQs.  He is also the author of O'Reilly's "UNIX Backup &
Recovery," and "Using SANs & NAS," as well as a monthly column in
UnixReview.com and SysAdmin magazines.


3:30 pm - 4:00
pm   Break


4:00 pm - 5:30
pm

Keynote: Rebuilding the Digital Enterprise Around Internet Standards
Ernest Prabhakar, Apple
As we enter the twenty-first century, enterprise information systems 
are experiencing yet another wave of radical change. Last decade we 
moved from managing monolithic mainframes to networking numerous 
nodes; now we find ourselves configuring a continuum of countless 
components. The technology of the Internet--Java, XML, and Open 
Source--promises to bring order out of this computing chaos, without 
the lock-in of single-vendor solutions. By embracing heterogeneity 
through the use of open standards, information can flow upward to 
ever-larger datastores while functionality flows downward to 
ever-smaller devices. But will this really create a Brave New World 
where users change applications and devices as often as they change 
clothes, and only data endures?


5:45 pm - 7:00
pm

CNN.com: Facing a World Crisis
William LeFebvre, CNN Internet Technologies
September 11 of 2001 saw heinous events of such magnitude that the
entire world was transfixed by disbelief.  In the understandable
hunger for news, Net users flocked to news sites.  The unexpected and
unprecedented demand quickly drove nearly every news site into the
ground, and CNN.com was no exception.  What brought our site back up
was a tremendous effort of teamwork, fast thinking, and troubleshooting,
all happening in the face of a terrible tragedy.

In the span of 15 minutes the demand for our site increased by an
order of magnitude.  On September 11, with only 85% availability, we
still served over 132 million pages, nearly equaling our site's
all-time high.  On September 12, we shattered any previous site
records with 304 million page views.  This talk will tell the story of
CNN.com and the team that worked so hard to meet the unbelievable user
demand.  One of the biggest challenges faced by the team was induced
by cascading failures, so that increasing capacity alone was not
sufficient to resurrect the site.  The talk will conclude with a
discussion about the relevance of this experience to anyone who runs
a Web site.


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2001   


9:00 am - 10:30
am    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS

Human Interface: Timely Solutions
Session Chair: Ozan S. Yigit, Sun Microsystems

LEXIS: An EXam Invigilation System
Mike Wyer and Susan Eisenbach, Imperial College

Javamlm: A Customizable Mailing-List Manager
Ellen Spertus, Mills College, and Robin Jeffries, Sun Microsystems

GEORDI: A Handheld Tool for Remote System Administration
Stephen J. Okay, Road Knight Labs, and Gale E. Pedowitz, Protura, Inc.



INVITED
TALKS 1

JINI Networking Technology and Ad-Hoc Networks
Jim Waldo, Sun Microsystems

The Jini Networking Technology is an attempt to change the rules of 
network organization. By utilizing the ability to move objects, 
including the code that implements the object, around the network in 
a safe fashion, the Jini technology allows networks to spontaneously 
form, heal, and change without the need for explicit administration. 
Jim will describe the Jini technology and how it is being used. Wild 
speculation on other possible uses and its impact on networking in 
general will fill in any time remaining.




INVITED
TALKS 2

To Teraflops and Beyond!

Panel: An Overview of Terascale Computing
Esther Filderman and Kevin Sullivan, Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center, 
and Victor Hazlewood, San Diego Supercomputer Center

Invited Talk: San Diego Supercomputer Center's Blue Horizon
Victor Hazlewood, SDSC

Managing the Terascale: Lessons from a 750-Node Supercomputer
Esther Filderman and Kevin Sullivan, PSC

Wrap-Up and Q & A
Esther Filderman and Kevin Sullivan, PSC; Victor Hazlewood, SDSC


NETWORK/SECURITY

The Network from Orbit:
A Global Perspective
Session Chair: John Sellens, Certainty Solutions

Macroscopic Internet Topology and Performance Measurements from the 
DNS Root Name Servers
Marina Fomenkov, kc claffy, Bradley Huffaker, and David Moore, CAIDA/SDSC/UCSD

DNS Root/g TLD Server Measurements
Nevil Brownlee, kc claffy, and Evi Nemeth, CAIDA/SDSC/UCSD


GURU SESSIONS

Sysadmin for Suits
Bill Labrie, American Express

Bill has spent 5 years at American Express as both a sysadmin
and a lead of sysadmins. He is currently the lead over a group of
8 NT, AIX and Solaris admins. In the last 18 months he has managed
to help his group rise from a beaten-down overworked and almost
discarded group to one that is virtually setting policy as well as
driving major changes in the management of systems throughout the
company.


10:30 am - 11:00
am   Break


11:00 am - 12:30
pm    5 tracks! -->

REFEREED
PAPERS

Adapting the Collective: Short Topics on Configuration Management
Session Chair: Sigmund Straumsnes, Oslo University College

Pelican DHCP Auto-Registration System: Distributed Registration and 
Centralized Management
Robin Garner, Tufts University

A Management System for Network-Shareable Locally Installed Software: 
Merging RPM and the Depot Scheme Under Solaris
R. P. Channing Rodgers and Ziying Sherwin, U.S. National Library of Medicine

File Distribution Efficiencies: cfengine Versus rsync
Andrew Mayhew, Logictier, Inc.

CfAdmin: A User Interface for cfengine
Charles Beadnall, Shane Holland, and Andrew Mayhew, Logictier, Inc.


INVITED
TALKS 1

Reducing System Complexity:
A Case Study in Converging Environments
Ruth Milner, National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Many organizations are tackling the problem of simplifying their 
computing environments, by minimizing unnecessary diversity, setting 
standards for hardware and software, or developing global procedures 
for system administration. This talk will describe one organization's 
ongoing project to develop a solution suitable for all its locations. 
It will cover the scope, decision points and processes, trade-offs, 
and the application of project management techniques. It will also 
discuss the obstacles encountered and lessons learned on the road to 
an environment where users can move comfortably across sites and 
system administrators can leverage each other's work instead of 
duplicating it.

INVITED
TALKS 2

Panel: Written Any Good Books Lately?
Moderator: Rik Farrow, Consultant Panelists: Randal Schwartz, Dwight 
McKay, Mark Burgess, Tom Limoncelli,  and Aeleen Frisch, authors;
Karen Gettman, editor

Ever wondered what it's like to write a technical book? Here's your 
chance to hear five authors and an Addison-Wesley editor share their 
insights into  and experiences of the process and the end 
result--seeing your name on the book's cover and collecting those 
royalties. Writing is never a simple task, and book-length projects 
increase the difficulty exponentially. The manuscript doesn't appear 
in print by magic, but demands a new set of skills. Finally, the 
publisher has to reach the people who need to read your book, to let 
them know it exists. Come to this talk to hear just what it took to 
make that book.


NETWORK/SECURITY

How Not to Configure Your Firewall: A Field Guide to Common Firewall 
Configurations
Avishai Wool, Lumeta Corp.

Evidence from policy configuration files analyzed by the Lumeta 
Firewall Analyzer indicate that corporate firewalls are often 
enforcing poorly written rule-sets. Moreover, typical configuration 
mistakes are not very subtle or complex. Misconfigurations can be 
attributed to a combination of firewall vendor product design, 
conflicts between security and usability, and inexperienced users. 
The purpose of this talk is to identify the most common firewall 
misconfigurations, to discuss their causes, and to suggest fixes for 
them.


GURU SESSIONS

Email MTAs
Eric Allman, Sendmail, Inc.

Eric is the original author of sendmail. He is the author of
syslog, tset, the -me nroff macros, and trek. He was the chief
programmer on the INGRESS 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.

12:30 pm - 2:00
pm   Lunch (on your own)


2:00 pm - 3:30
pm    5 tracks! -->


REFEREED
PAPERS

Work-in-Progress
Reports
Session Chair: Emmett Hogan, Certainty Solutions

Short, pithy, and fun, Work-in-Progress reports introduce interesting new or
on-going work, and the LISA audience provides valuable discussion and feedback.

A schedule of presentations will be posted at the conference.

See page 29 for complete information on how to submit presentations.

INVITED
TALKS 1

SANs and NAS
Curtis Preston, Storage Designs

As little as two years ago, SANs and NAS were not considered by most 
people to be competing technologies. Today, each type of network 
offers a unique solution, with its own pros and cons. Yes, they are 
now competing technologies. This talk will explain the similarities, 
differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each of these types of 
storage network, so that you can decide which one is right for you. 
(The answer may be, Both.)

INVITED
TALKS 2

Panel: Scripting Languages Bake-Off
Moderator: Doug Hughes, Global Crossing, Ltd.
Panelists: David N. Blank-Edelman (Perl), Michel Pelletier (Python), 
Eric Melski (Tcl), Shane Caraveo (PHP)

Join our panel of language experts as we explore the features 
sysadmins want most in scripting languages. Find out the strengths 
and weaknesses of some of the most popular languages: Perl, Tcl, 
Python, and PHP. Listen, participate, enjoy.


NETWORK/SECURITY

Panel: The Future of Computer Security
Moderator: Marcus Ranum, Network Flight Recorder

Marcus and a panel of experts will discuss where computer security is 
headed and what can be done about it.

GURU SESSIONS

Computer Room Design/Layout
Adam Moskowitz, Menlo Computing

Adam Moskowitz has designed, built, and overhauled computer
rooms ("data centers") for such companies as Open Market, Genome
Therapeutics, and LION Bioscience Research; he has also designed
and built high-density compute clusters for companies including
Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Biogen. Adam has over 20 years experience
as a programmer and systems architect, has sat on several LISA and
USENIX program committees, and is the coordinator of the LISA Advanced
Topics Workshop.

3:30 pm - 4:00
pm   Break

4:00 pm - 5:30
pm    

The LISA Game Show,
  with your hosts, Rob
Kolstad and Dan Klein
Back by popular demand, Rob Kolstad and Dan Klein host this 
challenging test of wits for
LISA attendees.  Watch contestants wither under the dual spotlights 
of difficult
questions and special attention from the hosts.

USENIX - LISA 2001 - Activities

Conference Activities

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions (BoFs)

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, December 4-6

Lead or attend a BoF! Meet with your peeers! Don't miss these special 
activities
designed to maximize the value of your time at the conference. BoFs are very
interactive and informal gatherings for attendees interested in a particular
topic, technical or non-technical. To schedule a BoF in advance, contact the
USENIX Conference Dept.: email conference@usenix.org or call
1.510.528.8649. BoFs may also be scheduled onsite at the registration 
desk. BoFs
are open to all conference attendees--no signup necessary. Look over 
the current BoF schedule!


Work-in-Progress Reports (WiPs)

Friday, December 7, 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.

Short, pithy, and fun, Work-in-Progress reports introduce interesting 
new or ongoing work. If you have work you'd like to share or a cool 
idea that's not quite ready for publication, send a one- or 
two-paragraph summary to lisawips@usenix.org. We are particularly 
interested in presenting students' work. A schedule of presentations 
will be posted at the conference and the speakers will be notified in 
advance. WiPs are five-minute presentations; the time limit will be 
strictly enforced.


SAGE Community
Meeting

Wednesday, December 5, 7 p.m.-8 p.m.
Royal Palms Salon 1

Hear from the SAGE Executive Committee about what's been happening in 
SAGE, including certification and restructuring.  You can also find 
out how to get more involved in SAGE.



Social
Activities

Meet the conference speakers and connect with your peers in the
community.

Saturday, December 1, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.:
Welcome Get-Together

Wednesday, December 5, 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.:
Exhibition Beer & Wine Bust

Thursday, December 6, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.:
Conference Reception

USENIX - LISA 2001


Current Birds-of-a-Feather Schedule (as of 27 November   2001)

Check the BoF Board in the Registration area  for any changes and additions.
To schedule a BoF, please see the Activities page.

Tuesday, December 4


  7:00 p.m.-8:00  p.m.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Solaris Administration 
Documentation But Were Afraid to Ask
Kathy Slattery, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

  7:00 p.m.-8:30  p.m.
Deployment Strategies for Network and Server-Side Caching
Greg Govatos, VP, Chutney Technologies

  7:00 p.m.-9:00  p.m.
Annual Backup BOF: State of the Backup Industry
Jacob Farmer, CTO Cambridge Computer

  7:00 p.m.-9:00  p.m.
Is NetWorker making a comeback?
W. Curtis Preston, The Storage Group, Inc.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Workplace Issues

Trey Harris, SAGE Executive Committee


  8:00 p.m.-9:00  p.m.
Sun & Solaris Administration
Peter Baer Galvin, Corporate Technologies

Mac OS X
Leon Towns-von Stauber, Occams' Razor

Vulnerability Handling at the CERT/CC
Jeffrey P. Lanza, CERT Coordination Center

Wednesday, December 5th

7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
Catastrophic Failure and Business Recovery: Lessons Learned from the 
World Trade Center Disaster
William Spendlove, Product Marketing Manager, Legato Systems Inc.

SAGE Community Meeting

IP Telephony
Leon Towns-von Stauber, Occam's Razor

7:00 p.m.-9:00  p.m.
NetBackup today and tomorrow
W. Curtis Preston, The Storage Group, Inc.

7:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m.
IETF Network Management People meet LISA Network/System Administrators
Juergen Schoenwaelder, Technical University Braunschweig

8:00 p.m.-9:00  p.m.
SAGE Certification
Gale Berkowitz, USENIX

Big Storage- Small Budget: Strategies for Building Multi-Terabyte 
Data Repositories on a Limited Budget
Jacob Farmer, CTO Cambridge Computer

FAI - a fully automatic installation tool for Linux
Thomas Lange, University of Cologne

8:00 p.m.-9:30  p.m.
What is Python?
Wesley J. Chun, CyberWeb Consulting

8:00 p.m.-10:00   p.m.
Sun Community Activities: Freeware; BigAdmin; Enterprise Management 
Technologies
Eric Boutilier, Matt Ruetz, and Eric Nielsen, Sun Microsystems

9:00 p.m.-10:00  p.m.
Mirapoint's Approach to Internet Message Routing with LDAP
Jim Hickstein, Mirapoint

USENIX/New Ideas BOF

Thursday, December 6th

9:00 p.m.-10:00  p.m.
Plans and Facts regarding RRDtool 1.2

Tobias Oetiker, ISG.EE Swiss Federal Institute of Technology;
Jake Brutlag, WebTV / Microsoft

How do YOU manage to not get spammed?
Deeann Mikula, Telerama Internet, Pittsburgh, PA


Chigrp - Chicagoland SAGE local - Another Resurrection
Paul Rak, ACNielsen

9:00 p.m.-11:00  p.m.
The Professionalization of Systems Administration: Issues and Concerns

Mark C. Langston


"Infrastructures.Org"

Steve Traugott, TerraLuna

The Reality of SANs and NAS
W. Curtis Preston, The Storage Group, Inc.
