syslog

I've already mentioned that Sys Admin is sponsoring scripting and security tracks at this year's SD Best Practices Conference and Expo; once more, I encourage you to attend. Conference highlights include Perl tutorials by Randal Schwartz and security training from Hal Pomeranz. By the time you receive this issue of the magazine, the show will be just a couple weeks away (September 20-23 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston). You can register online at: http://www.sdexpo.com/ or register on-site during conference hours.

There are other conferences of note coming up this fall. SANE 2004 (the International System Administration and Network Engineering Conference) will be held September 27-October 1 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. More information can be found at: http://www.nluug.nl/events/sane2004/.

The LISA (Large Installation System Administration) 2004 Conference, sponsored by Usenix, will be in Atlanta, Georgia on November 14-19. According to the Web site, this year's program, "System Administration Reality-Automation, Configuration, and Users", includes technical sessions, the 2nd Annual Spam Mini-Symposium, invited talks by industry experts, refereed papers, and more. See: http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/ for details.

Also, the SANS Network Security Conference is at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas (September 28-October 4). Hal Pomeranz will be there, too, teaching "Securing Unix/Linux" and covering such topics as: mitigating or eliminating general problems that apply to all Unix-like operating systems including vulnerabilities in the password authentication system, file system, virtual memory system, and in network protocols such as NFS, NIS, and the Unix RPC mechanism. Hal will also provide specific advice for securing some of the most common Internet services on the Unix platform, including Apache, WU-FTPD, Sendmail, and BIND.

Note that a good working knowledge of Unix is required to attend Hal's security courses at the SANS conference. According to the SANS Web site, most students attending this track have a minimum of 3-5 years of Unix systems administration experience. If you're wondering about your level of experience, SANS provides an online quiz through which you can test your knowledge of Unix security basics at: http://www.sans.org/conference/unix_quiz.php.

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief