From sage-owner Fri Jan 15 06:46:53 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14631; Fri, 15 Jan 93 06:46:53 PST Received: from leigh.s1.gov by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14625; Fri, 15 Jan 93 06:46:49 PST Received: from random.s1.gov by leigh.s1.gov (4.1/TMD1.4) id AA06155; Fri, 15 Jan 93 06:55:12 PST From: tmd@s1.gov (Tina M. Darmohray) Received: by random.s1.gov (4.1/TMD1.4) id AA00590; Fri, 15 Jan 93 06:55:09 PST Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 06:55:09 PST Message-Id: <9301151455.AA00590@random.s1.gov> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: December Board Mtg. minutes Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Minutes of the SAGE working group on Dec. 8, 1992 at SRI, Menlo Park, CA Note: Action items are highlighted with an * in the left margin. Attendees: Elizabeth Zwicky, Tina Darmohray, Paul Evans Arnold de Leon, Laura Kirk de Leon, Bryan McDonald Via phone: Pat Wilson, Steve Simmons Absent: Shoshana Abrass Paul Moriarty, John Detke Bjorn Satdeva, Arch Mott 1) Approval of the minutes Minutes of the last meeting was approved with the words "at least" prepended to "3 officers". 2) SANS Conference Status From now on SANS announcements, etc. will be reviewed by USENIX and SAGE. The current CFP is being reviewed by USENIX and then it will be passed on to SAGE for edits. Bryan McDonald and Paul Moriarty will be the additional (to EDZ) SAGE representatives to SANS, as they had volunteered at the Aug. 11th SAGE Board meeting. SANS has a different audience than USENIX traditionally has; the federal govt. It was agreed that SAGE, via its' representatives, needs to make sure that future SANS announcements accurately reflect SAGE's intentions/opinions WRT the conference. It was agreed that the SAGE representatives take a proactive role in the future SANS conference preparations. * Elizabeth will contact Paul M. to bring him up to date on SAGE representatives' role in preparing for the SANS conference. 3) STG/LTG document and bylaws Bjorn has not finished the LTG document yet. Normally, the committee to work on this document would be Ellie, Steve S., Elizabeth, and John D./Paul E. However, Bjorn, Ellie, and Elizabeth will all be at the Sun Users' Group conference this Thurs. so they have decided to meet on this topic as logistics permit. So, there may be something more concrete next week. 4) Working Group Status Tina D. reported that the Jobs WG is still making steady progress. She expects to have something for review that she will post post to the SAGE mailing list early next year. Bryan M. reported that the Publications WG is doing well and that he is currently ahead of the curve for publication deadlines. The Online group has ftp.usenix.org set up. 3) Misc. Cynthia has put the SAGE BOF on the schedule for San Diego USENIX. Judy will get a room for the SAGE Board meeting. Elizabeth will attend the USENIX Board meeting during the leading weekend to the SG USENIX as SAGE's representative. The packet content for the San Diego USENIX will be: Membership form Front page of SAGE info. Back page of new SAGE Board members with a small statement by each. * Bryan will ask all SAGE Board candidates for a statement that could be used for this if elected. Bryan has recruited Christine Quinn to assist him with the publications. Christine has prepared some possible SAGE logos. Bryan faxed them to Pat and Steve during the meeting. The next meeting is Jan. 12, 1993. This will be the last meeting for the current SAGE Board. The SAGE-elect Board will be invited to this meeting as a "transition" meeting; conference method to be determined. Submitted by: Tina Darmohray From sage-owner Mon Jan 18 08:57:28 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA07155; Mon, 18 Jan 93 08:57:28 PST Received: from ace.BSDI.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA07149; Mon, 18 Jan 93 08:57:24 PST Received: by ace.BSDI.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15261; Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:05:48 MST Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:05:48 MST From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad) Message-Id: <9301181705.AA15261@ace.BSDI.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: FYI Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Submitted-by: ashford@sunset.austin.ibm.com (Jay Ashford) INVITATION TO JOIN IEEE POSIX P1003.7.2 Software Administration (Install) MOCK BALLOT GROUP The POSIX System Administration Working Group (P1003.7) has been developing the POSIX software administration interface, P1003.7.2. This standard describes the requirements for software administration, i.e. the functions surrounding local and remote software installation. The draft standard is based on the Hewlett-Packard Software Distribution Utilities, with substantial modification and extensions. The function included in this draft includes a standard format for distribution media and a set of commands to create, copy, install, and list the contents of the media. Also included are commands to list and to remove all or portions of the installed software. All of these commands are specified to work for both local and networked installations. P1003.7 will be conducting a Mock Ballot of the P1003.7.2 draft starting 1 March 1993 and running through 31 March 1993. The purpose of this non-binding, unofficial ballot is to seek feedback on this work from interested parties and to prepare for the formal ballot tentatively scheduled to begin early in 1994. The PostScript files that comprise the draft will be made available via anonymous ftp. If you require a hard copy of the draft, we will try to have it in the mail during the week before the start of mock ballot. While we would appreciate extensive comments, a simple yes vote, or a no vote with an explanation about why this is not an acceptable direction, would be very helpful. Please provide me with the information in the registration form below by 15 February 1993 should you wish to join the mock ballot group. Those who reply will be notified as soon as the draft is available and provided with information on how to supply ballot comments. Jay Ashford Co-Chair, P1003.7 Chair, P1003.7.2 IBM Corp, MS 9541 Tel: +1 512 838-3402 11400 Burnet Road Fax: +1 512 838-3484 Austin, Texas 78758 E-mail: ashford@austin.ibm.com USA ================================================================== POSIX P1003.7.2 Mock Ballot Registration Name:__________________________________________________________ E-mail:________________________________________________________ Company/Organization:__________________________________________ Paper Mail Address:____________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Telephone:_____________________________________________________ Fax:___________________________________________________________ My interest relative to this standard is: (Check all that apply) [ ] General Interest [ ] User [ ] Producer I would like a copy of the draft in the following manner: (Check one only) [ ] PostScript via anonymous ftp [ ] Paper copy via US Mail -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Jay Ashford tel: +1 512 838 3402 IBM Corporation fax: +1 512 838 3484 11400 Burnet Road e-mail: ashford@austin.ibm.com Austin, Texas 78758 USA (IBM info: T/L 678, ASHFORD at AUSTIN) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Volume-Number: Volume 30, Number 28 From sage-owner Mon Jan 18 10:04:04 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA07673; Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:04:04 PST Received: from sfo.erg.sri.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA07667; Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:04:01 PST Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sfo.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA19478; Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:12:15 -0800 Message-Id: <9301181812.AA19478@sfo.erg.sri.com> To: Barbara Dyker Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: December Board Mtg. minutes In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:21:44 MST." <199301181721.AA06827@locutus.cs.colorado.edu> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:12:10 -0800 From: zwicky@erg.sri.com Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG I'm sorry, I thought the election results had gone out to the sage mailing list at the same time as they were posted to comp.org.usenix. Here's a copy of the most recent article on the results: SAGE Election Results Below is a correction to the information previously supplied concerning Terms of the newly-elected SAGE Board of Directors. In this first election, 6 directors were elected (below). In this first year, 3 members were elected for 2-year terms (top 3 vote getters), and 3 members elected for 1-year terms (next 3 vote getters). In deference to a strong desire by the USENIX Board of Directors for continuity, it was agreed that Elizabeth Zwicky, the interim president appointed in 1992, will automatically serve her remaining one-year term on the first elected board. In subsequent elections, alternately three and four members will be chosen for two-year terms. The SAGE Board of Directors will choose its own officers after each general elections (every year). --------------------------------------------------------------- Directors: Elected for 1993 & 1994, two year term Steve Simmons 118 Pat Parseghian 115 Peg Schafer 111 Directors: Elected for 1993, one year term Pat Wilson 107 Carol Kubicki 103 Paul Moriarty 99 Appointed Director: Elizabeth Zwicky - Past President From sage-owner Tue Jan 19 23:37:10 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA24896; Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:37:10 PST Received: from uu5.psi.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA24890; Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:37:06 PST Received: from shearson.UUCP by uu5.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) id AA16520; Wed, 20 Jan 93 02:31:29 -0500 Received: from tardis.shearson.com by shearson.com (4.1/LB-0.5) id AA13169; Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:45:32 EST Received: from cosmos.shearson.com by tardis.shearson.com (4.0/SMI-4.1) id AA12021; Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:45:36 EST Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 23:45:36 EST Message-Id: <9301200445.AA12021@tardis.shearson.com> From: jbore@cosmos.shearson.com (Joe Bore) To: kolstad@bsdi.com Subject: Re: FYI References: <9301181705.AA15261@ace.BSDI.COM> Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG sure, matter in fact without a doubt Joe Bore jbore@shearson.com Lehman Brothers 11'th Floor 388 Greenwich St New York,NY, 10013 212-464-3431 212-464-2040 My Interest is as User/Producer I would like a copy via ftp thanks! jb > > ================================================================== > > POSIX P1003.7.2 Mock Ballot Registration > Name:__________________________________________________________ > E-mail:________________________________________________________ > Company/Organization:__________________________________________ > Paper Mail Address:____________________________________________ > _______________________________________________________________ > _______________________________________________________________ > _______________________________________________________________ > Telephone:_____________________________________________________ > Fax:___________________________________________________________ > > My interest relative to this standard is: > (Check all that apply) [ ] General Interest > [ ] User > [ ] Producer > > I would like a copy of the draft in the following manner: > (Check one only) [ ] PostScript via anonymous ftp > [ ] Paper copy via US Mail > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Jay Ashford tel: +1 512 838 3402 > IBM Corporation fax: +1 512 838 3484 > 11400 Burnet Road e-mail: ashford@austin.ibm.com > Austin, Texas 78758 > USA (IBM info: T/L 678, ASHFORD at AUSTIN) > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > > Volume-Number: Volume 30, Number 28 > > From sage-owner Wed Feb 3 16:15:11 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA01502; Wed, 3 Feb 93 16:15:11 PST Received: from alpha.xerox.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA01496; Wed, 3 Feb 93 16:15:07 PST Received: from avalon.parc.xerox.com ([13.1.101.241]) by alpha.xerox.com with SMTP id <11959>; Wed, 3 Feb 1993 16:14:50 PST Received: by avalon.parc.xerox.com id <2439>; Wed, 3 Feb 1993 16:14:47 -0800 From: Mark Verber To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: picture of our fearless leader Message-Id: <93Feb3.161447pst.2439@avalon.parc.xerox.com> Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 16:14:34 PST Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Rene Gobeyn (gobeyn@ssd.kodak.com) has kindly provided a scanned image of Steve Simmons (our newly installed president) wearing a papa Smurf beard and hat. The image is a Sun raster file (greyscale). We will try to put up a picture of Rob in a tutu. The images are up for anonymous ftp on ftp.sage.usenix.org in the directory pub/sage/misc. There are also a fair number of the LISA IV & V papers in pub/lisa. If you wrote a paper for LISA and you don't see it, and would like you paper to be available please send me mail so we can arrange to add your paper to the archive. [Sorry for the inconsistent naming of papers... I hope to clean up naming in the next few days.] You can find a fair number of papers from previous USENIX conferences (other than LISA) in pub/usenix. Thanks to Chet Ramey (chet@po.cwru.edu) who has been collecting USENIX papers that have been made available via anonymous ftp. We hope to have all these papers served by WAIS and Gopher. Jeff Kellum (composer@beyond.dreams.org) has kindly volunteered to set up the servers. We will send an announcement to sage@usenix.org when the WAIS/Gopher servers are running. Finally, I would like to thank Charles Reading (reading@cs.utah.edu) and the Univ. of Utah for providing disk space and cycles for the SAGE ftp server. Cheers, Mark From sage-owner Wed Feb 3 19:14:56 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02686; Wed, 3 Feb 93 19:14:56 PST Received: from wotan.iti.org by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02680; Wed, 3 Feb 93 19:14:53 PST Received: by wotan.iti.org (5.65/IDA-1.2.8) id AA27191; Wed, 3 Feb 93 22:16:07 -0500 From: Steve Simmons Message-Id: <9302040316.AA27191@wotan.iti.org> Subject: Re: picture of our fearless leader To: verber@parc.xerox.com (Mark Verber) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 22:16:06 -0500 (EST) Cc: sage@usenix.ORG In-Reply-To: <93Feb3.161447pst.2439@avalon.parc.xerox.com> from "Mark Verber" at Feb 3, 93 04:14:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL5] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 390 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG >Rene Gobeyn (gobeyn@ssd.kodak.com) has kindly provided a scanned image >of Steve Simmons (our newly installed president) wearing a papa Smurf >beard and hat. The image is a Sun raster file (greyscale). We will >try to put up a picture of Rob in a tutu. For the non-cognoscenti, the meaning of the gesture in the picture is "for those who don't deserve the best". Like, say, Rene. :-) From sage-owner Thu Feb 4 17:40:09 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12661; Thu, 4 Feb 93 17:40:09 PST Received: from netcomsv.netcom.com (uucp3.netcom.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12652; Thu, 4 Feb 93 17:40:05 PST Received: from midgaard.sysadmin.com by netcomsv.netcom.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05063; Thu, 4 Feb 93 17:40:04 PST Received: by midgaard.sysadmin.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #26) id m0nJuoj-00000JC; Wed, 3 Feb 93 16:51 WET Message-Id: From: bjorn@sysadmin.com (Bjorn Satdeva) Subject: Re: picture of our fearless leader To: verber@parc.xerox.com (Mark Verber) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 16:51:45 -0800 (PST) Cc: sage@usenix.ORG In-Reply-To: <93Feb3.161447pst.2439@avalon.parc.xerox.com> from "Mark Verber" at Feb 3, 93 04:14:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL17] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 529 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Mark Verber writes: > >Rene Gobeyn (gobeyn@ssd.kodak.com) has kindly provided a scanned image >of Steve Simmons (our newly installed president) wearing a papa Smurf >beard and hat. The image is a Sun raster file (greyscale). We will >try to put up a picture of Rob in a tutu. > Oh nooo, not another pink tutu kind of joke? Bjorn -- Bjorn Satdeva -- email: bjorn@sysadmin.com /sys/admin, inc. The Unix System Management Experts (408) 241 3111 Send requests to the SysAdmin mailing list to sysadm-list-request@sysadmin.com From sage-owner Fri Feb 19 12:59:38 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21507; Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:59:38 PST Received: from leigh.s1.gov by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21497; Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:58:33 PST Received: from random.s1.gov by leigh.s1.gov (4.1/TMD1.4) id AA11388; Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:58:27 PST From: tmd@s1.gov (Tina M. Darmohray) Received: by random.s1.gov (4.1/TMD1.4) id AA00183; Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:58:22 PST Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 12:58:22 PST Message-Id: <9302192058.AA00183@random.s1.gov> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: job descriptions Cc: sage-jobs@usenix.ORG, tmd@s1.gov Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Organizations that depend on computing resources to carry out their mission have always depended on systems administration. The dramatic increase in the number and size of distributed networks of workstations in recent years has created a tremendous demand for more, and better trained, systems administrators. Understanding of the profession of systems administration on the part of employers, however, has not kept pace with the growth in the number of systems administrators. Both at sites with a long history of using computing resources, and at sites into which computers have only recently been introduced, systems administrators face perception problems that present serious obstacles to their successfully carrying out their duties. Employers frequently fail to understand the background that systems administrators bring to their task. Because systems administration draws on information from many fields, and because it has only recently begun to be taught in institutions of higher learning, systems administrators typically come from a wide range of academic backgrounds. Most get their skills by on-the-job training, apprenticing themselves to a more experienced mentor. Although this system of informal education by apprenticeship has been extremely effective in producing skilled systems administrators, it is poorly understood by employers and hiring managers, who tend to focus on credentials to the exclusion of other factors, when making personnel decisions. Understanding neither the background and training a systems administrator requires nor the kind of job performance that should be expected of the systems administrator, employers fall back into (mis)using the job classifications with which they are familiar. A frequently used misclassification is that of programmer or software engineer. Although the primary responsibility of the systems administrator is not to produce code, that is the metric by which programmers are evaluated, and systems administrators thus classified often receive poor evaluations for not being "productive" enough. Another common misclassification is to confuse systems administrators with operators. Especially at smaller sites, where systems administrators have to perform many of the functions normally assigned to operators themselves, systems administrators are forced to contend with the false assumption they are non-professional technicians. This, in turn, makes it very difficult for systems administrators to be compensated commensurate with their skill and experience. SAGE, as the professional organization for systems administrators, formed the sage-jobs working group to address these problems. One of its goals is to create a set of appropriate job descriptions for systems administrators, and to promote their adoption by organizations that employ systems administrators. Below are the current job description templates that the working group has produced. Additionally we have created a list of check-off items. The templates are intended to describe the core attributes of systems administrators at various levels of job performance, while the check-off list is intended to augment the core descriptions. In particular, the check-off list is intended to address site-specific needs, or special areas of expertise that a systems administrator may have. Job descriptions for more experienced systems administrators or more senior positions will typically include more items from the check-off list. As a SAGE member, we'd like to encourage your comments on the work to date. Please send your input to the sage-jobs working group, sage-jobs@usenix.org, or to the Chair, Tina Darmohray, tmd@s1.gov. Feel free to join the working group as well by sending email to majordomo@usenix.org, with the body of the message "subscribe sage-jobs". Tina Darmohray SAGE Jobs Working Group Chair tmd@s1.gov ******************************************* Core Templates: Novice: Has used UNIX. Follows instruction well. May have a related degree. May have previous experience in a related area. Junior: Less than three years of sys admin experience. Is familiar with most basic systems administration tools. Has a fundamental understanding of the UNIX operating system. May be familiar with distributed computing environment concepts. Can manage a small system alone or assist in the management of a large system. Intermediate: Three to five years systems administration experience. Is comfortable with most aspects of UNIX systems administration. Has a solid understanding of the UNIX operating system. Is familiar with the fundamental networking/distributed computing environment concepts. Will receive general instructions for new responsibilities from supervisor. Will manage a mid-sized system alone or assist in the management of a large network. Can problem solve independently. Can work independently when required to. Can initiate some new responsibilities and help to plan for the future of the system/network. Senior: Greater than five years previous systems administration experience. Will design/implement complex networks of machines. May provide technical lead/supervision of others. Check Offs: Flavors of UNIX BSD, SVR4, SunOS, Ultrix, AIX, HPUX Platform Experience Sun, SGI, DEC, HP, IBM User Training Documentation and publications individual training Security system network Networking - Hardware cabling specs, installation, site planning Networking - Software internal postmaster/email admin external email/dns/news/internet gatekeeper Programming languages scripts utilities Management supervise other employees trains more junior administrators personnel reviews/promotions interviewing/hiring Administrative budget responsibility requests for proposals grant writing/review: Procurement test and evaluation prepurchase consulting Site Planning Facilities (i.e. physical building), capacity planning software needs hardware restraint Computer Hardware installation troubleshooting repair Site Size Database Experience From sage-owner Wed Feb 24 19:34:49 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09259; Wed, 24 Feb 93 19:34:49 PST Received: from ace.BSDI.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09253; Wed, 24 Feb 93 19:34:45 PST Received: by ace.BSDI.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26630; Wed, 24 Feb 93 20:34:41 MST Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 20:34:41 MST From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad) Message-Id: <9302250334.AA26630@ace.BSDI.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: FYI Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG by Neil Todd Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers UKUUG LISA 93 - "Coping with change" London, 30th June 1993 Preliminary Announcement ======================== The UKUUG announces that the theme of this year's System Administration and Management conference will be "Coping with Change", with an informal subtitle of "Strategies for hitting a moving target". With the increasing complexity of the working environment and the rate of change of that environment, in terms of both the variety of hardware platforms and associated operating systems, as well as the increasing number of third party software products available for those platforms the task of the System Manager has become increasingly difficult. How does one encapsulate the differences in System Administration procedures? How does one evolve strategies for supporting complex third party tools and their varying licensing methods? How does one set about evaluating new software and hardware? The requirements of quality certification procedures mean that much better system operation documentation is required, and must be produced. How can this documentation be generated, and then be kept up to date with the minimum of manual intervention? SAGE/UK ======= It is not only the working environment that is changing, the very role of the System Administrator is changing. System Administrators are now being recognised as being more than just skilled operators. They need to be involved in the planning process when new systems and networks are being ordered. However, at the same time organisations often make inexperienced people take on the job of System Administrator without adequate training or support. In order to help raise the standard of System Administration and to advance it as a profession, this conference will see the creation of SAGE/UK - a UKUUG Special Technical Group for System Administrators. Successful SAGE groups are already running in the USA and Australia and the UK group will keep in close contact with their activities. The group will provide a focal point for System Administration activities and will organise workshops and tutorials as well as developing guidelines for the proper management of systems. Call for Papers =============== Papers are requested on topics relating to the broad themes outlined above. Submissions on other System Management themes are also welcomed. All accepted authors will be expected to submit a paper in electronic form conforming to the conference guidelines, copies of the guidelines are available from the UKUUG Secretariat. You do not have to be a member of UKUUG to submit a paper. Submissions from speakers from outside of the UK are welcomed. Significant dates ================= Closing date for abstracts: 2nd April 1993 Accepted authors notified: 7th April 1993 Final papers due: 15th MAY 1993 Method of submission ==================== Potential authors may request further information by sending electronic mail to "ukuug-lisa-93@bnr.co.uk", or may contact a member of the programme committee directly. Initial abstracts should be sent either electronically to "ukuug-lisa-93@bnr.co.uk", or in hard copy format to the UKUUG Secretariat. Electronic submission is preferred. All submissions will be acknowledged. Programme Committee =================== Neil Todd [Chair] Lindsay Marshall GID Ltd. Dept. of Computing Science 1 Captain's Gorse University of Newcastle Upper Basildon Newcastle upon Tyne Reading NE1 7RU Berks RG8 8SZ 0491 671 964 091 222 8267 neil@pio.gid.co.uk lindsay.marshall@newcastle.ac.uk Andrew Macpherson Bill Barrett [UKUUG Secretariat] BNR (Europe) Ltd. UKUUG London Road Owles Hall Harlow Buntingford Essex Herts CM17 9NA SG9 9PL 0279 402423 0763 273475 0763 273255 (fax) a.macpherson@bnr.co.uk bill@ukuug.uucp About the UKUUG =============== The UK UNIX User Group (UKUUG) is a not-for-profit organisation which exists to provide a body representing the users of UNIX and open systems in the United Kingdom. It is unique in catering for the needs of users and being totally independent from specific hardware and software vendors. Our membership is drawn from the information technology, commercial and research/academic sectors in equal proportions. Our members are found working in software engineering, in computer manufacturing, as end-users, in software houses, and in universities and research centres. They all share the fact that they are UNIX users, whether they develop kernel modifications, develop applications, are involved in teaching and research, use their system in a turnkey environment, or any other sphere of interest. In order to maintain its independence from software and hardware vendors, the UKUUG is funded entirely from membership subscriptions. All the major suppliers of UNIX,UNIX-related, and open systems are members. Members of the UKUUG are active in UK, European, and American standards bodies such as the British Standards Institution (BSI), the International Standards Organisation (ISO), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). They provide significant input to committees involved in creating standards, such as ANSI,POSIX, SVID, and X/Open. The UKUUG is affiliated with EurOpen, the European Forum for Open Systems, the umbrella organisation covering similar national groups to the UKUUG existing in over twenty pan-European countries. Through this affiliation, UKUUG members also benefit from services provided by EurOpen and other national groups. From sage-owner Wed Feb 24 19:36:28 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09273; Wed, 24 Feb 93 19:36:28 PST Received: from ace.BSDI.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09267; Wed, 24 Feb 93 19:36:24 PST Received: by ace.BSDI.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26722; Wed, 24 Feb 93 20:36:20 MST Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 20:36:20 MST From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad) Message-Id: <9302250336.AA26722@ace.BSDI.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: D.neil Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers UKUUG LISA 93 - "Coping with change" London, 30th June 1993 by Neil Todd The UKUUG announces that the theme of this year's System Administration and Management conference will be "Coping with Change", with an informal subtitle of "Strategies for hitting a moving target". With the increasing complexity of the working environment and the rate of change of that environment, in terms of both the variety of hardware platforms and associated operating systems, as well as the increasing number of third party software products available for those platforms the task of the System Manager has become increasingly difficult. How does one encapsulate the differences in System Administration procedures? How does one evolve strategies for supporting complex third party tools and their varying licensing methods? How does one set about evaluating new software and hardware? The requirements of quality certification procedures mean that much better system operation documentation is required, and must be produced. How can this documentation be generated, and then be kept up to date with the minimum of manual intervention? SAGE/UK It is not only the working environment that is changing, the very role of the System Administrator is changing. System Administrators are now being recognised as being more than just skilled operators. They need to be involved in the planning process when new systems and networks are being ordered. However, at the same time organisations often make inexperienced people take on the job of System Administrator without adequate training or support. In order to help raise the standard of System Administration and to advance it as a profession, this conference will see the creation of SAGE/UK - a UKUUG Special Technical Group for System Administrators. Successful SAGE groups are already running in the USA and Australia and the UK group will keep in close contact with their activities. The group will provide a focal point for System Administration activities and will organise workshops and tutorials as well as developing guidelines for the proper management of systems. Call for Papers Papers are requested on topics relating to the broad themes outlined above. Submissions on other System Management themes are also welcomed. All accepted authors will be expected to submit a paper in electronic form conforming to the conference guidelines, copies of the guidelines are available from the UKUUG Secretariat. You do not have to be a member of UKUUG to submit a paper. Submissions from speakers from outside of the UK are welcomed. Significant dates Closing date for abstracts: 2nd April 1993 Accepted authors notified: 7th April 1993 Final papers due: 15th MAY 1993 Method of submission Potential authors may request further information by sending electronic mail to "ukuug-lisa-93@bnr.co.uk", or may contact a member of the programme committee directly. Initial abstracts should be sent either electronically to "ukuug-lisa-93@bnr.co.uk", or in hard copy format to the UKUUG Secretariat. Electronic submission is preferred. All submissions will be acknowledged. Programme Committee Neil Todd [Chair] Lindsay Marshall GID Ltd. Dept. of Computing Science 1 Captain's Gorse University of Newcastle Upper Basildon Newcastle upon Tyne Reading NE1 7RU Berks RG8 8SZ 0491 671 964 091 222 8267 neil@pio.gid.co.uk lindsay.marshall@newcastle.ac.uk Andrew Macpherson Bill Barrett [UKUUG Secretariat] BNR (Europe) Ltd. UKUUG London Road Owles Hall Harlow Buntingford Essex Herts CM17 9NA SG9 9PL 0279 402423 0763 273475 0763 273255 (fax) a.macpherson@bnr.co.uk bill@ukuug.uucp About the UKUUG The UK UNIX User Group (UKUUG) is a not-for-profit organisation which exists to provide a body representing the users of UNIX and open systems in the United Kingdom. It is unique in catering for the needs of users and being totally independent from specific hardware and software vendors. Our membership is drawn from the information technology, commercial and research/academic sectors in equal proportions. Our members are found working in software engineering, in computer manufacturing, as end-users, in software houses, and in universities and research centres. They all share the fact that they are UNIX users, whether they develop kernel modifications, develop applications, are involved in teaching and research, use their system in a turnkey environment, or any other sphere of interest. In order to maintain its independence from software and hardware vendors, the UKUUG is funded entirely from membership subscriptions. All the major suppliers of UNIX,UNIX-related, and open systems are members. Members of the UKUUG are active in UK, European, and American standards bodies such as the British Standards Institution (BSI), the International Standards Organisation (ISO), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). They provide significant input to committees involved in creating standards, such as ANSI,POSIX, SVID, and X/Open. The UKUUG is affiliated with EurOpen, the European Forum for Open Systems, the umbrella organisation covering similar national groups to the UKUUG existing in over twenty pan-European countries. Through this affiliation, UKUUG members also benefit from services provided by EurOpen and other national groups. From sage-owner Wed Mar 17 12:26:23 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA08887; Wed, 17 Mar 93 12:26:23 PST Received: from ben.uknet.ac.uk by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA08881; Wed, 17 Mar 93 12:26:17 PST Received: from quantime.co.uk by ben.uknet.ac.uk via UKIP with SMTP (PP) id ; Wed, 17 Mar 1993 20:25:42 +0000 Received: from pio.UUCP by quantime.co.uk; Wed, 17 Mar 93 20:23:49 GMT Message-Id: <7796.9303171925@pio.gid.co.uk> Subject: UKUUG System Administration and Manager event "Coping with change" deferred To: kolstad@bsdi.com, sage@usenix.ORG Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 19:25:11 GMT Cc: lindsay.marshall@newcastle.ac.uk (Lindsay Marshall) From: Neil Todd Organisation: GID Ltd, 1 Captain's Gorse, Upper Basildon, READING, UK, RG8 8SZ Phone: +44 491 671964 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Due to circumstances beyond the control of UKUUG, the UK UNIX systems User Group, we have had to defer our System Administration and Management conference "Coping with change" until later this year. Thanks, Neil (Prog Chair) -- Neil Todd | ..In general, it is best to assume that the PSI%234237100122::neil | network is filled with malevolent entities neil@pio.gid.co.uk | that will send in packets designed to have GID Ltd | the worst possible effect... RFC 1122 From sage-owner Fri Apr 9 12:32:55 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA18514; Fri, 9 Apr 93 12:32:55 PDT Received: from research.att.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA18507; Fri, 9 Apr 93 12:32:47 PDT Message-Id: <9304091932.AA18507@usenix.ORG> From: pep@research.att.com Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 15:31:25 EDT To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: SAGE Board Meeting Highlights Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG SAGE Board Meeting Highlights by Pat Parseghian, SAGE Secretary SAGE's first elected board of directors met for the first time on January 26, 1993 at the USENIX conference in San Diego. Our first official act was to choose officers for the coming year: Steve Simmons will serve as president, Peg Schafer as treasurer, and Pat Parseghian as secretary. Elizabeth Zwicky holds the position of past president. All board members were able to attend the meeting. In addition to those mentioned above, the board includes Carol Kubicki, Paul Moriarty, and Pat Wilson. Guests at the meeting included Paul Evans and Bjorn Satdeva (from SAGE's interim board), Greg Rose (SAGE-AU), Tom Christiansen, Ellie Young, and Cynthia Deno (USENIX). Budget The board reviewed the budget with Ellie Young. The 1993 budget projects a deficit, even though membership is growing at a faster rate than expected. A deficit is not unusual for a young organization, and USENIX will cover the shortfall as necessary. Some expenses were eliminated from the budget, thanks to our status as a USENIX STG, i.e., we do not need to incorporate or take out a separate liability insurance policy to cover SAGE's directors. The cost of the services provided by the USENIX office is a rough estimate that will be re-evaluated after six months. Publicity We discussed several ways to increase SAGE's visibility, such as articles in trade publications, mentions in system administration courses and books, and having booths at related organizations' conferences (e.g., UniForum, DECUS, Interop). Pat Wilson agreed to head a committee, joined by Steve Simmons, Peg Schafer, and Bryan McDonald (chairman of the Publications Working Group) to focus on this issue. We agreed that our message should be that SAGE is ``strongly rooted in UNIX"; although we'd like to reach out to all system administrators, we don't want to spread ourselves too thin from the start. SANS II The World Conference on Tools and Techniques for System Administration, Networking, and Security will be held in Washington, D.C., April 18-23. The conference is being run by FedUNIX, and cosponsored with USENIX and SAGE. Affiliated Groups The board voted to announce that we have affiliated with SAGE-AU (Australia), and agreed that we should support other SAGE international groups (as well as Local Technical Groups). Pat Parseghian volunteered to be the contact for international groups. Greg Rose represented SAGE-AU and noted that they will soon be actively recruiting members. SAGE-AU would like to see SAGE begin addressing international issues. The board thanked Bjorn Satdeva for his work on developing a document describing SAGE Local Technical Groups (LTGs). We agreed that the best approach might be to hand-craft the first few LTGs that approach us, rather than to try to prepare an all-encompassing document at the start. Working Groups It was agreed to develop a charter for the working groups, identify a specific task for each group to accomplish, track its progress, and determine whether a group should be dissolved. Carol Kubicki, Paul Moriarty, Pat Parseghian, and Pat Wilson formed a subcommittee to tackle these issues and review the working groups. We accepted Dave England's offer to serve as chairperson of the SAGE-vendors Working Group (after the original chairperson stepped down). It was decided to restrict participation in the working groups to SAGE members. This requirement will take effect at the Summer USENIX conference, in order to make it easy for people to join. Further, no new working groups would be designated until we have drafted a document that describes how the working groups should operate. SAGE Computer Many SAGE functions are handled by USENIX on their computer system, and some organizations have made cycles and disc space available to SAGE for online archives. We agreed that a separate computer for SAGE is not a pressing issue, but one that we should carry forward so we can prepare a specification to match our needs. Job Placement The SAGE board agreed that it should be a matter of policy for SAGE not to be involved in job placement or individual recommendations. SAGE board members are free to participate in such activities as long as it is clear they are not acting in any official SAGE capacity. Terms of Officers There was a consensus that we expected to re-elect officers each year, following the annual election for new board members. Paul Evans reported that the ;login: article he wrote after the SAGE meeting in San Antonio specifically mentioned that officers would serve one-year terms. Board Meeting Schedule It was decided to meet at least three times per year at the Winter and Summer USENIX conferences, and at the LISA conference. The next meeting will be held as a conference call on March 5. SAGE Logo We looked at some possible logos for SAGE, none of which seemed suitable. A smaller group should collect some recommendations for the rest of the board to consider. We agreed to ask the USENIX staff for some assistance. LISA VIII The issue of putting together a committee to work with USENIX to choose a chairperson for LISA VIII was tabled. The committee should be formed at the SAGE board meeting in June. Membership Survey It was decided to postpone taking the time and expense to survey our members at this time, and that we should consider doing so at some future date (with the help of a professional). Since there were concerns that we might not be doing what our members want, each board member agreed to solicit comments from five members during the San Diego conference. Carol Kubicki offered to collect and summarize these comments. From sage-owner Mon Apr 19 09:07:30 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA22638; Mon, 19 Apr 93 09:07:30 PDT Received: from mrj.com (turtle.mrj.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA22631; Mon, 19 Apr 93 09:07:22 PDT Received: from otter.mrj.com by mrj.com (4.1/SMI-4.1.003) id AA21887; Mon, 19 Apr 93 12:05:10 EDT Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 12:05:10 EDT From: kmayer@mrj.com (Ken Mayer) Message-Id: <9304191605.AA21887@mrj.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: help Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk help From sage-owner Thu Apr 22 12:24:45 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12327; Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:24:45 PDT Received: from usl.com (usl.usl.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12319; Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:24:38 PDT Message-Id: <9304221924.AA12319@usenix.ORG> Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 15:07 EDT From: mlf@usl.com To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: SAGE job descriptions Received: from usl by usl.com; Thu, 22 Apr 1993 15:07 EDT Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1456 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I work for UNIX System Laboratories in the documentation department. We are beginning to plan a major overhaul of our system administration books and want to develop profiles of our audience (or audiences). I received a copy of some mail sent by Tina M. Darmohray to usenix.org that consisted of "job descriptions." They appear to me to be good descriptions of our audience(s) as well. I was also wondering if your group has any other research or information on characterisics of system administrators which might be available to us. In particular, we are interested in information about what you might call the "user-administrator." That is, those people who have no particular computer science background, but must maintain a UNIX system for their own personal use, or for a small business. Another question that I was interested in getting your opinion on is whether you think there will continue to be an audience for descriptions of system administration tasks as done from the command line interface. Or will even professional administrators, responsible for maintaining large, networked systems, prefer to work through GUI interfaces rather than from the command line. If you can help us obtain information on any of these questions, or if you may know other people or organizations we could contact, I'd appreciate it. Cordially, Mary L. Fox UNIX System Laboratories 190 River Road Summit, NJ 07901 (908) 522-6105 mlf@granite.usl.com From sage-owner Thu Apr 22 14:09:50 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA13586; Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:09:50 PDT Received: from qualcomm.com (qualcom.qualcomm.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA13575; Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:09:35 PDT Received: from philly.qualcomm.com by qualcomm.com; id AA03431 sendmail 5.65/QC-main-2.1 via SMTP Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:08:51 -0700 for sage@usenix.org Received: from localhost.qualcomm.com by philly; id AA08899 sendmail 5.67/QC-subsidiary-2.1 via SMTP Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:08:49 -0700 for sage@usenix.org Message-Id: <9304222108.AA08899@philly> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Problem tracking systems Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:08:47 -0700 From: Keith Pilotti Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Hi Everyone! We are in need of a more automated problem tracking system at our site. Please share with us your solution(s) in terms of available tools, products, and general advice. We are looking at GNATS, and want other tools to evaluate as well. Commercial solutions are OK. We need to support users on UNIX, Mac, PC (windows, OS/2, even d-d-d-d-DOS), and VMS platforms (in that order of importance). Currently, we have a staff of twenty or more people, each with various responsibilities and knowledge. Problem reports from users get passed around until someone comes up with a solution. Often, discussions between multiple people are required. While we have had reasonable success in not "dropping" very many requests, it is stressful and inefficient having everyone manually maintain and followup on problems. It is particularly important when the team leaders are held responsible for knowing the state of all projects/problems under their jurisdiction. Any and all suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks! +Keith -- Keith F. Pilotti KFP@Qualcomm.Com Qualcomm Incorporated UNIX Systems Management Team 10555 Sorrento Valley Road +1 619 597-5551 (Voice) San Diego, CA 92121-1617 +1 619 455-0571 (FAX) From sage-owner Thu Apr 22 14:47:28 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14065; Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:47:28 PDT Received: from fullsail.llnl.gov by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14058; Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:47:20 PDT Received: by fullsail.llnl.gov (4.1/LLNL-1.18) id AA09141; Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:46:34 PDT From: jms@fullsail.llnl.gov (James M. Sharp) Message-Id: <9304222146.AA09141@fullsail.llnl.gov> Subject: Re: Problem tracking systems To: kfp@qualcomm.com (Keith Pilotti) Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 14:46:33 PDT Cc: sage@usenix.ORG In-Reply-To: <9304222108.AA08899@philly>; from "Keith Pilotti" at Apr 22, 93 02:08:47 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4dev PL32] Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk > > Hi Everyone! > > We are in need of a more automated problem tracking system at our site. > > Please share with us your solution(s) in terms of available tools, products, > and general advice. > > We are looking at GNATS, and want other tools to evaluate as well. Commercial > solutions are OK. We need to support users on UNIX, Mac, PC (windows, > OS/2, even d-d-d-d-DOS), and VMS platforms (in that order of importance). > > Currently, we have a staff of twenty or more people, each with various > responsibilities and knowledge. Problem reports from users get passed around > until someone comes up with a solution. Often, discussions between multiple > people are required. > > While we have had reasonable success in not "dropping" very many requests, it > is stressful and inefficient having everyone manually maintain and followup on > problems. It is particularly important when the team leaders are held > responsible for knowing the state of all projects/problems under their > jurisdiction. > > Any and all suggestions will be appreciated. > > Thanks! > +Keith Hey Keith, You should try "request". It's a perl script that uses a dbm file to store and track requests. Request has lots of functionality including weekly and monthly reports. Request is curses based and uses sendmail to notify sys admin and users of new, updated, and closed requests. You can ftp (anonymous) request from pearl.s1.gov. The version of request you want is /pub/request2.1.1.tar.Z. -Jim- ------ James M. Sharp Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (510)422-5963 jms@llnl.gov From sage-owner Fri Apr 23 10:14:56 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA25301; Fri, 23 Apr 93 10:14:56 PDT Received: from interlock.amoco.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA25291; Fri, 23 Apr 93 10:14:48 PDT Received: by interlock.amoco.com id AA06503 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 1.1 for sage@usenix.org); Fri, 23 Apr 1993 12:07:37 -0500 Received: by interlock.amoco.com (Internal Mail Agent-2); Fri, 23 Apr 1993 12:07:37 -0500 Received: by interlock.amoco.com (Internal Mail Agent-1); Fri, 23 Apr 1993 12:07:37 -0500 Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 12:14:01 CDT From: tank@amoco.com (Jon A. Tankersley) Message-Id: <9304231714.AA17828@trc.amoco.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: Problem tracking systems Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk There are quite a few now, after a dearth of them..... Quintus WorkPro has Prolog expert system front-ending Informix. We've used it for a while. It is customizable using some fairly slick tools developed by Quintus. It is X-motif based, works fine with OW-3.x and has been very useful for us for tracking problems and making a case for our existence. One rather slick setup that is available is to have multiple instances of WorkPro in a corporation and have them keep in sync. Intel is doing this now between Haifa Israel and Silicon Valley. HP supposedly uses WorkPro also. WorkPro is working on PC's and Mac, as long as they have X. Should work on VMS too. It includes a reportwriter that allows most SQL type queries to the prolog and to the RDBMS. Quintus has eval copies available also. Fairly intuitive interface, unless you find some of the bugs as we have in their 1.x release (they are now at 2.x). Another group, in too much of a hurry IMHO, purchased Apriori. It does the job but you are locked into the vendor's idea of how to do things. The group isn't really that happy with it. Limited capacity, high cost, etc. I have received literature on NetLabs and Remedy, but I don't know anything about them. And then there is BugTraq. It has been around the longest, but I haven't been able to get my management to do much about this until just last year..... Been budgeted for this stuff for 4 years, and just found something last year. Sigh. From sage-owner Fri Apr 23 11:23:45 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA26276; Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:23:45 PDT Received: from unet.net.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA26268; Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:23:38 PDT Received: from shakespeare.net.com by unet.net.com (4.1/UNET-1.1) id AA21167; Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:23:59 PDT Received: by shakespeare.net.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA18508; Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:24:20 PDT Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:24:20 PDT From: stan@shakespeare.net.com (Stan Heller) Message-Id: <9304231824.AA18508@shakespeare.net.com> To: kfp@qualcomm.com, jms@fullsail.llnl.gov Subject: Re: Problem tracking systems Cc: sage@usenix.ORG, eng_adm@shakespeare Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Seconds on "request". We use it at NET and it is extremely helpful for managing the job queue. We give it five stars. Joe bob sez, check it out. ========================================================================== Stan Heller Engineering Systems Administration (stan@net.com) Network Equipment Technologies (415)641-5322 "One rope, everyone pulling in the same direction" ========================================================================== From sage-owner Fri Apr 23 13:32:26 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA27977; Fri, 23 Apr 93 13:32:26 PDT Received: from somnet.Sandia.GOV by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA27969; Fri, 23 Apr 93 13:32:17 PDT Received: by somnet.Sandia.GOV (5.59/SNLA-3.2.1) id AA14004; Fri, 23 Apr 93 14:31:08 MDT From: wllarso@somnet.sandia.gov (William L Larson) Message-Id: <9304232031.AA14004@somnet.Sandia.GOV> Subject: Re: Problem tracking systems To: sage@usenix.ORG Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 14:31:02 MDT In-Reply-To: <9304231824.AA18508@shakespeare.net.com>; from "Stan Heller" at Apr 23, 93 11:24 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I'm on the SAGE mailing list and have been getting quite a few messages on this topic. Is it possible that people who are replying could send their info directly to the requester instead of to the list? Then, if there is interest, the original requester could send out a summary. Even better, is could be posted to comp.unix.admin (or whatever). This is a copy of the noise that I'm receiving. I'm tired of it. > Seconds on "request". We use it at NET and it is extremely helpful > for managing the job queue. > > We give it five stars. Joe bob sez, check it out. From sage-owner Fri Apr 23 18:33:49 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02441; Fri, 23 Apr 93 18:33:49 PDT Received: from relay2.UU.NET by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02434; Fri, 23 Apr 93 18:33:42 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST.UU.NET) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA08097; Fri, 23 Apr 93 21:33:07 -0400 Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 21:33:07 -0400 From: uworld!uucp@uunet.uu.net Message-Id: <9304240133.AA08097@relay2.UU.NET> Received: from uworld.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 213106.16037; Fri, 23 Apr 1993 21:31:06 EDT Apparently-To: Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk >From rik Fri Apr 23 17:43:23 1993 remote from crow Reply-To: crow!rik Received: by crow.noname (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04924; Fri, 23 Apr 93 17:43:23 MST Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 17:43:23 MST From: crow!rik (Rik Farrow) Message-Id: <9304240043.AA04924@crow.noname> To: uworld!uunet!usenix.org!sage Subject: Re: SAGE job descriptions I doubt that anyone in the SAGE list even uses GUI interfaces AT ALL for system administration. I am also rewriting my book, UNIX Administration Guide for System V (Prentice Hall, 1989), and while we will include some information about about using graphical interfaces, the main focus will still be on working from the command line. Why? The graphical interface won't do everything I need it to do. For example, suppose I am upgrading an older 3B2 to a new SVR4 system. There are thirty accounts on the old system, along with home directory hierarchies. Do you think that I, or any other competant system administrator would go through a GUI menu system thirty times to copy MANUALLY the information already stored in my old computer. Not hardly. I will edit the passwd file and add the new entries. Then I will use shell scripts to create appropriate entries for the hidden password file. Finally, I'll use tar or cpio to move the home directories over. Tasks like this are not included in menuing systems. Yet they consist of much of the work done by system administrators, unless they fit into your category of user-administrators. These are the people who need GUI-interfaces. The rest of us need to know file formats and command arguments. I know that USL would like people to ignore the real files and commands and use the "safe" interfaces. But this is often not possible, or extremely inconvenient. Please don't make System V MORE DIFFICULT to use by hiding the details behind GUI interfaces. It's your job to point out what's really happening when the GUI does its job. Rik Farrow Technical Editor, UNIX World Magazine rik@uworld.com 602 282 0242 (MST) From sage-owner Mon Apr 26 12:11:13 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05218; Mon, 26 Apr 93 12:11:13 PDT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05208; Mon, 26 Apr 93 12:10:55 PDT Received: from hp.com by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA07972; Mon, 26 Apr 93 10:49:21 -0400 Received: from hpbs2502.boi.hp.com by hp.com with SMTP (16.8/15.5+IOS 3.13) id AA25166; Mon, 26 Apr 93 07:44:05 -0700 Received: by hpbs2502.boi.hp.com (1.37.109.4/15.5+IOS 3.22) id AA05083; Mon, 26 Apr 93 08:43:45 -0600 From: wwhitley@hpbs2502.boi.hp.com (Wes Whitley / H-P Boise Site) Message-Id: <9304260843.ZM5081@hpbs2502.boi.hp.com> Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 08:43:44 -0600 In-Reply-To: wllarso@somnet.sandia.gov (William L Larson) "Re: Problem tracking systems" (Apr 23, 2:31pm) References: <9304232031.AA14004@somnet.Sandia.GOV> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (2.1.4 02apr93) To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Excessive Noise on the Network Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I totally agree with William L. Larson. In about 1 day, the sage@usenix.org is going into my auto-kill file, never to be seen again. Please use a newsgroup to discuss this and other topics. ++++++ On Apr 23, 2:31pm, William L Larson wrote: > Subject: Re: Problem tracking systems : : I'm on the SAGE mailing list and have been getting quite a few messages : on this topic. Is it possible that people who are replying could send : their info directly to the requester instead of to the list? Then, if : there is interest, the original requester could send out a summary. : Even better, is could be posted to comp.unix.admin (or whatever). : : This is a copy of the noise that I'm receiving. I'm tired of it. : : > Seconds on "request". We use it at NET and it is extremely helpful : > for managing the job queue. : > : > We give it five stars. Joe bob sez, check it out. >-- End of excerpt from William L Larson -- Wes Whitley | HP Boise Site Information Technology, | "Come now and let us reason together," Distributed Technical Computing | says the Lord. Isaiah 1:18 wwhitley@boi.hp.com / 208-323-2188 | From sage-owner Mon Apr 26 16:49:55 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA10467; Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:49:55 PDT Received: from qualcomm.com (qualcom.qualcomm.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA10459; Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:49:40 PDT Received: from philly.qualcomm.com by qualcomm.com; id AA14464 sendmail 5.65/QC-main-2.1 via SMTP Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:48:52 -0700 for sage@usenix.org Received: from localhost.qualcomm.com by philly; id AA17835 sendmail 5.67/QC-subsidiary-2.1 via SMTP Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:48:47 -0700 for sage@usenix.org Message-Id: <9304262348.AA17835@philly> To: sage@usenix.ORG, kfp@qualcomm.com Subject: Re: [Problem Tracking] Excessive Noise on the Network In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 26 Apr 93 08:43:44 -0700. <9304260843.ZM5081@hpbs2502.boi.hp.com> Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 16:48:45 -0700 From: Keith Pilotti Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk This is one of those unfortunate Catch-22 sort of posts. Posting to appease some people will no doubt annoy others. Although I didn't explicitly request replies to be sent only to me, I certainly never intended to initiate any discussions on the SAGE list. Folks should be careful when replying to group posts. Delete that Cc: sage@usenix.org line. These days, it is not safe to assume everyone receiving a list is actually interested in things posted to it. I have receive many replies -- Thank you! I will summarize the results in the next week or so. If anyone has further information, please send directly to me and I'll include it in the summary. +Keith P.S. While it is clear there are many clueless humans who post dumb messages to various lists (eg. "subscribe/unsubscribe/testing"), it never ceases to amaze me why people will subscribe to a mailing list, and then complain when they receive mail sent to it. -- Keith F. Pilotti KFP@Qualcomm.Com Qualcomm Incorporated UNIX Systems Management Team 10555 Sorrento Valley Road +1 619 597-5551 (Voice) San Diego, CA 92121-1617 +1 619 455-0571 (FAX) From sage-owner Tue Apr 27 10:26:09 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA19824; Tue, 27 Apr 93 10:26:09 PDT Received: from iscp.bellcore.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA19812; Tue, 27 Apr 93 10:25:51 PDT Received: from golf.iscp.bellcore.com by iscp.bellcore.com (AIX 3.1/UCB 5.61/4.03) id AA31529; Tue, 27 Apr 93 13:15:37 -0400 Received: by golf.iscp.bellcore.com (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA16219; Tue, 27 Apr 1993 13:15:13 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 13:15:13 -0400 From: duke@iscp.bellcore.com (Bob Robillard) Message-Id: <9304271715.AA16219@golf.iscp.bellcore.com> To: smwg@ui.org, sig-man@osf.org, sage@usenix.ORG Subject: POSIX 1003.7.1 (Printing) Ballot Reply-To: duke@iscp.bellcore.com Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk At last week's POSIX meeting, I learned that you can still get on the ballot group for P1003.7.1, POSIX Printing, even though the official deadline has passed. Since I suspect people on these lists (smwg@ui.org sig-man@osf.org and sage@usenix.org) might be interested in this, I thought I'd pass the info along The form to fill out is included below. Bob Robillard, Technical Editor, 1003.7.1, duke@cc.bellcore.com The call to join the Balloting Group on 1003.7.1 Print System Administration, has gone out. I typed in the three page mailing; the text is below. If you want Ballot on this standard, print out the forms below, fill them out and mail them to the IEEE. At the risk of sounding rude, let me shout for a second: DON'T MAIL THEM TO ME!!!!! MAIL HARDCOPY TO THE IEEE!!!! Any typos in the following are mine. Bob Robillard, Technical Editor, 1003.7.1, duke@cc.bellcore.com Dear TCOS Member: This letter invites you to participate in the Sponser Ballot for a standard from the Portable Applications Standard Committee (often referred to as POSIX). This document will be ready for balloting this May. Information describing the scope and purpose is enclosed. BALLOTERS RESPONSIBILITY TO RESPOND If you choose to be part of the balloting group, you will have 30 days to review and respond to drafts. In order for the Sponsor Ballot to be valid, at least 75% of the balots sent must be returned. For that reason: VOTERS HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO RESOND. If you are just interested in having a copy of the latest draft , you may order any draft in ballot, individually by calling (800) 678-IEEE in the US and Canada. Outside the US and Canada, call (908) 981-1391. MEMBERSHIP You must be a member of the IEEE or the Computer Society to vote on IEEE Standards. Non-members can be included on the balloting distribution. The commnets of non-voting members will be addressed by the ballot resolution committee. If you prefer to apply for IEEE or Computer Society membership in order to be a full balloting member, please enclose your application and payment with theis ballot form. A separate mailing could delay your inclusion as a balloting member beyond the deadline period. For membership questions call Membership Development at 908-562-5524 BALLOTING FEE The fee to ballot for 1993 is $50 per standard and covers all circulations. Half of the amount funds the Secretariat responsibilities that the U.S. assumes for the Internatiuonal JTC1. The remainder offsets the cost of balloting. In addition to the form on which you select which balloting groups you choose to participate, be sure to also return in the same envelope the payment form to select your payment method. Unemployed memebers of the IEEE may request a fee waiver by includeing a separate letter of request. Sincerely signature Anne O'Neill Staff Engineer 908 562-3809 Operating Systems Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society Invites You to Ballot On P1003.7.1 STandard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating Systems Interface (POSIX) -- Part 3: Systems Administration Amendment: Print Administration RETURN DEADLINE: 26 March 1993 Scope: Provide utility program interfaces, service interfaces and managed object definitions for usage and management of printing services. Includes interfaces and managed objects for both computer users and system administrators. Base documents fo rthe work will be the MIT Palladium printing system, the USL "lp" printer interfaces, and the BSD "lpr" printer interfaces. Purpose: The purpose of this standard is to provide a common set of utility programs, service interfaces and managed object definitions that ensure the ability to print and to manage printing systems: o complementing the provisions in the P1003.2 standard o complying with the security requirements in the P1003.6 document, including the ability to handle the printing and print management needs of P1003.6 o complying with the various networking requirements of the groups reporting to the Distributed Services Steering Committee, including the ability to handle their printing needs. The standard is to be used by system administrators and implementors of printing and printing administration software Your Category of Interest in this Standards Ballot: ____User ____Producer _____Academic _____General Interest (Note: please choose only ONE of the above/If you have an combination of Interests, check the General Interest Category) Name:_____________________________________________________________ Phone:____________________________________________________________ Company:__________________________________________________________ Mailing Address:__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ FAX:__________________________email:______________________________ IEEE or Computer Society Membership Number * ____________________ Check here if NOT a member of the IEEE or the Computer Society ____________________ [One of the two above lines MUST be filled out] *Only IEEE or Computer Society members are eligible to ballot on IEEE proposed standards; non-members can participate as Non-Voters Signature:_________________________________________Date:__________ If you want positive confirmation back by mail that this form has been received by the IEEE Standards Office, please enclose a stamped, pre- addressed post card along with this form. Please return to: Anna Kaczmarek by 445 Hoes Lane, PO Box 1331 26 March 1993 IEEE Standards Office Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331 FAX: 908-562-1571 Payment Form to Ballot on POSIX Be sure to include form indicating WHICH balloting groups you are are specifying payment: 1. Circle the total fee that corresponds to the quantity requested. 1 - STANDARD 2 - STANDARDS 3 - STANDARDS $50 $100 $150 ******************************************************************* 2. Check one for payment method. [___] Payment Enclosed [____] Charge to credit card Make check payable to IEEE [____] American Express in US dollars on US bank [____] MasterCard/EuroCard [____] Diners Club [___] Deduct from my NAPS account [____] VISA Card No.____________________________________Exp.Date__________________ Signature___________________________________Date:_____________________ Name__________________________________________________________________ please print ********************************************************************** 3. Billing address for charge: Address: ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Please keep a copy of this form for you files! Return by deadline on accompanying form indicating WHICH groups you are specifying payment to: Anna Kaczmarek PO Box 1331 IEEE Standards Office Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331 FAX: 908-562-1571 From sage-owner Tue May 4 07:03:14 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA28327; Tue, 4 May 93 07:03:14 PDT Received: from red1.Teradyne.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA28320; Tue, 4 May 93 07:03:06 PDT Received: from attain.ICD.Teradyne.COM by red1.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TERX-1.2) id AA26498; Tue, 4 May 93 07:01:56 PDT Received: by attain.ICD.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TER-1.35/attain-1.27) id AA25041; Tue, 4 May 93 07:02:14 PDT Received: by beaux.ATWC.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TER-1.35/beaux-1.6) id AA14110; Tue, 4 May 93 07:01:55 PDT Date: Tue, 4 May 93 07:01:55 PDT From: deb@ATWC.Teradyne.COM (MOTHER DAEMON) Message-Id: <9305041401.AA14110@beaux.ATWC.Teradyne.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: who Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk who sage From sage-owner Tue May 4 07:21:15 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA28532; Tue, 4 May 93 07:21:15 PDT Received: from red1.Teradyne.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA28525; Tue, 4 May 93 07:21:09 PDT Received: from attain.ICD.Teradyne.COM by red1.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TERX-1.2) id AA26546; Tue, 4 May 93 07:20:01 PDT Received: by attain.ICD.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TER-1.35/attain-1.27) id AA25184; Tue, 4 May 93 07:20:12 PDT Received: by beaux.ATWC.Teradyne.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/TER-1.35/beaux-1.6) id AA14185; Tue, 4 May 93 07:19:53 PDT Date: Tue, 4 May 93 07:19:53 PDT From: deb@ATWC.Teradyne.COM (MOTHER DAEMON) Message-Id: <9305041419.AA14185@beaux.ATWC.Teradyne.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Apologies Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk My sincerest apologies for mis-sending my "who" request to the ENTIRE SAGE list, as Steve Simmons so kindly pointed out to me. Argh. I *meant* to send the query to majordome@usenix.org. My mind and body aren't quite in sync this morning. Mea Culpa! debbie heller From sage-owner Mon May 10 12:04:31 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02254; Mon, 10 May 93 12:04:31 PDT Received: from macsch.com (DRACO.MACSCH.COM) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA02247; Mon, 10 May 93 12:04:23 PDT Received: from [161.34.1.6] by macsch.com (5.61/SMI-4.1-07) id AA22362; Mon, 10 May 93 12:03:34 -0700 Received: from canismajor.is.macsch.com by convex.is.macsch.com (5.64/2.0) id AA26919; Mon, 10 May 93 11:56:31 -0700 Received: by canismajor.is.macsch.com (4.1/2.0) id AA14421; Mon, 10 May 93 12:03:21 PDT Date: Mon, 10 May 93 12:03:21 PDT From: todd@macsch.com (Todd Williams) Message-Id: <9305101903.AA14421@canismajor.is.macsch.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: conference attendance Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk LISA is such a wonderful conference that my entire UNIX administration staff wants to attend. My boss can't leave us in such a vulnerable position, and wants to severly limit who can attend. How do other sites handle this problem? At least USENIX comes twice a year, but with LISA only once, it's a long time to wait for alternate conferences. Todd Williams UNIX Systems Supervisor todd@macsch.com (213) 259-4973 MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. ("MSC"), 815 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041 "Solaris 2.0 -- It's enough to make you leave the company." -Rob Kolstad From sage-owner Mon May 10 16:24:23 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05752; Mon, 10 May 93 16:24:23 PDT Received: from mail.barrnet.net by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05740; Mon, 10 May 93 16:24:10 PDT Received: from mycroft.greatcircle.com by mail.barrnet.net (5.67/1.37) id AA05977; Mon, 10 May 93 16:23:10 -0700 Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22422; Mon, 10 May 93 14:59:39 PDT Message-Id: <9305102159.AA22422@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: todd@macsch.com (Todd Williams) Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: conference attendance In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 10 May 93 12:03:21 PDT Date: Mon, 10 May 93 14:59:38 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk # LISA is such a wonderful conference that my entire UNIX administration # staff wants to attend. My boss can't leave us in such a vulnerable # position, and wants to severly limit who can attend. How do other # sites handle this problem? At least USENIX comes twice a year, but # with LISA only once, it's a long time to wait for alternate conferences. # # Todd Williams UNIX Systems Supervisor todd@macsch.com (213) 259-4973 # MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. ("MSC"), 815 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041 # "Solaris 2.0 -- It's enough to make you leave the company." -Rob Kolstad When the issue is coverage, not cost, I've seen some sites have good luck by staggering folks, and sending each to one or two days of the conference, then back to work while somebody else goes. Since you guys are in Los Angeles, you should be able to catch an evening flight up to Monterey via San Jose after work, go to the conference the next day, and catch another evening or redeye flight back home to be at work the next day. That way, the whole staff gets at least part of the conference. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From sage-owner Wed Jul 7 13:10:38 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA06167; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:10:38 PDT Received: from research.att.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA06159; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:10:24 PDT Message-Id: <9307072010.AA06159@usenix.ORG> Received: by inet; Wed Jul 7 16:08 EDT 1993 Date: Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:08:09 EDT From: jpl@allegra.att.com (John P. Linderman) To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: finding commands Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk When I lived in a single-manufacturer world, I never had to give this much thought. Now that I help administer systems from several manufacturers, I find the following sorts of questions surprising difficult to answer satisfactorily: 1) Where is the rsh command? The one that runs a command on a remote machine. 2) What follows PATH= in shell scripts run from crontab? In the Sun (OS <= 4.1.3) world, rsh is in /usr/ucb. But on our SGI IRIS workstations, there is no /usr/ucb. /usr/bsd/rsh works on the SGIs. But beware of /bin/rsh, a restricted flavor of the bourne shell. There was no problem when we only had Suns, because rsh was unambiguous. Now rsh means quite another thing if you are on an SGI and /bin comes early in your search path. Question 2 is similar. In the Sun world, one search path made sense for a large class of scripts. But if the scripts are also to run in the SGI world, I need a different search path. I can think of a couple straw men, and the glimmering of a valid solution. Straw Man 1) Come up with a single search path that combines all the directories in BOTH worlds. Beyond being ugly, which is reason enough to reject it, it is also crude. If I put /usr/bsd ahead of /bin to make sure I get the desired mail command, then I must be willing to have all the commands thereunder take priority. In general, no single sequence of standard directories will guarantee that the commands I care about come from the desired place. And how does this extend to manufacturers I haven't seen yet? Straw Man 2) Have the manufacturers agree on standard places and standard names and standard behaviors. Sure. World peace, too. But I am dwelling in the present, and I need a solution I can do something about, now. Glimmer) Create a few system-specific files, let's say under /etc/standard, that pin down some of the solutions in a way that admins can control. For example, have /etc/standard/path/ contain files for root, adm, and normal users corresponding to standard search paths. Root's would not contain . or other inessential or insecure directories. adm would contain the root set, plus special admin directories, perhaps /usr/local/adm/bin, that normal users wouldn't need. The user baseline path would include /usr/games, ., /usr/local/bin and so on, as local tastes dictated. This is the sort of thing that is hotwired into the login command now, but is not (to my knowledge) conveniently accessible to scripts. /etc/standard/bin would contain symlinks for ambiguous commands like rsh, echo, mail and so on, and would come at the start of all of the standard paths, thus answering question 1: if there is some question about where rsh comes from, wire it down in /etc/standard/bin on all the machines you administer. And the answer to question 2 is PATH=`/etc/standard/path/root` for scripts run by root, and so on. The output will differ on systems from different sources, but the scripts stand a much better chance of running everywhere. Is this a solved problem, whose solution I missed? (I don't spend a lot of time following standards proposals, so I apologize in advance if I am addressing a dead issue.) Have other admins encountered and/or solved it? Flames to me, contributions to me or the group. I'll summarize what people don't broadcast. John P. Linderman jpl@allegra.att.com From sage-owner Tue Jul 13 11:10:44 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA16886; Tue, 13 Jul 93 11:10:44 PDT Received: from research.att.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA16826; Tue, 13 Jul 93 11:08:50 PDT Message-Id: <9307131808.AA16826@usenix.ORG> Received: by inet; Tue Jul 13 14:10 EDT 1993 Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 14:10:02 EDT From: jpl@allegra.att.com (John P. Linderman) To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: summary - finding commands in a multi-vendor universe Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Responses have died down, so a summary is in order. My original questions were, in a multi-vendor universe: 1) How do you find the ``rsh'' command that invokes a remote (not a restricted) shell? 2) What do you put after PATH= in scripts that should run on all machines? I got several thought-provoking replies, though fewer than I had hoped. I thought this would be a common problem in the SAGE community. The ``summary'' is mostly musings by me, inspired by observations from others. It is long. Here's a short version. A) The problem is neither simple nor solved, although Bob Arnold (rca@ingres.com) sent me a LISA paper (LISA V, 30 Sep - 3 Oct 1991, San Diego) describing a system that works for him in a universe comprising more vendors than I ever hope to handle. B) The original questions don't define the class of problems which are really at the heart of things. The responses, and Bob's paper in particular, caused me to rethink what I was asking. (That's the advantage of seeing all the replies, not just a summary.) The questions were provoked by the introduction of SGI machines into what had been a Sun world. We have a large number of administrative scripts that keep things humming. We'd like these scripts to work in the SGI world, too. We administer both worlds. There was no existing SGI community to worry about. Most scripts are /bin/sh scripts, but a few csh scripts must be ported as well. C) Having a search path that starts with a directory under sysadmin control goes a long way towards solving our problem, as well as some related ones. That directory can ``redirect'' references to ``rsh'', ``mail'', ``echo'' and such to the ``correct'' place. The ``big deal'' is that existing scripts need no modifications (beyond setting the search path). Many people mentioned that in addition to ambiguity between rsh-as- remote-shell and rsh-as-restricted-shell, there is the complementary problem of the the remote shell being known by several different names, for example, remsh. The admin directory in the search path solves this problem... rsh and remsh can be links to the same place. Many noted that they used the uname command, or some homebrew version thereof, to allow a command to identify its operating environment, and behave differently in different environments. We have done some of this. It matters a lot (to me at least) where the testing happens. I don't want to see it in the scripts, because it would take a lot of editing to put it there. More to the point, I find it ugly and confusing, like heavily #ifdef-ed C code, and spreading it into a gazillion scripts is asking for trouble when changes must be made. Some folks put ``function wrappers'' around ambiguous commands, and let the shell do the vendor determination and command redirection. While I prefer this to doctoring each script, I don't expect to head in this direction. I'd need a parallel set of functions for the csh scripts, and I distrust the ability of functions to survive when a script invokes an editor, then !'s back out. I'd like the mechanism to be the foundation for user scripts and logins, as well, and users expect to be able to redefine ``mail'' by putting a variant in a private directory at the start of their search path. Functions don't honor search path semantics. Here are a few ideas or observations about the problem in general. 1) Don't use full path names for the commands in your scripts. I used to do this for scripts that were to be run by users, where I wanted them to be able to provide their own versions of certain commands (so I didn't want to set an absolute search path), but I wanted to be sure to get a few critical tools from the ``right place''. Bad idea. Sophisticated users have no problem copying and modifying scripts to suit special needs. Most naive users don't (deliberately) replace standard commands with their own versions. Hotwiring the path names precludes the use of whole classes of porting aids (aliases, functions, search path rearrangements) that you'd like available when you find the commands are no longer where you expect them. When I'm trying to preserve user flexibility now, I do : ${formatcmd=pr} so a sensible default is used, but can be overridden without modifying the script. 2) Actually replacing a command supplied by a vendor is risky business. Who knows what vendor-supplied script relies on what vendor-specific ``feature'' of some command. I have enough scripts of my own to worry about without taking on those supplied by the vendors. 3) The simple expedient of setting PATH=`/etc/standard/path` buys a lot of flexibility in a lot of environments for a minimal cost. . /etc/standard/setup.sh buys more flexibility, but at a higher cost. 4) Use of the same name for incompatible commands is the root of much evil. We, the SAGEs, can probably do ourselves a big favor by identifying the common collisions, and agreeing on unique names for the different commands. It's much easy to bind an unused name to an existing command than to sort out which of several commands sharing the same name was really intended. 5) One of Bob Arnold's nightmares is that /etc/dist and /etc/saenv (two names embedded in his tools) will be appropriated by some vendor. Something to contemplate is staking a claim on /etc/sage, control over which will reside with the SAGE powers. I don't have the clout to get the attention of a vendor. SAGE does. All the vendors have to promise is to keep out. About item 3), which is something I want to act on promptly. I'm inclined to adopt the simple PATH= solution over the more general . solution (although sourcing a file is SO much more powerful than altering a path, maybe I'll source a file that does nothing more, initially, than change the path). We get into religious issues, which is why I held this for the end. Beyond the obvious fact that I'd need to provide a comparable /etc/standard/setup.csh for csh, I like the ``discipline'' of only tampering with the search path. It relies only on the search path mechanism, something that has been around for a very long time, and is hard for vendors to get wrong. This is NOT true of things like aliases and/or shell functions. So the odds of the solution introducing subtle new problems are reasonably small. Although symlinks in the initial search path directory can take care of many problems I have encountered (rsh, echo and mail, for example), the same mechanism can take on more complicated problems. For example, the SGI ``mt'' command wants an explicit device argument supplied using a ``-t'' flag, whereas Sun used to prefer ``-f''. A simple shell script in the special-case directory could convert to the appropriate flags, and even change Sun's ``mt asf N'' command into ``mt rew; mt fsf N'' on the SGIs, where ``asf'' is not supported. I don't feel nearly as comfortable about this class of solutions as I did about simple symlinks, but the point is, it is available, and spares the need to change scripts (once you identify that the problem exists). The ``correct'' solution for the long term almost certainly involves standards. My universes seem to be converging on SVR4 as a standard, so if I MUST go about recoding scripts, I'll recode to some well- established standard and, if I must, I'll supply a perl interface to make things behave correctly until the vendors support the standard. This at least reduces the problem of dealing with N vendors to order(N), rather than an order(N**2) problem of getting scripts from vendor I to run on vendor J. Maybe SAGE should look into tackling some of these interface mappings? Thanks to insights from Steve Blair sblair@upurbmw.dell.com DaviD W. Sanderson dws@ssec.wisc.edu Wayne Trzyna trzyna@CS.ColoState.EDU Bob Arnold rca@ingres.com Sherwood sherwood@space.ualberta.ca David H. Wolfskill sun!dhw68k.cts.com!david Daniel Rich drich@sandman.lerc.nasa.gov johno jco@bbn.com From sage-owner Sun Jul 18 20:12:10 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05004; Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:12:10 PDT Received: from sparkyfs.erg.sri.com ([128.18.4.39]) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA04995; Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:12:03 PDT Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sparkyfs.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA12684; Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:13:55 -0700 Message-Id: <9307190313.AA12684@sparkyfs.erg.sri.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Congress on the net Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:13:53 -0700 From: Bryan McDonald Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk This sort of thing is probably spreading all over the place, but I thought the members of SAGE might be interested in it as well. ------- Forwarded Message from: Jack Kessler Subject: Online Congressional hearing July 26 -- help needed! The following announcement appears to me to be of interest -- perhaps of vital interest -- to everyone on the networks. Congressman Markey is one of the leaders in getting all of us an expanded and upgraded network, and he apparently needs a flood of e-mail to the address shown below if he is to convince Congress that we are important in this budgetarily-austere year. Jack Kessler kessler@well.sf.ca.us Subject: On-Line Congressional Hearing On July 26 at 9:30AM EDT, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold the first Congressional Hearing ever held over a computer network. The oversight hearing on "The Role of Government in Cyberspace" will take place in the Grand Ballroom of the National Press Club at 14th and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. The hearing is open to the public. An open house will be held from 3-5PM on the same day in the same location and is also open to the public. Chairman Markey has asked that this historic occasion demonstrate the potential and diversity of the global Internet. Thirty Sparcstations will be in the hearing room, allowing members of Congress, staff, and their guests to read e-mail, use Gopher menus, read testimony in WAIS databases, browse the World Wide Web, and otherwise use the resources of the global Internet as part of the hearing. Some witnesses for the hearing will testify remotely, sending audio and video over the Internet. Audio and video of the hearing will also be multicast over the Multicast Backbone (MBONE). We are hoping that C-SPAN and other traditional media will also carry the event. *MORE DETAILS ON MBONE AND OTHER WAYS TO WATCH THE HEARINGS REMOTELY WILL BE FORTHCOMING SHORTLY.* One of the primary points that we are hoping to demonstrate is the diversity and size of the Internet. We have therefore established an electronic mail address by which people on the Internet can communicate with the Subcommittee before and during the hearing: congress@town.hall.org We encourage you to send your comments on what the role of government should be in the information age to this address. Your comments to this address will be made part of the public record of the hearing. Feel free to carry on a dialogue with others on a mailing list, cc'ing the e-mail address. Your cards and letters to congress@town.hall.org will help demonstrate that there are people who use the Internet as part of their personal and professional lives. We encourage you to send comments on the role of government in cyberspace, on what role cyberspace should play in government (e.g., whether government data be made available on the Internet), on how the Internet should be built and financed, on how you use the Internet, and on any other topic you feel is appropriate. This is your chance to show the U.S. Congress that there is a constituency that cares about this global infrastructure. If you would like to communicate with a human being about the hearing, you may send your comments and questions to: hearing-info@town.hall.org Support for the Internet Town Hall is provided by Sun Microsystems and O'Reilly & Associates. Additional support for the July 26 on-line congressional hearing is being provided by ARPA, BBN Communications, the National Press Club, Xerox PARC, and many other organizations. Network connectivity for the Internet Town Hall is provided by UUNET Technologies. ****************************************************************************** * ------- End of Forwarded Message From sage-owner Sun Jul 18 22:13:08 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05711; Sun, 18 Jul 93 22:13:08 PDT Received: from mail.think.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05704; Sun, 18 Jul 93 22:13:02 PDT Received: from Gandalf.Think.COM by mail.think.com; Mon, 19 Jul 93 01:14:54 -0400 From: Barry Margolin Received: by gandalf.think.com (4.1/Think-1.2) id AA23219; Mon, 19 Jul 93 01:14:54 EDT Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 01:14:54 EDT Message-Id: <9307190514.AA23219@gandalf.think.com> To: bigmac@erg.sri.com Cc: sage@usenix.ORG In-Reply-To: <9307190313.AA12684@sparkyfs.erg.sri.com> Subject: Congress on the net Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:13:53 -0700 From: Bryan McDonald This sort of thing is probably spreading all over the place, but I thought the members of SAGE might be interested in it as well. ------- Forwarded Message from: Jack Kessler Subject: Online Congressional hearing July 26 -- help needed! I believe I read a posting that said that this has been postponed to October. From sage-owner Mon Jul 19 08:30:24 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09812; Mon, 19 Jul 93 08:30:24 PDT Received: from research.CS.ORST.EDU (chert.CS.ORST.EDU) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09802; Mon, 19 Jul 93 08:30:13 PDT Received: from frisby.CS.ORST.EDU by research.CS.ORST.EDU (4.1/1.30) id AA15075; Mon, 19 Jul 93 08:31:52 PDT Message-Id: <9307191531.AA15075@research.CS.ORST.EDU> To: Bryan McDonald Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: Congress on the net In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 18 Jul 93 20:13:53 PDT. <9307190313.AA12684@sparkyfs.erg.sri.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 08:31:52 PDT From: (John Sechrest) Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk -------- the discussion that I saw in the comm-priv mailing list said that this broadcast on the internet was cancelled... Bryan McDonald writes: > > This sort of thing is probably spreading all over the place, but I thought the > members of SAGE might be interested in it as well. > ------- Forwarded Message > from: Jack Kessler > Subject: Online Congressional hearing July 26 -- help needed! > The following announcement appears to me to be of interest -- perhaps > of vital interest -- to everyone on the networks. Congressman Markey is > one of the leaders in getting all of us an expanded and upgraded > network, and he apparently needs a flood of e-mail to the address shown > below if he is to convince Congress that we are important in this > budgetarily-austere year. > Jack Kessler > kessler@well.sf.ca.us > Subject: On-Line Congressional Hearing > On July 26 at 9:30AM EDT, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications > and Finance of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold the first > Congressional Hearing ever held over a computer network. The oversight > hearing on "The Role of Government in Cyberspace" will take place in > the Grand Ballroom of > the National Press Club at 14th and F Streets, > N.W., Washington, D.C. The hearing is open to the public. An open > house will be held from 3-5PM on the same day in the same location and > is also open to the public. > Chairman Markey has asked that this historic occasion demonstrate > the potential and diversity of the global Internet. Thirty Sparcstations > will be in the hearing room, allowing members of Congress, staff, and > their guests to read e-mail, use Gopher menus, read testimony in WAIS > databases, browse the World Wide Web, and otherwise use the resources > of the global Internet as part of the hearing. > Some witnesses for the hearing will testify remotely, sending audio > and video over the Internet. Audio and video of the hearing will also > be multicast over the Multicast Backbone (MBONE). We are hoping that > C-SPAN and other traditional media will also carry the event. *MORE > DETAILS ON MBONE AND OTHER WAYS TO WATCH THE HEARINGS REMOTELY WILL BE > FORTHCOMING SHORTLY.* > One of the primary point > s that we are hoping to demonstrate is > the diversity and size of the Internet. We have therefore established > an electronic mail address by which people on the Internet can communicate > with the Subcommittee before and during the hearing: > congress@town.hall.org > We encourage you to send your comments on what the role of government > should be in the information age to this address. Your comments to this > address will be made part of the public record of the hearing. Feel free > to carry on a dialogue with others on a mailing list, cc'ing the e-mail > address. > Your cards and letters to congress@town.hall.org will help > demonstrate that there are people who use the Internet as part of their > personal and professional lives. We encourage you to send comments on > the role of government in cyberspace, on what role cyberspace should play > in government (e.g., whether government data be made available on the > Internet), on how the Internet should be built and financed, on how you > use the Internet, and o > n any other topic you feel is appropriate. This > is your chance to show the U.S. Congress that there is a constituency > that cares about this global infrastructure. > If you would like to communicate with a human being about the > hearing, you may send your comments and questions to: > hearing-info@town.hall.org > Support for the Internet Town Hall is provided by Sun Microsystems > and O'Reilly & Associates. Additional support for the July 26 on-line > congressional hearing is being provided by ARPA, BBN Communications, > the National Press Club, Xerox PARC, and many other organizations. > Network connectivity for the Internet Town Hall is provided by > UUNET Technologies. > ****************************************************************************** > * > ------- End of Forwarded Message ----- John Sechrest . Internet: sechrest@cs.orst.edu Lab Coordinator . Computer Science Dept . UUCP: hplabs!hp-pcd!orstcs!sechrest Oregon State University . Corvallis,Oregon 97331 . (503) 737-3273 . From sage-owner Thu Aug 5 11:23:15 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA18376; Thu, 5 Aug 93 11:23:15 PDT Received: from vs3002.ams.org by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA18367; Thu, 5 Aug 93 11:22:59 PDT Received: from sol08.ams.org by MATH.AMS.ORG (PMDF #2306 ) id <01H1E15DJC34LS4739@MATH.AMS.ORG>; Thu, 5 Aug 1993 14:24:14 EST Received: from sol010.ams.org by sol08.ams.org (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01742; Thu, 5 Aug 93 14:24:09 EDT Date: 05 Aug 1993 14:24:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Todd Vander Does Subject: Subnetting Rationale To: sage@usenix.ORG Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk We are considering subnetting to provide a logical distribution of our hosts. We do not have a current space crunch. We will be increasing from 75 hosts to 100 in the next year. The proposal is to create five subnets dividing them according to one of two schemes. The first is to divide them by system style - Computers, X terminals, PCs, Misc. The second proposal is to create subnets for each organizational division, e.g, Executive, Fiscal, Publishing, Marketing. Under this organization of assigning IP addresses we will be able to view our host tables with greater comprehension. We will be able to keep new hosts organized, rather than having Visual X terminals scattered among Macs or NCDs. There is a loyal opposition to this plan that believe that subnetting is for functional purposes, not organizational purposes. Their stance is that organizing host files by type is unnecessary. Assign the next number to the next host added to the net. Use subnetting if the address space gets too full, to provide filtering or some other concrete objective. Use tools to provide different views of the host tables, e.g., grep Visual /etc/hosts. If any of you have positions or would like to comment on these positions please do. If there is any useful summary, I'll post it. Todd Vander Does American Mathematical Society Systems Programmer P.O. Box 6248 (401) 455-4031 Providence, RI 02940-6248 tvd@math.ams.org From sage-owner Fri Aug 6 15:18:42 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA29210; Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:18:42 PDT Received: from macsch.com (DRACO.MACSCH.COM) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA29200; Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:18:26 PDT Received: from [161.34.1.6] by macsch.com (5.61/SMI-4.1-07) id AA19482; Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:20:11 -0700 Received: from canismajor.is.macsch.com by convex.is.macsch.com (5.64/2.0) id AA28048; Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:10:04 -0700 Received: by canismajor.is.macsch.com (4.1/2.0) id AA00823; Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:19:52 PDT Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 15:19:52 PDT From: todd@macsch.com (Todd Williams) Message-Id: <9308062219.AA00823@canismajor.is.macsch.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG, tvd@math.ams.org Subject: Re: Subnetting Rationale Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk At -0400:pm on Thu Aug 5 1993, Todd Vander Does said: > > We are considering subnetting to provide a logical distribution of our > hosts. Subnet for traffic or security reasons, not just to make things look pretty. > We do not have a current space crunch. We will be increasing > from 75 hosts to 100 in the next year. The proposal is to create five > subnets dividing them according to one of two schemes. The first is > to divide them by system style - Computers, X terminals, PCs, Misc. > The second proposal is to create subnets for each organizational > division, e.g, Executive, Fiscal, Publishing, Marketing. Under this > organization of assigning IP addresses we will be able to view our > host tables with greater comprehension. We will be able to keep new > hosts organized, rather than having Visual X terminals scattered among > Macs or NCDs. So you want to subnet just to make your hosts file look pretty? You don't need to subnet to do that. > There is a loyal opposition to this plan that believe that subnetting is > for functional purposes, not organizational purposes. That depends what kind of "organization" you are talking about. > Their stance is that organizing host files by type is unnecessary. They are correct. > Assign the next number to the next host added to the net. If you want to "organize" your hosts file, just reserve blocks of addresses: x.y.z.1-49 for PC's, x.y.z.50-99 for Mac's, x.y.z.100-149 for Xterms, etc. > Use subnetting if the address space gets too full, Subnetting doesn't give you more address space; it gives you less. > to provide filtering or some other concrete objective. > Use tools to provide different views of the host tables, e.g., > grep Visual /etc/hosts. The whole idea of subnetting IMHO is to reduce traffic on the network; it is necessary for large networks due to the CSMA/CD nature of Ethernet. Single-segment ethernet does not scale well after a certain point. The thing to do then is to split the segment into logical sections based on the traffic expected between each machine. Sometimes this is very simple: if you have a network with 100 engineering workstations doing development and 100 PC's in accounting running a client-server database application, it should be obvious how to subnet. Often, however, things are not so lucid. One excellent explanation of "how to subnet" can be found in Hal Stern's "Managing NFS and NIS", I think. You make a directed graph of all nodes(!), and assign a value to each link between nodes. High values are given for file-serving, etc., and lower values given for various other things. Then you draw a line where the proposed subnet boundary is to be, and tally the value of the links you severed. Low numbers indicate that you have subnetting "correctly". Note that subnetting by hardware type isn't necessarily absurd. In my example above, all the workstations are using for one thing, and all the PC's for another--this is somewhat typical. As for your mention of using grep(1) on the hosts table, I agree. When you have hundreds or thousands of lines in /etc/hosts, it's often difficult to remember what each hostname is. The way I handle this is to add several comment fields at the end of each line, giving hardware type, software/OS type, "owner", location, administrator, etc. My current hosts file might look something like this: 1.2.3.111 uunet # Sun670MP SunOS413 IS_Dept (Comp_Room1) [JFB] 1.2.3.112 ittvax # NCD19c Dennis_Ritchie (Holmdel-125B.23) [DMR] 1.2.3.113 gateway # CiscoAGS Net_Dept (Phone_Closet1) [JFB] This makes my hosts file quite *W*I*D*E*, but using tools or slick command- line incantations, I can quickly "query" this "database" to list all the Xterminals, tell you how many routers I have, find the name of John Doe's machine, or see who's in charge of the machines in the phone closet. If you use DNS, you can add informational fields like this, too. It's gotten so confusing here that I've considered putting all this info into a big database (like, a real one on Oracle or something), and then having an SQL report that will produce a hosts file for me. Remember that there are drawbacks to subnetting -- you are complicating things. If an ugly hosts file is the worst of your problems, be happy. Todd Williams UNIX Systems Supervisor todd@macsch.com (213) 259-4973 MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. ("MSC"), 815 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041 "Solaris 2.0 -- It's enough to make you leave the company." -Rob Kolstad From sage-owner Sat Aug 7 07:47:18 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03892; Sat, 7 Aug 93 07:47:18 PDT Received: from lokkur.dexter.mi.us (dexter-gw.dexter.msen.com) by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03882; Sat, 7 Aug 93 07:46:58 PDT Received: by lokkur.dexter.mi.us (5.65c/IDA-1.2.8) id AA14857; Sat, 7 Aug 1993 10:47:56 -0400 From: Steve Simmons Message-Id: <199308071447.AA14857@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Subject: Re: Subnetting Rationale To: todd@macsch.com (Todd Williams) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 10:47:56 -0400 (EDT) Cc: sage@usenix.ORG, tvd@math.ams.org In-Reply-To: <9308062219.AA00823@canismajor.is.macsch.com> from "Todd Williams" at Aug 6, 93 03:19:52 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 286 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk (note that I have carefully removed my member of board of directors hat before writing this response...) IMHO, the Sage mailing list is for Sage-related issues, not purely technical ones. While the discussion of subnets is useful, there are other much more reasonable venues for it. From sage-owner Wed Aug 11 21:32:34 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12562; Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:32:34 PDT Received: from mgc.mentorg.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA12552; Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:32:21 PDT Received: from warren.mentorg.com by mgc.mentorg.com with SMTP (16.6/15.5+MGC-TD 2.20) id AA12867; Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:34:03 -0700 Received: by Warren.MENTORG.COM id AA16872 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for sage@usenix.org); Thu, 12 Aug 1993 00:31:49 -0400 From: Tom Limoncelli Message-Id: <199308120431.AA16872@Warren.MENTORG.COM> Subject: AUGUST MEETING REMINDER To: gslisa@Warren.MENTORG.COM, sage@usenix.ORG Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 00:31:49 -0400 (EDT) X-Phone: +1 908-604-0866 X-Asset-Tag: 000014257-3425 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2785 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk REMINDER: Garden State LISA Meeting TONIGHT! COME ONE! COME ALL! GSLISA (the current working title) is an organization for professional UNIX system administrators in NEW JERSEY formed to facilitate information exchange pertaining to the field of UNIX system administration. GSLISA is not affiliated with a particular hardware or software vendor or company. GSLISA is in the process of deciding if it will become a Local Technical Group of USENIX/SAGE. AUGUST MEETING: --------------- Where: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ Busch Campus, CoRE Building When: Thursday, August 12 Time: 7:30 PM until 10 PM. AGENDA: ------- 1. Introductions (7 minutes) 2. Announcements (7 minutes) a. date/place of the bylaws committee meeting b. request for someone to host next meeting. c. from the floor 3. Short technical talk (15-30 minutes) Quite possibly Tom Limoncelli will talk about how to install "Majordomo". 4. "Ask The Opinionated Experts" Panel. (until 10pm) The panel will consist of the experts that are at the meeting. We hope that attendees will find this part of the meeting to be the most useful. Bring your most difficult questions! DIRECTIONS: ----------- To Rutgers University, Busch Campus, CoRE Building [ NOTE: There are Rutgers maps available for ftp/gopher from info.rutgers.edu ] 1. From the turnpike: Take the Turnpike to exit 9, get off on Route 18 north. Take Route 18 till it ends at a light after crossing the Raratin River. The cross street here is River Road, and across from you is Metlars Lane. Go across the intersection and take the second left onto Brett Road. Take this road till it dumps you in a complex of parking lots. The CoRE building is the closest 7 story brick building. Park anywhere. The Lecture hall is on the ground floor. 2. From 287 north: Take 287 to River Road exit (exit 5). Take a right on River Road (south). Take a left onto Metlars lane (I think it is the 5th light, but this intersection is notable since there is a bridge over the Raratin River on your Right. Take the second left onto Brett Road. Take this road till it dumps you in a complex of parking lots. The CoRE building is the closest 7 story brick building. Park anywhere. The Lecture hall is on the ground floor. Lost? Page Tom Limoncelli at 1-800-666-ALFA, give the operator PIN "6113684" and the message. ---------- UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc., in the United States and other countries. We're Beatrice. ---------- Tom -- Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.org (play) "Some people run 'biff' to alert them that | Disclaimer: I do not they have new email. I run '/bin/true'". | speak for Mentor Graphics. From sage-owner Fri Aug 13 10:11:51 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA00637; Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:11:51 PDT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA00630; Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:11:45 PDT Received: from GENESIS.BBN.COM by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA19244; Fri, 13 Aug 93 12:28:56 -0400 Message-Id: <9308131628.AA19244@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:04:55 EDT From: Peg Schafer To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Call for Nominees for Election to the SAGE Board of Directors Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Call for Nominees for Election to the SAGE Board of Directors Peg Schafer The System Administrators Guild (SAGE) is at an exciting point - we will turn one year old this fall. Response has been tremendous, our membership is larger than expected, and we have made significant progress this year. Participation on the board of directors is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the development of the practice of system administration. Anyone who is interested in the development of SAGE, and who is willing to work, is cordially invited to consider a position on the board of directors. The Facts The SAGE charter calls for staggered, two-year terms for board members: half of the board is elected one year, the other half the next. As SAGE will turn 1 year old this fall, 4 positions on the board will be up for election. In this second election, to be held this fall, four directors will be chosen for 2 year terms, beginning January 1, 1994. The SAGE Board chooses its own officers after each general election (every year). The current board consists of Carol Kubicki, Paul Moriarty, Pat Parseghian, Peg Schafer, Steve Simmons, Pat Wilson, and Elizabeth Zwicky. The SAGE Directors who were elected for 1993 and 1994, and who will remain on the board, are Pat Parseghian, Steve Simmons and Peg Schafer. SAGE is accepting nominations for 4 new members of the governing board until 12 noon PST, Friday, November 5. Anyone interested in running for the SAGE board should send his or her name and telephone number, along with a brief statement, to the nominating committee . You can also send U.S. Mail to the SAGE Nominating Committee in care of the USENIX Association. The nominating committee will gather the candidates' names and contact each of them before the election takes place. At the USENIX LISA Conference, to be held November 1-5, 1993 in Monterey, CA, there will be a candidates' forum to enable prospective board members to introduce themselves and talk about the issues. Prospective board members unable to attend the LISA conference will be able to submit a position paper to this forum. The new board will take office in January, 1994, with the first board meeting to be held at the Winter USENIX conference in San Francisco. Current estimates indicate that the new board will have at least 4 meetings a year, three at LISA and USENIX technical conferences, and other meetings via telephone. At this time board members are responsible for travel and lodging expenses to attend meetings. Questions may be directed to Peg Schafer, chair of the SAGE election committee . All inquires will be kept confidential. From sage-owner Tue Aug 17 20:48:47 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09559; Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:48:47 PDT Received: from eticket.llnl.gov by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA09552; Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:48:38 PDT Received: by eticket.llnl.gov (4.1/LLNL-1.18) id AA03012; Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:56:40 PDT Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:56:40 PDT From: tmd@eticket.llnl.gov (Tina M. Darmohray) Message-Id: <9308180356.AA03012@eticket.llnl.gov> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: sage-jobs descriptions Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I am pleased to enclose the results of the sage-jobs working group's efforts to create some "standard" system administration job descriptions. I want to thank all of the working group members for their contribution. You can expect to see the job descriptions in the upcoming USENIX/;login: publication. They will also be available for anonymous ftp as well as in a more "formal"/hardcopy form from USENIX (format, distribution method, etc. still to be determined). I will post a follow-up to this email and let you know the details of the ftp site, and hardcopy availability information. Once again, thanks to all of you who participated, and here's hoping that our efforts will make a difference! Tina Darmohray SAGE Jobs Working Group Chair tmd@eticket.llnl.gov ******************************************************************************** Organizations that rely on computing resources to carry out their mission have always depended on systems administration and systems administrators. The dramatic increase in the number and size of distributed networks of workstations in recent years has created a tremendous demand for more, and better trained, systems administrators. Understanding of the profession of systems administration on the part of employers, however, has not kept pace with the growth in the number of systems administrators or with the growth in complexity of system administration tasks. Both at sites with a long history of using computing resources and at sites into which computers have only recently been introduced, systems administrators face perception problems that present serious obstacles to their successfully carrying out their duties. Systems administration is a widely varied task. The best systems administrators are generalists: they can wire and repair cables, install new software, repair bugs, train users, offer tips for increased productivity across areas from word processing to CAD tools, evaluate new hardware and software, automate a myriad of mundane tasks, and increase work flow at their site. In general, systems administrators enable people to exploit computers at a level which gains leverage for the entire organization. Employers frequently fail to understand the background that systems administrators bring to their task. Because systems administration draws on knowledge from many fields, and because it has only recently begun to be taught at a few institutions of higher learning, systems administrators may come from a wide range of academic backgrounds. Most get their skills through on-the-job training by apprenticing themselves to a more experienced mentor. Although the system of informal education by apprenticeship has been extremely effective in producing skilled systems administrators, it is poorly understood by employers and hiring managers, who tend to focus on credentials to the exclusion of other factors when making personnel decisions. Understanding system administrators' background, training, and the kind of job performance to be expected is challenging; too often, employers fall back into (mis)using the job classifications with which they are familiar. These job classification problems are exacerbated by the scarcity of job descriptions for systems administrators. One frequently used misclassification is that of programmer or software engineer. Although the primary responsibility of the systems administrator is not to produce code, that is the metric by which programmers are evaluated, and systems administrators thus classified often receive poor evaluations for not being "productive" enough. Another common misclassification is the confusion of systems administrators with operators. Especially at smaller sites, where systems administrators themselves have to perform many of the functions normally assigned (at larger sites) to operators, systems administrators are forced to contend with the false assumption they are non-professional technicians. This, in turn, makes it very difficult for systems administrators to be compensated commensurate with their skill and experience. SAGE, as the professional organization for systems administrators, formed the `sage-jobs' working group to address these problems. Its goals include the creation of a set of appropriate job descriptions for systems administrators and promotion of their adoption by organizations that employ systems administrators. Below are the current job description templates that the working group has produced. We have created an additional list of check-off items. The templates are intended to describe the core attributes of systems administrators at various levels of job performance, while the check-off list is intended to augment the core descriptions. In particular the check-off list is intended to address site-specific needs, or special areas of expertise that a systems administrator may have. Job descriptions for more experienced systems administrators or more senior positions will typically include more items from the check-off list. ******************************************* Definitions: A "small site" has 1-10 computers, all running the same operating system, and 20 or fewer users. (A computer used by only the administrator does not qualify as a site.) A "midsized site" has up to 100 systems, running no more than 3 different operating systems, and up to 100 users. A "large site" has 100 or more computers, potentially running more than one operating system, and 100 or more users. Core Templates: Note: The titles proposed here may not be suitable for all sites. In particular, while "Senior System Administrator" is a relatively standard title, the titles in use for the earlier levels vary widely from place to place. You should feel free to use whatever title is most appropriate for your situation. Level I, Novice System Administrator: Required skills: Has strong inter-personal and communication skills; is capable of explaining simple procedures in writing or verbally, has good phone skills. Is familiar with UNIX and its commands/utilities at a user level; can edit files, use a a shell, find users' home directories, navigate through the file system, and use i/o redirection. Is able to follow instructions well. Required background: 2 years of college or equivalent post-high-school education or experience. Desirable: A degree or certificate in computer science or a related field. Previous experience in customer support, computer operations, system administration or another related area. Motivated to advance in the profession. Appropriate responsibilities: Performs routine tasks under the direct supervision of a more experienced system administrator. Acts as a front-line interface to users, accepting trouble reports and dispatching them to appropriate system administrators. Level II, Junior System Administrator: Required skills: Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of training users in applications and UNIX fundamentals, and writing basic documentation. High skill with of most UNIX commands/utilities. Familiarity with most basic system administration tools and processes; for example, can boot/shutdown a machine, add and remove user accounts, use backup programs and fsck, maintain system database files (groups, hosts, aliases). Fundamental understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; for example, understands job control, soft and hard links, distinctions between the kernel and the shell. Required background: One to three years of system administration experience. Desirable: A degree in computer science or a related field. Familiarity with networked/distributed computing environment concepts; for example, can use the route command, add a workstation to a network, and mount remote filesystems. Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell). Programming experience in any applicable language. Appropriate responsibilities: Administers a small site alone or assists in the administration of a larger system. Works under the general supervision of a system administrator or computer systems manager. Level III, Intermediate/Advanced System Administrator: Required skills: Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of writing purchase justifications, training users in complex topics, making presentations to an internal audience, and interacting positively with upper management. Independent problem solving; self-direction. Is comfortable with most aspects of UNIX systems administration; for example, configuration of mail systems, system installation and configuration, printing systems, fundamentals of security, installing third-party software. A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock"). Familiarity with fundamental networking/distributed computing environment concepts; can configure NFS and NIS, can use nslookup or dig to check information in the DNS, understands basic routing concepts. Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell). Ability to do minimal debugging and modification of C programs. Required background: Three to five years systems administration experience. Desirable: A degree in computer science or a related field. Significant programming background in any applicable language. Appropriate responsibilities: Receives general instructions for new responsibilities from supervisor. Administers a mid-sized site alone or assists in the administration of a larger site. Initiates some new responsibilities and helps to plan for the future of the site/network. Manages novice system administrators or operators. Evaluates and/or recommends purchases; has strong influence on purchasing process. Level IV, Senior System Administrator: Required skills: Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of writing proposals or papers, acting as a vendor liaison, making presentations to customer or client audiences or professional peers, and working closely with upper management. Ability to solve problems quickly and and completely. Ability to identify tasks which require automation and automate them. A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock"), can use performance analysis to tune systems. A solid understanding of networking/distributed computing environment concepts; understands principles of routing, client/server programming, the design of consistent network-wide filesystem layouts. Ability to program in an administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell), to port C programs from one platform to another, and to write small C programs. Required background: More than five years previous systems administration experience. Desirable: A degree in computer science or a related field. Extensive programming background in any applicable language. Publications within the field of system administration. Appropriate responsibilities: Designs/implements complex local and wide-area networks of machines. Manages a large site or network. Works under general direction from senior management. Establishes/ recommends policies on system use and services. Provides technical lead and/or supervises system administrators, system programmers, or others of equivalent seniority. Has purchasing authority and responsibility for purchase justification. Check Offs: These are things you might want to add to the base job descriptions as either required or desirable. Local Environment Experience Experience with the specific operating systems, applications, or programming languages in use at the site (for example SunOS, AIX, CAE/CAD software, FrameMaker, Mathematica, Fortran, Ada). Experience with the work done by the users at the site. Heterogeneity Experience Experience with more than one UNIX-based operating system. Experience with sites running more than one UNIX-based operating system. Familiarity with both System V and BSD-based UNIX operating systems. Experience with non-UNIX operating systems (for example, MS-DOS, Macintosh OS, or VMS). Experience with internetworking UNIX and other operating systems (MS-DOS, Macintosh OS, VMS). Programming Skills Extensive programming experience in an administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell). Extensive programming experience in any applicable language. Networking Skills Experience configuring network file systems (for example, NFS, RFS, or AFS). Experience with network file synchronization schemes (for example, rdist and track). Experience configuring automounters. Experience configuring license managers. Experience configuring NIS/NIS+. Experience with TCP/IP networking protocols (ability to debug and program at the network level). Experience with non-TCP/IP networking protocols (for example, OSI, Chaosnet, DECnet, Appletalk, Novell Netware, Banyan Vines). Experience with high-speed networking (for example, FDDI, ATM, or SONET). Experience with complex TCP/IP networks (networks that contain routers). Experience with highly complex TCP/IP networks (networks that contain multiple routers and multiple media). Experience configuring and maintaining routers. Experience maintaining a site-wide modem pool/terminal servers. Experience with X/X terminals. Experience with dial-up networking (for example, SLIP, PPP, or UUCP). Experience at a site that is connected to the Internet. Experience installing/configuring DNS/BIND. Experience installing/administering Usenet news. Experience as postmaster of a site with external connections. Security Experience with network security (for example, building firewalls, deploying authentication systems, or applying cryptography to network applications). Experience with classified computing. Experience with multi-level classified environments. Experience with host security (for example, passwords, uids/gids, file permissions, file system integrity, use of security packages). Site Specialities Experience at sites with over 1,000 computers, over 1,000 users, or over a terabyte of disk space. Experience with supercomputers. Experience coordinating multiple independent computer facilities (for example, working for the central group at a large company or university). Experience with a site with 100% uptime requirement. Experience developing/implementing a site disaster recovery plan. Experience with a site requiring charge-back accounting. Documentation Background in technical publications, documentation, or desktop publishing. Databases Experience using relational databases. Experience using a database query language. Experience programming in a database query language. Previous experience as a database administrator. Hardware Experience installing and maintaining the network cabling in use at the site. Experience installing boards and memory into systems. Experience with SCSI device setup and installation. Experience installing/configuring peripherals (for example, disks, modems, printers, or data acquisition devices). Experience with board-level diagnosis and repair of computer systems. Experience with component-level diagnosis and repair of computer system. Management Budget responsibility. Experience in writing personnel reviews, and ranking processes. Experience in interviewing/hiring. From sage-owner Fri Sep 3 12:47:50 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05812; Fri, 3 Sep 93 12:47:50 PDT Received: from heifetz.msen.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05800; Fri, 3 Sep 93 12:47:40 PDT Received: by heifetz.msen.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.22.1 #22.11) id ; Fri, 3 Sep 93 15:59 EDT Received: by one.one.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.24.1 #24.5) id ; Fri, 3 Sep 93 14:29 EDT Message-Id: Subject: Getting involved To: sage@usenix.ORG (SAGE Discussion Group) Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 14:29:53 -0500 (EDT) From: James L. Hartwell X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1873 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I am very interested in the SAGE discussion group but have not herd anything from it since I received the notice that I was on the list. If there is something else I must do to get involved in some of the discussions I would like to know what that might be. I am a farly new systems administrator and would like to learn more about what is going on the the field of sys admin. I work for a company that uses multiple platforms and connects them together using TCP/IP. It would be nice to hear what other administrators are doing to monitor and increase performance of LANs and what tools might be used to assist us in doing this. Another area of concern for me is network backups. I have implemented a backups scheme that works fairly well but it requires constant monitoring and maintenance. If there are better ways of handling backups I would like to know about them. Monitoring our internet service is somewhat of a mystery to me. My i-net server is a Motorola SystemV 68K R3V7.1 system that does not come with the "trace" command. I have read about some utilities that use "trace" to help find bottle- necks in the i-net but I have seen nothing for us that do not have "trace". Does anyone out there know of a way to find out why packets are being dropped and a way to do general monitoring of i-net services? Thank you in advance for sharing your time a knowledge with me, -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James L. Hartwell Open Networks Engineering, Inc. (ONE) Voice: (313) 996-9900 777 E. Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 650 Fax: (313) 996-9908 Ann Arbor, MI 48108 Internet: jim@one.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From sage-owner Wed Sep 8 09:15:01 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA15633; Wed, 8 Sep 93 09:15:01 PDT Received: from mgc.mentorg.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA15626; Wed, 8 Sep 93 09:14:53 PDT Received: from warren.mentorg.com by mgc.mentorg.com with SMTP (16.6/15.5+MGC-TD 2.20) id AA06519; Wed, 8 Sep 93 09:26:26 -0700 Received: from worf (worf.warren.mentorg.com) by Warren.MENTORG.COM with SMTP id AA00428 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4); Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:26:24 -0400 Received: by worf (5.0/SMI-4.0) id AA03063; Wed, 8 Sep 93 12:26:36 EDT From: tom_limoncelli@Warren.MENTORG.COM Message-Id: <9309081626.AA03063@worf.Warren.MENTORG.COM> Subject: Resource Allocation Software? To: SAGE@usenix.ORG, gslisa@usenix.ORG Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:26:35 -0500 (EDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1202 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk We are looking for recommendations for software that will let us manage equipment that we loan out to employees, etc. For example, we may have 5 modems purchased as loaners to staff that will be going on the road. The software should let someone reserve a modem for the days that they are going to be on the road. There needs to be a back end (it could be email) that would let our sysadmin staff know when to deliver what equipment, and when to expect to have equipment returned. It would be nice if there was some way to query the database (For example, if a salesperson needs 3 machines for a demo they'd need to query, "Are 3 SPARC machines available on Monday?") Handling "waiting lists" for certain items would be nice too. We are seriously considering using a spreadsheet and allocating a person to be the arbitrator/scheduler/etc, but it would be much better if we could find canned (or free) software that would do this kind of things for us. Any recommendations? Tom -- Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.org (play) "Some people run 'biff' to alert them that | Disclaimer: I do not they have new email. I run '/bin/true'". | speak for Mentor Graphics. From sage-owner Wed Sep 8 16:37:44 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA19199; Wed, 8 Sep 93 16:37:44 PDT Received: from mail.think.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA19191; Wed, 8 Sep 93 16:37:32 PDT Received: from Gandalf.Think.COM by mail.think.com; Wed, 8 Sep 93 19:49:07 -0400 From: Barry Margolin Received: by gandalf.think.com (4.1/Think-1.2) id AA11209; Wed, 8 Sep 93 19:49:06 EDT Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 19:49:06 EDT Message-Id: <9309082349.AA11209@gandalf.think.com> To: tom_limoncelli@warren.mentorg.com Cc: SAGE@usenix.ORG, gslisa@usenix.ORG In-Reply-To: <9309081626.AA03063@worf.Warren.MENTORG.COM> Subject: Resource Allocation Software? Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk We use Sun's Calendar Manager here. We create an account for each resource, su to the account, create a calendar, and give the world browse/insert/delete permission. We do this for testbed systems and loaner powerbooks, and will soon be using it for conference rooms. If someone wants to see whether a powerbook is available, for instance, the Multi-Browse facility can be used to select all the powerbook calendars simultaneously. We don't currently use an automated system to let sysadmin know what requests have been made. But a cron job that mails the output of cm_lookup could be used. There's no waiting list mechanism. I suspect other online scheduling systems beside Sun's CM could be used. It had the advantage that it was bundled with SunOS. From sage-owner Fri Sep 10 10:32:45 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03623; Fri, 10 Sep 93 10:32:45 PDT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03614; Fri, 10 Sep 93 10:32:35 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA21095; Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:43:55 -0400 Received: from meaddata.UUCP by uucp6.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 134147.14826; Fri, 10 Sep 1993 13:41:47 EDT Received: from screwdriver.meaddata.com by meaddata.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04256; Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:19:05 EDT Received: by screwdriver.meaddata.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10530; Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:19:01 EDT Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:19:01 EDT From: jye@meaddata.com (Jean Y. Edgar) Message-Id: <9309101719.AA10530@screwdriver.meaddata.com> To: SAGE@usenix.ORG Subject: Topic: training/education -- discuss! Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk My team leader is working on a training plan so here is my question: Was/is there a SAGE group working on training/education issues? If so, has the group produced a list of recommended training or anything like that? Jean Edgar jye@meaddata.com From sage-owner Fri Sep 10 11:16:53 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03908; Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:16:53 PDT Received: from sparkyfs.erg.sri.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA03901; Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:16:48 PDT Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sparkyfs.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA17511; Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:28:21 -0700 Message-Id: <9309101828.AA17511@sparkyfs.erg.sri.com> To: jye@meaddata.com (Jean Y. Edgar) Cc: SAGE@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: Topic: training/education -- discuss! In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 10 Sep 93 13:19:01 -0400. <9309101719.AA10530@screwdriver.meaddata.com> Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 11:28:20 -0700 From: Bryan McDonald Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk >My team leader is working on a training plan so here is my question: >Was/is there a SAGE group working on training/education issues? If >so, has the group produced a list of recommended training or anything >like that? > >Jean Edgar jye@meaddata.com There is a working group, SAGE-EDU, currently being lead by Paul Evans. It is in the initial stages of developing theories on educating system adminstrators, and is looking at existing programs world-wide. While they may not be able to meet your immediate needs, I would like to suggest that you join this working group (see below) and find out what they have so far and see how your current and future experiences in this area might be used to further the efforts of the working group. The working group chair is Paul Evans (ple@erg.sri.com). To join the working group mailing list, send email to majordomo@usenix.org, and in the body of the message include the one line command help This will return to you the instructions for automatically joining working group mailing lists. Bryan +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Bryan McDonald | Computer, Hardware, And Operations Support bigmac@erg.sri.com | CHAOS Postmaster-Systems Administrator | ITAD - SRI International +--------------------------BayLISA Newsletter Editor---------------------------+ +------USENIX/SAGE (Systems Administrators Guild) Publications Coordinator-----+ From sage-owner Mon Sep 13 15:47:57 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA00534; Mon, 13 Sep 93 15:47:57 PDT Received: from sfo.erg.sri.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA00527; Mon, 13 Sep 93 15:47:51 PDT Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sfo.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA18062; Mon, 13 Sep 93 15:58:06 -0700 Message-Id: <9309132258.AA18062@sfo.erg.sri.com> To: "James L. Hartwell" Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: Getting involved In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 03 Sep 93 14:29:53 CDT." Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 15:57:59 -0700 From: zwicky@erg.sri.com Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk >I am very interested in the SAGE discussion group but have not herd anything >from it since I received the notice that I was on the list. If there is >something else I must do to get involved in some of the discussions I would >like to know what that might be. "SAGE discussion group" is a term that's rather more ambiguous than we originally realized; we intended it to mean "group for the discussion of SAGE". As it happens, there hasn't been much of that going on lately. Starting off the discussion is certainly the way to go if you want to see it happen. Your particular questions aren't really appropriate to the intended purpose of this list; they'd be better off somewhere like the newsgroup "comp.unix.admin". However, a discussion of ways that SAGE could help people find the right place to ask questions would be appropriate. Here are some suggestions about your particular questions anyway: You might want to check out the book "TCP/IP Network Administration" and the newsgroup comp.protocols.tcp-ip. As far as I know "trace" is not a standard network-related command, although "traceroute" is. There are lots and lots of ways to do backups, and the best references I know of are actually papers of mine, which can be found for anonymous ftp on ftp.erg.sri.com in pub/zwicky Elizabeth D. Zwicky zwicky@erg.sri.com From sage-owner Sun Sep 19 12:34:32 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21357; Sun, 19 Sep 93 12:34:32 PDT Received: from vnet.IBM.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21350; Sun, 19 Sep 93 12:34:26 PDT Message-Id: <9309191934.AA21350@usenix.ORG> Received: from DALVM3 by vnet.IBM.COM (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8051; Sun, 19 Sep 93 15:44:27 EDT Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 14:46:17 CDT From: "Harvey Mette ((214)406-7459)" X-Addr: Skill Dynamics, an IBM Company 1503 LBJ Freeway Dallas, TX 75234 USA To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: help Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk help quit From sage-owner Mon Sep 20 21:05:21 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA04175; Mon, 20 Sep 93 21:05:21 PDT Received: from relay2.UU.NET by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA04168; Mon, 20 Sep 93 21:05:09 PDT Received: from im4u.cs.utexas.edu by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA08178; Tue, 21 Sep 93 00:16:34 -0400 From: egsner!mette!hmette@cs.utexas.edu Received: from egsner by im4u.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.27/uucp) with UUCP id AA19260; Mon, 20 Sep 93 23:16:30 -0500 Received: by egsner.cirr.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.25.1 #25.2) id ; Mon, 20 Sep 93 03:25 CDT Received: by mette.mette.com (AIX 2.1 2/4.03.1) id AA09770; Sun, 19 Sep 93 15:05:36 CDT Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 15:05:36 CDT Message-Id: <9309192005.AA09770@mette.mette.com> To: egsner!sage@usenix.ORG Subject: help Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk help quit From sage-owner Tue Sep 21 08:25:19 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA06807; Tue, 21 Sep 93 08:25:19 PDT Received: from GENESIS.BBN.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA06800; Tue, 21 Sep 93 08:25:10 PDT Message-Id: <9309211525.AA06800@usenix.ORG> Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 11:32:55 EDT From: Peg Schafer To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Sage Board Elections Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Call for Nominees for Election to the SAGE Board of Directors Peg Schafer The System Administrators Guild (SAGE) is at an exciting point - we will turn one year old this fall. Response has been tremendous, our membership is larger than expected, and we have made significant progress this year. Participation on the board of directors is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the development of the practice of system administration. Anyone who is interested in the development of SAGE, and who is willing to work, is cordially invited to consider a position on the board of directors. The Facts The SAGE charter calls for staggered, two-year terms for board members: half of the board is elected one year, the other half the next. As SAGE will turn 1 year old this fall, 4 positions on the board will be up for election. In this second election, to be held this fall, four directors will be chosen for 2 year terms, beginning January 1, 1994. The SAGE Board chooses its own officers after each general election (every year). The current board consists of Carol Kubicki, Paul Moriarty, Pat Parseghian, Peg Schafer, Steve Simmons, Pat Wilson, and Elizabeth Zwicky. The SAGE Directors who were elected for 1993 and 1994, and who will remain on the board, are Pat Parseghian, Steve Simmons and Peg Schafer. SAGE is accepting nominations for 4 new members of the governing board until 12 noon PST, Friday, November 5. Anyone interested in running for the SAGE board should send his or her name and telephone number, along with a brief statement, to the nominating committee . You can also send U.S. Mail to the SAGE Nominating Committee in care of the USENIX Association. The nominating committee will gather the candidates' names and contact each of them before the election takes place. At the USENIX LISA Conference, to be held November 1-5, 1993 in Monterey, CA, there will be a candidates' forum to enable prospective board members to introduce themselves and talk about the issues. Prospective board members unable to attend the LISA conference will be able to submit a position paper to this forum. The new board will take office in January, 1994, with the first board meeting to be held at the Winter USENIX conference in San Francisco. Current estimates indicate that the new board will have at least 4 meetings a year, three at LISA and USENIX technical conferences, and other meetings via telephone. At this time board members are responsible for travel and lodging expenses to attend meetings. Questions may be directed to Peg Schafer, chair of the SAGE election committee . All inquires will be kept confidential. From sage-owner Wed Oct 13 10:17:13 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05189; Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:17:13 PDT Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA05174; Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:16:53 PDT Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 10:16:53 PDT From: scott (Scott Seebass) Message-Id: <9310131716.AA05174@usenix.ORG> Subject: test of mail to sage Apparently-To: sage Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Testing. -scott From sage-owner Mon Oct 18 15:56:31 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA17836; Mon, 18 Oct 93 15:56:31 PDT Received: from ace.BSDI.COM by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA17829; Mon, 18 Oct 93 15:56:24 PDT Received: by ace.BSDI.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA25007; Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:56:26 MDT Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 16:56:26 MDT From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad) Message-Id: <9310182256.AA25007@ace.BSDI.COM> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: LISA Summarizers Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Would you like to summarize sessions at LISA VII? I'm looking for people who can write 1-3 paragraphs about each paper in the paper-track and an appropriate amount of verbiage about the other tracks. I will publish the summaries in ;login:. Please send mail to me directly: kolstad@bsdi.com. Please do not reply to the entire list! RK ==================================================================== /\ Rob Kolstad Berkeley Software Design, Inc. /\/ \ kolstad@bsdi.com 7759 Delmonico Drive / \ \ 719-593-9445 Colorado Springs, CO 80919 ==================================================================== From sage-owner Fri Oct 22 08:54:25 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21911; Fri, 22 Oct 93 08:54:25 PDT Received: from network.ucsd.edu by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA21904; Fri, 22 Oct 93 08:54:19 PDT Received: by network.ucsd.edu (4.1/UCSDGENERIC.4) id AA16494 to sage@usenix.org; Fri, 22 Oct 93 08:54:13 PDT From: nomad@network.ucsd.edu (Lee Damon) Message-Id: <9310221554.AA16494@network.ucsd.edu> Subject: Working Group meetings at LISA VII To: sage@usenix.ORG Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 08:54:09 -0700 (PDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 644 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I've scheduled a BOF for SAGE Working Groups to meet and work face to face. The original time has been changed, but the idea is the same: Wed. 8pm-whenever SAGE working groups If you are a member of a working group, and will be at LISA, please plan to attend. nomad chair - SAGE Policies ------------ - Lee "nomad" Damon - \ work: nomad@qualcomm.com \ play: nomad@castle.org or castle!nomad \ Sr. Systems Administrator, QUALCOMM Incorporated / \ "Celebrate Diversity" / \ From sage-owner Mon Oct 25 11:16:17 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA16190; Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:16:17 PDT Received: from ensta.ensta.fr by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA16178; Mon, 25 Oct 93 11:15:54 PDT Received: from itesec.hsc-sec.fr (itesec.hsc-sec.fr [192.70.106.33]) by ensta.ensta.fr (8.6/8.6) with SMTP id TAA18297 for ; Mon, 25 Oct 1993 19:15:38 +0100 Received: from zephyr.hsc-sec.fr by itesec.hsc-sec.fr (5.65d8/IDA-1.5f) via HSCnet with SMTP id AA00050; Mon, 25 Oct 1993 18:15:33 GMT Received: by zephyr.hsc-sec.fr (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04769; Mon, 25 Oct 93 19:14:02 +0100 From: Herve.Schauer@itesec.ensta.fr (Herve Schauer) Message-Id: <9310251814.AA04769@zephyr.hsc-sec.fr> Subject: Anyboby from France, Belgium, Switzerland ? To: sage@usenix.ORG Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 19:14:01 +0100 (MET) Organization: Herve Schauer Consultants Postal-Address: 142, Rue de Rivoli, F-75039 PARIS Cedex 01 X-Face: ?J/*Ar.CJ#%Dn\7hVT(K~*MXbn&J*{C>Orw{WqY*]}jjvX.JYSRV/#3~hhAp!t/EG[Rc{[r0qeA{Numu'xk@i>@$?U ?:1m.FIYD#h=ib%4KUTG\cNKYTz/GqItcng X-Phone: +33 1 46388990 X-Fax: +33 1 46380505 X-Minitel: +33 1 46382525 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL5] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 362 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk To start a discussion, in french, about the problems specific to France and french-speakink countries of Europe. I ask to all SAGE-members from these countries to register to the SAGE-fr mailing list. Send a message to , with, in the body : SUB SAGE-FR Your Name Thank's in advance, HERVE From sage-owner Thu Oct 28 13:39:29 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14770; Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:39:29 PDT Received: from sparkyfs.erg.sri.com by usenix.ORG (4.0/1.29-emg890317) id AA14763; Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:39:23 PDT Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sparkyfs.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA05822; Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:39:23 -0700 Message-Id: <9310282039.AA05822@sparkyfs.erg.sri.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Call for Participation: LISA VII Works In Progress [WIP] Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 13:39:17 -0700 From: Bryan McDonald Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk [My apologies for the late posting, I had posted it to USENET, then discovered later that my outbound connections were not connecting...] LISA VII is approaching quickly, and the schedule is set. If you could not get a paper ready in time to make the deadlines for the main technical track, but are working on something new, bring it to the Works In Progress session. This is a forum for people to discuss works in progress, either to test the waters for a paper next year, or simply to discuss you ideas or problems in developing a tool for your own facility. The Works In Progress [WIP] session will be held on Friday at the conference, and is open to anyone who would like to get up and talk about something they are working on for 5-10 minutes. If you are interested in participating in the WIP session, please contact me by email sometime before the conference with a 1-2 paragraph description of of your WIP topic. At the conference itself, you can find me, leave me a message on the message board, or contact me through my hotel (the Doubletree). You could probably send me email as well.... +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Bryan McDonald | Computer, Hardware, And Operations Support bigmac@erg.sri.com | CHAOS Postmaster-Systems Administrator | ITAD - SRI International +--------------------------BayLISA Newsletter Editor---------------------------+ +------USENIX/SAGE (System Administrators Guild) Publications Coordinator------+ From sage-owner Tue Nov 23 23:47:47 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA14864; Tue, 23 Nov 93 23:47:47 PST Received: from unet.net.com by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA14856; Tue, 23 Nov 93 23:47:40 PST Received: from herb.net.com by unet.net.com (4.1/UNET-1.1) id AA23504; Tue, 23 Nov 93 23:50:34 PST Received: from somehost.net.com by herb.net.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12203; Tue, 23 Nov 93 23:46:03 PST Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 23:46:03 PST From: kenny@herb.net.com (Kenny Paul) Message-Id: <9311240746.AA12203@herb.net.com> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: By Popular Demand X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Howdy! I received umpty-three million requests at LISA, from people that wanted me to e-mail them the text of NET's infamous "Eng_Adm Get List" T-shirt. So here it is, even if you didn't want it. :-) (Eng_Adm is our systems administration mail alias) enjoy. Regards, Kenny ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- FRONT * I didn't touch a thing. * Why can`t you give me the root password? * I want more disk space, now! * It was working fine a minute ago. * I typed rm -rf, but I didn't really mean to. * How come SPARC binaries won't work on my 3/50? * I just turned it off and on a couple of times. * What's an alias? * It must be a hardware problem. * This will only take you a minute. * Can you restore /tmp/junk from February of 87? * X Windows isn't working on my VT100! * I didn't realize the type of coax made any difference. * How do I post an article to alt.sex.bondage? * I just plugged my RS-232 port into my phone jack. * Is the unix broken? * My bin directory is missing! * Someone spilled coffee on my keyboard. * I need to be the owner of all of the files in /usr/kvm. * How can I send mail to my friend on BITNET? * What makes you think it is my software? * My Mac is much easier to use. * Why is her disk quota bigger than mine? * What jumpers? * I can't login to my ethernet. * Don't you know where I put my source code? * I need to borrow your CD-ROM for 2 months. * Where can I find all of those GIF files? * Honest, it just stopped working. * But I like the old OS a lot better. * Can you read this TK50 VMS tape onto my Sun? * I can do it... I used to be a Systems Administrator. * Can`t this be done after I go home? * It says, "Run fsck manually". * I need you to reboot my floppy drive. * What does RTFM mean? * How hard can it be to do a simple upgrade? * My system just crashed. * Now how did that file get in there? * But the vendor says this should be, "Plug and play". * This is going to cost us how much!? * A System Administrator doesn't do hardware. * My machine needs more memory. * Is my monitor suppose to smoke? * Just stay late. * It was fine, until I moved the disk drive over to there. * I can guarantee you that my program is flawless. * Oops... * ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACK Eng_Adm "Get List" [X] A Clue [X] A Life [X] Lost Remember... just send mail. Copyright © 1992 Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. From sage-owner Fri Dec 3 17:15:49 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA28734; Fri, 3 Dec 93 17:15:49 PST Received: from elxr.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (elxr-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov) by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA28727; Fri, 3 Dec 93 17:15:47 PST Received: from localhost by elxr.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (8.6.4/SMI-4.1+DXRm2.5) id RAA23842; Fri, 3 Dec 1993 17:15:55 -0800 Message-Id: <199312040115.RAA23842@elxr.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> To: sage@usenix.ORG Reply-To: dave@elxr.Jpl.Nasa.Gov Subject: Large Network Comparisons Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1993 17:15:54 -0800 From: Dave Hayes Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I've recently been asked by my co-workers to come up with several examples of large (>300 subnets) "well-designed" networks. The purpose of finding these examples is to compare and contrast our networks to see what we can do better and what we already do better. I'd appreciate any advice or examples any of you could offer. Replies by direct email please, unless you _want_ to clutter this list. Thanks in advance. ------ Dave Hayes - Institutional Network & Communications - JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh "Better to be safe than to be sorry" is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives. From sage-owner Mon Dec 6 15:36:23 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA12550; Mon, 6 Dec 93 15:36:23 PST Received: from sunrise.cse.fau.edu by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA12543; Mon, 6 Dec 93 15:36:20 PST Received: by sunrise.cse.fau.edu id AA09382 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for sage@usenix.org); Mon, 6 Dec 1993 18:39:08 -0500 From: Gopal K Message-Id: <199312062339.AA09382@sunrise.cse.fau.edu> Subject: To: sage@usenix.ORG Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 18:39:07 EST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk send catalog From sage-owner Tue Dec 7 08:07:20 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA19198; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:07:20 PST Received: from hermes.intel.com by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA19191; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:07:17 PST Received: from ptdcs2.intel.com by hermes.intel.com (5.65/10.0i); Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:07:23 -0800 Received: from ptdi66 (ptdi66.al.intel.com) by ptdcs2.intel.com with SMTP id AA02494 (5.65c+/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:07:22 -0800 From: Meg Grice Received: by ptdi66 (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/SCDT-RS6000) id AA19673; Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:07:22 -0800 Message-Id: <9312071607.AA19673@ptdi66> Subject: Sys. Admin. Descriptions To: sage@usenix.ORG Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 8:07:22 PST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk Hello, I recently moved and changed jobs and have lost the SAGE job descriptions for Systems Administrators. Could someone please send them to me. We are looking for a new person for our Systems Administration group and I would like to try and incorporate the appropriate SAGE listing. -- Meg Grice AL4-57 PTD CAD Group UNIX Sys. Admin. 5200 Elam Young Prkwy mgrice@ptdcs2 Intel Corporation Hillsboro, OR USA (503) 642-6363 From sage-owner Tue Dec 7 08:34:00 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA19855; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:34:00 PST Received: from sfo.erg.sri.com by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA19848; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:33:58 PST Received: from localhost.erg.sri.com by sfo.erg.sri.com (5.65/2.7davy) id AA13408; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:32:40 -0800 Message-Id: <9312071632.AA13408@sfo.erg.sri.com> To: Meg Grice Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Re: Sys. Admin. Descriptions In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 07 Dec 93 08:07:22 PST." <9312071607.AA19673@ptdi66> Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 08:32:37 -0800 From: zwicky@erg.sri.com Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk You can FTP the job descriptions from ftp.sage.usenix.org. The booklet, which contains additional material, is available from USENIX; you can contact the office staff via email at office@usenix.org. Elizabeth Zwicky zwicky@erg.sri.com From sage-owner Tue Dec 7 08:50:40 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA20069; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:50:40 PST Received: from alpha.xerox.com by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA20062; Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:50:38 PST Received: from avalon.parc.xerox.com ([13.1.101.241]) by alpha.xerox.com with SMTP id <14805(1)>; Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:50:31 PST Received: by avalon.parc.xerox.com id <2440>; Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:50:26 -0800 From: Mark Verber To: mgrice@ptdcs2.intel.com Subject: Re: Sys. Admin. Descriptions Cc: sage@usenix.ORG Message-Id: <93Dec7.085026pst.2440@avalon.parc.xerox.com> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 08:50:16 PST Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk The original job descriptions can be found on ftp.sage.usenix.org in /pub/sage/jobs. There is now a nifty booklet which you can order the the USENIX office for $5 which has everything nicely typeset and some case studies added. --mark From sage-owner Thu Dec 9 15:41:00 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA02878; Thu, 9 Dec 93 15:41:00 PST Received: from nic.near.net by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA02870; Thu, 9 Dec 93 15:40:53 PST Received: from balder.novalink.com by nic.near.net id aa09630; 9 Dec 93 18:41 EST Received: from loki by balder.novalink.com id aa21455; 9 Dec 93 18:30 EST Received: by novalink.com (1.64/waf) via UUCP; Tue, 07 Dec 93 08:00:06 EST for sage@usenix.org From: "Robert L. Manieri" X-Mailer: NovaMail 2.00 To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: Membership Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 08:02:36 EST Message-Id: Organization: NovaLink, 800-274-2814 (voice) or 800-825-8852 (data) Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk I am interested in joining SAGE. Please email the particulars to me at: rmanieri@novalink.com Thanks, Bob. ======================================================================== Bob Manieri - Database Administration Consultant Aston Brooke Corp, Plymouth Meeting, PA Pager: 609-342-0314 FAX: 609-853-8050 email : rmanieri@novalink.com ======================================================================== It has been said that a DBA is a professional paranoid. Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. ======================================================================== From sage-owner Wed Dec 15 07:16:51 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA00224; Wed, 15 Dec 93 07:16:51 PST Received: from ait.nrl.navy.mil ([128.60.1.221]) by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA00217; Wed, 15 Dec 93 07:16:46 PST Received: from localhost (deal@localhost) by ait.nrl.navy.mil (8.6.4/8.6.4) id KAA22022 for sage@usenix.org; Wed, 15 Dec 1993 10:16:48 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 10:16:48 -0500 From: Butch Deal NRL Message-Id: <199312151516.KAA22022@ait.nrl.navy.mil> X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.4 2/2/92) To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: test Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk could you send me info on joining sage? thanks -- #include The Butcher Butch Deal deal@ait.nrl.navy.mil -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From sage-owner Wed Dec 22 21:07:50 1993 Received: by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA25733; Wed, 22 Dec 93 21:07:50 PST Received: from neuron.cs.colorado.edu by usenix.ORG (4.1/1.29-emg890317) id AA25726; Wed, 22 Dec 93 21:07:47 PST Received: by neuron.cs.colorado.edu id AA08627 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for sage@usenix.org); Wed, 22 Dec 1993 22:07:55 -0700 Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 22:07:55 -0700 From: "Michael C. Mozer" Message-Id: <199312230507.AA08627@neuron.cs.colorado.edu> To: sage@usenix.ORG Subject: position opening: Manager, Computer Systems Operations, U. Colorado Sender: sage-owner@usenix.ORG Precedence: bulk POSITION OPENING Position: Manager, Computing Systems Operations Computer Science Department University of Colorado, Boulder Minimum Required Background: Bachelor degree or equivalent experience, plus three years UNIX system administration and TCP/IP network administration, plus three years management of system and network admin staff (5+ FTEs) in internal user support environment. Desirable Background: Experience supporting a University research environment. Required Skills: Strong interpersonal and communication skills; capable of writing internal reports, acting as a vendor and user liaison, making presentations to department faculty and staff, and working closely with upper management. Ability to forecast and plan budgets. Ability to supervise, evaluate, interview, hire, discipline, and otherwise manage permanent professional staff and student staff. Ability to train system administration staff and users and develop training courses and materials. Ability to solve problems quickly and completely. Ability to weigh both technical and business related factors in decisions. Ability to identify tasks which require automation and automate them. A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts (for example, "inode" and "superblock"), and performance analysis tools. A solid understanding of networking/distributed computing environment concepts; understands principles of routing, client-server programming, the design of consistent network-wide file system layouts, and integrating heterogeneous UNIX systems. Responsibilities: Provide computing facilities services to the faculty, staff, and graduate students of the Computer Science department. Establish and/or recommend policies on computing system and facility use and services. Enforce computing system and facility policies. Balance technical and business related factors in policy making. Supervise five permanent staff, two graduate research assistants, and three to six student or temporary staff. Establish job descriptions and classifications. Determine staff requirements including needs for additional staff. Fill vacant positions by establishing applicant requirements, soliciting and evaluating applicants, and hiring staff. Establish staff performance guidelines. Motivate, evaluate, and enforce staff performance relative to established guidelines. Train system and network administration staff, and develop training courses for staff and users. Determine when and which supplies, parts, and internal equipment are required. Purchase all consumable parts and supplies and non-consumable internal equipment. Write and authorize purchase requisitions, memo purchase orders, and inter-departmental invoices. Track purchases through on-line purchasing system and with vendors. Receive orders and enter pertinent data in on-line receiving system and inventory systems. Track equipment inventory as required by Property Management. Manage $300k annual operations budget. Recommend hardware and software configurations to be purchased for end-users. Purchase all end-user equipment performing all aspects as for internal supplies and equipment above, but at the final direction of end-users in consideration of defined services. Equipment purchases range from $200k to $500k annually. Communicate and coordinate with internal department research groups and committees in support of providing computing services. Communicate and coordinate with external vendors as liaison for computing hardware and software maintenance and license contracts. Communicate and coordinate with other department representatives on campus (Computing and Network Services, Telecommunications, Facilities Management, Buying and Contracting, Property Management, other academic departments, etc.) as CS department computing facilities liaison. Communicate and coordinate with other organizations on the Internet as CS department liaison to maintain the integrity and security of our computing facility. Cooperate in incidents where our users or facility may threaten the integrity of other network organizations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To apply, send your resume (with list of references) by January 5, 1994 to: CSOps Manager Search, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0430. Direct specific inquiries to Professor Mike Mozer (mozer@cs.colorado.edu). We expect to receive many qualified applications from the Denver metro area, and thus discourage those not already in the area from applying. Only in the unlikely event that no suitable local candidate can be found will we consider bringing in non-local candidates for interviews. The University of Colorado is an Equal Opportunity Employer.