Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 21:38:52 -0700
From: Sean Reifschneider <jafo@tummy.com>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Report


Images at http://www.tummy.com/reports/LinuxWorld99/

LinuxWorld Day 1
March 1, 1999

There were a lot of people attending tutorials today, though because
of the size of the San Jose Mcerny Convention Center, there weren't
any crowds.

Sean and I checked into the speaker's lounge after running into Liz
Coolbaugh and Jon Corbet of Eklektix who are also presenting here.
I don't know if it is common for speakers to be so well taken care of
but IDG has gone all out. 

I attended two half-day tutorials Monday. The first "Linux Security
for System Administrators" by Jim Dennis was very well attended, about
350 people. Jim is well known as The Answer Guy in Linux Gazette. Most
of the participants were experienced Unix administrators so the presentation
was well received. The audience also seemed to be very well versed in the
ins and outs of the status of various packages. One audience member commented
on the change in maintainer of the SSL package from SSLeay to OpenSSL.
Jim Dennis was quite knowledgeable about the various types of attacks,
and the ways to protect your network. He stressed at several points the 
importance of desiging a security policy which made sense in light of
the type of data and services you need to protect. He suggested using
"Liability" as the keyword to get more money from your management to
protect sensitive data if it is likely that you would have the threat of
a lawsuit if it got out.

The other tutorial I atteneded was Jon Corbet's Linux System Administration
in a Large Network Environment. I really enjoyed this talk. It was well 
organized and thoughtful with clear principles to keep in mind as you start
designing networks. For example, he stressed at several points the importance
of good names for network services based on the type of service provided
rather than the location of a particular service. For example, he suggested
using "marketing" rather than "George" because it is very likely that 
services for marketing will change location over time, and it is easier 
to move services independant of computer names.

He also stressed the importance of scripting every task you are likely
to perform more than once. This is a good idea not only because you will
save time performing the tasks, but also because the tasks will be done
in a consistant way.

Jon and Liz are going to be offering open registration classes for Linux
systems administrators in Boulder this spring, and I must recommend them
after this presentation. System administration is often taught by 
apprenticeship. This is an opportunity to pick your expert to apprentice
with.

The other major event of yesterday evening was the Speakers and Exhibitors
reception at the Fairmont Hotel. We chatted with Michael Johnson of
Red Hat, Kit Cosper of Linux Hardware Solutions, and Jon and Dennis of
Eklektix. Other Linux notables in attendance: Chris di Bona and Leonard
Zubkoff of VA Research, Eric Raymond of the Cathedral and the Bazaar
(sans Obi robe), and Evan Leibovitch. One thing that suprised me was how
few of the Kernel hackers and Application project leaders were there.
This conference is definately a very commercial project, and there was
only some reaching out to non-profit projects. LinuxWorld has booked
the San Jose convention center twice a year for the next four years,
and we can only hope that they do a better job of including all parts of
the Linux community.

Sean won't have many comments on yesterday, as he spent the day in
the Speaker's lounge working on the Python presentation we're giving
on Tuesday.

Evelyn Mitchell
efm@tummy.com
of computer names.