Agenda & Announcements for 1 April 2004

Please send Nominations for Chair-Elect for 2004 to Ken Sallenger .

Computer Services Software Distribution requests information on any software site licenses maintained by campuses, colleges, departments. The intent is to be able to refer your users back in the proper direction, in case they call here to inquire.

Security update:  
The Nachi E virus has hit only about 30 facutlty/staff stations, so hopefully we are doing something right with software patching and anti-virus.   Unfortuntely, Ronni Wilkinson estimates that 600 student systems have been infected.  In that regard, Rita Anderson notes that  we hope to have bids on a validation system this month (see Network Authentication Project .

Firewall upgrades are complete.  Recall that the border firewalls have been replaced with more powerful models.  The older models have been placed in service for the internal firewall for Web, Blackboard, and GEM systems.  This provides redundancy for that network.  The  management station, which shared the old Solaris platform with the internal firewall, has been replaced by a stand-alone system as the vendor now recommends.

Ronni has a new set of the SANS Step by Step security guides.  They are available from sans.org under the SANS School Store.  If you're not familiar with the site, check it out.  See especially the Reading Room,  Webcasts, News, and Resources.

Microsoft Security Training
Rita Anderson - Computer Services

Microsoft is making some security-related training available to us at no cost, if we can sign up 25 people. This is still tentative:

Modules Include:
Essentials of Security
Implementing Security Patch Management
Implementing Client Security on Windows 2000 and Windows XP
Implementing Perimeter and Network Security
Implementing Advanced Server and Client Security
Applied Security Strategies

USC Security Lecture Series
Ronni Wilkinson - Computer Services

We will be offering a security lecture series , beginning on April 7, 2004. We hope that these lectures will be the basis for a USC Security Administrator Certification and the lecture series will hopefully be followed by a chance to take a certification test. We will be working with HR to explore this possibility.

We will offer each lecture twice, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. Please email ronni@sc.edu to reserve a space and so I will know how many course materials packets to bring.

Lecture: TCP/IP for Network Security and Intrusion Detection
Location: Computer Services 309 Auditorium
Dates: Wednesday, April 7, 2004 9:00AM-12:30PM
Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:30PM-5:00PM

Usenix Sys-Admin conference, November in Atlanta
Ken Sallenger - Computer Services

This is a teaser for our Usenix campus representative, Steve Wright, who will present next month on Usenix and SAGE , the System Administrators' Guild. However, the call for papers for this very cool conference is approaching (April 20th deadline).

The Usenix System Administration Conference (LISA '04) will be held in Atlanta. CFP deadline April 20. This is an excellent conference to check out. Past proceedings up to last year are freely available.

The conference is fairly OS-agnostic, as most participants work in heterogeneous environments.

SAGE is a Special Technical Group (STG) of the USENIX Association. It is organized to advance the status of computer system administration as a profession, establish standards of professional excellence and recognize those who attain them, develop guidelines for improving the technical and managerial capabilities of members of the profession, and promote activities that advance the state of the art or the community. SAGE membership is now available separately, for $40 ($25 for students). More next month!