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                   The Sys Admin Newsletter
                          News for the
              June 2003 issue of Sys Admin Magazine

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                            CONTENTS

1. Note from the Editor
2. Highlights of the June issue 
3. Call for Papers
4. Subscription Information
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

This issue of Sys Admin focuses on information security. In his article 
about Sendmail security, Hal Pomeranz speculates that "the Sendmail 
buffer overflow exploit announced in March will almost certainly be 
programmed into an automated worm within the next six months." Such a 
worm, he says, could do for UNIX systems what Code Red did to the 
Windows world -- simply because there are so many potentially 
vulnerable 
UNIX systems on the network today. Pomeranz also details some 
suggestions for protecting networks against this Sendmail 
vulnerability. 
I hope you find his article and others in this issue useful for 
making your systems more secure.

Sincerely,
Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief

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	The June 2003 issue contains:

Improving Sendmail Security by Turning It Off by Hal Pomeranz 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maaa4LGaaXX2ya2sokSb/
Pomeranz explains how to safely disable Sendmail daemons to protect 
your network.

Port Knocking - Network Authentication Across Closed Ports 
by Martin Krzywinski
Krzywinski describes the use of port knocking, a stealthy network 
authentication system that uses closed ports to carry out 
identification 
of trusted users.

Freeware Forensics Tools by Kristy Westphal 
Westphal examines three popular UNIX freeware tools: The Coroner's 
Toolkit (TCT), The @stake Sleuth Kit (TASK), and Autopsy Forensic 
Browser.

Lppbuild - AIX Package Creation by Charles Ritter 
Ritter describes lppbuild, a useful tool for creating binary installa-
tion packages in AIX's LPP package format.

CFS - The Cryptographic File System by Keith McDuffee 
McDuffee describes the implementation of Matt BlazeÕs Cryptographic 
File System to encrypt product source code on laptops.

Integrating SpamAssassin into Qmail and Sendmail by Jason Camp  
Camp explains how to integrate SpamAssassin into Qmail to help 
combat spam.

Using the xargs Command by Ed Schaefer 
One of the most under-utilized UNIX utilities is the xargs, construct 
argument lists, command. In this article, Schaefer describes xargs and 
presents eight xargs 'one-liners'.

Protecting Your UNIX Systems - An Overview by Eric Cole  
Cole provides a general introduction to some basic but critical 
tools for protecting your data.

Stress Testing Jabber with the Jabber Test Suite by Dustin Puryear  
Puryear describes how the Jabber Test Suite can be used to evaluate 
how well your Jabber service is working under a given load.
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	COLUMNS

Questions and Answers by Amy Rich 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maaa4LGaaXX2Aa2sokSb/

Solaris Resource Management - The Fair Share Scheduler 
by Peter Baer Galvin 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maaa4LGaaXX2Ba2sokSb/

Introduction to RAID by Henry Newman  
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maaa4LGaaXX2Ca2sokSb/

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     CALL FOR PAPERS  

Enterprise Administration
We're looking for practical, high-end discussions of storage, 
clustering, security, and advanced networking solutions based 
on your expertise and insights.

Open Source
We're looking for original uses of classic tools such as Apache, 
Samba, and MySQL; custom solutions built from open source components; 
and descriptions of useful open source utilities.

Scripting
Describe how you improved your life with the perfect Perl, shell, 
PHP, Python, or Tcl/Tk script.

Theme               Issue    Proposals Due      Manuscripts Due 
 
Security             Sep       5/1/03             6/2/03 
Server Management    Oct       6/2/03             7/1/03 
Performance Tuning   Nov       7/1/03             8/1/03 
Solaris Supplement   Nov       7/1/03             8/1/03 
Software Tools       Dec       8/1/03             9/2/03 

We suggest that if you are interested in contributing, you first 
submit a proposal to us. If the proposal seems appropriate, we'll 
ask you to submit a manuscript. If the manuscript is accepted, 
we'll edit it, print it, and pay you for it. For more detailed 
information, refer to the author guidelines. Please address requests 
for guidelines, proposals, and manuscripts to: 

Rikki Endsley
Associate Managing Editor
email: rendsley@cmp.com 

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ClusterWorld Conference and Expo. San Jose Convention Center,
San Jose, CA. June 23rd - June 26th, 2003.
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Email comments to: aankerholz@cmp.com