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

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                            CONTENTS

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

The results of the Sys Admin 2003 Reader Survey indicate that, 
once again, security, performance tuning, system monitoring, and 
scripting are the topics of most interest to our readers. Amy Rich's 
Q&A is the most popular column (for the third year running), and you 
can read Amy's October Q&A below. If you did not receive a survey, 
please feel free to send your comments and suggestions to me at: 
aankerholz@cmp.com.
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	The October 2003 issue contains:

VOCP Command Shells - Managing Your Systems through the Telephone  
by Patrick Deegan  
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabq69aa0qeWa2sokSb/
Deegan explains how to use VOCP command shells to monitor your systems 
and perform administrative tasks, no matter where you are.

Just Can't Get Enough Sendmail by Hal Pomeranz  
In the June issue of Sys Admin, Pomeranz discussed the security 
measure of shutting down the standard Sendmail daemon on most 
Unix machines. When readers put this suggestion into practice, 
they encountered some specific issues, which Pomeranz addresses 
in detail.

Network Monitoring with Nagios by Syed Ali 
Ali explains how to install and use Nagios, a GPL tool for host and 
service monitoring.

Managing Services with Webmin by Keith Pettit
Pettit describes Webmin, a modular Web-based configuration tool that 
allows you to configure just about every service available on Unix.

Using a Distributed Shell to Manage Deployments of Linux 
and Unix Servers by Jeff McElroy 
McElroy shows how implementing a distributed shell can simplify 
an environment and save time for administrators responsible for 
maintaining many servers.

Putting the Ease Back into Email by Martin Streicher 
Streicher presents a Perl script he wrote that pulls email from any 
number of POP servers, creates an easily browsed, unified archive 
of both incoming and outgoing email, and filters out spam.

Getting Status Information about an HACMP Cluster 
by Arni Snorri Eggertsson 
Eggertson shares a collection of scripts he developed to monitor and 
report on status changes of HACMP clusters.

Filtering Port Scans with nmap-audit by Keith Resar 
Resar describes nmap-audit, which cleans up and merges reports 
from nmap, eliminates uninteresting data, and presents the remaining 
information in an easy to use form.

Using Tripwire on a Network with LANTrip by Sean Mostafavi 
Mostafavi explains how to configure and use LANTrip, a network file 
integrity tool.

The PBS Accounting Toolkit by Rodney Mach  
Mach introduces the PBS Accounting Toolkit, which allows 
administrators to convert PBS accounting logs to XML and thereby 
leverage XML technologies for querying and parsing.

	Columns

Questions and Answers by Amy Rich 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabq69aa0qeXa2sokSb/

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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.

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
Sys Admin

voice: (785) 838-7555
fax: (785) 841-2047
email: rendsley@cmp.com 

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     Newsletter Subscription Information

Please feel free to share this newsletter with interested parties
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Email comments to: aankerholz@cmp.com