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

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                            CONTENTS

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

The articles in this issue provide performance tuning tips. Dustin 
Puryear looks at several performance enhancements that can be achieved 
with sysctl, Frank Wiles describes a setup for load balancing email 
servers for better performance, and Thirumalainambi Murugesh shares 
some information about tuning NNM servers. If you're looking for 
additional performance analysis tips, next month's Solaris 
Administration Supplement will feature an article by Justin Buhler and 
Adrian Cockcroft. This article will describe key principles and tools, 
specifically Orca and the SE toolkit, for successful capacity planning. 

Sincerely,
Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief
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	The November 2003 issue contains:

Linux Kernel Tuning Using System Control by Dustin Puryear  
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabxluaa09uTa2sokSb/
Some of the most notable performance improvements for Linux can be 
accomplished via system control (sysctl) in /proc/sys. Puryear 
covers several areas of sysctl that can result in large performance 
improvements. 

Load Balancing Email by Frank Wiles 
When administering a large email system, the ability to move the  
frequent users to faster hardware allows you to tailor load balancing 
to fit the user base as well as the hardware. Wiles describes his setup 
for accomplishing this task.

Review of sqlDESKTOP by Marcel Gagné  
Gagné reviews sqlDESKTOP, a program that is to your computer  desktop 
what a good filing system is to your physical office. With sqlDESKTOP, 
you can arrange and organize information into related areas just as 
you would in the real world. 

Unix Administration with Self-Parsing Shell Scripts by John Kozubik  
Kozubik provides specific code examples to show how a self-parsing 
shell script can dramatically simplify common Unix systems 
administration tasks.

Tuning NNM Servers by Thirumalainambi Murugesh  
Hewlett-Packard's OpenView Network Node Manager (NNM) is a tool for 
enterprise-wide IP network management based on SNMP standards. In this 
article, Murugesh shares some techniques for tuning NNM.

Mac OS X Administration -- Getting Started by Stephen Worotynec
For a Unix administrator to get the most functionality from Mac OS X,  
features such as GUI-less operation, single-user mode, firmware access, 
and serial console access must be explicitly activated. Worotynec shows 
how this is done.

Do It Yourself with the Shell by Ed Schaefer and Michael Wang  
The authors present several "do it yourself" shell scripting techniques 
using real-world examples. They demonstrate various shell techniques 
and examine contrasting solutions using other standard Unix tools.

Advanced SNMP Monitoring with RRDTool by Adam Denenberg 
RRDTool, in conjunction with MRTG, is valuable for presenting SNMP 
data in innovative ways. Denenberg focuses on using RRDTool's advanced 
features and expanding the functionality of the SNMP  package net-snmp.

Advanced Configuration of Nagios by Syed Ali 
In this follow-up to the Nagios article that appeared in the October 
issue of Sys Admin, Ali focuses on advanced configuration and  
performance tuning.

     Columns

Speeding up Your Perl Programs by Randal L. Schwartz 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabxluaa09uUa2sokSb/

Questions and Answers by Amy Rich  
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabxluaa09uVa2sokSb/

More Truth about Tapes, Backups, and Restores by Peter Baer Galvin 
http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabxluaa09uWa2sokSb/

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October 26-31, 2003 - San Diego, CA USA

For seventeen years, USENIX and SAGE have co-sponsored the LISA 
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Don't miss out!  Receive an additional discount when you register 
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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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Technology and Operations) at Storage Networking World (SNW), 
October 27-30, 2003 at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes Resort in 
Orlando, Florida.  See the up-to-the-minute agenda at:
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     Newsletter Subscription Information

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