CTI Strategy frequently creates content in the forms White Papers, collateral documentation, talks, and tutorials. They are gathered together at this location for ease of reference by our clients and associates. All of the materials are Copyrighted by Corporate Technologies, Inc, or by their authors are indicated in the individual documents and all rights are reserved.

Courses

The following downloads are course materials that we use and hand out when teaching tutorials. These tutorials are given at conferences such as Usenix ATC and LISA, and privately for clients at our site or on-site. Typically tutorial companies do not allow access to their tutorial materials, but we feel that doing so helps systems managers and administrators accomplish their tasks, and as such we are happy to provide the materials. Get in touch if you are interested in having us teach tutorials based on these materials. We also have access to a hands-on DTrace class, but we do not own those materials so do not include them here. Typically these class materials are updated frequently, so check back if you always want to have the latest and greatest.

These course materials can be used as reference material, but are best used (and taught) as hands-on workshops.

Solaris 10 Administration Topics Workshop 1 – Administration

  Solaris Administration Topics - Administration (56.4 MiB)

Target audience: Solaris systems managers and administrators interested in learning the new administration features in Solaris 10 (and features in previous Solaris releases that they might not be using).

Solaris has always been the premier commercial operating system, and this remains the case today. Its novel features and applications (like ZFS, DTrace, and Containers) keep it at the forefront of enterprise use, and many of these features have been copied in other operating systems.

This course covers a variety of system administration topics surrounding Solaris 10. Solaris 10 includes many features introduced since the last major release of Solaris, and there are new issues to consider when deploying, implementing, and managing Solaris 10. This will be a workshop featuring instruction and practice/exploration.

Take back to work: Intimate knowledge of the new features and best practices surrounding Solaris 10 administration.

Topics include:

• Solaris Versions, features, selection
• SMF and FMA
• Booting and installing
• Patching
• Important administration tools
• What’s next for Solaris
• Quick performance overview

Solaris 10 Administration Topics Workshop 2 – Virtualization

  Solaris Administration Topics - Virtualization (39.2 MiB)

Target audience: Solaris systems managers and administrators interested in learning the new virtualization features in Solaris 10.

Solaris has always been the premier commercial operating system, and this remains the case today. Its novel features and applications (like ZFS, DTrace, and Containers) keep it at the forefront of enterprise use, and many of these features have been copied in other operating systems.

This course covers the gamut of virtualization options in Solaris 10. It includes new issues to consider when deploying, implementing, and managing Solaris 10. This will be a workshop featuring instruction and practice/exploration.

Take back to work: Intimate knowledge of the Solaris 10 virtualization choices and best practices surrounding Solaris 10 administration.

Topics include:

• Virtualization choices in Solaris
• Zones / Containers
• LDOMS and Domains
• Virtualbox
• xvm (aka Xen)

Solaris 10 Administration Topics Workshop 3 – File Systems

  Solaris Administration Topics - File Systems (48.1 MiB)

Target audience: Solaris systems managers and administrators interested in learning the new file system features in Solaris 10.

Solaris has always been the premier commercial operating system, and this remains the case today. Its novel features and applications (like ZFS, DTrace, and Containers) keep it at the forefront of enterprise use, and many of these features have been copied in other operating systems.

This course covers Solaris 10 file system topics. It includes new issues to consider when deploying, implementing, and managing Solaris 10. This will be a workshop featuring instruction and practice/exploration.

Take back to work: Intimate knowledge of the Solaris 10 file system choices and best practices surrounding Solaris 10 administration.

Topics include:

• Root disk layout
• Mirroring et al
• ZFS
• Choosing the most appropriate file system

Solaris 10 Administration Topics Workshop 4 – Security

  Solaris Administration Topics - Security (50.3 MiB)

Target audience: Solaris systems managers and administrators interested in the new security features in Solaris 10 (and features in previous Solaris releases that they might not be using).

Solaris has always been the premier commercial operating system, but it is also somewhat different from other UNIX/Linux systems. It has novel features and applications (some have been copied in other operating systems), and there are things you need to know to use them effectively and securely.

This course covers a variety of topics surrounding Solaris 10 and security. Note that this is not a class about specific security vulnerabilities and hardening; rather, it examines new features in Solaris 10 for addressing the entire security infrastructure, as well as new issues to consider when deploying, implementing, and managing Solaris 10. This will be a workshop featuring instruction and practice/exploration. Also, this course does not include virtualization (containers et al) as that is covered in the  Solaris 10 Administration Topics Workshop 2 course.

Take back to work: During this exploration of the important new features of Solaris 10, you’ll not only learn what it does and how to get it done, but also best practices. Also covered is the status of each of these new features, how stable it is, whether it is ready for production use, and expected future enhancements.

Topics include:

• RBAC: Role Based Access Control (giving users and application access to data and functions based on the role they are filling, as opposed to their login name)
• Privileges: A new Solaris facility based on the principle of least privilege; instead of being root (or not), users are accorded 43 distinct bits of privilege, sometimes spanning classes of actions and sometimes being confined to a specific system call
• NFSv4: The latest version of NFS (based on an industry standard) features stateful connection, more and better security, write locks, and faster performance
• Flash archives and live upgrade (automated system builds)
• Moving from NIS to LDAP
• DTrace (security): Solaris 10’s system profiling and debugging tool
• FTP client and server enhancements for security, reliability, and auditing
• PAM (the Pluggable Authentication Module) enhancements, for more detailed control of access to resources
• Auditing enhancements
• BSM (the Basic Security Module) provides a security auditing system, (including tools to assist with analysis) and a device allocation mechanism (providing object-reuse characteristics for removable or assignable devices)
• Service Management Facility (a replacement for rc files)
• New “Secure By Default” settings
• Solaris Cryptographic Framework: A built-in system for encrypting anything, from files on disks to data streams between applications
• Kerberos enhancements
• Packet filtering with IPfilters
• BART (Basic Audit Reporting Tool): similar to Tripwire, BART enables you to determine what file-level changes have occurred on a system, relative to a known baseline
• Trusted Extension – additions to Solaris 10 to make it “Trusted Solaris”
  Securing a Solaris 10 system