[BSDcert] Initial thoughts

[Richard Bejtlich]

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 10:17:02 -0600, Tillman Hodgson
<tillman at seekingfire.com> wrote:
> A thought occurred to me: LPI has done a lot of work on the "any flavour
> of Linux, and most flavours of Unix" basic cert idea. Commercial vendors
> also tend to provide basic certs for their flavours.
> 
> Why not piggy-back? Require someone to hold "one of the following basic
> Unix certs", and then have a cert that covers _only_ BSD specific stuff.
> 

Hello,

I recommend not tying our effort to another organization.  First, LPI
is the "Linux Professional Institute."  BSD is not Linux.  Second,
should LPI or another group make changes we do not like, our whole
model is jeopardized.  Third, they may not want us involved.

> The written practical might help out here. If everytime someone googles
> for information on X, they run across a paper on the BSD Cert web site
> describing how to do X on BSD ... well, there'd be some easy dots to
> connect there. It's definitely worked that way for the SANS folks.
> 

This is an excellent idea.  Only the practicals we vet would be
posted.  Suddenly we're adding practial information to the BSD body of
knowledge.  I think our certification "test" should concentrate on
specifics of the OPERATING SYSTEM (at least initially) and not on
applications.  Perhaps the practicals would cover applications, like
"setting up Apache on NetBSD."

> The piggy-back idea also addresses this to a certain extent. As a hiring
> manager, I would understand "LPI level 1 plus BSD certification" or "AIX
> basic admin plus BSD certification".

I think any "piggy-backing" should be within our own group.  For
example, BSD + Security (perhaps for building firewalls, security
appliances, etc.) or BSD + Web (for building Web infrastructure).

Thank you,

Richard
http://www.taosecurity.com