[BSDcert] Initial thoughts

[Tillman Hodgson]

On Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 11:44:37AM -0500, Richard Bejtlich wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 10:17:02 -0600, Tillman Hodgson
> <tillman at seekingfire.com> wrote:
> > 
> > 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,

Howdy Richard,

Love your blog, BTW. I've passed it's URL around the office a few times
now.

> 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.

I don't want to tie it to a single organization, the idea was more like
a sign (like those at the carnival) that says "you must be --> this tall
to play here". Provide a list of the basic Unix certs (and there's a lot
of them!) and require sometime attempting the BSD cert to hold one of
them (any of them, so to speak).

Since it covers only basic Unix stuff, I don't think the danger to our
model is very high. We also don't need the involvement of the other
certifying organizations -- the student just needs to hold a cert from
*somewhere*, that's the extent of the involvement.

It gets us out of the Yet Another Basic Unix Admin Cert game, where the
path is rocky and the list of failed certifying organizations is long.
After my (albeit short) experience with the LPI development process, I'm
anxious to avoid playing that game. It seems to take years and dollars
that I'd rather avoid and that's only to get to the point where one is
allowed to play the political game for general acceptance.

> > 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."

Exactly. As SANS does, only the practicals that *pass* get posted.

Actually, there's a lot from the SANS model that we could borrow from.

I like your idea of splitting the OS from applications. The OS we have
more direct control over (through the various BSD projects), so the
tests would need to be updated less often -- and when it would need to
be updated would be clearer to all of us.

-T


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