From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Wed Dec 7 10:33:32 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from [131.106.61.218] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48D7832C1B2 for ; Wed, 7 Dec 2005 10:33:31 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 10:33:30 -0800 To: network-automation@greatcircle.com From: Brent Chapman Subject: Reminder: Network Automation BoF at LISA conf, Thu 8 Dec 05 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Archive-Number: 200512/1 X-Sequence-Number: 137 Just a quick reminder for those of you at the USENIX/SAGE LISA conference in San Diego this week... I've scheduled a Network Automation BoF (Birds of a Feather session, where folks interested in a particular topic get together to chat about it) for Thursday night, 8 December 2005, 8:00-9:00pm (right after the conference reception). Right now, they've got us scheduled in Garden Salon 1, but that's subject to change, so check the scheduling board at the conference. I hope to see you there! BoF info: Automating Network Configuration & Management Organizer/Moderator: Brent Chapman, Great Circle Associates Thursday, 8 December 2005, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm, Garden Salon 1 What's the state of the art for automated network configuration and management? What systems and tools are available, either freely or commercially? Where are these issues being considered and discussed? Over the last 15 years or so, much of the research in the system administration field has focused on automation. It's now well accepted that a well-run operation doesn't manage 10,000 servers individually, but rather uses tools like cfengine to manage definitions of those servers and then create instances of those servers as needed. In the networking world, though, most of us seem to be still manually configuring (and reconfiguring) every device. Further info: Network Automation BoF http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa05/bofs.html#auto All scheduled BoFs http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa05/bofs.html Conference info http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa05/ -Brent -- Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc. Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989 For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/ Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Mon Dec 19 19:25:12 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from [130.128.1.207] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA2BD32C200 for ; Mon, 19 Dec 2005 19:25:11 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 19:25:18 -0800 To: network-automation@greatcircle.com From: Brent Chapman Subject: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Archive-Number: 200512/2 X-Sequence-Number: 138 We had a great Network Automation BOF at the LISA conference in San Diego a couple of weeks ago; thanks to the 40 or so folks who attended, and especially to David Williamson of Tellme for co-chairing the meeting. Here are the URLs and such that were scribbled on the transparency at the Network Automation BoF at the LISA conference a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of Steve Traugott. My apologies for not getting these notes out sooner; I went straight to another conference (Interop in New York) the following week... Unfortunately, it's been so long since the BoF that I don't recall the context in which each of these were mentioned; did anyone take more detailed notes that they might be willing to share? http://www.greatcircle.com/lists/network-automation RANCID - http://www.shruberry.net AANTS GraphViz nethelp@ns.uoregon.edu netdot - doc tool Indiana University NOC Tools Luke Fowler paper -Brent -- Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc. Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989 For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/ Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Thu Dec 22 16:32:48 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from dot.dauith.com (dot.dauith.com [66.92.34.120]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD68332C1A7 for ; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:32:47 -0800 (PST) Received: (from david@localhost) by dot.dauith.com (8.11.7/8.11.1) id jBN0YjV30525; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:34:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from david) Message-Id: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 20 Dec 2005 03:49:21 PST." <20051220114935.9979432C58C@mycroft.greatcircle.com> From: David Harnick-Shapiro Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:34:45 -0800 X-Archive-Number: 200512/3 X-Sequence-Number: 139 On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 03:49:21 -0800, network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com writes: > Here are the URLs and such that were scribbled on the transparency at > the Network Automation BoF at the LISA conference a couple of weeks > ago, courtesy of Steve Traugott. ... > > Unfortunately, it's been so long since the BoF that I don't recall > the context in which each of these were mentioned; did anyone take > more detailed notes that they might be willing to share? My notes were not necessarily more detailed, but I did jot down a few other tidbits, which might help flesh out things. (I'm not the authoritative source for any of these, so please feel free to extend or correct my comments where appropriate, folks.) > RANCID - > http://www.shruberry.net It's "shrubbery", not "shruberry" (although that *is* how it was written on the overhead :-) > AANTS distributed net management GUI tool, from U Wisconsin. I think this was the one that was described as "not addressing, exactly, what we're discussing here, but a neat tool for delegating portions of the network responsibilities" > GraphViz I guess you all already know this, but this is a tool for generating graphs from text, from AT&T > nethelp@ns.uoregon.edu > netdot - doc tool FWIW, I was confused by this tool's name (and thought it was "netdoc"). The name comes from NETwork DOcumentation Tool, and more info is at https://netdot.uoregon.edu/cgi-bin/trac.cgi > Indiana University NOC Tools > Luke Fowler paper There was also a reference made to Trey Harris' paper, probably from the previous LISA, which discussed a different way to look at configuration, with validation. -------- David Harnick-Shapiro From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Thu Dec 22 18:22:33 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from tomts5-srv.bellnexxia.net (tomts5.bellnexxia.net [209.226.175.25]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A24032C152 for ; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:22:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.133] ([67.71.52.161]) by tomts5-srv.bellnexxia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.06.13 201-253-122-130-113-20050324) with ESMTP id <20051223022230.XLOC17035.tomts5-srv.bellnexxia.net@[192.168.1.133]> for ; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:22:30 -0500 In-Reply-To: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> References: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v746.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <035BE0DB-CDC4-4668-99F9-FD6E57DD3473@ee.ryerson.ca> Reply-To: David Magda Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: David Magda Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:22:30 -0500 To: Network Automation List X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.746.2) X-Originating-IP: [0] X-Archive-Number: 200512/4 X-Sequence-Number: 140 On Dec 22, 2005, at 19:34, David Harnick-Shapiro wrote: >> Indiana University NOC Tools >> Luke Fowler paper > > There was also a reference made to Trey Harris' paper, > probably from the previous LISA, which discussed a different > way to look at configuration, with validation. Can anyone shed light on these two papers? Given Mr. Harris' involvement in USENIX and SAGE his name appears all over the place, so narrowing things down is a bit tricky. While there are a lot pages with Luke and Fowler, the intersection of the two doesn't seem to produce anything interesting. Perhaps someone else has better search mojo? Thanks for any info. Regards, David From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Thu Dec 22 18:53:09 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from paintbird.ucs.indiana.edu (paintbird.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.5.54]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 290E632C168 for ; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:53:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from [10.0.1.190] (12-210-213-137.client.insightBB.com [12.210.213.137]) (authenticated bits=0) by paintbird.ucs.indiana.edu (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id jBN2r36K018432 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=NO); Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:53:03 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v746.2) In-Reply-To: <035BE0DB-CDC4-4668-99F9-FD6E57DD3473@ee.ryerson.ca> References: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> <035BE0DB-CDC4-4668-99F9-FD6E57DD3473@ee.ryerson.ca> Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1; boundary="Apple-Mail-5-232899165" Message-Id: <3591DBFD-891F-4CD1-AB25-0A6C580148A3@indiana.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Luke Fowler Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:53:24 -0500 To: David Magda , Network Automation List X-Pgp-Agent: GPGMail 1.1 (Tiger) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.746.2) X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (paintbird.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.5.54]); Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:53:03 -0500 (EST) X-Archive-Number: 200512/5 X-Sequence-Number: 141 --Apple-Mail-5-232899165 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On Dec 22, 2005, at 9:22 PM, David Magda wrote: > On Dec 22, 2005, at 19:34, David Harnick-Shapiro wrote: > >>> Indiana University NOC Tools >>> Luke Fowler paper >> >> There was also a reference made to Trey Harris' paper, >> probably from the previous LISA, which discussed a different >> way to look at configuration, with validation. > > Can anyone shed light on these two papers? Given Mr. Harris' > involvement in USENIX and SAGE his name appears all over the place, > so narrowing things down is a bit tricky. > > While there are a lot pages with Luke and Fowler, the intersection > of the two doesn't seem to produce anything interesting. > I suspect that what was probably being referred to was a tutorial presentation, which I have given at several Internet2 meetings, on open source network monitoring, measurement, and management tools that we use at the Global Research NOC at Indiana University, and tools that we have developed and released under an open source license. The latest copy of this presentation is a little bit dated (July 2004), and I haven't had the chance to update it recently. These slides weren't meant to stand on their own, but someone may still find them useful. A copy is available here: http://www.internet2.edu/presentations/jtcolumbus/20040718-NOC- Fowler.pdf Back to lurking :), --Luke -- Luke A. Fowler luke@grnoc.iu.edu (luke@indiana.edu) Office: 812.856.0978 --Apple-Mail-5-232899165 content-type: application/pgp-signature; x-mac-type=70674453; name=PGP.sig content-description: This is a digitally signed message part content-disposition: inline; filename=PGP.sig content-transfer-encoding: 7bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) iD8DBQFDq2aoyhTDN79nOywRApyQAKCGOm/I1Sv4apFnXeEGC27w1QwfggCfSteF HXvKEv2UDX2U1NAvlsXQ3D0= =jySA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Apple-Mail-5-232899165-- From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Thu Dec 22 19:07:32 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from [130.128.1.207] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC6E532C1B6; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 19:07:31 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <035BE0DB-CDC4-4668-99F9-FD6E57DD3473@ee.ryerson.ca> References: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> <035BE0DB-CDC4-4668-99F9-FD6E57DD3473@ee.ryerson.ca> Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 19:07:28 -0800 To: David Magda , Network Automation List From: Brent Chapman Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Archive-Number: 200512/6 X-Sequence-Number: 142 At 9:22 PM -0500 12/22/05, David Magda wrote: >On Dec 22, 2005, at 19:34, David Harnick-Shapiro wrote: > >>> Indiana University NOC Tools >>> Luke Fowler paper >> >>There was also a reference made to Trey Harris' paper, >>probably from the previous LISA, which discussed a different >>way to look at configuration, with validation. > >Can anyone shed light on these two papers? Given Mr. Harris' >involvement in USENIX and SAGE his name appears all over the place, >so narrowing things down is a bit tricky. Trey's talk was an invited talk at LISA 2004 in Atlanta; it was about the power of "Guarded Commands", which he implemented through a Perl module named "Commands::Guarded" (http://www.annocpan.org/~TREY/Commands-Guarded-0.01/Guarded.pm). Here's a good discussion of the problem and solution from the module docs: http://www.annocpan.org/~TREY/Commands-Guarded-0.01/Guarded.pm#an_example Essentially, the idea is that lots of folks write configuration scripts with lots of steps in them that make two unwarranted assumptions: 1) The step needs to be done (i.e., it hasn't been done already) 2) The step succeeds (so you simply proceed to the next step without checking) One consequence of this style of scripting is that, if such a script fails part way through, you can't simply fix the problem and rerun the script because you might inadvertently and incorrectly repeat work that's already been done. Commands::Guarded makes it easy for you to write scripts as a series of steps, where each step includes a condition (a test to see whether the step has succeeded) and a set of commands that (if executed) should cause the condition to become true. Each step composed of CONDITION and COMMANDS is then executed according to the following pseudo-code: unless (CONDITION) { COMMANDS; die unless (CONDITION); } The Perl module also includes facilities for rollbacks, sanity checks, and so forth, but that's the idea in a nutshell. It's a very powerful idea to apply in a configuration management context, whether of servers or network devices. -Brent -- Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc. Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989 For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/ Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Fri Dec 23 07:37:50 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from darksun.binsh.com (darksun.doomathon.com [64.232.216.23]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4459C32C2B6 for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:37:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from darksun.binsh.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by darksun.binsh.com (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id jBNFcppa022689 for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:38:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (paxton@localhost) by darksun.binsh.com (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) with ESMTP id jBNFcpWx022686 for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:38:51 -0800 (PST) X-Authentication-Warning: darksun.binsh.com: paxton owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:38:50 -0800 (PST) From: Paxton To: Subject: NANOG in Feb in Dallas Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Archive-Number: 200512/7 X-Sequence-Number: 143 Is there interest in having something at the next NANOG - February 12-15, in Dallas? http://www.nanog.org/ From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Fri Dec 23 09:21:03 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from mail01.corp.tellme.com (mail01.corp.tellme.com [209.157.157.98]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D61E32C1DE for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:21:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01.corp.tellme.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.corp.tellme.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E38A93B; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:20:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from shell01.corp.tellme.com (shell01.corp.tellme.com [209.157.157.54]) by mail01.corp.tellme.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46109934; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:20:57 -0800 (PST) Received: by shell01.corp.tellme.com (Postfix, from userid 1440) id 2E644A78; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:20:57 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:20:57 -0800 From: David Williamson To: David Harnick-Shapiro Cc: network-automation@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF Message-ID: <20051223172057.GZ11573@shell01.corp.tellme.com> References: <20051220114935.9979432C58C@mycroft.greatcircle.com> <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200512230034.jBN0YjV30525@dot.dauith.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Archive-Number: 200512/8 X-Sequence-Number: 144 On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 04:34:45PM -0800, David Harnick-Shapiro wrote: > > RANCID - > > http://www.shruberry.net > > It's "shrubbery", not "shruberry" (although that *is* > how it was written on the overhead :-) That's because my fingers can spell with a keyboard, but not with a pen. :-) Since I'm here anyway, I'll simply give another plug for rancid...it's extremely cool, and has the right general approach for the problem it tries to solve. Oh, and you can put all kinds of wrappers on it to use it for other purposes, since it already has login code for multiple device types. (Now if it just had support for serial console access....) -David From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Fri Dec 23 12:12:12 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from rip.psg.com (rip.psg.com [147.28.0.39]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B40032C217 for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 12:12:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=roam.psg.com) by rip.psg.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.60 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1EptGi-000CJr-UR; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:12:01 +0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=roam.psg.com) by roam.psg.com with esmtp (Exim 4.60 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1EptGh-0000Tq-T2; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:12:00 -0500 From: Randy Bush MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17324.23055.260738.388776@roam.psg.com> Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:11:59 -0500 To: Paxton Cc: Subject: Re: NANOG in Feb in Dallas References: X-Archive-Number: 200512/9 X-Sequence-Number: 145 > Is there interest in having something at the next NANOG - February 12-15, > in Dallas? > > http://www.nanog.org/ fwiw, having something *at* (i.e. associated by name with) nanog requires that the something be completely open. randy (for the nanog steering committee) From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Fri Dec 23 15:01:59 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from bk.twincreeks.net (bk.twincreeks.net [204.61.208.70]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B715D32C30D for ; Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:01:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from [10.16.120.8] (adsl-67-124-235-153.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [67.124.235.153]) (authenticated bits=0) by bk.twincreeks.net (8.13.1/8.12.11) with ESMTP id jBNN1Tq2059469 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=NO); Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:01:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from feldman@twincreeks.net) In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v623) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: <74edff1bc895107f97ee10e0d7b310e0@twincreeks.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: From: Steve Feldman Subject: Re: NANOG in Feb in Dallas Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:01:27 -0800 To: Paxton X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.623) X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.54 on 204.61.208.70 X-Archive-Number: 200512/10 X-Sequence-Number: 146 On Dec 23, 2005, at 7:38 AM, Paxton wrote: > Is there interest in having something at the next NANOG - February > 12-15, > in Dallas? If so, then the program committee welcomes proposals for a talk and/or BOF on the subject. See the CFP at http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0602/cfp36.html for more information. (Although the formal deadline for proposals has passed, we will continue to accept proposals and evaluate them as agenda space is available.) Steve (PC chair) From network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com Sat Dec 24 10:23:44 2005 X-Original-To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Received: from dot.dauith.com (dot.dauith.com [66.92.34.120]) by mycroft.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 834B132C18D for ; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:25:15 -0800 (PST) Received: (from david@localhost) by dot.dauith.com (8.11.7/8.11.1) id jBMNR7M30429; Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:27:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from david) Message-Id: <200512222327.jBMNR7M30429@dot.dauith.com> To: network-automation@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Notes from LISA Network Automation BoF In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 20 Dec 2005 03:49:21 PST." <20051220114935.9979432C58C@mycroft.greatcircle.com> Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:27:07 -0800 From: David Harnick-Shapiro X-Archive-Number: 200512/11 X-Sequence-Number: 147 On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 03:49:21 -0800, network-automation-owner@greatcircle.com wr ites: > Here are the URLs and such that were scribbled on the transparency at > the Network Automation BoF at the LISA conference a couple of weeks > ago, courtesy of Steve Traugott. ... > > Unfortunately, it's been so long since the BoF that I don't recall > the context in which each of these were mentioned; did anyone take > more detailed notes that they might be willing to share? My notes were not necessarily more detailed, but I did jot down a few other tidbits, which might help flesh out things. (I'm not the authoritative source for any of these, so please feel free to extend or correct my comments where appropriate, folks.) > RANCID - > http://www.shruberry.net It's "shrubbery", not "shruberry" (although that *is* how it was written on the overhead :-) > AANTS distributed net management GUI tool, from U Wisconsin. I think this was the one that was described as "not addressing, exactly, what we're discussing here, but a neat tool for delegating portions of the network responsibilities" > GraphViz I guess you all already know this, but this is a tool for generating graphs from text, from AT&T > nethelp@ns.uoregon.edu > netdot - doc tool FWIW, I was confused by this tool's name (and thought it was "netdoc"). The name comes from NETwork DOcumentation Tool, and more info is at https://netdot.uoregon.edu/cgi-bin/trac.cgi > Indiana University NOC Tools > Luke Fowler paper There was also a reference made to Trey Harris' paper, probably from the previous LISA, which discussed a different way to look at configuration, with validation. -------- David Harnick-Shapiro