SerNet News

With immediate effect SerNet leaves Gaia-X, the European infrastructure project, after getting notice about new membership of companies that do not meet key European values and do not share the ideas of open standards, open source and a free and open internet. Being in the same association together with those companies damages SerNet's reputation and is in conflict with SerNet's code of conduct and many measures regarding social responsibility. 

Gaia-X does not meet the goals of its own statutes anymore and this is why SerNet will leave the organisation asap.

The SerNet organizing committee has presented the program for this year's sambaXP. It is the 20th conference in the "samba eXPerience" series. Like last year, it will take place purely virtually via Zoom. The presentations are aimed at both developers and users. Tickets can be booked via the conference website at https://sambaXP.org. Participation in sambaXP and the IO Lab is free of charge.

The sambaXP 2021 is sponsored by Google, Microsoft and SerNet.
 

Workshops and lectures at sambaXP 2021

sambaXP starts on May 4th with the traditional workshop day. This year Stefan Kania will deal with the topic "Setting up Samba as a print server" from 3 pm to 9:30 pm CEST. The participation fee for this is 50 euros. A free two-hour workshop on "Integrating SAMBA+ AIX into an existing AD domain" will be offered by Björn Jacke from SerNet.

To enable as many people as possible worldwide to participate, the presentations will also start at 3 pm (CEST) on May 5. Nadine Dreymann from the organizing committee of SerNet: "Last year we saw excellent results with the virtual conference and were able to bring participants and speakers from different time zones together."  Jeremy Allison, chairman of sambaXP, kicks things off with his talk on using samba code in Google Chromebooks.  This year's topics include development insights such as "Samba AD DC Cockpit UI" and "Reverse engineering the Windows SMB server," as well as application experiences "Troubleshooting clustered Samba in Enterprise environments" and "Experience running a clustered Samba gateway for CERNBox." 

SerNet's Samba team also contributes current topics to the program:

• Stefan Metzmacher: Samba Multi-Channel/io_uring Status Update.
• Ralph Böhme: The New VFS 
• Volker Lendecke: Socket activation for Samba's RPC services

Details on all presentations can be found on the conference page.

SMB IOLab 

A Microsoft-sponsored SMB Interoperability Lab (IO Lab) will also be held online from Wednesday to Friday (May 5, 3 pm to May 7, 9 pm CEST). In the IO Lab, participants* will collaboratively test their implementations of SMB3, identify and troubleshoot issues in a collaborative environment.  SMB implementations that are still in the development phase are also welcome. The IO Lab is sponsored by Microsoft and conducted in Microsoft Teams.

verinice 1.22 is here! The new version of the ISMS tool comes with a number of new features, including the BSI's IT-Grundschutz compendium in the 2021 edition. The verinice.TEAM has also worked on providing additional modules that allow verinice to be customized depending on the deployment scenario. 

Numerous major and minor optimizations characterize the new version of the open source tool for managing information security. For example, verinice 1.22 is delivered with VDA ISA / TISAX versions 4 and 5 and the reporting form according to BSIG 8b for security incidents. Users can either obtain it from the verinice.SHOP or download it from the repository for Pro customers. The most important new features of verinice 1.22 (and the update 1.22.1) are documented in the release notes.

Additional modules for verinice

Another change is the central provision of additional modules via the verinice.SHOP. Users can access the modules as supplements for verinice and use them as needed for working with the ISMS tool. These include (German only) minimum standards issued by BSI and IT-Grundschutz profiles. The following additional modules are available as fee-based add-ons: Risk Catalog and Risk Catalog Plus (ISO 27001 / ISO 27019), Data Protection Module and Industry Standard B3S Hospital.

The PCI DSS module has also recently been added. This requirements catalog maps the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in verinice. The use of the module with verinice is possible from version 1.22 in the ISM perspective.

B3S Hospital & verinice

The "Industry-Specific Security Standard for Healthcare in Hospitals" (B3S Hospital, German only), which is available for verinice, is aimed specifically at healthcare providers. verinice is already in use as a reliable solution in the healthcare industry (e.g. Universitätsklinikum Halle, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin). The combination with the industry standard now specifically supports clinics and hospitals in meeting requirements from the Patient Data Protection Act (PDSG) and improving their IT security or introducing information security management by the deadline of 01.01.2022. For this purpose, verinice, verinice.PRO and the add-on module B3S Hospital are also qualified for funding from the Hospital Future Fund (KHZF).

One week GöBit on Tour: From March 1 to 5, 2021, the virtual, decentralized event will take place, organized by Measurement Valley. During this time, companies from the region will present various training and study opportunities. Students have the opportunity to select "their" content from the extensive program. SerNet is also participating.

In a daily meeting (2 p.m. to 3 p.m.), young people in the career-finding phase can obtain information on these areas from training manager Oliver Seufer and SerNet trainees:

• Apprenticeship as office management assistant (m/f/d) in the dual study program
• IT specialist for system integration (m/f/d)
• IT specialist in application development (m/f/d)

Interested students can also send an e-mail to goebit@remove-this.sernet.de to receive an access link at short notice. Zoom (Web) is used for the meeting.

A video from SerNet is also published on the YouTube channel GöBit-on-tour. Directly from the home office (see also: how SerNet deals with Corona), trainees Alma Altergott, Thomas Pach, Felix Ducke as well as Niklas Spuck and working student Jule Anger present their training and work content in the various departments. 

For more information about training at SerNet and the next training opportunities, please contact the training managers at ausbildung@remove-this.sernet.de.

For the 20th time SerNet organizes the Samba eXPerience (sambaXP), the conference around the open source software Samba – once again in 2021 as a digital event. From May 4 to 6, users from all over the world will meet. Tickets are now available on the conference website https://sambaxp.org, participation in sambaXP is free of charge. The call for papers has also started!

Due to the pandemic situation, the sambaXP organizing team is again focusing on a digital-only conference in 2021. The successful sambaXP 2020 has shown that this is possible and even offers some advantages, points out Nadine Dreymann, who is planning the conference for SerNet. "Thanks to the online format, speakers worldwide who otherwise - for various reasons - would not be able to travel to Göttingen have the opportunity to present their topics." Dreymann continues, "By making participation free, we also want to give even more people the opportunity to follow the conference live and get involved." Compared to last year's event, she says, sambaXP 2021 will therefore also be even more open and incorporate interactive elements so that the samba community can better interact.

Call for Papers

The call for papers for sambaXP 2021 is in progress. Presentations can be submitted via the conference page at https://sambaxp.org. Orga team and program committee are looking forward to interesting submissions. The presentations are scheduled on the conference days (Wednesday, May 5 and Thursday, May 6) for the period from 15:00 to 21:00 German time zone (CEST). For the final agenda, the best time slots in terms of time zone will be considered in consultation with the speakers. In addition, it is possible to record the talk beforehand in individual cases. 

Tutorials

The traditional tutorial by Stefan Kania will again be designed as a webinar on the day before the conference (Tuesday, May 4, 2021). The topic: ''Setting up Samba as a print server''. Tickets are available for 50 Euros. Björn Jacke (SerNet Samba Team) will also offer a free 2-hour workshop on "Integrate SAMBA+ AIX in an existing AD domain".