Speakers: Nic Scott
Level: Fundamental, Lecture
Excerpt: When’s the last time you checked your logs? Where are the logs stored at? When you find them, what the heck do you look for? Let’s talk about system & audit logs, creating custom logging, and the advantages of centralized logging.
Description: It’s possible as a sysadmin to be so busy we forget about logs. We just know they’re there if we ever need them. But when you need them, can you find them? Do you know what to look for? It’s taken me a long time to give logs the respect they deserve and the more I dig in, the more powerful I realize logs are. I want to spend an hour helping others to find their data in the logs. We’ll cover things like Apple System Logs, Audit Logs, custom configurations, creating custom log queries, adding logging to bash scripts, and tying it altogether with centralized logging using ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana).
This talk comes out of my own experience in the last two years managing public Mac labs at a small private college. I’ll throw in practical examples of issues I’ve had to deal with, and how I decided to finally get serious about logs.
About the speakers
Nic Scott – Senior Apple Administrator – Kenyon College
I’m a Mac Admin in higher ED. I enjoy scripting, automation, and other flirtations with technology.