Unified administration systems are available for many UNIX and other OS platforms. For many subsystems of Linux, there aren't any administration tools at all (except for vi) or where tools do exist, they have differing approaches to common configuration tasks. Many tools have technical limitations and vary in the level of features, quality and robustness. A good administration system is something that customers require in order for Linux to be accepted as a mainstream, commercially viable OS. Caldera is committed to providing a solution to this problem, both for its current and potential customers, and also for the Linux community as a whole. Caldera has thus designed the Caldera Open Administration System, a smart and powerfull framework for writing administration tools. The goals of COAS are: Unified easy to use administration tool Modular design Portability (specifics encapsulated in a platform repository) Open development model Flexible module licensing Multiple user interfaces (batch, ncurses, Qt, Java) Scripting interface (python) for rapid prototyping Backward compatibility (works on native files, "vi admin" friendly) Scalability Broad in scope Community oriented The talk is targeted towards system administrators looking for a smart, unified and platform independend solution for system administration solution. It is also intended to give developers who want to contribute to this project an overview of the design and enough information to start writing their own modules. A demo at the end will present the current state of the COAS project.

Ralf Flaxa studied computer science at the University of Erlangen, Germany. He specialized on networking and operating systems. Since 1992 he actively contributes to the Linux development as a co-author of the "LST Power Linux" book and as the coordinator of the "Caldera OpenLinux" distribution. He is the author of LISA, the Linux Installation and System Administration tool used in the "Caldera OpenLinux" distribution. He is also one of the core members of the COAS development team.