Open Sourcery

Define disk quotas to keep users from hogging drive space

With massive hard drives, one might be tempted to think disk quotas a thing of the past. However, with larger capacity comes larger amounts of data, and in multi-user systems, one user can easily consume more drive space than they should, preventing other users from utilising storage space.

Dig for more data in the /proc directory

One of the most interesting directories on any Linux system is /proc, a virtual filesystem that provides a plethora of information on the hardware of the running system, and of the various processes running.

Find and fix weak OpenSSL/OpenSSH keys: Debian-based Linux vulnerability

A recent vulnerability was found in the OpenSSL package as provided by Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, that broke the effectiveness of the OpenSSL PRNG (Predictable Random Number Generator).

Log Linux services with runit

Each supervised service is controlled via a run script, similar to an init script for a system service. This run script does one thing: prepares for and starts a service.

Use runit to supervise Linux services

Traditional Linux systems use SysV init for starting the system. The problem with using a SysV init system is that services are also treated as one-time start-up scripts.

Open-source Silverlight released for developers

The Novell-led Mono project this week made the first, though incomplete, public release of Moonlight, an open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight, a browser plug-in that competes with products such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Adobe Shockwave, JavaFX, and Apple QuickTime.

Learn to use the openssl command-line program

OpenSSL can be used to create, request, sign, and revoke certificates and can also be used to perform other cryptographic operations such as creating hashes for files, testing SSL connections, and more.

Try IRC with Irssi to communicate via chat

Many IRC networks, particularly the Freenode network, cater to a lot of open source and Linux-based groups. There are many IRC clients available, but one of the most extensible and powerful is the command-line based Irssi.

Using vi key bindings in bash and zsh

By default, most shells use emacs-style key bindings for command-line editing and modification. For users of vi or vim, however, you can configure shells to use vi key bindings instead.

Use command-line MySQL for additional flexibility

The more popular ways of using MySQL are to use GUI front ends, such as phpMyAdmin or the MySQL GUI administration tools. While these tools are fantastic and make managing a MySQL database easier, the mysql command-line program works quite well also, and is more flexible.

Configure Snort to log packets to MySQL

We will look at configuring Snort to log packets to a remote MySQL server where a graphical Web interface can be used to view captured packets and statistics.

Detect intruders on your network with Snort

Snort is a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS), which can view and analyse packets on a network to determine whether or not a system is being attacked by remote.

Get started with GnuPG

GnuPG is an open replacement for PGP Corporation's PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption tool, and based on the OpenPGP standard. What GnuPG (or GPG for short) does is allow for the encryption and decryption of files using a public/private keypair.

Manipulate process priority with nice

Modern operating systems are multi-user and multi-tasking, which means that multiple users and multiple tasks can be using the computer at any given time. Each process has a niceness value associated with it, which is what the kernel uses to determine which processes require more processor time than others.

Auto-reboot Linux after a kernel panic

Linux is a robust and stable operating system kernel, but there are instances where it can panic, be it due to bad hardware or bad software. It does not happen often, but it can happen.

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Delivered Mondays

It's more than just Linux now, open source software permeates almost all computing in some way. Every Monday we spread our net wide to cover topics from Firefox to BSD without forgetting to have a healthy dose of Linux.

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    I recently wrote an introduction to the Google Web Toolkit based on Lars Rasmussen's session at the Google Developer Day 2008 in Sydney. Following the introductory session Lars gave us a deeper insight into GWT, particularly what's new in version 1.5. Read more »

    -- posted by Lana Kovacevic

  • Lana Kovacevic The Portal of the Future

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    -- posted by Lana Kovacevic

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    -- posted by Staff

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