Open Sourcery

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.

Use OpenNTPD for time synchronisation

Traditionally, the time synchronisation application used on Linux systems has been ntpd (network time protocol daemon). However, for quite some time now, the developers behind OpenSSH have created a secure, lean, and easy to configure NTP daemon called OpenNTPD.

Get more e-mail flexibility with Fetchmail

Most users use GUI e-mail clients such as Thunderbird or Evolution, or even prefer Web-based mail services such as Gmail; however, there are still a significant number of people using text-based e-mail clients such as Mutt or Pine.

Specify who can log in via OpenSSH

The OpenSSH suite of tools, developed by the OpenBSD Project, includes popular programs that serve many uses. This popularity combined with ssh availability as both server and client on just about every OS makes it no wonder that ssh has been the target of common attacks.

Authentication caching with nscd

Distributed authentication is increasingly popular as home networks add more computers and business networks continue to expand. Using a central authentication system such as LDAP or NIS with other technologies like Kerberos has become somewhat of a standard in large networks.

Learn to use a serial console on Linux

Using a serial console on Linux is much like using a modem; the technology is virtually identical, but instead of using a modem to dial into a remote system, a special serial cable, called a null-modem cable, is strung between two computers via their serial ports.

KDE4 offers new glitzy look

KDE released a significantly revamped version of its Linux graphical interfaces software on Friday.

Mine /proc for system information

The /proc virtual filesystem is one of the most interesting virtual filesystems available on Linux. Here you can see more information about your running system than you would know what to do with, including system information, memory information, CPU information, and much more.

Synchronise computers with Unison

For individuals with more than one computer, trying to keep files in sync between them can be an exercise in frustration. Typically, tools such as rsync are used to synchronise files from one system to another, but the problem is that it's a one-way sync.

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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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    Even in the era of virtualization, many IT pros (including myself) have a small army of computers sitting on, under, and around their desks. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

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    Yet more discouraging news on the Android front. Having hacked off its developer community by releasing updated SDKs to just a small group of chosen devs, Google has now given the brush-off to a petition that called for more to be given to the wider community. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Staff VMware shows how not to do it

    As a developer there will be a time when you ship a bug -- be it a stub that you left in, or a flaming, crashtastic segfault. The next time this happens and your bosses come baying for blood, point them in the direction of VMware, who this week gave the developer world a great example of how to ship a showstopper bug. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

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