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                        LINUX NEWS
            Resources & Links From CramSession.com
                Thursday, October 25, 2001
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1) Sean's Notes

2) Linux News

	Red Hat 7.2 Released
	Kernel 2.4.13
	Mandrake 8.1 Reviewed
	Yellow Dog Releases 2.1

3) Linux Resources

	Using Apache to Stop Spam Robots
	More Spam Prevention Tricks
	Got Some Big Files?
	Performance Tweaks
	UUCP?

4) App o' the week


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1) Sean's Notes
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Many of you noted my omission of the RHCE in last week's
newsletter about Linux certifications.

http://www.ertw.com/~sean/newsletter/October+18%2C+2001

By no means was it intentional!  I intended to focus on the
entry level certifications, and I consider the RHCE to be
in the advanced category.

Why's that?  To obtain the status of Red Hat Certified
Engineer, one must pass three tests:

1) Debug Exam - 2.5 hrs
2) Multiple Choice Exam - 1 hr
3) Server Install and Network Services Setup Exam 2.5 hrs

Six hours of testing!  Did I mention that #1 and #3 are lab
exams?  Only 1 hour out of the 6 is a written test (40-50
questions).  The debug exam is the scenario where you're
handed a broken system and the instructions "fix it!" using
only the resources on the computer (another reason to learn
how to use man pages!)  The process itself boasts a 60% pass
rate on the first try.

In the words of an RHCE certified individual that commented
on last week's article,

"You can't bluff your way through this one."

In terms of the validity of the RHCE, one only has to look
at how often the term "Red Hat" and "Linux" are used
interchangeably.  How often do you hear someone say "I'm
running Linux 7.1" (I hear it a lot, and it bugs me).  The
practical exam components, and the difficulty level ensure
that this certification put someone's resume on the top of
the pile for that Linux job.

Another impressive aspect of the RHCE is that they don't
delist certifications like other, larger, operating system
vendors.  You're certified at a certain version, and it's up
to you if you want to always be at the latest and greatest.

The downsides of the RHCE are the price ($749USD), and the
locations.  It can only be taken in certain locations, mostly
within the US.

http://www.redhat.com/training/rhce/rhce_faq.html
http://www.redhat.com/training/rhce/examprep.html

Rest assured, if I have the opportunity to attempt this
certification, I'll let you all know the details (more
specifically, the details that I'm allowed to divulge).

On another note, this is the 52nd issue of the Cramsession.com
Linux Newsletter, meaning it's been around for an entire year.
In the first year I've striven to bring you relevant news,
helpful resources, and articles that teach, or make you think.
In the upcoming year, I hope to bring you more content that
will help you get the most out of Linux.  As usual, your
suggestions, comments, and flames are most welcome.
(Well, maybe not the flames)

Long live the Penguin,

Sean
swalberg@cramsession.com

Visit the Linux News Board at
http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbt.asp?b–2

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2) Linux News
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Red Hat 7.2 Released
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Bigger, Badder, Faster sums it up. Support for the ext3
journaling filesystem tops my list of features, though
GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2.2 might make your day. The web page
claims new administration tools, and a 2.4.7 kernel. Go
forth and download!

http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/solutions/

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Kernel 2.4.13
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It seemed like only the other week I was announcing 2.4.11,
which was quickly taken off the shelves and replaced with
2.4.12. The kernel hackers have been busy, and the result
is 2.4.13.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.13

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Mandrake 8.1 Reviewed
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Mandrake's latest release, 8.1, gets a review from Linux.com.
It's got some helpful hints on the install process, because
it would appear that some features are still broken. It also
has some good comments on the new and improved aspects of
the software.

http://www.linux.com/learn/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid552

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Yellow Dog Releases 2.1
-----------------------
For those that fancy running Linux on their Apple computers,
Yellow Dog may be the distribution for you. Featuring up-to-
date software (Kernel 2.4.10, KDE 2.2.1) and easy-to-use
interfaces, this software might be just what you need.

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/ydl2.1.shtml

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3) Linux Resources
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--------------------------------
Using Apache to Stop Spam Robots
--------------------------------
It's pretty trivial to write a program that can cruise the
web and harvest email addresses. In fact, that's one of the
ways spammers get their targets. Apache can protect your
site from being harvested, though you have to be creative.
The method described on this site employs some clever tricks
to identify the sites themselves, and stop them from
gathering addresses off of your server.

http://evolt.org/article/Using_Apache_to_stop_bad_robots/18/15126/i
ndex.html

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More Spam Prevention Tricks
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This page also has some ways to get Apache to stop spammers,
this time using mod_rewrite. It also has other techniques
for web page authors to make their pages unfriendly to spam
harvesters, and for general web surfers to stop from getting
on lists.

http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/08/champeon/

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Got Some Big Files?
-------------------
The standard ext2 filesystem limits the size of a file to
16GB (worst case). If you need files bigger than that (and
with the size of drives today, you might just run into this),
you'll want to hear what CramSession.com reader kvanhaaren
has to say about it.

http://boards.cramsession.com/boards/vbm.asp?m93311

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Performance Tweaks
-------------------
"The goal of this site is to provide practical assistance
in Linux server performance tuning in the fewest possible
words. If you go though this list, and check off each item
as you apply it, you should end up with close to the fastest
performance possible on your hardware under Linux."

http://home.att.net/~jageorge/performance.html

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UUCP?
-----
UUCP, the Unix to Unix Copy Protocol, heralds from the days
where computers didn't connect to each other on a continual
basis, and the Internet wasn't yet born. It still has
practical purposes for people who run mail servers on demand
dial connections, not to mention being a fun thing to play
with. This article has the low down.

http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/September2001/article215.shtml

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4) App o' the week
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So Napster's gone, and the FastTrack network is in. You may
recognize clients like Kazaa and Morpheus, but only on
Windows. Kazaa has released a binary client (text mode) for
Linux. It's linked against libncurses.so.4, so if you're
running version 5, you'll have to make a symlink from
libncurses.so.5 to libncurses.so.4 to get this to go.

http://www.kazaa.com/index.php?page=download#lin

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