From MAILER-DAEMON Tue Feb 4 21:36:40 2003 Date: 04 Feb 2003 21:36:40 -0600 From: Mail System Internal Data Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA Message-ID: <1044416200@poochie> X-IMAP: 0973219167 0000000120 Status: RO This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not a real message. It is created automatically by the mail system software. If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created with the data reset to initial values. From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Nov 2 18:25:52 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id SAA12060 for ; Thu, 2 Nov 2000 18:25:50 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: What's Up With RedHat 7? Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 15:34:29 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, November 2, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News StarOffice Source Released RedHat and Sound? Micro$oft buying into Linux? PHP 4.0.3 released 3) Linux Resources Signal 11 Journal File Systems 3COM 3C509 help 93 Watt Processor? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DOUBLEDAY Want to brush up on essential Windows 2000 skills? Then The Official MCSE Windows 2000 Certification Library is a must-have! This 3-book/2-CD set (a $179.97 value) is yours for only $9.99 when you join the Library of Computer and Information Sciences Book Club. Learn to install, configure and support Active Directory Services, manage system resources, and further your skills with proven test-taking strategies. http://161.58.99.48/cgi-local/redirect.pl?UEBQFCJSS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ Welcome to the issue zero of the Brainbuzz Linux newsletter! (if there is one thing you learn from this, let it be that most things in Unix are zero indexed). This weekly publication is for those who want to keep on top of Linux news, and pick up some great resources along the way. There's been a lot of hoopla in the news lately about RedHat 7. Comments from "2500 bugs", to "binary incompatibility", and even foul language like "Microsoft tactics" are being thrown around. If you're thinking that RedHat 7 is representative of Linux as a whole, it's simply not true. First, Linux isn't RedHat. RedHat is one out of several distributions of Linux. It's a good one, IMHO, even though it has a history of shipping buggy point-oh releases. It's just the price to be paid to ship the latest code. Furthermore, a distribution ships the Linux kernel along with the software to run on it. Can Linux itself be blamed for someone shipping bad client software? That's a little like saying Windows is bad because my spreadsheet crashes all the time. Second, upgrades aren't as big a deal in the Unix world as they are elsewhere. The basic theory is "if it works, don't touch it". I've still got a 2.0.36 kernel on one machine simply because it does the job it's needed for. Upgrading to the latest version of the distribution (Slackware in this case) would mean upgrading *every* piece of software. That's like moving your Windows 95 machine to Windows ME, along with upgrading your office suite, all the games, and everything else you're running. So if you're running RedHat 6.2, you may not want to make the immediate leap to 7.0. Setting up a new system? 7.0 may be for you. The machine I'm typing this on is RedHat 6.1, using the X-Windows from 6.2, and GNOME from Helix. A difference between Windows and Unix upgrades is that software in Unix is very compartmentalized. Want to upgrade Microsoft Exchange to the 2000 version? You'd better upgrade your OS to Windows 2000, right? Want the latest sendmail on your Linux 1.2 machine? Go ahead, just install it. There are some instances where this isn't the case, like when you get into the system libraries. However, there is a clear distinction between the OS and the user in Linux. Even the GUI runs as a user! This is the biggest reason that Linux is able to obtain such high uptimes. Back to RedHat. They've got a long history of shipping the latest code in their distributions. If you've ever looked at the source for the kernel that they ship, you'll see that it's got a lot of extra patches that haven't made it to the current kernel yet. It helps to promote open source by getting the software into people's hands. Being on the bleeding edge comes at a price. Sometimes software just isn't ready. One of the more serious issues with RH7 was the inclusion of GCC 2.96, which is a snapshot release. A snapshot release is one that has been pulled right out of the development tree. Compare this to a formal release, where the developers have decided that the code is at a point where it is ready for widespread use. Alas, 2.96 creates object files that are not compatible with current versions, nor will be compatible with future versions. The GCC steering committee thought that this was a stupid move, so they issued a release about it: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-announce/2000/msg00003.html Bob Young, Chairman of the Board of RedHat responds: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/12/163218&mode=thread LinuxToday provides some balanced comments: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-10-09-005-21-NW-CY-RH On the subject of binary incompatibilities, support for the old libc5 has been dropped. RedHat has been using glibc2 for some time now, so I can forgive them for shedding some deadweight. People with legacy binary packages may find their applications broken, but installing libc5 shouldn't be a big problem. RedHat was one of the first distributions to move over to glibc2, and at the time there was some discontent about it. Now, there is little dispute that it was a good move for the Linux community. glibc2 allowed improvements and design fixes to enter the system libraries. On that thought, maybe shipping a snapshot compiler wasn't a bad idea? Some other notable bugs in RedHat 7: RedHat 7 crashes after 3 weeks due to a file descriptor bug: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/11/1341237&mode=thread RedHat 7 security errata (7 packages): http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh7-errata-security.html RedHat 7 package fixes (9 packages): http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh7-errata-bugfixes.html Bugs aside, RedHat 7 includes some great new features, such as: - OpenSSH for secure telnet and file copying - SSL for secure web transactions and sockets - XFree86 4.0, the latest X servers for better performance - GNOME updates. I am quite happy to see the inclusion of strong cryptography into a popular distribution. In case you didn't know, until recently companies couldn't export cryptographic software from the States without a license (or back door). These restrictions have since been relaxed. RedHat is also using 7.0 to publicize their new update service, called the RedHat Support Network: http://www.redhat.com/products/support/network/ So what's your opinion on RedHat 7? Let me and others know on the Brainbuzz RedHat board: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 On a closing note, even though I'm in Canada, I know the Americans in the audience are coming up to election time. Out of interest, I checked out what OS the candidates chose to host their website: www.algore2000.com: Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) PHP/4.0.1pl2 secured_by_Raven/1.5.1 www.bush2000.com: Microsoft-IIS/5.0 Long live the penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------- StarOffice Source Released ------------------- SUN StarOffice is a pretty nice office suite that runs on Solaris, Linux, and Windows. It's goal is to be a functional clone of Microsoft Office, and let me tell you that it's not doing too badly. SUN recently put the source under the GNU license and posted API and file format documentation so that the community can direct and improve the project. Brilliant move or cheap marketing ploy? Only time will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the free office suite. http://www.sun.com/staroffice/openoffice/ ------------------- RedHat and Sound? ------------------- windfall has a Creative Vibra 128 and can't get it to work on his RedHat 6.2 box. Sound isn't my forte (I've got an SB 16 -- works on everything!), but maybe it's yours... Can someone give this fellow a hand? http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbm.asp?rpg=1&wpg=1&sb=0&m=186129 ------------------- Micro$oft buying into Linux? ------------------- Tell me it's not true! Microsoft recently pumped $135M into Corel. Now, Corel is a good [Canadian!] company and can use the money, but the only thing they have to offer is Linux! So why would Microsoft want to talk to them? From a M$ SEC filing: "Corel hereby grants Microsoft an option for Corel to Port some portion or all of the .Net Framework from the Windows Platform to the Linux Platform." Ahhh. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-3173984.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.ni ------------------- PHP 4.0.3 released ------------------- PHP is a server side web scripting language, much like ASP. It'll run on UNIX and Win32, using IIS, Apache, or most other web servers. If you've never used it, take a look. If you run it, you'd better upgrade because some security related bugs were found in the older versions. http://www.php.net/ ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ --------------- Signal 11 --------------- Signal 11, otherwise known as a Segmentation Fault (or violation), is the Unix equivalent of GPF. When a process accesses memory that it hasn't been allocated, the kernel sends it signal 11 and stops it. Usually this is the result of sloppy programming, but can sometimes indicate bad or misconfigured hardware. The Sig 11 FAQ explains what causes this condition, and how to diagnose what's causing it. http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/ ------------------- Journal File Systems ------------------- Ever turned off a busy Unix box without properly shutting it down? They don't power on very well, do they? That's because some of the filesystem was in memory waiting to be flushed to disk, so now there are inconsistencies that must be fixed. A journal file system logs the changes to a journal file, much like a database. After a crash, the system just replays the log file and the file system is good as new. There are also some performance enhancements that you get out of this. http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue55/florido.html ------------------- 3COM 3C509 help ------------------- BrainBuzz member GuitarLynn has posted a how-to on the 3C509 network card. It's a good, cheap ISA card that is quite popular with older PCs. The problem is that ISA cards don't always get detected on bootup, so you've got to give Linux a hint. This document will fix you right up. (Watch out for the URL, it's going to wrap!) http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU866&tn=3c509B+ install&pi=S1C1&pn=How+To%27s ------------------- 93 Watt Processor? ------------------- This is a good article on power consumption in CPUs. The author also shows how a P4 CPU can consume up to 93 Watts of power! My soldering iron is 30 Watts! How much longer before the cooling and power needs of PCs will make them unattractive to the home buyer? http://www.linux.com/hardware/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid=10997 ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Nov 9 16:10:01 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA14745 for ; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 16:09:57 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Dell loves Linux! Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 15:04:50 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, November 9, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News IBM Rolls out Small Business Suite for Linux IBM in a 15,200 Linux Server Deal Dell loves Linux 2.4 nears release 3) Linux Resources Software RAID The bad RAM patch Traffic Graphs How to use a floppy Controlling access via TCP Wrappers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Budgetware Cisco 2.0 study tools are now available! This study tool comes in four parts. Part one is now shipping! This 60-minute, 120+ questions will only enhance your chances of passing CCNA certification. We also have Router Simulation available on CD-ROM. Our entire product line comes with a 90-day guarantee. Click here for more info: http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=87 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ As someone who used Microsoft Windows before my transition to Linux, I've run into a few problems trying to make the change. Although applications you currently run are probably not available under Linux, there may be an equivalent. The web browser is the easiest transition of all. As a Netscape user before the move, I found that the Linux version was just as good. Some plug ins (including Flash) have even been ported so that your web browsing experience is the same. I used to be a big fan of Word Perfect, so I thought that using the Linux version would be right for me. This didn't turn out to be true, mostly because I wanted the ability to embed spreadsheets into a text document. I also found the interface to be a bit clunky compared to what I was used to at the time. Eventually I found out about StarOffice, and immediately took a liking to it. With StarOffice, I can do all of the word processing and spreadsheets I need, and in the rare event that I need to do a presentation it's got that built in too. It'll read and write MS Office files, which I've used on several occasions to read attachments that were sent to me. I wouldn't recommend the mail reader (I'm still a fan of PINE), since Netscape's is much quicker. I've got a Palm Pilot and I use it to keep my life in order. StarOffice has Palm Pilot integration, but that would mean I'd have to fire it up whenever I wanted to look up a phone number. It also doesn't handle all the functionality of the Windows Palm Desktop. Since I'm a GNOME user, I installed the gnome-pilot and pilot-link packages, which allow me to easily HotSync to the GNOME address book and calendar, along with keeping track of my memos and the like. When I upgraded to Helix-GNOME, it was all built-in, so now I can easily keep up on updates via the Helix System Updater. My favorite news reader was Forte Free Agent. Not wanting to give that up, I found out about the WINE project (http://www.winehq.com). WINE is an implementation of the Win32 API. Many applications run on it, including Free Agent and Gnutella. There is some good documentation out there on how to get WINE going. I was even able to play a game of Red Alert on my Linux box using WINE. Unfortunately, WINE doesn't do everything. One such example is Quicken 2000. There are reports of Quicken 98 working under WINE, as long as the Internet features aren't used. Since I use this to update my balances and investments, I couldn't make do without the Internet aspect. One alternative is GNUCash, which is a very good personal finance application. If GNUCash could handle online updating of account balances, I think I'd ditch Quicken in a flash. At the moment, I've installed VMWare (www.vmware.com), running Windows 98. It is fairly slow on my K6-233, but it gets the job done. I've also used VMWare to do some testing of Linux in a separate environment. So, for those of you looking to make the jump to Linux, I hope that you learn from some of my experiences. It is a viable desktop OS, and it has been much more reliable than my old Windows configuration. Let's hear your thoughts on this: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Long live the Penguin! Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ -------------------------------------------- IBM Rolls out Small Business Suite for Linux -------------------------------------------- IBM has bundled Lotus Domino, the WebSphere Application Server, and DB2 Universal Database into a suite, and priced it at the $500 mark rather than the $3,600 the components would cost if bought separately. The catch is that they'll only license you up to 100 users, but that's OK for the multitude of small businesses out there that want some great software at a low per-seat cost. http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/stories/linux/0,12249,2649962,00.html --------------------------------- IBM in a 15,200 Linux Server Deal --------------------------------- Busy this week, aren't they? A Japanese convenience store chain is replacing Windows machines with Linux machines in 7,600 stores. The servers will be connected to touch screen terminals that provide information and Internet services to customers. No news on what distribution will be used though. http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/11/03/ibm.linux.japan.idg/index.html ------------------- Dell loves Linux! ------------------- Dell has joined the growing number of computer distributors that have embraced Linux. In a series of press releases, Dell announced that they'll be shipping RedHat 7 pre-installed on some of their servers and workstations. They also announced some impressive web serving performance on an 8-way box. It's running custom developed code, but it should hit mainstream soon enough. http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/topics/products_alls_pedge_000_redhat.htm ------------------ 2.4 nears release ------------------ The next major release of the kernel, 2.4, is getting closer to completion. 2.4-test10 was just released, with a note from Linus saying that there are no show-stoppers in this one. 2.4 promises better support for SMP (multiple processors), an area where Linux has traditionally been weak. Once again, they've redone the networking code to be more robust, so if you just got the hang of ipchains, get ready to learn iptables! http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/10/31/973025893.html ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ -------------- Software RAID -------------- RAID is a technology that lets you increase the reliability of your disk system by storing data in a redundant fashion, to expand the capacity by combining several disks into one larger volume, or a combination of both. You can buy an expensive RAID card, or you can get your operating system to do it for you. This document explains how RAID works, and how to implement software RAID on your Linux box. http://www.osfaq.com/article.php3?sid=27 ------------------- The bad RAM patch ------------------- One of the things that can go wrong with a RAM chip is that a certain memory address will get "stuck", i.e. always show the same number. Usually it means the whole chip is junk. This is a patch that allows you to specify where the RAM is bad, and the kernel will work around the address. Even with the relatively low cost of RAM, this can have some interesting applications. Regardless, it's another example of the benefits of open source (and that some people never sleep). http://home.zonnet.nl/vanrein/badram/ ------------------- Traffic Graphs ------------------- Anyone who manages more than a few switches and routers knows how helpful SNMP can be. MRTG, the Multi Router Traffic Grapher, is a collection of PERL scripts and C code that will graph traffic utilization, or any other SNMP variable. It also has the capability to graph other things, such as load average, hits/second on a web server, or proxy usage. What would you expect to pay for this amazing software? Nothing, of course! http://ee-staff.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/mrtg.html ------------------- How to use a floppy ------------------- One of the more common questions I've seen from people is "How do I access a floppy disk?" It's not quite as easy as putting it in and typing "A:"! That's because a filesystem has to be mounted before it can be used. This article, courtesy of linuxnewbie.com, is an excellent introduction to disks and filesystems. http://linuxnewbie.com/articles/tutorials/7,1/ ----------------------------------- Controlling access via TCP Wrappers ----------------------------------- TCP Wrappers are one of the simpler ways of controlling access to your computer. Through two text files, you can control who can connect to most of your services. Pretty much everyone ships with them pre-installed, but you have to know how to use them effectively. This article will set you on the right foot so you can keep the bad guys out. http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU792&tn=How+to+ use+TCP+Wrappers&pi=S1C1&pn=How+To%27s ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Nov 16 17:55:55 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA18031 for ; Thu, 16 Nov 2000 17:55:53 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Apache 2.0 alpha 4 Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:33:20 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, November 16, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Apache 2.0 alpha 4 An interview with Rasmus GIMP 1.1.29 And the most popular web server is... 3) Linux Resources It's just plain Lunacy Apache+SSL+mod_perl+PHP+mysql mod_ssl overview Creating dynamic sites From CGI to mod_perl 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BEACHFRONT DIRECT We GUARANTEE you will pass your exam or you get your money back! Linux News subscribers save up to 50%... Call Today! Red Hat Special Only $79.95 each Normally $149.95 Check out our BrainBuzz specials on new Cisco 2.0, Win2K, CompTia and Citrix Advanced titles today. CALL (800) 845-8569 FOR MORE INFORMATION OR VISIT US AT http://www.beachfrontdirect.com/csb38.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ The steep learning curve involved in learning Unix is well known. Many in the audience will have been frustrated by the filesystem at one time or another, confused by compiling, or driven crazy by the kernel (OK, I'll stop there, it's getting bad). Instead of the gradual learning curve of products like Windows NT, it seems like one must master many tasks before doing even the simplest thing under UNIX. It's true, and no apologies are made. One of the Unix philosophies is that the user, and to a much greater extent the administrator, knows what he/she wants to do, and doesn't want to be hindered by the operating system. Rather than a tree of options to configure a web server, you've got a large text file. Nothing is assumed by the shell-- one space or misplaced character can easily destroy your filesystem instead of the file you meant to delete. In essence, the interface is so simple that the smarts of the system have to reside in the user, not in the GUI. Understand that, and the operating system becomes less intimidating. Think of it as a formula one race car -- in the hands of a novice it's bouncing off the railings and out of control. With a seasoned driver behind the wheel, it is an elegant machine, a model of power and speed. So how does one ascend from being a novice to a master, or at the very least, be able to make sense of a Unix system? The disappointing answer is that it comes with experience. Linux is a great way to get this experience because of its open nature, easy installation, and documentation. It is also an excellent variant of Unix, such that many organizations are starting to use Linux instead of traditional UNIX OSes like Solaris and HP/UX. When learning a new technology, I find it easier to relate it to something I already know. When I get asked by someone how best to learn how to write a web database, I usually respond by suggesting that they write a timesheet application. Everyone knows what a timesheet is, so it gives a solid goal to work towards. It's simple, so you can focus on the use of technology rather than trying to solve a difficult problem with an unknown tool. It's flexible, so you can start off small and work from there. With that in mind, learning Linux should be made easier with a project that is a known quantity. All of us are familiar with the web, and most will know about web servers. By following the process towards building a web server on a Linux box, one can learn a great deal along the way. Apache is a popular and easy to use web server, and it has lots of plug-ins to make it all the more challenging at the later stages. Writing HTML isn't hard, so I would consider this a great project. This issue of the Linux newsletter is devoted to the web. The news section is all about what's going on in the web server world, and the resource section contains references to tutorials on how to get your web server up and running. Remember that it's not about the destination, but the journey. Pay attention to what you're doing as you do it. Don't be afraid to try out things to see what happens. Even if you have to reinstall your OS and start from scratch, you've still learned something. Don't forget about the resources that Brainbuzz.com provides in the boards. Post your questions to one of the Linux boards: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments. Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------ Apache 2.0 alpha 4 ------------------ Apache, the most popular web server in the world, is getting ready for version 2.0. Over the years, Apache has been continually enhanced with little signs of slowing down. 2.0a4 is the latest release on the road to 2.0, and Ryan Bloom takes the time to explain what's new, what's great, and why you should give this alpha a try. http://apachetoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-06-30-002-01-NW-LF-SW ------------------------ An interview with Rasmus ------------------------ Rasmus Lerdorf, the author of PHP, explains where PHP came from, where it's going, and talks about his book, "PHP Pocket Reference". http://web.oreilly.com/news/lerdorf_0200.html ----------- GIMP 1.1.29 ----------- Billed as the release candidate for GIMP 1.2, the latest version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program has been made available. For those of you looking for a free Photoshop quality tool for UNIX (or Windows for that matter), here it is. For current GIMP users, it's time to upgrade! http://www.gimp.org/download.html ------------------------------------- And the most popular web server is... ------------------------------------- Not much of a surprise, is it? Apache continues to dominate the web server market. This report has some very interesting graphs showing the percentage of marketshare over time. Over 22 million sites were polled for this study. http://www.netcraft.net/survey/ ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ ---------------------- It's just plain Lunacy ---------------------- Linux Lunacy, that is...a one week cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. See the sights of the Caribbean, enjoy the Bon Voyage cocktail party, and attend seminars from famous names in the Linux world. They've even got a page that explains how to sell this to your boss! http://www.geekcruises.com/ ----------------------------- Apache+SSL+mod_perl+PHP+mysql ----------------------------- Common questions I hear fall along the lines of "How do I get mod_X (or PHP, or SSL for that matter) working with Apache?" This article will lead you through setting up a web server with SSL, mod_perl, PHP, and a mysql database. http://www.linux.com/sysadmin/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid=11206 ---------------- mod_ssl overview ---------------- While on the subject of Apache and various modules, this link will lead you to a presentation given at Apachecon 2000 on mod_ssl (the module that enables secure web pages). It shows various scenarios in which you can use mod_ssl, along with the configurations to do them. It starts off with a description on how SSL really works -- a must read if you plan on implementing it within your organization. http://www.modssl.org/docs/apachecon2000/ ---------------------- Creating dynamic sites ---------------------- It wouldn't be fair of me to give you all this information on how to set up Apache, PHP, and mysql, and then not tell you how to use it all! Using the example of a database driven site to display press releases, the process of developing the database and writing the PHP code is explained. http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-08/wonders_web_01.html -------------------- >From CGI to mod_perl -------------------- CGI is the usual way of getting the output of a perl script out to the browser. mod_perl allows you to run your perl code directly as a module so that you have increased flexibility and faster execution. For those of us who know CGI but not mod_perl, this page takes you through the transition. http://perl.apache.org/dist/cgi_to_mod_perl.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ In the newest section of the newsletter, I'm going to try to provide an application or utility that you may find of use. For this first edition of App o' the Week, in keeping with this week's web theme, I present...the Webalizer! The Webalizer is an amazingly fast and flexible statistics tool for web server logs, Squid logs, and FTP logs. With a bit of tweaking, it can also process IIS logs. Turn on combined logging (i.e., referrers and agents) in Apache, and the report will include a list of the top search strings that people used to get to your site! http://www.webalizer.org Have a good utility that you think others should hear about? Let me know: mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Nov 23 18:29:06 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id SAA19127 for ; Thu, 23 Nov 2000 18:29:04 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Working With MP3's Under Linux Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 16:12:51 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 4 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, November 23, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Torvalds Unplugged 5th Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest Awards Look out, VMWare! Will the new TLDs fly? 3) Linux Resources Winmodems...Ick What's with all the licences? Cron 101 Fun with processes Linux and MP3 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUDIOWHIZ Speed up your test success - innovative and unusual study method Increases learning, retention and faster recall... Click Here To Read More: http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1464 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ One thing that no system administrator can do without is a good editor. Sure, pico can edit a file, but the first time you edit a file with long lines and it conveniently wraps them for you, you'll set out to find a new editor. pico is not on every system either... VI has long been a favourite of system administrators. Not to get into the age old debate of VI vs EMACS, but VI is on every UNIX system, so administrators should at least have a passing familiarity with it. If your system has crashed and you have limited access to your filesystems, it's going to be a lot easier to get VI up and running than emacs. So, here's a brief introduction to VI. VI has two basic modes, insert and command. If you're typing in text, you want to be in insert mode. If you're moving around and doing text operations (search/replace, deleting lines), you want to be in command mode. All right. Let's fire up VI. % vi Yes, it's that difficult. When you first start up, you'll be in command mode. Type 'a' to start typing. 'a' means append, so you will start typing at the spot after the cursor. Type the following sentence: I really lvoe linux. Then hit the escape (ESC) key to get out of the insert mode. Oops! We made some typos. Move the cursor to the 'v' in lvoe. Now type "xp". I really love linux. 'x' means to delete the current character and store it in the buffer. 'p' means to put the buffer out AFTER the current character. 'P' would put it out BEFORE the current character. (Yes, VI is very picky about case). So, "xp" together is "transpose", but is actually two separate commands. The next thing is that "linux" should be capitalized. Move the cursor on top of the 'l' in linux, and type '~'. The tilde means to change the case of the current character. I really love Linux. Maybe you don't "love" linux, you just think it is cool. Move on top of the 'l' in love. Type "cw". 'c' means to change, 'w' means "word". Type "think" and then hit ESC to exit the insert mode. To add "is cool", hit '$', which takes you to the last character on the line. Type 'i' to insert, then " is cool". 'i' and 'a' are pretty much the same, except for where they start editing. Hit "ESC" to get out of insert mode. I really think Linux is cool. Most of VI builds on what you learned above. For example, to change one letter instead of a word, do "cl". Note that you can replace one letter with a whole word. "c$" means to change the rest of the line. Replace the 'c' with 'd' and you'll delete. To save what you're working on, enter ":w" from command mode. You can also specify a filename, which we'll need to do, so ":w vi.test". To quit, ":q". To quit without saving, ":q!". 'i' and 'a', when capitalized, mean to start inserting at the beginning of the line, or appending to the end of the line respectively. VI is a powerful editor, but you've got to remember a bunch of little commands. Once you've got the hang of it, you'll never touch pico again! Here are a couple of links to get you on your way with VI: http://www.darryl.com/vi.shtml http://www.cs.umr.edu/uniinfo/general/packages/viguide.html Don't forget about the resources that BrainBuzz.com provides in the boards. Post your questions to one of the Linux boards: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments. Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------- Torvalds Unplugged ------------------- In this interview, Linus talks about 2.4's SMP support and filesystems. He also explains what was behind the Dell server in the SpecWeb bench last month, and what's going on in the embedded Linux world. http://www.freeos.com/articles/2689/2/11/ ------------------- 5th Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest Awards ------------------- Perl, "...the best language for managing a hardcore porn website", can be hard to understand at the best of times. Take a look at the results of this contest, where the idea is to make elegant code that's hard to read. There is a game of frogger (you'd swear the code was line noise), some CGI, and much more. And I thought my code was hard to read! http://www.itknowledge.com/tpj/obfusc-5-awards.html ------------------- Look out, VMWare! ------------------- Plex86 is a free emulator, similiar to VMWare. It can currently run Linux, DOS, and FreeDOS under a Linux environment. It was recently announced that Windows 95 will work! Congrats! Check out the article for more information, and a link to a screenshot of the system in action. http://www.plex86.org/news.phtml?id=28 ------------------- Will the new TLDs fly? ------------------- By now you must have heard that new Top Level Domains (TLDs) such as .biz, .info, .name, are on their way to a nameserver near you. Did you know that there are some stringent restrictions on who can use them? What kind of an impact will this have on the existing TLDs? http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40270,00.html ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ ---------------- Winmodems... Ick ---------------- So called "Winmodems", where the real smarts are implemented in software, are inexpensive and take care of some of those extra processing cycles, but the software is only available for Windows. If you have one (my laptop at work does) and want to use it for Linux, this resource will help you find the software you need to make your "Winmodem" into a "Linmodem". http://www.o2.net/~gromitkc/winmodem.html ----------------------------- What's with all the licences? ----------------------------- If you're from the Windows world, you're probably used to just commercial and freeware software (i.e. you can either copy it or you can't). In the Unix world, where most things are free (as in free beer), the code itself has varying degrees of free-ness (as in free speech). There's the GPL, LGPL, BSD, Artistic, and PD among many. This article sets straight some of the differences (good and bad) between the two major Unix-derived OSs - GPL and BSD. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/18/1154216 ------------------- Cron 101 ------------------- Cron is the daemon that takes care of scheduling jobs, like cleaning up logs, running web stats, notification, etc. It's a system administrator's best friend, since almost any manual task can be written up in a script and automated. This page explains the basics of cron, and how to get the most out of it. http://www.linuxlookup.com/html/guides/cron.html ------------------- Fun with processes ------------------- Now that you know how to use cron, you might want to use it to ensure that certain processes are running. This can be a bit tricky, since you'll have to get your script to read the process list. Fear not, the shell's features make this pretty easy. http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU782&tn=Fun+wit h+processes&pi=A&pn=Tech+Library ------------------- Linux and MP3 ------------------- Ever wondered how to play, stream, rip, or encode MP3s under Linux? This HOWTO explains it all. There is lots of information on various utilities that can be used to work with MP3s and sound in general. http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/MP3-HO WTO.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ This week's utility may help you manage your time a bit better. "Pete's GNOME Time Card" is a panel applet for GNOME that allows you to enter various projects in a drop down box, and a single click indicates that you have started or stopped work. You can then get a report on how much time you've spent on each task. This is very useful for anyone who does contract work, or who wants to know where they're spending their time. http://www.cse.nd.edu/~prijks/puters/petesoft/pgtc/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Nov 30 15:34:56 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA25727 for ; Thu, 30 Nov 2000 15:34:54 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Using Perl With Linux Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 14:08:44 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 5 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, November 30, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News New Distributed.net Client Raises Controversy Bring back Gopher! Watch Out For Those Naked PCs RH7 Advisories 3) Linux Resources Patching 101 Perl, or PHP? Drawing Lines in GIMP Moving the Root Partition Need Debian Help? 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Double Day Become a Visual Basic Programming Wizard for $9.99! Get this three book three CD-ROM set and you'll receive instant access to authoritative VB 6 solutions - for $9.99 when you join Computer Books Direct. Click for details: http://161.58.99.48/cgi-local/redirect.pl?VZDXMOLMT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ PERL, the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, is a vital tool in the system administrator's toolbox. It is a powerful scripting language, and the availability of modules on CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) means that a lot of code is already written for you. It used to be that adding modules to Perl was fairly complex. Module A may depend on Module B, which further depends on Module C. Luckily, the modules are usually smart enough to tell you that something is missing, but it's up to you to go out and find it. Enter CPAN.pm. This module will go out and find modules for you. It will take care of downloading, compiling, testing, and installing. If another module is needed, it'll grab it off of CPAN and install it. It can keep track of versions, even going so far as upgrading Perl itself if need be. CPAN.pm comes with Perl by default, so you should be able to start it up (as root is probably your best bet) via # cpan If that doesn't work, you might have to start it the long way: # perl -MCPAN -e shell (the cpan command, if you have it, is merely a shell script that runs the long version). The first time you run this, you'll have to go through a configuration. Accepting the defaults is fine, but you'll have to select your closest mirror site based on your continent and country. Since you're probably missing some modules, you can ensure that the basics are up to date: cpan> install Bundle::libnet ... cpan> install Bundle::CPAN This will ensure that the libnet and CPAN bundles are current. A bundle is a predefined group of modules. For example, libnet is a set of modules that allow you to do FTP, HTTP, SMTP, and a bunch of other protocols. Rather than installing support for each protocol, they're all in a bundle. At some point or another in your use of CPAN, it's going to want to install a newer version of PERL for you. You can go ahead and let it. Accepting the defaults for everything is going to be fine, except for the location of PERL itself. Many distributions (RedHat for sure) install PERL in /usr/, but the distribution wants to go in /usr/local/. If you accept the default, you'll lose support for all previous modules, and cause confusion for yourself with two different versions of PERL. So, make sure you know where PERL is, and tell the install utility to overwrite it. The use of CPAN.pm is straightforward. If you want to find a particular module, such as an FTP client, you can do a search... cpan> i /ftp/ ...that will return many files (since one module can have several sub-modules, you'll see a lot of duplicates). By looking at the filename, you can guess which module you want. In this case, Net::FTP (G/GB/GBARR/libnet-1.0703.tar.gz) Looks good. You can then do the install: cpan> install Net::FTP CPAN.pm will go out and do whatever is needed to install, or, if you already have the module, you'll see: Net::FTP is up to date. To figure out how to use the module, you can check out the man page. In the case of Net::FTP, you'd run # man Net::FTP CPAN.pm can save you a lot of time, both in finding a module to do the work you want, and in installing the module and dependencies. It has a friendly interface, and by reading the output carefully you can usually find out what you're missing if a problem occurs. The man page (man CPAN) is very helpful. For example, it tells you how to find out what modules are out of date via # perl -e 'use CPAN; CPAN::Shell->r;' This being PERL, you could also get it to install the outdated modules automatically, but I'll let you look that one up on your own! Let's hear what you've got to say on the discussion boards. RedHat Board: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 PERL Board: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=290 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ --------------------------------------------- New Distributed.net Client Raises Controversy --------------------------------------------- "Disputes have arisen in the first few days after the release of Distributed.net's W2KB client which uses an inverted code regression algorithm to compute the number of bugs in Windows 2000. Accusations are flying between Team Microsoft and Team Linux about code patches and forged packets." Anyone who has participated in distributed.net before will find this article to be a hoot! http://www.bbspot.com/News/2000/11/distributed.html ------------------ Bring back Gopher! ------------------ Gopher was around long before the web. Think of it as the Web without hyperlinks in documents. It's certainly one way to get rid of the "World Wide Wait", since Gopher is a very clean way of getting documents shipped around. Check out the "Bring Back Gopher" Campaign below to see why we shouldn't let this time tested protocol die out. http://www.scn.org/~bkarger/gopher-manifesto ----------------------------- Watch Out For Those Naked PCs ----------------------------- It use to be the common practice--selling a PC with Windows pre-installed. With Linux and other free OSs becoming more popular, vendors are starting to sell PCs without an OS. This, of course, is not good for Microsoft, so they've countered with a press release suggesting that this will lead to widespread piracy. Follow this link for some reasons why this is not true, and is just another cheap ploy by Redmond to keep their bottom line safe. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14955.html -------------- RH7 Advisories -------------- There have been a few updates made to RedHat distributions in the past week or two. Most importantly, OpenSSH can be exploited to steal someone's screen without their knowledge. There are some other ones there, Pine, GhostScript, and Joe, so play it safe and make sure your system is up to date. http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh7-errata-security.html ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ ------------ Patching 101 ------------ Most administrators will have to apply a patch to source code at some point in their lives. What about when you want to create a patch file for others? This short article explains how to use "diff" to get the differences between two source trees and dump them into a patch file that can be applied with "patch". http://linux.com/tuneup/database.phtml/Development/002013.html ------------- Perl, or PHP? ------------- Both Perl and PHP can be used to create some great dynamic web sites. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and only experience can be the true guide of which to choose. For those just entering the web development scene, this article is a great primer on the differences between the two. http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?IWK20000117S0053 --------------------- Drawing Lines in GIMP --------------------- GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a Photoshop quality drawing package for Unix. Its wide range of filters and intuitive interface make it a useful tool for anyone who needs to whip up some graphics. One of the more common questions is "How the heck do you draw a straight line?". Surprisingly enough, it's not as obvious as it should be. http://www.gimp.org/~sjburges/straightline/straightline.html ------------------------- Moving the Root Partition ------------------------- Moving around partitions is a normal task in the life of a Linux admin. If /var starts to run out of space, it's time to get it onto a new hard drive. What happens when the root partition needs expanding? There is a lot of data that resides on this partition that must be handled carefully. Follow these instructions, and you won't have to worry when the system comes back up. http://www.ciol.com/content/services/forum/artdisplay.asp?secid=4&thid=1&id= 58 ----------------- Need Debian Help? ----------------- Debian is a popular distribution of Linux, well known for its strict policies regarding Free (speech and beer) software. Support for Debian has been largely difficult to obtain, compared with giants like RedHat. debianhelp.org is designed to fix that. http://www.debianhelp.org/ ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Even though X-Windows is network transparent, or most of your administration can be done via a telnet/ssh session, there are times when you want a full screen view of your machine, just like PC-Anywhere. Or, do you want to control a Windows machine from a Unix box? Or a web browser? How about giving Windows users their own X-Windows session without an expensive X-Server on the client end...one that you can return to after disconnecting, instead of having to re-open all the applications? VNC is what you want. It's cross platform, fast, and free. http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Dec 7 16:30:58 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA31275 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 16:30:57 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Put Your E-mail Into A Blackberry Basket Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:13:27 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 6 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, December 7, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Do Your Part Strut Your Stuff Creative, but... Windows Whistler vs. Gnome 1.2, KDE 2.0 3) Linux Resources Command Line Weenies System Basics Journaling Filesystems Keep Tux Safe Using Snort 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CYBERSTATEU Win Free Certification Training from CyberStateU.com. It's really simple. Follow this link! http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1096 and fill out the entry form. You can win free certification training courses in hot Internet technologies such as Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, Computer Telephony and Linux. Can not be combined with any other offer. Limit one entry per person. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ It's hard to believe this is already the sixth week of the Linux newsletter! Thanks to all of you who sent your feedback to me at mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com ... Keep it coming! I was talking with a friend the other day, and he was wondering how he could get some of the email sent to his personal account forwarded to his Blackberry wireless device. Not all of them, mind you, just from certain people or certain subjects. Plus, the message still has to end up in his regular mailbox. This, along with other mail filtering problems, is the realm of procmail. Want to put your mailing lists in their own folders? Procmail is the answer. Filter out spam? You guessed it... Procmail is a utility that is fed "recipes" which dictate what it should do with messages. It tends to be called from your mail transfer agent, such as sendmail. Most distributions tend to have procmail available, but if you can't get it from there, the links at the end of this article will lead you to the sources. Before putting procmail to work, you've got to get your MTA set up first. Some distributions, such as RedHat, make procmail your default local delivery agent so this is done for you. Otherwise, you need to create a .forward file with the following contents: "|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75 #username" (you'll want to replace the "username" with your username. Don't forget the double and single quotes too!) Recipes go into the .procmailrc file in your home directory, and must only be writable by the owner. Before you can start writing the rules though, you'll have to tell procmail about your system (within .procmailrc): PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin MAILDIR=$HOME/mail #you'd better make sure it exists LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from #recommended The rules themselves take the form of :0 [flags] If the condition starts with a *, it means that we're passing along a regular expression, or a string to match within the header: :0 * ^Sender: Bugtraq List bugtraq This rule looks for the Sender: field in the header and matches it up against the Bugtraq phrase (a popular security mailing list). If so, the action "bugraq" means to dump the message into the folder called "bugtraq", which is located in the directory specified above in $MAILDIR. This is your basic "sort my email into folders" type of recipe. One of my favorite rules, and one that illustrates nested rules, is to pretend that my account doesn't exist (ie send a bounce message) when the sender is from a certain domain, ie spammer.com: :0 * ^From: .*spammer.com { EXITCODE = 67 :0 h: bounce.log } The first condition is to match the From: field with anything ending in spammer.com (.* means match anything). The action is then enclosed in a nesting brace, and consists of an action and another rule. EXITCODE=67 means return a bounce, and the next two lines mean to dump the headers of the message into the "bounce.log" folder. Slick, eh? Now, to help out my friend: :0 c * ^Subject: important ! me@blackberry You'll notice the "c" flag, which means to generate a carbon copy. In this recipe, we generate this copy with the subject begins with "important", and send it to me@blackberry (the ! means to send to an email address). To run this recipe on multiple incoming email addresses, we'll have to craft the regexp with caution: :0 c * ^From: (fred@somewhere.com|joe@elsewhere.com) ! me@blackberry If we had put two conditions in one rule, they would be ANDed, ie :0 c * ^From: (fred@somewhere.com|joe@elsewhere.com) * ^Subject: important ! me@blackberry would only generate the page if fred or joe sent an email with the subject of "important". So, without getting into a lot of complex stuff, we'll stick with the two separate rules to handle everything. Through the use of a program called "formail", you can rewrite the email in transit, i.e. to change the subject. That's outside the scope of this week's article, but check out the man page for "procmailrc" on how to do this. You can also pass the message through another program, or delete it entirely (action=/dev/null). Procmail is fun! You can get the procmail code from: http://www.procmail.org Some great sites on writing recipes: http://www.procmail.org/jari/pm-tips.html http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/proctips.html "man procmailrc" Let's hear what you've got to say on the discussion boards. RedHat Board: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Linux/Unix Mail: http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbt.asp?b=106 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------- Do your part ------------------- Brainbuzz, your community site, needs your help in changing the future of Microsoft's head... Or is it Microsoft's head's head? How about the head of Microsoft's head? There we go! Get all your friends to sign too! http://www.cramsession.brainbuzz.com/petition/ ------------------- Strut your stuff ------------------- Skilldrill is a new section of the Brainbuzz.com web site. Take a test in various subjects, including RedHat, and see how you rank with all the other Brainbuzz members. Link your transcript with your online Resume from the jobs section, and show potential employers that you know your stuff. Bragging rights are on the line! http://www.skilldrill.com ------------------- Creative, but... ------------------- It seems someone has written a trojan whose payload is Linux propaganda. If you see a message with "Check out this new flash movie that I downloaded just now ... It's Great. Bye", don't run the attachment! I know us Linux folk can be a bit... insistent... when it comes to promoting Linux, but causing damage to Windows boxes is taking it too far. If you feel the need to write a virus in order to promote Linux, I think we'd all prefer you to put your energy into an open source project instead. At the end of the day, you'll do more good for Linux that way. http://www.msnbc.com/news/496999.asp?cp1=1 ------------------- Windows Whistler vs. Gnome 1.2, KDE 2.0 ------------------- KDE vs GNOME comparisons are pretty common, but how do these user interfaces stack up to the Redmond empire's next release? This article highlights the key similarities and differences. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/20/0317238 ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ --------------- Command Line Weenies --------------- Everyone using Linux is going to come into contact with the shell at one point or another. Often, it's the fastest way to get something done. Learning how to make effective use of the shell is difficult, but this article will walk you through some of the basics, like how to chain commands together. http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU545&tn=A+comma nd+line+weenie+%26+proud+of+it&pi=S1C21&pn=Linux%2FUnix+Articles ------------------- System Basics ------------------- Learning how the filesystem is laid out, and how to work with files is fundamental to working with Linux. It isn't obvious how everything is supposed to work, so follow this article for a primer on file operations. http://www.linuxworld.com.au/article.php3?tid=8&aid=77 ------------------- Journaling Filesystems ------------------- I've talked about journaling filesystems before -- a filesystem that commits data to a log, much like a database, so that in the event of an unclean shutdown no data is lost. This article explains how the default filesystem, ext2fs, works, and how a journaling filesystem is different. It also shows how to install ReiserFS, one of the more stable JFSs out there. http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-08/journaling_01.html ------------------- Keep Tux Safe ------------------- As changes are made to a running machine, the security of the box can be compromised. It's up to the administrator to keep on top of security all the time. Here are a few things to keep in mind. http://www.zdnet.com/sp/stories/column/0,4712,2658066,00.html ------------------- Using Snort ------------------- Snort is an open sourced Intrusion Detection System (IDS). It listens on your network for any traffic matching known attack signatures. Like many security tools, it's pretty hard to use if you're new to the IDS game. Linuxsecurity.com takes you through the steps to install, update, and test your Snort IDS solutions. Happy hunting! http://www.linuxsecurity.com/using-snort.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ If you're using Linux as a mail server, or as an SMTP gateway, you may want to get it to perform some basic virus scanning. The Anomy Mailtool is a powerful PERL script that will enforce policies on incoming and outgoing mail, such as removing .VBS files from email, protecting the Exchange server from the MIME vulnerabilities, and forcing executable attachments to be renamed before being executed. http://mailtools.anomy.net/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Fri Dec 15 18:43:03 2000 -0600 Received: from list.cramsession.com (list.cramsession.com [24.108.74.105]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id SAA13958 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 18:42:54 -0600 X-Mailer: Lyris Web Interface Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 13:30:56 -0700 Subject: How to Compile and Install the New Kernel To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" From: "BrainBuzz.com" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Message-Id: Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 7 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Friday, December 15, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Window$ Sinks the Kursk! Layoffs at Red Hat Will Linux save Microsoft? GNOME for Windows 3) Linux Resources More VMWare Competition Securing sendmail Got LDAP? Handful of Vulnerabilities A Lighter PDF Reader 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUDIOWHIZ Certification News: Would you like to learn FASTER? Read how many cert students are learning faster and using lost study time to their advantage. Read more... http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1464 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ Well, 2.2.18 is hot off the presses. Come see what's changed: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.18.log Besides stuff like a port to the S/390, support for over 2GHz machines, and the usual myriad of bug fixes, the USB code has been ripped out of the 2.3/2.4 stream and made to work under 2.2 This, of course, brings us to one of the topics that has plagued the Linux newbie, and even the experienced folks for quite some time -- How to compile and install the new kernel? The first thing to do is grab the source from your mirror. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.18.tar.gz is where I grabbed mine. The next thing to do is set up /usr/src to keep your trees separate. /usr/src/linux is generally a symbolic link to your kernel tree: # cd /usr/src # rm linux # mkdir linux-2.2.18 # ln -s linux-2.2.18 linux presto. Next thing we do is unpack the archive # tar -xzf linux-2.2.18.tar.gz # cd linux At this point, /usr/src/linux has the source tree. As with most software, there are three steps - Configure - Compile - Install Getting into the configure menu is the easy part: # make menuconfig Through the menus, you'll be able to choose the options you want, and if you want them to be compiled as a module or not. Since modules can be loaded in and out, there is little harm in making most of your drivers into modules. Figuring out exactly what you need is up to you though! Exiting the menu, you've configured the kernel and are in /usr/src/linux. The compilation step is actually quite easy due to the makefiles you just configured: # make dep clean bzImage modules That does four separate builds. The first fixes up the make process so that dependencies (one file depending on another) are resolved, the next cleans the build out (it's a fresh install this time, but you may have upgraded). "bzImage" builds the kernel itself, and "modules" builds the modules you selected. To install the kernel and modules requires another make: # make install At this point, assuming your distribution is still at its defaults, you can reboot into your new kernel! If you end up at your old kernel, some things to check are: /etc/lilo.conf specifies what gets booted. Take a look at the image=/path/to/kernel line, and make sure that /path/to/kernel is the kernel you just installed (the date and name will give you a clue). If not, you can change it so that it reflects the new kernel. After that, run "/sbin/lilo" to rebuild the boot sector. If you've installed a kernel before (or tried), it's quite likely that a link is out of place somewhere, so you're going to boot your old kernel. Did the "make install" finish properly? Did one of the previous makes not finish? Take a look at the error -- you may be missing some of the development tools to build the kernel. If you choose to go to 2.2.19 when it comes out, you'll find the process gets a lot easier. Since you have the 2.2.18 tree, all you need is the .19 patch (patch-2.2.19.gz). Download that, and apply it to the tree # cd /usr/src/linux # zcat patch-2.2.19.gz | patch -p0 You've already configured the kernel, so the only thing to do is configure any new items: # make oldconfig Then it's off to the "make dep clean bzImage modules" phase! The Kernel-HOWTO at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/howto/Kernel-HOWTO is a good read. It's a bit out of date, but explains the sections in the configure menus and some more of the troubleshooting aspects of kernel installation. Talk about your kernel building experiences in one of BrainBuzz's Linux boards: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------- Window$ Sinks the Kursk! ------------------- Remember that Russian submarine that sank a while back? Was it a collision that caused it? Torpedo misfire? What if it were a failed Windows upgrade? http://www.justlinux.com/bin/topic/listtopic.pl?cid=3974123 ------------------- Layoffs at Red Hat ------------------- According to Red Hat, the layoff of 20 people and closing of 3 offices was to eliminate some redundancy caused by acquisitions. Is this a sign of things to come in the Linux world, or is it as Red Hat says? This article talks about the layoffs, and shows some interesting statistics about the other public Linux companies. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/48/ns-19476.html ------------------- Will Linux save Microsoft? ------------------- Could Microsoft use the Linux strategy to save itself? Hey, it worked when they took the Netscape strategy and gave away Internet Explorer. Scary thought. Good article. http://www.cnbc.com/news/001208plotkin.html ------------------- GNOME for Windows ------------------- This is pretty slick! The GNOME desktop, ported to Windows. Stuck with Windows, but find yourself longing for the panel? Give this a shot. Some pretty good screen shots demonstrating the level of customization that can be had are included too. http://www.gtlinc.com/gnome-desktop.html ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ --------------- More VMWare Competition --------------- Win4Lin is like VMWare, but with the sole intent of running Windows 95 or 98 under a Linux host. The reviewer says that there is little speed loss, so it doesn't appear to be doing instruction translating like VMWare. Anyone tried this out? http://www.linuxworld.com.au/article.php3?tid=1&aid=111 ------------------- Securing sendmail ------------------- sendmail is one of the best Mail Transfer Agents (MTA) out there. It's powerful (though complex), and speedy enough for any situation. Unfortunately it had a lot of security problems in its early days, and if not configured properly, these can come back to haunt you. Learn how to properly configure this beast for maximum security. http://sendmail.net/?feed=000705securitygeneral ------------------- Got LDAP? ------------------- LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, is a great way to put together a phone directory, single sign-on system, or anything else that calls for a quick lookup into hierarchically organized data (org chart, network, etc.). These series of articles give the beginner an introduction to LDAP, and then information on how to design the structure. http://www.ldapman.org/articles/index.html ------------------- Handful of Vulnerabilities ------------------- Some bugs found in software like glibc, Midnight Commander, slocate, ed, and majordomo. Oops. Depends on the distribution though, so take a peek at this site to see if you're vulnerable. Then check with your vendor to see if there is an update. http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/12/06/insecurities.html ------------------- A Lighter PDF Reader ------------------- This tuneup article from Linux.com lets you know about some alternatives to Adobe's PDF reader. I followed some of the advice in the comments after reading this, and was amazed at the difference! http://www.linux.com/tuneup/database.phtml/X11/2099.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Look out Exchange, here comes Eridu, a killer web based groupware application. Anyone familiar with Outlook Web Access will be right at home here. It's developed in PHP as part of a University programming project, and has been put on Sourceforge so that others can aid in its development. Scheduling, Email, and task lists are supported. Demo is available on the site, so check it out! http://www.eridu.org/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Fri Dec 22 00:54:27 2000 -0600 Received: from list.brainbuzz.com ([206.112.74.59]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id AAA08829 for ; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 00:54:25 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: The SourceForge Solution Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 22:35:21 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 8 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, December 21, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Wholesaler Rolls Out Linux SUN Completes Acquisition of Cobalt Networks Slow Progress to the Desktop Shell Oil to Use Linux For Exploring Corel Sells Linux Arm 3) Linux Resources PHP + MySQL = E-Business Backend Don't Forget Your Pants! More on Reiserfs Cisco's Printing Solution Learn PERL! 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BEACHFRONT We GUARANTEE you will pass your exam or you get your money back! Linux News subscribers save up to 50%...call Today. Red Hat Special Only $79.95 each Normally $149.95 Check out our BrainBuzz specials on new Cisco 2.0, Win2K, CompTia and Citrix Advanced titles today. CALL (800) 845-8569 FOR MORE INFORMATION OR VISIT US AT http://www.beachfrontdirect.com/csb38.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ The Open Source movement is a great thing. In essence, you have talented people working on a project not for monetary reward, but for a common goal. Take for example the folks developing the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a Photoshop quality imaging tool. Do they sell it? No. What you get though is a group of people that have a need for such a tool developing it themselves, with the freedom to make changes and implement requested features. The Internet itself is based on this philosophy, the old mantra of the IETF was "Rough consensus, and working code". We may not have the ideal solution (TCP/IP instead of OSI, OSPF instead of IS-IS), but it is a working solution, one that can be quickly adopted and fixed. Get the code in the hands of the people and let them work with it, and submit changes and suggestions. It's the Open Source way, and has made such great things as the GIMP and Linux itself. Not every great coder is a great systems administrator, nor will they have a dedicated connection to host mailing lists, CVS servers, and bug tracking databases. Recognizing this, VA Linux has created SourceForge, a service that provides all this and more, so that talented programmers can open their projects to the world. Any project under an Open Source license is allowed to host on SourceForge. This means that they'll give you your own CVS tree to keep your code and changes, the ability to create discussion lists for announcements and discussion, a web page to display your project, and much more. Furthermore, you can post your need for developers on the main page, as there are lots of people out there that may be looking for a project to code on (of course, help isn't limited to coding, there is formal testing, documentation, and user assistance that is critical to any project's success). It's really a slick system, and - surprise, surprise, is a SourceForge project of it's own. You don't have to be a starving programmer to make use of this either. Later on in this newsletter, you'll see how Cisco Systems has developed their own printing architecture based on Linux. Realizing that others may benefit (and the potential for growth) they have turned it into a public project on SourceForge. If you have some software that you use at work that you developed, this may be a good way to improve it. As a side note, Open Source doesn't have to mean free labor either. Many projects are released under the GPL or a like license, but have paid staff working on it in addition to people working for free (WINE, SNORT, SourceForge). Situations like this show that the industry is catching on to the usefulness of opening up their software. I encourage everyone to look at SourceForge: http://www.sourceforge.net Browse around, and maybe you can find a project that can help you out at work or at home. Find it useful? Lend a hand. Submit a bug report. Add a new feature if you can code. Write some documentation if you can't. Resolve to make a difference in that project. Open Source is more than Free software. It's about building a community. Speaking of communities, BrainBuzz is the place to talk about Linux and ask your questions: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ -------------------------- Wholesaler Rolls Out Linux -------------------------- 300 Linux boxes rolled out over six-and-a-half weeks. The need to grow in the B2B area, and the low cost contributed to this company's choice of Linux for their branch office business applications. Companies like this (and Home Depot) are really starting to embrace Linux for mission critical applications. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0%2c1008%2c536077a1896%2cFF.html -------------------------------------------- SUN Completes Acquisition of Cobalt Networks -------------------------------------------- SUN Microsystems gained a strong foothold in the network appliance market by buying out Cobalt Networks, makers of the RaQ and the Qube. Yah, you know 'em, the 1U Linux boxes that do pretty much everything? I know SUN is going to get a lot out of this deal, but hopefully not at the cost of replacing the Linux OS with Solaris on these devices. I'll sure be watching SUN on this one... http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2000-12/sunflash.20001207.1.html ---------------------------- Slow Progress to the Desktop ---------------------------- No one said it would be easy, but Linux is slowly making inroads to the desktop. The latest release of KDE 2 (K Desktop Environment), a GUI interface for Linux, should go a long way towards making the desktop more usable. This article also has some comments from ID Software, makers of the Quake series, and some observations on why progress in this area has been less than stellar. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4101018.html ------------------------------------ Shell Oil to Use Linux For Exploring ------------------------------------ Another victory in the large scale computing area for Linux. Shell is using a 1024 node Linux cluster powered by IBM servers to run seismic and other geophysical applications. This is one area where Linux is going to clean up in the next few years. Who wants to buy big iron when you can build a super cluster out of commodity hardware? When you're done with it, you've got a lot of nice desktops! (Maybe not, but you can still see the advantages!) http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/12/12/linux.shell.reut/index.html --------------------- Corel Sells Linux Arm --------------------- I really hate to see this good (Canadian!) company get pounded, but it's recently started work on selling off its Linux arm. Corel has put together its own distribution, and has been putting a lot of resources into WINE (a Windows compatibility layer) for their office suite and for other uses. However, the buyer is Linux Global Partners, who have an interest in Helix Code, WINE, and GNUCash. Hope it's for the best. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2c4586%2c2665020%2c00.html ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ -------------------------------- PHP + MySQL = E-Business Backend -------------------------------- I've given out a few links in the past on how to use PHP, but this one really stands out. Using the example of an online coffee mug selling web site, a basic database and order system is created. Just another example of the tools that are out there for the using. Did I mention they're free? :) http://www.nwc.com/unixworld/1119/1119uw.html ------------------------ Don't Forget your Pants! ------------------------ This SYSV init script will "Make sure you're wearing pants when you go multi-user." I know I face this challenge constantly, much to my embarrassment. http://www.linux.org.au/~conrad/scripts/pants.html ---------------- More on Reiserfs ---------------- Hmmm...I seem to be on a roll with the links on journaling file systems. This article walks through some of the benefits of Reiserfs, and how to compile, install, and use it. For those that are new to them, journaling file systems allow for faster and more reliable recoveries after an unclean shutdown. http://www.linuxworld.com.au/article.php3?tid=1&aid=104 ------------------------- Cisco's Printing Solution ------------------------- I remember reading an article in a Linux magazine a couple of years ago on how Cisco started using Linux to manage all of their enterprise printing. It's a really slick system for distributed management. They've released this to SourceForge under the GPL, and VA Linux has picked up on it. If you have a medium-to-large company, maybe this software can help. http://ceps.sourceforge.net/index.shtml ----------- Learn PERL! ----------- I think every UNIX administrator should learn PERL. Problems have obvious solutions when you can code around them. Reports are easy to write, statistics a breeze to collect. Laugh at the mere mortals who have to import data into spreadsheets and manipulate. Anyway, here's a good intro to the language. Don't forget that BrainBuzz has some good PERL hackers that read the PERL board. http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/begperl1.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Any Cisco PIX users out there? (A PIX is Cisco's firewall). The logging is interesting on them, eh? It's either quiet, or filling up your disk with everything it sees. Have no fear, this PERL script interacts with syslogd and generates HTML reports of activity. I've been looking for something like this for a while! http://cs.calvin.edu/~mpost89/pixlog/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Dec 28 17:46:11 2000 -0600 Received: from list.brainbuzz.com ([206.112.74.59]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA07805 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2000 17:46:09 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: The Year in Review Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 15:08:37 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 9 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, December 28, 2000 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News The Year in Review Sendmail, Inc, Acquires Web/Wireless Email Company Linus Speaks on Red Hat 7 Linux Enlists in the US Army 3) Linux Resources Will Unix Certs Ever Catch on? SSH and SSL Safe for Now What's a Honeynet? Why Can't You Run Linux on a P4? AVI and ASF Under Linux 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUDIOWHIZ Visual Basic 6 Study Tool Now Available! This study tool includes two hours of 130+ questions and answers/explanations. It is designed to help you target the exam objectives. We also have many other study tools for your certification needs. These study tools are a must have for the busy IT professional. 90 day money back guarantee as well! Click Here: http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1464 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ As the year 2000 draws to a close, it comes to the time where years of journalistic tradition dictate that I review highs and lows of the year. Don't worry -- you won't find any top N lists in this article! 2000 was certainly not the year of the Linux stock. Red Hat (Nasdaq:RHAT) hit its high point of $148/share in mid- January, and began a slow and steady decline to where it sits now, at under seven bucks. Corel (Nasdaq:CORL) didn't do a heck of a lot better. VA Linux (Nasdaq:LNUX) started off the year at around $200 and dove to around $9. These are extreme examples, mind you, but it's a trend. The Linux Weekly News tracks Linux stocks (and Linux related stocks): http://www.lwn.net/stocks/ Kernel 2.4 was the talk of the community, and it managed to earn fourth place in Wired's annual vapourware contest: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40484,00.html I must disagree, though. It wasn't Linus who was making all the promises (his only promise was December, which he'll narrowly miss), it was mostly the media talking about it. Right now, we're at Linux 2.4.0test13pre4ac2 (how's that for a mouthful), which has Linus' and Alan Cox's trees merged, along with a lot of the stuff that was fixed in 2.2.18. Not all Linux software is vapourware though...The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Tool) was released as version 1.2 after a long development period. The GIMP is a Photoshop quality drawing tool, and a fine example of how well Open Source works. http://www.gimp.org PERL was released as 5.6.0. All the major distributions went through a couple of release cycles such as Red Hat and Mandrake 7.0. It was also a big year for the BSDs, as Free BSD came out with a release featuring high-grade cryptography (yes, I know OpenBSD has been doing it for ages). All in all, a good year for Linux (as long as your retirement fund didn't rely on the stocks). I wish I had some usage figures handy, but judging from all of the media attention, it has to be growing quickly. Here's to all the best in 2001. Long live the Penguin, Sean Walberg swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ ------------------- The Year in Review ------------------- Linux has made a lot of progress this year. It survived the Y2K scare in January, and December marks the release of 2.2.18, Gimp 1.2, and one of the last releases towards kernel 2.4. In between this were a whole lot of press releases from people announcing support, hardware, and new companies starting up. Here is a timeline of 2000. http://www.lwn.net/2000/features/Timeline/?month=all -------------------------------------------------- Sendmail, Inc, Acquires Web/Wireless Email Company -------------------------------------------------- Sendmail, Inc, the corporate arm of the popular sendmail MTA, announced that it has acquired Nascent Technologies. Through this arrangement, Sendmail gets the technology to allow web-based email access and wireless WAP email. http://www.businesswire.com/webbox/bw.121900/203540182.htm ------------------------- Linus Speaks on Red Hat 7 ------------------------- You may recall the first edition of Linux News where I talked about some of the bugs in Red Hat 7. One of the big things was the snapshot compiler that was shipped causing a lot of problems with the symbols inside object files. Alan Cox, one of the chief maintainers of Linux spoke out on Red Hat's behalf, but Linus doesn't agree. http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-12-14-002-21-NW-RH-SW ---------------------------- Linux Enlists in the US Army ---------------------------- Red Hat has a product called "uClinux", which is an environment for running Linux on embedded microprocessors. The US Army recently announced that they will be testing uClinux out in tanks and other vehicles for monitoring, and possibly rolling it out to as many as 50,000 vehicles! http://www.linuxtoday.com.au/r/article/jsp/sid/440053 ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ ------------------------------ Will Unix Certs Ever Catch on? ------------------------------ The domain of Unix certifications has been pretty quiet. Each vendor has their own, and there are a couple in the Linux world. But does anyone actually get these things? A wise Unix admin explains his view on the whole thing. http://www.networkingnews.org/headline_news/main_news/12week_3/week3_unixcer t.html ------------------------ SSH and SSL Safe for Now ------------------------ It all started off with Kurt Seifried writing an article about dsniff, a hacking tool, and the potential impact on protocols like SSL and SSH. It was pretty doom and gloom, which prompted a response from a noted author on SSH, Richard Silverman. Kurt's an intelligent fellow and raises some good points, but I'm afraid my money is on Richard. http://sysadmin.oreilly.com/news/silverman_1200.html ------------------- What's a Honeynet? ------------------- No, it has nothing to do with Pooh bear...a honeynet is a network of computers designed to be hacked, but with a watchful eye. Lance Spitzner explains his project to learn the way of the hacker by watching them do their work. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2666273,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews 01 -------------------------------- Why can't you run Linux on a P4? -------------------------------- It was big news the other week -- Most distributions of Linux won't run on a P4. Of course, the reasons behind it were never published. The author blames Microsoft (and a case could be made for it) but I'll just chalk it up to miscommunication on Intel's part. http://www.linux.com/hardware/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid=11457 ----------------------- AVI and ASF under Linux ----------------------- Here is a plug-in for XMMS to let it play AVI and ASF files, two formats common to Windows machines (the latter more than the former). Read the comments on this page if you're going to install it, as there are some traps you may run into. http://www.xmms.org/comments.html?show=P122 ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Anyone remember the DOS game, Scorched Earth? Destroy the enemy tanks with high-powered weapons before they get you. Well, it's been ported to X, and is as fun as ever. It has hooks for network play... Anyone up for a game? http://freshmeat.net/projects/xscorch/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Jan 4 17:18:57 2001 -0600 Received: from list.brainbuzz.com ([206.112.74.59]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA05420 for ; Thu, 4 Jan 2001 17:18:56 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: When will Mom use Linux? Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 14:20:35 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 10 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, January 4, 2001 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News 10 Questions With Miguel de Icaza Loki's QA Team Talks IBM Claims Fastest Unix Workstation Beat 'em to the Punch 3) Linux Resources 802.1q VLAN Patch The Sendmail Boys Have Been Busy... Solaris-Style Performance Monitoring BASH Cheat Sheet The Case For Centralized Computing 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUDIOWHIZ Visual Basic 6 Study Tool Now Available! This study tool includes two hours of 130+ questions and answers/explanations. It is designed to help you target the exam objectives. We also have many other study tools for your certification needs. These study tools are a must have for the busy IT professional. 90 day money back guarantee as well! Click Here: http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1464 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ When will Mom use Linux? Will she ever? Should she? I was reading an article asking the first question, when the second and third ones came to mind: http://linux.com/news/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid=11497 This article asks if Linux is ready for the novice who just wants a computer that works. Not one with a web server, database, and enterprise directory, but one that you can plug your hardware into, load up your software, and get going. It seems that people are willing to pay a huge price for this convenience. It's no secret that Windows isn't the most stable thing going, yet people are more than happy to reboot constantly. What good is an operating system that can run for a year without a reboot if it doesn't work with the latest hardware and play the latest games? The hardware is probably the hardest problem to solve. There are a lot of tools out there to reverse engineer software, but to figure out how a device works without the specs is difficult. Opening vendors' eyes to Open Source is difficult. Many put access to specs under NDA, which prevents Linux drivers from being written. What competitive advantage can there be to prevent technical people from using your products? It baffles the mind. Native ports of software are rare. Some big names like Word Perfect are available under Linux, but when will titles like Quicken start appearing? Compatibility layers like WINE [0] and Trans Gaming [1] are trying to build compatibility layers into Win32 and DirectX/Direct3D respectively, but it will be a long time before they're at the "Double Click to install" phase. This brings me to the questions I posed...Do we want this? Can't we be content with an operating system that serves our needs? I'm willing to sacrifice some usability in order to obtain stability, reliability, and speed. Shouldn't we dedicate our resources to improving the kernel and developing better server applications? On the other hand, "dumbing down" (for lack of a better term) the operating system could have benefits across the board. More users mean more vendor support. Widespread acceptance makes it profitable for vendors to target Linux for their applications. Failing that, companies like Loki [2] can make a decent living porting other people's software. Maybe then hardware vendors will devote some resources to publishing Linux drivers the way that Adapsys [3] does. So, do we want wide-spread Linux use? I'm not hell-bent on world domination, but I can't stand to see the technically- better solution being beaten out by a better looking but inferior one. Seeing the latest hardware supported by Linux at Day 1 would be a bonus. There isn't one strategy that can accomplish this though. The WINE team is starting to look at issuing "Works with WINE" stickers to vendors whose applications run under WINE. People like you and I are bringing Linux into our workplaces to do a better job for a fraction of the cost. It's going to be a long time until Linux sits on a large fraction of the desktops out there. Until then, don't lose sight of what we have. What are your thoughts on the future of Linux for the masses? http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com [0] http://www.winehq.com/ [1] http://transgaming.com/ [2] http://www.lokigames.com/ [3] http://www.connectcom.net/downloads/software/os/linux.html ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ --------------------------------- 10 Questions With Miguel de Icaza --------------------------------- Miguel is one of the core GNOME developers, and one of the founders of Helix Code. In this interview, he talks about the future of Helix GNOME, a packaged desktop, and some of the products his company will be coming out with. He also explains why Helix GNOME has been behind in keeping up with packages. http://www.linuxorbit.com/features/interview3.php3 -------------------- Loki's QA Team talks -------------------- Loki Software focuses on porting Windows games to Linux. Titles include Q3 Arena, Heretic II, and Soldier of Fortune. Linuxpower had an interview with some of the QA team, and asked them what's involved in the porting and testing of a new game. Must be a tough life...Playing video games for a living :) http://linuxpower.org/display.php?id=197 ----------------------------------- IBM Claims Fastest Unix Workstation ----------------------------------- IBM has come out with a new RS/6000 model, the 170. Boasting a 450MHz CPU, it has some impressive graphics capabilities. This doesn't come cheap, however... $30K US for the top of the line, but that gets you 2GB of RAM and a really nice graphics card. You probably won't see Quake running on this bad dog though; it's made for high-end engineering applications. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2669346,00.html --------------------- Beat 'em to the Punch --------------------- Who is going to support Itanium first...Windows or Linux? I'll give you a hint...Who already runs on more platforms? According to this article, Windows isn't expected to have an Itanium-tailored version ready for the chip's debut. On the other hand, even though the Linux distributions haven't caught up, the kernel is ready. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4236527.html?tag=st.cn.1491268.today.10 03-200-4236527 ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ ----------------- 802.1q VLAN Patch ----------------- 802.1q is a method of tagging Ethernet packets so that VLANs can be trunked. This patch allows normal NICs to speak dot1q, so you could have your box sit on several VLANs to speed file server access, or act as a router between VLANs. http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear/vlan.html ----------------------------------- The Sendmail Boys Have Been Busy... ----------------------------------- Sendmail 8.11.2 was recently released. The 8.11 series has some pretty advanced features like LDAP lookup, TLS (Transport Layer Security), multiple queues, better virtual hosting support, and a whole whack more. Got a simple, one domain setup? 8.9.3 is probably still OK for you. Anything more advanced and you may want to give this a look. http://www.sendmail.org/8.11.html ------------------------------------ Solaris-Style Performance Monitoring ------------------------------------ If you're coming from the Solaris world, you'll be familiar with tools like sar and iostat for checking on the status of your system. You quickly found out that Linux was a lot different! This fellow has developed some performance monitoring tools, including Solaris-style sar/iostat. It produces some detailed reports, and the documentation is very good. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sebastien.godard/ ---------------- BASH Cheat Sheet ---------------- Shell scripting is one of the more powerful weapons in the administrator's arsenal. Unfortunately, it can be a tad arcane at times, which is why a good reference can help. I've always relied upon my "Unix in a Nutshell" book, but now I've found a more concise source. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/programming/bash_cheat.html ---------------------------------- The Case for Centralized Computing ---------------------------------- Thin clients: love 'em or hate 'em, they're out there. This commentary from freshmeat.net takes a look at some of the options out there (Microsoft, Sun, Linux) and shows how they could fit into a school environment. With the power of computers today, it's a bit absurd that a secretary doing email and word processing has the latest and greatest, when the same box could serve a few of them just as well. http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/12/23/977633999.html ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Since it's the holiday season, this week's app is yet another game. Call this one "Asteroids on crack". Great graphics, sounds, and fast action make this a fun game. There are even add-ons, like a Star Wars theme. http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/Maelstrom/ ============================================================ (C) 2000 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@gateway.ertw.com Thu Jan 11 18:37:16 2001 -0600 Received: from ertw.dyn.dhs.org (root@h24-70-148-34.wp.shawcable.net [24.70.148.34]) by gateway.ertw.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA11423 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:37:13 -0600 Received: from list.brainbuzz.com ([206.112.74.59]) by ertw.dyn.dhs.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA04919 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:10:10 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: 2.4.0 is Here! Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:05:01 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 11 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, January 11, 2001 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News 2.4.0 is Here! So What Does Linus Think? What's New? Linux Gaming - Looking Back, Looking Forward 3) Linux Resources A Window Manager With a Windows Look and Feel comp.os.linux.security FAQ Can you Grok the GIMP? Tricks for PPPoE and 2.4 Git 'Yer 3COM NIC Drivers Here! 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DOUBLEDAY Novell's Network Professional Toolkit, a 3-book/4-CD set, is now $9.99 - save over $184! Advance your tech skills and advance your career. Optimize NetWare LANs to peak performance with proven tools and techniques for managing Novell Directory Services, Netscape FastTrack Server for NetWare, Pure IP, and more. http://161.58.99.48/cgi-local/redirect.pl?UEBQFCJSS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ I got some interesting response to last week's newsletter. It seems to be obvious that Linux is too complex for the average user (or Mom), so a two-pronged approach is necessary - Make it easier to use, and make it more desirable to use (applications, features). It was also mentioned that some people will stay with the first OS that they encounter, so it would be nice to get Linux into schools and the like. With the cost of keeping Windows networks up to date, maybe this will come sooner than we expect. Something that was brought up at the local Unix users' group on Tuesday was "Why do you have to log in?". Should the concept of users be hidden from people? I'm not necessarily saying everything should run as root, but to be prompted for the "special" password when root access is needed, otherwise start the default X session as a generic user. It was mentioned that Mandrake has this option (with strong warnings accompanying it, and rightfully so), but in our "Linux for the masses" distribution this could be the norm. Now, this once again forces us to ask "do we want this?" I personally don't think so, since I'm fine with logging on to my Linux box, or to my NT Workstation at work. That being said, it's apparently a concern of people because the topic was discussed at great length. On the applications side of the fence, I read a lot of comments on Slashdot (not a good demographic of "Linux for the Masses", I know) about "that last app" that people need to completely migrate to Linux. Usually it's a good financial manager that has the features of Quicken or MS Money, but sometimes it's programs like Visio or Rational Rose, specialized drawing tools. For many users, it's games. If we can't get the die-hard techies to use it, what business do we have getting Mom to use it? I'm trying not to be a pessimist about this, but we do want to target Linux to the masses. In case you haven't read, kernel 2.4 is out. As a result, most of the news section of this week's newsletter is about this very topic. Congrats to the hard working kernel developers! Expect to see your favorite distribution coming out with support in the near future. Also expect to see some future articles on features like iptables, the replacement for ipchains and ipfwadm. I've also used a feature of the Brainbuzz Discussion Boards to create a poll. I'd like to know what you prefer in this section of the newsletter. Enter once, void where prohibited. http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbm.asp?rpg=1&wpg=1&sb=0&m=234268 You'll also start seeing some book reviews in this newsletter. As we speak, a couple of titles arrived in the mail. And, as always, the discussion boards are there for you to sound off in: http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b=184 Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments! Long live the Penguin, Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com ============================================================ 2) Linux News ============================================================ --------------- 2.4.0 is Here! --------------- After eight months of pre-release, test, and other 2.4 versions, 2.4.0 has officially been released. It's out on the mirrors, so if you've been waiting for this, go out and get it! You'll need to upgrade your modutils--check your distribution's web site or install them yourself from the URL in the documentation directory. http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-01-05-001-04-NW-LF-KN -------------------------- So What Does Linus Think? -------------------------- ZDNet sent Linus some questions via email. His answers are a bit surprising to say the least... http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2671714,00.html ------------ What's New? ------------ A lot has changed in 2.4...ipchains has been replaced by a more robust system, USB support is supposed to be there, SMP support has been improved. Disks, RAID, and devices have all been reworked. This page gives a rundown of what's new and changed. Support for 10 IDE controllers!?! http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-01-05-007-04-NW-LF-KN --------------------------------------------- Linux Gaming - Looking Back, Looking Forward --------------------------------------------- One of the obstacles Linux faces is the lack of games. After all, computers aren't just for word processing and drawing, you've got to be able to have some fun with them! Gamespy.com takes a look at what's happening in the Linux gaming scene, and where they think things are going. http://www.gamespy.com/articles/january01/futurelinux/ ============================================================ 3) Linux Resources ============================================================ --------------------------------------------- A Window Manager With a Windows Look and Feel --------------------------------------------- Brainbuzz user Guitarlynn wrote in with a link to this WM. It looks a lot like Windows, right down to the start menu and desktop. It still has virtual desktops (who can live without those?), but for those who want a comfortable intro to the Linux world, this may be the solution for you. http://www.qvwm.org/ -------------------------- comp.os.linux.security FAQ -------------------------- Linuxsecurity.com interviews Daniel Swan, the author of the comp.os.linux.security FAQ. It's a great document, but before you head to it you should get an idea of who is behind it, and who it is for. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/interview-cols.html ---------------------- Can you Grok the GIMP? ---------------------- Grokking the GIMP is a very complete book on how to use the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Tool), a free Photoshop quality imaging package. Not only is the book good, it's free and online. Check out this review of the book, which has a link to the book itself. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/01/04/1545229 ------------------------ Tricks for PPPoE and 2.4 ------------------------ People using PPPoE or other tunneling software are likely familiar with the MSS (Mean Segment Size) problems. The mssclampfw module was a good way to get around it, but now that 2.4 is out, there is a cleaner solution that uses iptables. http://www.hgfelger.de/mss/mss.html ------------------------------- Git 'Yer 3COM NIC Drivers Here! ------------------------------- A thread on comp.os.linux.networking was started because some 3COM drivers were left out of the 2.4 kernel. If you are in this situation, 3COM's site has what you're looking for. http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/linux.htm ============================================================ 4) App o' the week ============================================================ Need a secure and robust FTP server? WU-FTPD is good, but Proftpd is better. It's got an Apache-like configuration syntax, loads of features, and is easy to use. It really shines if you need virtual hosting, which is a breeze with this server. http://proftpd.net/ ============================================================ (C) 2001 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved. ============================================================ _______________________________________________________ This message is from BrainBuzz.com. You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com ------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com _______________________________________________________ From sean@poochie.ertw.com Thu Jan 18 17:30:56 2001 -0600 Received: from list.brainbuzz.com ([206.112.74.59]) by poochie.ertw.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) with SMTP id f0INUtd10079 for ; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:30:55 -0600 Message-ID: From: "BrainBuzz.com" To: "Hottest Linux News and Resources" Subject: Stand up and Be Counted! Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 11:44:54 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "BrainBuzz.com" Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 12 ============================================================ LINUX NEWS RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM Thursday, January 18, 2001 ============================================================ ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1) Sean's Notes 2) Linux News Stand up and Be Counted! Linux as Least Secure? Run Ebay on Linux! Cobalts to use Athlon 3) Linux Resources What's Kerberos Doing Here? Bugs, Bugs, Bugs Load Balancing Clusters Booting off of a RAID-1 Device The Personal Side of Being a Sysadmin 4) App o' the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FREETECHMAIL.ORG Tired of looking everywhere for newsletters with the technical information you need? FreeTechMail.org can help. It has the largest network of high quality opt-in newsletters on the Net. FreeTechMail's search engine enables you to find all the newsletters to keep you at the forefront of the IT industry. Subscribe to your IT newsletters today at: http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC=1006&AI=1703 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp ============================================================ 1) Sean's Notes ============================================================ One of the new features of the 2.4 kernel is an updated version of the IP packet filtering code. Users of 2.2 are familiar with IP chains, and should become familiar with IP tables. Luckily, it's not too much different for basic packet filtering. With ipchains and iptables alike, there are three default chains for filtering: input - rules on this chain are applied to packets as they enter an interface output - rules on this chain are applied to packets as they leave an interface forward - rules on this chain are applied to packets that cross from one interface to another There are some major differences, however. iptables capitalizes the name of the default chains, so it's really INPUT, OUTPUT, and FORWARD. With ipchains, a packet that was to be routed crossed the input, forward, and output chains in that order. With iptables, routed packets hit only FORWARD. INPUT and OUTPUT are for packets that originate or terminate on that interface. Instead of DENYing a packet in ipchains, you DROP it in iptables (more on this later). If you just want to do basic filtering and masquerading, those are the differences. Under the hood, however, you have been given direct access to packets at various stages of processing known as "tables" (hence iptables). For example, we'll hook into the NAT table to get address translation. Modules can also be written to interface with packets. We'll become acquainted with NAT in a second, but first load in the module: modprobe iptable_nat Those familiar with ipchains will remember that we could masquerade out our PPP interface via: ipchains -A forward -i ppp0 -j MASQ ...In iptables, we now run: iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE Say what? -t nat? -A POSTROUTING? What's going on here? Time to discuss the "filter" table. INPUT, OUTPUT, and FORWARD chains are part of the "filter" table, which is the default. This is where packets go before they're accepted or transmitted. When a new connection is started, the "nat" table is consulted. It has it's own chains, namely PREROUTING, POSTROUTING, and OUTPUT. The one we're interested in, POSTROUTING, is checked before a packet is sent on the wire (but not before it hits the filter table!) At this point, we're just sending any packets going out the ppp0 interface to the MASQERADE chain. Subtle differences from ipchains here -- the chain is no longer MASQ, and on the forwarding chain you can specify the incoming (-i) or outgoing (-o) interface. Previously, you could only specify the outgoing interface via -i. That aside, your basic packet filtering is the same: iptables -A