The Open Road: Network Troubleshooting Tools — Part 2
Last month, I started discussing network troubleshooting tools. This month, I'll discuss sniff and ngrep.
June 2004 The Open Road: Finding Rootkits
As I mentioned in last month's column, this month I'm going to spend some time discussing rootkits. Specifically, I'm going to spend a little time discussing ways to find rootkits on your system. For the purposes of this column, I'm going to assume that the system(s) in question are not running an Intrusion Detection System. While it's a good idea to have an IDS, once you've been rooted, it's a little late to depend on one.
August 2004 The Open Road: Ethereal
This month, I'm going to wrap up discussion of network troubleshooting tools. So far, I've covered netstat, tcpdump, and ngrep and sniff. This month, I'll discuss Ethereal, a tool for browing network traffic interactively and analyzing network traffic. To put it more emphatically, Ethereal is the all-singing, all-dancing, packet-inspecting tool that all admins should have in their software toolboxes.
July 2004 The Open Road: Network Troubleshooting Tools
Zonker discusses netstat and tcpdump.
May 2004 The Open Road: Linux System Performance Tools
This month, I'll present a few system tools that can be helpful when trying to diagnose your Linux system's health, improve performance, and so on. This installment is intended for users who are newer to Linux, and who might not be familiar with, or aware of all the utilities that are already available at their fingertips.
April 2004 The Open Road: Server Optimized Linux
Last year, I wrote a bit about Server Optimized Linux (SoL) and planned to revisit the distribution. It's been a while, but I've finally taken a new version of SoL for a few test drives.
March 2004 The Open Road: DVD Burning
DVD burners have finally started to drop in price to the point that they're cheap enough to own for personal use. "Cheap enough" is relative, of course, but you can buy a decent (and Linux-compatible) DVD burner for less than $200 if you're willing to look around a bit.
February 2004 The Open Road: ccache
Zonker discusses using ccache to speed up compilations. He also touches on DVD burning.
January 2004 The Open Road: Distributed Compiling
Zonker discusses distcc, a tool that's useful for anyone who compiles larger applications on a regular basis.
December 2003 The Open Road: Creating your own man pages
Over the years I've accumulated dozens of books on Linux and Unix, but none of these books has ever come in as handy as the man pages that document system commands and other important aspects of *nix systems.
November 2003 The Open Road: Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 2.3
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) 2.3 is in the final stages of approval, so I wanted to take a look at the new FHS and see what's in store. If you're unfamiliar with the FHS, it is a standard that suggests a general filesystem layout for Unix-type systems, including Linux distributions and *BSDs. Since I am primarily a Linux user, I tend to approach this from the Linux perspective, but it would be nice if both Linux vendors and *BSDs were to adhere to a single standard.
October 2003 The Open Road: Working with Slash, Part 2
Last month, we started the process of installing Slashcode on Debian. This month, we'll finish the install process, and look at configuration and a little bit of using Slash.
September 2003 The Open Road: Slashcode
By popular demand, I'll be covering Slashcode this month and next. If you're not familiar with Slashcode, it's the code that powers Slashdot, ICANNWatch, and a number of other sites. Slash would probably be running even more sites if the installation procedure were more intuitive and didn't require quite so many steps.
August 2003 The Open Road: XFree86 Tips and Tricks
Open Road: XFree86 Tips and Tricks August 2003
by Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
This month, I'll cover some tips and tricks for configuring and using XFree86 when the default tools just don't quite cut it. XFree86 is a pretty vital piece of sofware for the Linux and *BSD crowd, but it's not quite as well documented as it could be (see my April 2003 Open Road for more info). I've had a hard time finding good documentation on the XFree86 site when setting up Xinerama and so forth, and have spent quite a bit of time on Google to get everything just right.
July 2003 The Open Road:Return of Packet Filter
Summer seems to be the time for sequels, so it's fitting that this month's column will be a follow-up on OpenBSD's Packet Filter. My theory on
sequels is that most folks are willing to watch just about anything in the middle of the summer, so long as it means being in a movie theatre with nice,
frosty, air conditioning. Tragically, I'm not working with a multi-million dollar budget on my PF sequel, and there won't be any gratuitious violence,
nudity, or swearing... but as sequels go, it should certainly be better (and shorter) than Bad Boys II or The Matrix Reloaded.
June 2003 The Open Road: OpenBSD's Packet Filter
As promised, this month I'll look at OpenBSD's Packet Filter, usually just referred to as PF. Last month, I said that I didn't plan to cover installation and setup of OpenBSD — just PF. Well, I got a few requests asking for information about installation. Specifically, a few folks seemed to be puzzled when it comes to partitioning a hard disk for OpenBSD. I can't honestly say I'm surprised. The OpenBSD installation routine is pretty simple, but setting up partitions with fdisk isn't exactly intuitive.
May 2003 The Open Road: OpenBSD Security, More XFree, Expanding UML Filesystems
Last month I wrote about the difficulties in configuring XFree86 for unusual setups and asked readers to send in XF86Config files for X configurations that gave the usual setup tools a hard time. I got quite a few emails saying that it sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, I only received a handful of XF86Config submissions. I'm looking for more X users out there who have had to struggle to get X set up on a more exotic piece of hardware or esoteric setup — anyone using multiple video cards should know what I'm talking about.
April 2003 Open Road: Using OpenLDAP
This month, I'll wrap up discussion of Unix groupware and OpenLDAP. I'll look at configuring OpenLDAP and using the tools that come with OpenLDAP.
December 2002 The Open Road: Groupware for Unix Pt.2
Last month, I started talking about groupware for *nix systems. I suppose I should have known that this is a pretty hot topic. I got plenty of response from readers who have their own favorite groupware applications and suites that run on Linux and other Unix-type systems.
November 2002 Open Road: CUPS Part Two
Last month I examined the Common Unix Printer System, better known as CUPS. This month I'll take a closer look at CUPS, specifically how to use it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to set up.
September 2002 The Open Road: Common Unix Printer System
This month and next month I'll cover the Common Unix Printer System, or CUPS. This month I'll present an overview of CUPS — what it is and why you might want to use it. Next month, I'll take a look at working with CUPS.
August 2002 The Open Road: wget and Debian 3.0
This month, I talk about the wget utility and the latest and greatest Debian GNU/Linux release.
July 2002 The Open Road: More Fun with LaTeX
Last month, I took an introductory look at LaTeX. This month, I’ll present a basic LaTeX document, LaTeX syntax, and processing a LaTeX document.
June 2002 The Open Road: Working with LaTeX
Zonker provides an overview of LaTeX and what you need to get started using it.
May 2002 The Open Road: ht://Dig Part 2
Last month, I started talking about ht://Dig. This month, I'll finish up the ht://Dig coverage with some tips for better search results and customizing ht://Dig.
April 2002 The Open Road: Using ht://Dig
A conversation about Web usability recently sprang up on my LUG's discussion list. There were diverse opinions about what constitutes usability, but virtually everyone agreed on two points: first, the unnecessary and increasing use of Flash animations detracts from usability, particularly when sites provide no other means of viewing their content; second, a quality search engine is absolutely vital. No matter how clean and well-designed the interface is, on sites with a fair amount of content, you need to be able to type in a search term and pull up the content you want right now.
March 2002 The Open Road: Your Very Own Weblog
Sometimes it seems like everyone in the world has a Weblog -- except for you. If you thought it was too hard to set up your own Weblog, you may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it can be. This month, I'm going to look at phpWebLog, one of many pre-made Weblogs that you could choose to set up a quick and easy Weblog. phpWebLog happens to be my favorite because it's very easy to set up, and because I've been using it for various projects for about two years now. The phpWebLog package has few prerequisites and works very well for people who want to set up a Weblog on a hosting service.
February 2002 The Open Road: Procmail
There are many reasons to filter your mail. For example, I subscribe to several mailing lists and get email from several different accounts; some of that mail is fairly important and some isn't urgent at all. And, of course, there's the ever-continuing battle against spam.
January 2002 The Open Road: Fun and Games
Ordinarily, I use this column to talk about free and Open Source software and how they can help you work more efficiently. Because it's the holiday season, I thought I'd cheat a little and slip in a couple of other programs that make life a little more fun -- namely, a few of my favorite Free Software games. These are by no means going to help you get any work done, but they might just make your day a little more fun.
November 2001 Pogo Linux Vorticon Workstation
Although Linux has been embraced by major computer manufacturers as a server OS, it still gets little respect as a desktop or workstation operating system. Dell, for instance, pulled their Linux desktop and workstation lines earlier this year, but they're still doing great business with Linux servers. If you want to run Linux as a desktop or workstation OS, you're probably better off either building your own workstation or buying from a smaller computer company. In this review, I'll look at a workstation from Pogo Linux, a vendor that focuses almost exclusively on Linux.
October 2001 Filtering Packets with iptables
My initial plan for this column was to cover the use of iptables. However, after reading questions sent to the Netfilter mailing list, and some of the questions I ran across on various forums, I decided to spend a little more time on the basics of compiling a kernel and installing iptables. While many folks who are interested in using iptables are probably Linux gurus already, there are probably an equal number of novice Linux users who would benefit from starting at the beginning.
This month and next month, I'm going to take a look at filtering packets with iptables, the replacement for ipchains in the 2.4 Linux kernel. This month, I will deal with the basics of getting iptables up and running, and next month I'll explore using iptables in detail.
February 2001 Comanche Review
Comanche is a GUI tool for configuring and administering Apache. Zonker tests the latest version to see how much it has improved over the past year.
February 2001 Open Source Licensing
Studt discusses requirements for Open Source software and provides a detailed comparison of Open Source licenses.
February 2001 WINE: What's Happening Now
What it is, where it's been, and what's in store as the 1.0 release approaches.
December 2000 GnuPG: An Open Solution to Data Protection
Routing with Zebra -- an Open Source Routing System for Unix and Linux.
December 2000 Review: Zebra
Zebra is a free routing system designed for UNIX operating systems and licensed under the GNU public license. Mike Metzger discusses the use of Zebra as a border gateway protocol router running on Linux using IPv4.
September 2000 REBOL and the Shell
Scripting with the versatile REBOL scripting language.
August 2000 Network Clustering with RedHat's Piranha
Clustering usually brings to mind dozens of servers working together to crack the latest unbreakable encryption, or to break the world’s record for calculating the most significant digits for pi.
July 2000 Policy Routing in Linux
The classic TCP/IP routing algorithms used today make their routing decisions based only on the destination address of IP packets.
May 2000 Policy Routing in Linux
The classic TCP/IP routing algorithms used today make their routing decisions based only on the destination address of IP packets.
May 2000 The State of the Daemon
BSD UNIX has worked in the Internet's kitchen for years, quietly running systems, schlepping mail, and serving hundreds of millions of web pages a day. BSD resembles Jeeves the butler; always there when you need it, invisible when you don't.
May 2000 A Linux Email Server
Electronic mail is a strange beast. In the past few years, I've set up a number of electronic mail and Internet gateways. Some of my customers are smaller companies with a few employees and no desire to pay huge amounts of money for a 24x7 ISDN or DSL connection.
January 2000 |
