Author Archive

Short on horsepower? Less is more when it’s powered by Linux.

In cases where NFS or SMB/CIFS won’t fit the needs of your Linux network, Network Block Devices (NBDs) may provide superior performance over traditional network filesystems.

For novice and intermediate administrators who may not yet be familiar with every feature of Linux, Webmin can be a huge time saver and take some of the guesswork out of error-prone tasks.

If you’re a laptop user, a survey of your system with PowerTOP will help you track down programs and system settings that are needlessly draining your battery’s power

Although its features and terminology may seem strange if you’re used to more traditional Linux filesystems, ZFS offers a great deal of flexibility.

Now that our servers are in place, we walk through configuring an x86 PC as a thin client workstation.

Thin clients offer an approach to computing with a number of advantages over the more common desktop computer approach. Learn how to enable it.

NTFS support has been slow in coming to Linux. But new drivers are now available that enable you to read from, and even to write to, NTFS partitions, including removable media formatted with NTFS. We show you how.

Don’t waste unused CPU cycles — put them to work compiling software? Rod Smith shows you how to use distcc to harness the power of distributed computing to speed up your compile time.

One of Linux’s greatest strengths is that it’s easily customized. Although most distributions ship with a variety of standard tools for specific purposes (such as sendmail as a mail server or Vixie Cron to handle repeated jobs), alternative tools are readily available. You can rip out just about any component, either removing it entirely or replacing it with something else. Linux lets you remove or replace more components than most operating systems, allowing the savvy administrator to customize a Linux installation for specific purposes.

While cron is the classic standby to run routine tasks on a regular basis, it’s not quite as useful on systems (like laptops and desktops) that may not be powered on when the task is scheduled to run. Fortunately, Linux users have anacron to fill the gap left by cron.

Managing users on a network is a whole lot simpler with LDAP. Part Three: Configuring LDAP clients.

Managing users on a network is a whole lot simpler with LDAP. Part Two: loading your server with account information.

Learn how to add boot options and gain flexibility
via an initial RAM disk.

Discover how to use "i">Gentoo’s package management tools.

With the pending release of RHEL 5, Red Hat is moving from up2date to yum. Learn the ins-and-outs of your next command line software manager.

Here’s how to implement an logical volume management configuration.

Explore unusual filesystems support in Linux.

Don’t put off backups. Here’s how to plan a Linux backup strategy.

Using the thttpd Web Server.

Don’t put off backups. Here’s how to plan a Linux backup strategy.

Learn how to implement a RAID configuration.

Preparing to implement RAID and LVM

Here are some helpful tips to enhance xinetd security and performance

Keep time synchronized with the Network Time Protocol

Keep time synchronized with the Network Time Protocol.

How to get the most out of your hard disks.

A variety of causes — a forgotten root password, corrupted partition tables, or a corrupt filesystem — can lead to serious problems, up to and including an inability to boot the computer. When such problems occur, it’s time to reach for your first aid kit. Not prepared? Scrub in and learn how to handle the worst. Welcome to the Linux ER.

Learn how to get the most out of USB hardware in Linux.

Learn how to get the most out of USB hardware in Linux.

See how to use Ethereal to monitor your network’s traffic.

Configuring PAM can be tricky. Look at some examples and learn what rationales work for customizing your own.

Start using the Pluggable Authentication Modules(PAM) system to manage login authentication. (You can also read http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-06/guru_01.html.)