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Top Articles
Running Out Of Room? Think About Cloud Storage.
[2012-01-05] Many companies out there are moving much of their infrastructure to the cloud because of the great flexibility it gives.
Maintaining Multiple Servers with Monitoring Software
[2011-12-08] As an IT guy here at iEntry, I wear a lot of hats (i.e. programmer, system administrator, "my email stopped working" guy, etc.) and with so much going on in a day, it's easy to miss when one server out of 40 or so goes haywire and stops serving web pages. We employ an open-source monitoring software called Nagios to help us ensure that are always aware of network down times.
Hackers Port Old Linux Trojan to Mac OS X
[2011-11-08] It seems that hackers are starting to get lazy nowadays, as it has been reported that someone has ported the old trojan and named it "Tsunami".
Say Hello to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
[2011-10-20] The newest version of Ubuntu was recently released, and has quite a few shiny new features to take note of.
The DigiNotar CA Compromise Threatens Web Security
[2011-09-09] The internet has relied on Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates to validate the authenticity of websites. Last month at least 531 certificates signed by the Dutch Certificate Authority (CA) DigiNotar were false. The response has been immediate and intense: Microsoft and Firefox have issued updates to exempt all DigiNotar certificates. Not as significant, but important, was the release of Apache 2.2.20 which fixed a DoS vulnerability.
A Hot Commodity, Sysadmins with a Knowledge of Puppet
[2011-08-12] Any systems administrator that has had to configure, manage, and maintain more than a handful of machines has sought out and appreciated software that helps out that endeavor. Because maintaining various machines, platforms, and environments can become strenuous when the systems administrator has to visit one and configure it. Even managing multiple scripts that automate the process can become cumbersome when there is not any framework to base the scripts on. In the end, most systems administrators will finding themselves reaching for configuration management software, and typically, more specifically, a highly-involved open source solution. Once in place, configuration management software makes the systems administrators job much easier, though by no means easy.
Last Friday of July
[2011-07-28] System administrators everywhere know what the last friday of July is. All the rest of the year, we spend our time getting the infrastructure to behave in an orderly manner. Most of us system administrators often get treated as though we only keep the Internet up, and the replacement hardware and software installed. However, for the past eleven years people have been trying to bring more recognition to the plight of the SysAdmin by designating the last friday in July as System Administrator appreciation day. A day to engage the system administrators you know, without having a problem that needs to be fixed first.
CentOS Releases 6.0, Eyes 6.1 Upstream
[2011-07-14] The wildly popular CentOS distribution moves out of version 5 and into version 6. Essentially an open source redistribution of their 'upstream provider' Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They mostly removed the Red Hat branding, and added only package that contains distribution version information, while removing the Red Hat documents. So, it is practically bit for bit exactly like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0, and that is why it is so wildly popular. This upgrade brings needed updated packages for the more popular technologies.
Three Areas for Achieving Scalability
[2011-06-29] One of the greatest concerns today among IT staff involved with the internet is the scalability of their web applications. For some companies this can be a show stopper. Finding the right tools and having the right skills are not always easy to come by. However, looking in the following three areas is a step in the right direction: hardware, resource distribution, and architecture.
Apple Territory Attacked by Search Engine Poisoning
[2011-06-09] MacDefender is making headlines as the first widespread virus for Apple's OS X. The virus is being promoted through search engine poisoning (SEP) and has yet to be determined just how many users have been affected. On May 31 Apple finally responded with a security update which was immediately followed by the release of a modified version of the virus, MacGuard. This virus is just one example of the growing SEP threat that is generally unaccounted for.
Cross Platform System Administration with Cfengine
[2011-05-26] Managing system security, system configuration, software deployments, and documenting it all, are enormous tasks on any network. Cfengine is a free tool that attempts to automate those tasks, and more. There are a number of other configuration tools to choose from, but few have the breadth and power Cfengine does. Though Cfengine is used by large organizations like Yale University, the State of New York, eBay, and IBM, it's commercial or free version may be a viable solution even for small networks.
Responding to the Growing Threat of DDoS Attacks
[2011-05-13] Sony PSN, Qriocity, MasterCard, PayPal, Visa--what do these have in common? They have all sustained DDoS attacks in the past 6 months, PSN and Qriocity just this past month. McAfee reported in a global survey that "[e]ighty percent of respondents have faced a large-scale denial of service attack (DDoS), and a quarter reported daily or weekly DDoS attacks." DDoS attacks can have a lasting impact and are nearly impossible to defend against.
What Skills Do I Need To Be A Successful System Administrator?
[2011-04-20] As part of reinventing myself professionally, I want to be a system administrator with networking knowledge. I thought that was the typical thing to do, most likely something windows related with their boatloads of certifications not including experience needed to get into the work field.
Microsoft Provides Sysadmins With Remote Troubleshooting Option
[2011-04-07] System administrators who are tired of taking a walk - or a drive - every time someone has a problem should let out a cheer. A new beta version of Microsoft's Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) is available, and it introduces a remote troubleshooting option.
Extra Security Precautions In The Workplace Urged
[2011-03-24] System administrators who are good at keeping the trains running on time but don't assign many guards to protect them (figuratively speaking) might want to reconsider that approach. One expert who works as both a network administrator (at two different companies) and a writer recently outlined why security measures are important.
It's Time To Loosen New Technology Restraints
[2011-03-03] It used to be that all a system administrator had to deal with in terms of new, unapproved technology was someone bringing in a CD to listen to at work. These days, a new and potentially dangerous technology releases every month. As a system administrator, these new technologies can pose all kinds of threats to networks, and computer systems.
Server and Storage Admins Need To Work In Better Tandem
[2011-02-18] As the technology behind virtual servers evolve, so do the problems that go along with them. One of the more unique hurdles to overcome is the connection between these server and storage management admins. They are increasingly working together more, which has led to some conflict. Many of the virtual server admins want greater access to storage.
Creating A LAMP System
[2011-01-27] Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP are constituents of a LAMP system (from time-to-time you may see PHP replaced or included with Perl/Python). LAMP is a modern, free, foundation that can be used to power everything from basic web pages to sophisticated web applications. Below I will go through the steps to install these components.
Testing Secure and HTTPOnly Cookie Flags
[2010-12-30] A study of HTTPOnly and SECURE cookie flag settings for the top 1000 websites serving HTTPS content
The Latest Browser Traffic Data Points
[2010-12-09] After the downfall of the Internet Explorer 6 in the browser market, Microsoft didn't faced only the clamouring of the web developers and proprietor but also had to come up with a new upgraded browser as soon as possible. According to the Net Application, IE has always been foremost runner up in the race of the Net Market and then comes Firefox and chrome. Though IE owns more than a half of the market share, it lost one point of share from October's 59.26% to November's 58.26% and Chrome gained from 8.47% to 9.27%. Firefox is losing its market share by just insignificant number in points and; it should be worried as the new upgraded browser of IE and chrome are luring its users.
Know Your Role (and Commands)
[2010-11-18] "I know this System Administrator. They are always busy. Their company won't cough up the necessary funds to get them any help, and thus they are supporting a network and user base way above and beyond their means.
Auto-Optimize Websites, Google's mod_pagespeed for Apache
[2010-11-04] The classic performance measure of a webpage, its load-time, is ever more pertinent in the age of complex web applications. The myriad of resources "mashed" together increases the rendering speed of the page, and the user experience suffers. Google in an on-going effort to make the web more usable and faster, promoted its profiling tool, a Page Speed plugin and in their Webmaster Tools, to help identify parts of the page that can be optimized to increase the rendering speed.
The Overloaded Behavior Of Parameter Passing
[2010-10-21] I just recently built a JSP application to demonstrate the capabilities of AppSensor and ESAPI. I decided to use strictly JSPs to keep the code relatively simple and easy to use as a reference for AppSensor ideas. During the development of this app I discovered an interesting (and concerning) behavior of JSP include tags.
Systems Integration with (Employee?) Smartphones
[2010-10-07] At the heart of every decision is information. The more information a decision maker has, the presumably better decision they can make. It is this fact that has driven information technology into delivering as much information as possible to a small as device as possible. The smartphone is the current culmination of those efforts (with the tablet following closely behind).
Let's Get Physical: Securing Your Physical Network
[2010-09-23] Often concerned about patching the latest Internet Explorer exploit, squashing the latest worm, or upgrading to utilize the newest encryption, we fail to concern ourselves with one of the most important, and easiest to secure, areas of our network: physical access.
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