Almost three quarters of companies and public-sector organisations across nine European countries might not recover all of their data if they suffer an IT failure according to a new report released by the IT group EMC.  For the survey a total of 1,750 European companies and organisations were quizzed across the UK,  France, Germany, Italy, [...]

Virtualisation specialist zInstall have previously impressed with their products that include utilities to capture an existing Windows XP, Vista or any other operating system installation and allowing you to boot from it on any other computer from an external hard drive or suitably-sized USB pen drive.  This software meant you could take all of your [...]

There are so many reasons why a VPN Server makes perfect sense. For one, anyone with the credentials and the address can then gain access to the internal network from an external source. This enables users to work remotely and still have access to resources they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. There are obviously plenty [...]

If you have a need to manage MySQL databases, you know that learning the syntax for the various MySQL tools can be a real nightmare. Fortunately there are tools out there that make this job far more easy. But of the web-based tools, which are easiest? You might have given phpMyAdmin a try, but found [...]

If you are a fan of Pandora Music and a user of Linux you know that Linux is a bit behind in the app space for this service. There are only a few possible clients and, until now, those clients simply were not options. The official Pandora client, due to flash issues, could bring your [...]

Server OSes, such as CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise do not enjoy the same simplicity as does the modern Linux desktop when it comes to issues like sharing out directories (even though they share the same default desktops). You can see how easy it is to share out folders in my [...]

CentOS might well be one of the finest Linux distributions for a server environment. It is basically a mimic of Red Hat Enterprise Linux without the proprietary software and the price attached to it. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense to set CentOS up as your go-to Web server. It’s reliable, it’s stable, [...]

Recently I’ve done a number of articles covering the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) which range from installation, adding entries, to full-blown GUI management tools (See LDAP content on Ghacks for more information). If you’re in the dark about LDAP is an application protocol that allows the querying and modifying of directory services data implemented on IP networks. Basically [...]

Okay, so we’ve been dealing with LDAP a bit here on Ghacks, but mostly we’ve look at GUI tools (check out LDAP content on Ghacks). All of the GUI tools are good, but nothing beats the command line for pure control and power. And what’s best, once you have LDAP installed, you have all the [...]

So lately I’ve been covering some pretty sweet LDAP tools. You’ve seen “Manage your LDAP data with phpLDAPAdmin“, “Access and manage your LDAP data with Luma“, and “Set up an LDAP server on Fedora“. Although the last entry showed you how to get a server up and running with the 389 Directory Server GUI, none [...]

I have recently been dealing with LDAP and attempting to find easier solutions for this often daunting task. If you’ve ever had to try to set up and manage an LDAP server, you know exactly what I am talking about. Although installing and setting up an LDAP server is a challenging task, even more so [...]

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is one of the more complicated setups for a Linux machine. LDAP is to Linux what Active Directory is to Window. And if you have a lot of users on a network, which log into various machines, you will want something like LDAP in order to retain all of their [...]

I do a lot of work with Linux servers. Many of those servers are either web or mail that require the use of a signed certificate for authentication. In some of these cases a CA authorized certificate is necessary. In other cases though a self-signed certificate can be used. I can generate a self-signed certificate [...]

Some time ago I did a series on the Postfix email server here on Ghacks (see the Postfix content on Ghacks for more information). Hopefully you found this outstanding mail server as easy to set up and maintain as I do. But you might have noticed a bit of a challenge using your smtp server [...]

The portable software Lockout Fixer is a helpful program for system administrators that aids them in troubleshooting domain account lockouts. The application works similar to Microsoft’s own tool Lockoutstatus.exe with the exception that it adds features to the troubleshooting process to streamline it. Lockout Fixer for instance allows the administrator to view the audit failure [...]

If you’ve been around Linux long enough you know there are many ways to secure your box. What you may or may not know is that a number of those means are simply front-ends for the all-mighty iptables tool. IPtables is a very powerful, complicated system which can control packet traffic on your system. It [...]

In my last article I showed you how to save a partition from a drive to a local image file using the Partimage tool (see my article “Copy partitions on your system with Partimage“). And although (as a reader did point out) Partimage is limited by not supporting ext4 file systems, it still has plenty [...]

If you’ve followed my recent text editor series you will have noticed I included a text editor that is also a collaborative tool (see my article “Kobby: KDE collaborative text editor“). In that article I mentioned that Kobby can work with the GNOME equivalent Gobby. But to do so they need a server running. The [...]

There are a lot of backup tools out there. From the overly simple to the overly complex. Many of those backup tools go unnoticed and unused. Some of them get recognized as the outstanding projects they are. One of those tools is Luckybackup. This tool was awarded Sourceforge’s best new project of 2009. There is [...]

We are plowing forward with the eGroupware installation. We have already been introduced to eGroupware (see my article “eGroupware: Your Exchange replacement has arrived“), we have also seen how to take care of all the prerequisites (see my article “How to install eGroupware“), and finally we’ve seen how to create the header.inc.php (see my article [...]

My past post instructed you (minus the “j” – thank you Simon) how to begin the process of installing eGoupware. That article was primarily about getting the requirements out of the way so you can begin the real installation process. That time is nigh, and in this article I am going to continue on with [...]

Quite some time ago I wrote an article that illustrated how eGroupware could serve as a legitimate Exchange replacement (see my article “eGroupware: Your Exchange replacement has arrived“). I very briefly skimmed over the process of installing this outstanding groupware tool. In this case, skimming will get you nowhere. Recently I revisited the installation of [...]

Here we are again, back witho ur old friend Nagios. If you’ve been following you know I have covered quite a bit of ground with this outstanding network monitoring tool (check all Ghacks Nagios articles). There is a reason for this, Nagios is an incredible tool. But for many of you, you might have come [...]

If you have been following my latest entries, you know I have been covering the Nagios monitoring system (see my articles “Quickly install Nagios on Ubuntu“, “Easily extend Nagios’ functionality“, and “Configure hostgroups for Nagios“.) This time around we are going to look at the notification function of Nagios. Specifically, I am going to show [...]

If you’ve been following my Nagios articles here on Ghacks (see “Easily extend Nagios’ functionality” and “Quickly install Nagios on Ubuntu” for more information) you are probably impressed with how powerful Nagios is. Well, I can happily say you haven’t seen anything yet. Nagios is amazing in it’s ability to extend and report. Of course, [...]

Nagios is not just a tool, it’s one of the best open source network monitors available. Nagios has a simple plug-in design that allows administrators to easily create their own checks and monitors. The problem that so many see with Nagios is that it is supposedly so difficult to install. That is not the case. [...]

If you have read any of the Samba content here on Ghacks you probably will have noticed that within the smb.conf configuration file a line that begins with security =. This is a very important part of Samba setup and generally the section that gives users the most problems. Although the security mode would seem fairly [...]

Here on Ghacks I’ve worked to cover Samba from numerous angles (check out the Samba Topic on Ghacks). I want to build on that topic by helping you to connect to a Samba share from within the OS X operating system. And just in case your Samba install is not set up, or just not [...]

If you’ve ever tried to share folders on a Linux machine over a network, you’ve most likely attempted to get NFS working. And on many occasions you might have found yourself nearly pulling out your hair in frustration. Well, you’ll be glad to know that getting NFS working on modern Ubuntu systems is actually quite [...]

Picking up where we left off a while ago, let’s add yet another feature to our Ubuntu server. We’ve already looked at using Postfix with multiple topics (see Postfix on Ghacks). But we never discussed a means to deliver the mail from the server to the client. That will now change. Linux has multiple ways [...]

Have you ever had a need to migrate current running Linux users from installation to another? That would be a simple task if the user count was low. But  what happens when the user count is in the hundreds? What do you do then? If you’re not using LDAP, you know you will have to [...]

There are a number of reasons to have to connect to a Windows Terminal Server machine. Either you telecommute, you administer remotely, you work on the go, or you use Linux and have to use a Windows app for company business. No matter the reason, you have to be able to connect. From the Windows [...]

I have covered MySQL in a number of ways so far. You can read how to administer your MySQL database with MySQL Workbench (see my article “Complete database administration package MySQL Workbench“), MySQL Administrator (see my article “Creating a database with MySQL Administrator“), MySQL Navigator (see my article “Manage you MySQL databases with an easy [...]

Recently I covered one of the Gadmintools, Gadmin-Samba (see my article “Configure Samba with Gadmin-samba“). The Gadmintools set of tools is a set of GUI administration tools (hence the name “Gadmin”) for the Linux operating system that takes often-complex tasks and makes them far easier. One of those tasks is backing up with Rsync. Of [...]

For those new to Samba, the configuration of this provider of seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients can sometimes be a nightmare. Not only are you dealing with tricky configuration files, you also have to worry about getting users added to encrypted password files. Of course if you want to tackle this the old-school [...]

The social scene has nearly reached critical mass. You can not peak around the internet without seeing its tendrils reaching deep within the fabric of every site you visit. This, of course, can cause problems with your work, school, or group environment. While work is supposed to be done, your users/employees are socializing on Facebook, Twitter, [...]

If you have done much work with Apache then most likely you have experienced a need for enabling the rewrite engine. If you are unfamiliar with the rewrite engine, you can think of it as a means for your web server to literally rewrite urls so they are easier for users to remember. So instead [...]

Even though the Linux operating system is very stable and rarely needs a reboot, there are times when an update (such as a kernel update) will make this a requirement. At least that used to be the case. That is correct. With the help of a newly developed technology (dubbed Ksplice) even a kernel update [...]

Recently I covered the front-end of the Gnumed software designed for the medical industry (see “Let your medical practice go open source with Gnumed.”) In that article I showed you how to start working with Gnumed, but limited the installation to using the public servers. Because these public servers can not safely and securely hold [...]

How many times have you installed a LAMP server only to find Apache doesn’t seem to want to run right? Or you install a new module only to see Apache try to download pages as file, instead of displaying them on screen? There are a hundred and one thousand things that can go wrong with [...]

If you are looking for an easy to install, configure, and use systems monitor, look no further. The Munin is a network/systems monitor that presents all its data is easy to read graphs. Munin is setup as a server/client (or node) which makes this system very flexible. Munin also offers an extensive plugins library that [...]

I have written a few articles on Samba here on Ghacks. And most people know how to connect to Samba shares via Windows. Generally speaking (when all is set up correctly) it’s just a matter of opening up Explorer and entering \\ADDRESS_OF_SAMBA_SERVER\SHARENAME to get to your Samba shares. But what about in Linux? How do [...]

Do you have multiple machines around your house that would like to share a centralized server for multi-media? Having such a server for music allows for consolidation, ease of use, and space saving on client PCs. Of course to many users, the idea of setting up a multi-media server sounds like it would be a [...]

So you have your Ubuntu server up and running with a Postfix mail server (see “Install Postfix for reliable email delivery“). You have also set up Postfix for antivirus with the help of ClamAV (see “Add antivirus to Post fix with ClamAV“). Finally you have Postfix set up to relay (see “Mail relaying made simple [...]

By now you have your Postfix mail server up and running (see “Install Postfix for reliable email delievery“). You even have relaying working (see “Mail relaying made simple with Postfix“). But one of the most important features you can add to a mail server is an system to prevent viruses from being passed to users. [...]

With your Ubuntu LAMP Server up and running (see my previous article “Installing Ubuntu Server 9.04” and “How to: install a LAMP server“) and you are ready to set it up as a mail server. For the longest time Sendmail was the de facto standard Linux mail server. But over time serious security issues drove [...]

If you are in a small business or a larger enterprise you know you need to keep track of all those machines. Sure you could easily tag and record them as they go from the box to the desk, but that doesn’t always happen. And the larger the company the more likely something is able [...]

How many times have you had networking issues and not known exactly where to start? With Linux there are so many tools you can choose from. Add to that the choice between console and GUI and you have the making for a rather confusing start. Most new Linux users (and many of those who have [...]

I use secure shell a LOT, every day. So much so that I often take for granted how important this tool is. Not only does it allow me to log into remote machines to handle management of said machine, it can do other things as well – X tunneling being one of the most useful features. But [...]

As a old-school Linux user I am quick to use the command line before any other tool. One of those tools I use almost daily is wget. Wget is a command-line only tool that downloads files from remote locations easily and quickly. Wget is a great tool to have in your toolbox, but for many [...]