Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
Saving Time with This Book
Foolish Assumptions
What's in This Book
Part I: Making the Desktop Work for You
Part II: Getting the Most from Your File System
Part III: Good Housekeeping with Linux
Part IV: Tweaking the Kernel on Your Linux System
Part V: Securing Your Workspace
Part VI: Networking Like a Professional
Part VII: Monitoring Your System
Part VIII: Serving Up the Internet and More
Part IX: Backing Up Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Part X: Programming Tricks
Part XI: The Scary (Or Fun!) Stuff
Icons Used in This Book
Part I: Making the Desktop Work for You
Technique 1: Finding the Power in KDE Protocols
Discovering Your Protocols
Working with CD Audio Tracks Using audiocd:
Managing Snapshots with the camera: Protocol
Remote File Management with fish:
Getting Help with help:, info:, and man:
Viewing Your Local Network with the smb:Protocol
Other KDE Protocols
Technique 2: Getting GNOME Virtual File Systems to Do the Work for You
Using GNOME VFS Modules
Stacking VFS Modules
Working with Packages: rpm and rpms
Putting VFS to Work at the Command Line
Burning CDs with a VFS
Skinning Your Desktop with VFS
Technique 3: Streamlining Your Work with FileAssociations
Classifying Data with MIME
Creating KDE File Associations
Creating New MIME Types with GNOME
Technique 4: Prompting Yourself with a CustomPrompt
Making Basic Prompt Transformations
Adding Dynamically Updated Data to Your Prompt
Colorizing Your Prompt
Seeing a Red Alert When You Have Superuser Privileges
Saving Your Work
Technique 5: Getting There Quick with DynamicShortcuts
Completing Names Automatically
Using the Escape Key to Your Advantage
Customizing Completion for Maximum Speed
Technique 6: Using cd Shortcuts for Rapid Transit
Using cd and ls to Navigate through bash
Setting Your CDPATH Variables to Find Directories Fast
Remembering Where You've Been with pushd andpopd
Manipulating Your Stack with dirs
Technique 7: Typing Less and Doing More with Handy Automagic Variables
Show Me the $$: Giving Temporary Files UniqueNames
Streamlining Archive Searches
Turning the Output of a Command into a Variable with $( )
Using $UID and $EUID in Shell Scripts
Getting Quick Access to Programs with $PATH
Customizing Variables for Rapid Transit
Technique 8: Logging In, Logging Out
Finding the Right Shell Script
Choosing your victims
Timing is everything
Cleaning up made easy
Changing prototype scripts
Customizing Your Autostart File
Technique 9: Making History (Work for You)
Navigating the History List
Scrolling
Summoning a command by number
Searching through history
Customizing the History List
Adjusting key default settings
Filtering the history list
Executing Commands Quickly with History Variables
Technique 10: Keeping Your Life Simple with Aliases and Functions
Viewing Your Aliases
Creating Simple Timesaving Aliases
Using Aliases for Complex Commands
Automating Tedious Tasks with Functions
Filtering file searches by file type
Automatic downloading
Monitoring Your System in a Snap
Un-tarring the Easy Way
Part II: Getting the Most from Your File System
Technique 11: Sharing Files and Printers in a Windows World
What Is Samba?
Getting Up and Running with Samba
Checking whether Samba is installed
Enabling Samba
Sharing Linux Resources with Other Computers (SMBClients)
Adjusting the workgroup name and creating user accounts
Giving a Windows machine access to your home directory
Sharing Linux files and directories with other computers
Hooking Everyone Up to the Printer
Sharing Linux printers with SWAT
Using a Windows printer from Linux
Plugging In to Remote Data with Linux Programs Quickly
Technique 12: Finding What You Need
Finding Files with locate
Finding Files with find
Qualifying Your Search with the find Command
Doing updated filename searches
Adding time-based qualifications
Filtering by file size
Joining qualifications with AND and OR operators
Perusing commonly used qualifications
Acting on What You Find
Cracking open a file's info with -ls
Displaying specific info with -printf
Checking disk usage by user
Executing commands with find
Building Complex Commands with xargs
Technique 13: Moving Made Easy with Archives
Creating Archives with File Roller
Inspecting and Extracting Archives with File Roller
Adding Functionality to tar with Complex Commands
Building archives from the command line
Archiving complex search results
Backing up an installed package
Uprooting Entire Directory Trees with scp
Splitting Big Files into Manageable Chunks
Technique 14: Downloading and Uploading Files in a Snap
Building Software from Downloaded tarballs
Compiling a tarball: The basic steps
Downloading and compiling SuperKaramba
Versatile Downloading with wget
Mirroring sites with wget
Verifying your bookmarks with wget
Downloading files with wget
Downloading and unpacking in one quick step
wget's optional flags
Downloading and Uploading with curl
Technique 15: Building a Playpen with User Mode Linux
Choosing the ADIOS Version of User Mode Linux
Setting Up ADIOS
Downloading ADIOS
Burning ADIOS to CD
Installing ADIOS
Finding Your Way around UML
Connecting to the Internet from an ADIOS VM
Using a GUI with UML
Installing Software into UML
Merging Changes to Your Prototype
Part III: Good Housekeeping with Linux
Technique 16: Red-lining RPM Queries
Querying RPM Packages for Content
Digesting Information
Creating a Package Index
Querying for Prerequisites
Don't Put That in Your Drive; You Don't Know Where That's Been!
Technique 17: Installing Made Easy with RPM
Dissecting an RPM Package
Using RPM at the Command Line
Removing RPMs
Flagging Down RPM
Getting Graphic with RPM
Quick installations from distribution media with Fedora's Package Manager
Using SuSE's package manager to your advantage
Using Rpmdrake to install from media
Installing from your Konqueror browser
Technique 18: Getting Comfortable with RPM
Saving Time with - -upgrade
Verifying Your System
Reading the Tamper-Proof Seal
Technique 19: Keeping Up-to-Date with apt andSynaptic
Setting Up Synaptic and apt in a Snap
Keeping Up-to-Date with apt and Synaptic: The Basics
Upgrading Your Entire Computer
Handy Hints about Synaptic
Changing repositories
Viewing package details
Installing new packages with Synaptic
Importing the Keys to the Repository
Technique 20: Setting Up Automatic Services
Letting Task Scheduler Work for You
Scheduling a new task
Editing a task
Adding environment variables
Technique 21: Making Your Inner System Administrator Happy (And Productive)
Reining In Resources with Disk Quotas
Installing the quota RPM package
Enabling file system quotas
Getting your files together
Setting quotas
Reviewing your quotas
Using System Accounting to Keep Track of Users
Setting up system accounting
Looking up user login hours
Checking out command and program usage
Technique 22: Spring Cleaning Essentials
Running Down the Runlevels
Runlevel basics
Customizing runlevels in Fedora
Customizing runlevels in SuSE
Customizing runlevels in Mandrake
Customizing runlevels at the command line
Switching to a new runlevel
Disabling Unused Services
Removing Unneeded Services
Removing Old Users and Their Files
Part IV: Tweaking the Kernel on Your Linux System
Technique 23: Taking Good Care of Your Kernel
Adding and Removing Kernel Modules
Learning about modules
Installing a module with insmod
Taking care of dependencies automatically with modprobe and depmod
Loading a module for a slightly different kernel with insmod and modprobe
Removing modules with rmmod
Manipulating Boot Time Parameters
Technique 24: Creating a Custom Kernel
Reconfiguring Your Kernel - Ready, Set, Go!
Step 1: Making an Emergency Plan, or Boot Disk
Step 2: Finding the Source Code
Step 3: Configuring a New Kernel
Step 4: Customizing the Kernel
Step 5: Building the Kernel
Technique 25: Coping with the SELinux SecuritySystem
Understanding the Principles of SELinux
Everything is an object
Identifying subjects in SELinux
Understanding the security context
Disabling or Disarming SELinux
Playing the Right Role
Finding Out about Your SELinux Policy
Technique 26: Finding Out about Your System with /proc
Exploring the Process-Related Entries in /proc
Surveying Your System from /proc
Closing Down Security Gaps with /proc
Popping the Cork: Speeding Up WINE with /proc
Part V: Securing Your Workspace
Technique 27: Closing Those Prying Eyes
Reading and Understanding File Permissions
Controlling Permissions at the Command Line
Changing File Permissions from a Desktop
Technique 28: Using Encryption for ExtraSecurity
Encryption Made Easy with kgpg and the KDE Desktop
Creating keys with kgpg
Sharing your key with the world
Importing a public key from a public-key server
Encrypting and decrypting documents with drag-and-drop ease
Encrypting Documents with gpg at the Command Line
Sharing a secret file
Creating a key pair and receiving encrypted documents
Encrypting documents on your home system
Encrypting E-Mail for Added Security
Encrypting with Ximian Evolution
Setting up Mozilla e-mail for encryption
Sending and receiving encrypted messages with Mozilla mail
Technique 29: Securing a Large Network with Custom Authentication
Using Cross-Platform Authentication with Linux and Windows
Prepping for cross-platform authentication
Setting up cross-platform authentication
Using PAM and Kerberos to Serve Up Authentication
Establishing synchronized system times
Testing your domain name server (DNS)
Setting up a Key Distribution Center
Setting up automatic ticket management with Kerberos and PAM
Adding users to the Key Distribution Center
Technique 30: Customizing Authentication with PAM
Understanding Modules and Configuration Files:The Basics of PAM Authentication
Finding a Module and Customizing Its Rules
Building Good Rules with PAM
Phase
Control level
Module pathname
Arguments
Dissecting a Configuration File
Skipping a Password with PAM
Technique 31: Gaining Privileges
Feeling the Power
Gaining Superuser Privileges
Pretending to Be Other Users
Limiting Privileges with sudo
Technique 32: sudo Pseudonyms
Installing sudo
Adding Up the Aliases
Adding Aliases to the sudo Configuration File
Defining the Alias
Creating a User_Alias
Creating a Runas_Alias
Simplifying group managment with a Host_Alias
Mounting and unmounting CDs without the superuser password
Managing access to dangerous commands with command aliases
Technique 33: Securing Your Connections with SSH
Using SSH for Top-Speed Connections
Setting Up Public-Key Authentication to Secure SSH
Generating the key pair
Distributing your public key
Passing on your passphrase
Logging In with SSH and Key Authentication
Starting from the command line
Getting graphic
Creating Shortcuts to Your Favorite SSH Locations
Copying Files with scp
Secure (And Fast) Port Forwarding with SSH
Part VI: Networking Like a Professional
Technique 34: Protecting Yourself with aFirewall
Finding Your Firewall
Setting up a simple firewall in Mandrake Linux
Setting up a simple firewall in Fedora Linux
Setting up a simple firewall in SuSE Linux
Editing the Rules with Webmin
Starting a Webmin session
Reading the rules with Webmin
Changing the rules
Editing existing rules
Adding a new rule with Webmin
Technique 35: Using VNC to Connect to RemoteDesktops
Sharing Desktops with VNC
Inviting Your Friends to Use Your Desktop
Serving Up a New Desktop with VNC Server
Using tsclient to View Remote Desktops from Linux
Using tsclient with a VNC server
Using tsclient with an RDP server
Making Cut and Paste Commands Work on a Remote Desktop
Creating New VNC Desktops on Demand
Switching display managers in SuSE Linux
Switching display managers in Mandrake Linux
Connecting gdm and VNC
Technique 36: Streamlining Your Network Surveillance
Exploring Your Network with lsof
Running lsof
Interpreting the lsof output
Reading file types
Discovering Network Connections
Other Timesaving lsof Tricks
Packet Sniffing with the Ethereal Network Analyzer
Starting Ethereal
Capturing packets
Applying filters to screen packets
Peeking in packets
Color-coding packets coming from your network
Technique 37: Evaluating Your Network Security with Nessus
Getting Up and Running with Nessus
Installing programs Nessus needs to run
Installing Nessus
Adding a user to Nessus
Generating a certificate
Using Nessus to Scan Your Network
Starting the daemon and the interface
Reading the grim results
Keeping Your Plug-ins Up-to-Date
Technique 38: Person-to-Person Networking with IRC
Finding the Answers You Seek in a Linux Chat Room
Chatting in the Fedora Chat Room
Looking for Answers in the SuSE Chat Room
Finding Fellow Mandrake Users in the Mandrake ChatRoom
Customizing KSirc - Who Do You Want to Be Today?
Part VII: Monitoring Your System
Technique 39: Controlling Troublesome Processes at the Command Line
Processing Processes with procps
Keeping Track of Process Status with ps,pstree, and pgrep
Using ps to filter process status information
Viewing ps output the way you want to see it
Making parent-child relationships stand out in a ps listing
Climbing the family tree with pstree
Finding processes with pgrep
Killing Processes with pkill
Killing Processes with killall
Closing Windows with xkill
Getting Your Processes' Priorities Straight
Technique 40: Taking Care of New (And Old)Users
Managing Users and Groups with the Fedora/Mandrake User Manager
Adding new users
Modifying user accounts
Adding groups
Filtering users and groups
Managing Users and Groups with the SuSE User Administrator
Adding new users
Modifying user accounts
Adding groups
Filtering users and groups
Technique 41: Keeping an Eye on Your System
Keeping an Eye on the System Logs
Viewing and filtering log files with Fedora and Mandrake
Adding and deleting log files from the viewer
Setting up alerts and warnings
Viewing your log files from SuSE
Monitoring your log files from SuSE
Customizing Your Log Files
Keeping an Eye on Resources with KDE System Guard
Finding and killing runaway processes
Prioritizing processes to smooth a network bottleneck
Watching your system load
Creating a new worksheet
Creating system resource logs
Displaying network resources
Part VIII: Serving Up the Internet and More
Technique 42: Keeping an Apache Server in Top Form
Setting Up Apache - Quick!
Using Synaptic to download and install Apache
Installing Apache from disc
Starting the Apache Service
Building a Quick Web Page with OpenOffice.org
Taking Your Site Public with Dynamic DNS
Understanding how dynamic DNS works
Setting up dynamic DNS
Updating your IP address
Keeping Your Apache Server Up-to-Date the Easy Way
Installing the Fedora HTTP Configuration tool
Putting the HTTP Configuration tool to work
Technique 43: Keeping an Eye on Your Servers
Watching Your Web Server Traffic with apachetop
Installing apachetop
Running and exiting apachetop
Navigating apachetop
Switching among the log files (or watching several at once)
Changing the display time of apachetop statistics
Monitoring MySQL Server with the MySQL ControlCenter
Downloading and installing the MySQL ControlCenter
Accessing MySQL Control Center features
Viewing, managing, and repairing a database with the Databases controls
Putting the Server Administration controls to work
Adding a new user
Watching Your MySQL Traffic with mtop
Gathering all the packages that mtop needs
Installing mtop
Monitoring traffic
Technique 44: Making a MySQL Server Your SQL Server
Building a MySQL Server
Installing the necessary packages
Starting the MySQL server
Replicating MySQL Data
Configuring replication: The three topologies
Setting up replication for a single slave and master
Choosing a Method to Back Up MySQL Data
Backing Up and Restoring with mysqldump
mysqldump backup options
Backing up multiple databases
Compressing the archive
Restoring a mysqldump archive
Backing Up with File System Tools
Making a mysqlhotcopy of Your Database
Archiving a Replication Slave
Taking Care of Business with MySQL Administrator
Installing MySQL Administrator
Starting MySQL Administrator
Exploring MySQL Administrator's tools
Technique 45: Safeguarding Your Apache Server with SSL Certificates
Understanding the Basics of How Certificates Work
Choosing an SSL Certificate
Creating a Certificate Signing Request
Creating a Self-Signed Certificate
Creating a Signing Authority with openssl
Creating a certificate authority
Signing a CSR
Trusting in Trusted Certification Authorities
Exploring Your Certificate Collection with Mozilla
Technique 46: Retrieving HTTPMail Using hotway and Evolution
Introducing hotway
Getting Started with hotway
Setting Up Evolution to Read HTTPMail Accounts with hotway
Ringing the Bells and Blowing the Whistles: Your Evolution Summary Page
Technique 47: Stopping Spam with SpamAssassin
Installing SpamAssassin
Installing from the distribution media
Installing from RPM downloads
Starting the service
Fine-Tuning SpamAssassin to Separate the Ham from the Spam
Customizing settings
Saving your settings
Adding a New Filter to Evolution
Serving Up a Big Bowl of the RulesDuJour
Technique 48: Using Webmin to Simplify Sendmail Configuration
Registering Your Address
Taming a Sendmail Server
Tweaking Your Configuration Files with Webmin
Serving up mail for multiple domains
Relaying e-mail
Using aliases to simplify mail handling
Part IX: Backing Up Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Technique 49: Getting Ready to Back Up Your Data
Deciding What to Archive
Choosing Archive Media
Tape drives
Removable and external disk drives
Removable media
Optical media (CDs and DVDs)
Online storage
Choosing an Archive Scheme
Full backups
Differential backups
Incremental backups
Incremental versus differential backups
Choosing an Archive Program
Technique 50: Backing Up Your Data
Estimating Your Media Needs
Creating Data Archives with tar
Backing up files and directories
Backing up account information and passwords
Targeting bite-sized backups for speedier restores
Rolling whole file systems into a tarball
Starting a Differential Backup Cycle
Starting an Incremental Backup Cycle
Restoring from Backup with tar
Backing Up to CD (Or DVD) with cdbackup
Creating the backup
Restoring from a CD or DVD backup
Restoring from a disc containing multiple archives
Technique 51: Quick Backup to Remote Storage
Combining the Power of tar with ssh for Quick Remote Backups
Testing the ssh connection to the remote host
Creating a tar archive over the ssh connection
Backing up to tape drives on remote machines
Backing Up to a Remote Computer with rdist and ssh
Testing the ssh connection to the remote host
Creating the distfile
Backing up
Technique 52: Archiving Changes with CVS
Getting Started with CVS
Checking whether CVS is installed
Discovering what to use CVS for
Creating a CVS Repository
Populating Your Repository with Files
Checking Files In and Out (Or Playing in Your Sandbox)
Simplifying CVS with cervisia
Installing cervisia
Putting files in your sandbox
Adding more files to your repository
Committing your changes
Diplomacy 101 - resolving conflicts
Browsing your log files
Marking milestones with tags
Branching off with cervisia
Part X: Programming Tricks
Technique 53: Using Open-Source APIs to Save Time
Using the libcurl Library (C Programming)
Uploading a File with a Simple Program Using libcurl
Line 7: Defining functions and data types
Line 14: Calling the initialization function
Lines 18โ 21: Defining the transfer
Line 23: Starting the transfer
Line 26: Finishing the upload
Installing the Ming Library
Building a Simple Flash Movie with Ming
Examining the program
Compiling the program
Running the program
Building Interactive Movies with Ming
Examining the program
Compiling the program
Running the program
Technique 54: Timesaving PHP Tricks
Doing the curl E-shuffle with PHP
Combining PHP with curl and XML: An overview
Checking out the XML file
Downloading and displaying the XML file with a PHP script (and curl)
Sending E-Mail from PHP When Problems Occur
Technique 55: Using the DDD Graphical Debugger with Perl
Debugging Perl Code with DDD
Installing and starting DDD
Examining the main window
Reviewing and stepping through source code
Making Stop Signs: Using Breakpoints to Watch Code
Setting a breakpoint
Modifying a breakpoint
Tracking Variable Values in the Data Window
Opening the data window
Adding a variable to the data window
Changing the display to a table
Using the Backtrace feature
Using the Help menu
Part XI: The Scary (Or Fun!) Stuff
Technique 56: Burning CD-Rs without GettingBurned
Making Fedora Distribution CDs
Downloading the ISO images
Verifying the checksums
Burning an ISO File to Disc at the Command Line
Finding the identity of your drive
Running a test burn
Burning the distribution discs
Creating an ISO Image at the Command Line
Burning CDs without Making an ISO First
Technique 57: Search and Destroy setuid and setgid Programs
Exploring How setuid and setgid Can Be Dangerous
Identifying the Potential Troublemakers - Fast
Finding setuid quickly and easily with kfind
Finding setuid and setgid programs at the command line
Deciding to Turn Off setuid or setgid
Changing the setuid or setgid Bit
Technique 58: Quarantining Suspicious Programs with UML
Who Belongs in Jail?
Using UML to Jail Programs
Changing the Default Password to the Jail
Installing New Software and Resolving Conflicts
Technique 59: Troubleshooting Persnickety Programs
Using lsof to Find Out Which Files Are Open
Debugging Your Environment with strace
Investigating Programs with ltrace
Handy strace and ltrace Options
Recording Program Errors with valgrind
Technique 60: Securing the Fort with Bastille
Hardening Your Hat with Bastille
Downloading and installing Bastille and its dependencies
Welcome to the Bastille
Addressing file permission issues
Clamping down on SUID privileges
Moving on to account security
Making the boot process more secure
Securing connection broker
Limiting compiler access
Limiting access to hackers
Logging extra information
Keeping the daemons in check
Securing sendmail
Closing the gaps in Apache
Keeping temporary files safe
Building a better firewall
Port scanning with Bastille
You're almost done!
Keeping Abreast of Security Issues
Technique 61: Creating a Second Line of Defense with LIDS
Turning LIDS On and Off
Testing LIDS before Applying It to Your System
Understanding the LIDS Access Control List
Controlling File Access with LIDS
Hiding Processes with LIDS
Running Down the Privilege List
Technique 62: Getting Graphical with ShellScripts
Getting Graphical at the Command Line
Getting graphical in GNOME
Getting graphical with KDE
Staying desktop neutral
Index