Red Hat 9 in Action
By: bilbrey on 2003-05-03 20:33:11
I installed Red Hat 9 on a couple of systems early this month. So the million dollar question is, Am I still using it? Read on to see what the answer is...
The Crack...Attempt
By: Greg on 2003-01-25 16:05:04
Brian likes to joke that the only completely secure box is one that isn't plugged in. A situation where a server is exposed to the "wild internet" is nearly the worst case scenario security wise. While securing a server from all possible intrusion is indeed impossible unless one employs Brian's method, careful planning and constant vigilance can let you get very close.
Of course, even the security paranoid can make careless mistakes. The administrator has to be right every time, the cracker only has to be right once. Read on to find out about one of my mistakes...
Is Rekall the next Access?
By: bilbrey on 2002-12-31 06:57:15
In a recent post, I asked for suggestions about what this community wanted in the way of future writing. Peter wrote back, asking about applications that supply MS Access type capabilities under Linux. He noted that "The trouble with asking for suggestions is that the answers may be unattractive." Bah. While finding such a beast has been problematic, it appears that there is just one contender at the moment: Rekall, from The Kompany, a popular KDE/QT applications publisher. I'll note up front that Rekall is not free software. However, it's not a requirement that tools be free, nor am I a fanatic about free software (although I approve on general principles of software that's freely redistributable - I contribute to those projects that produce software I use). So let's have a look at Rekall.
United Linux Beta 3 - Installation and Overview
By: bilbrey on 2002-11-17 19:09:40
United Linux (http://www.unitedlinux.com/) is "a standards-based Linux operating system targeted at the business user. It is developed, marketed and sold by an experienced partnership of Linux companies." That's marketing speak for "Geez, I hope we succeed selling one distribution where we were struggling to sell four before." It's a consolidation of the Linux Market, taking some of (hopefully) the best of each parent: SCO, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux. I pulled the three disc set a while back, and now I'll walk through an install and initial review with you.
Two Distro's: A Security Update.
By: bilbrey on 2002-09-18 07:12:09
Earlier this week, I posted an article about the latest proposed offerings from Mandrake and Red Hat. Those of you familiar with my approach to writing about Linux distributions may have been a bit ... stunned to see very little about how secure the installations were. This small addendum is the planned second part of that article, addressing just those concerns.
A Tale of Two Distros
By: bilbrey on 2002-09-16 07:15:29
Recently (since mid-August, 2002), both Red Hat and its erstwhile one-time repackager Mandrake have both issued Beta and/or Release Candidate versions of their popular Linux distributions. While this site runs on a machine loaded with Red Hat 7.1, I haven't used either personally for more than a year now. Of special interest also is the controversy over Red Hat's customizations of their desktop, especially the modifications to the KDE desktop. So let's have a look together at these two up-and-coming contenders for the pole position on your drives and processors.
PalmOS devices in Linux
By: Greg on 2002-06-30 15:26:57
It always seems to surprise people when I tell them how well Palm OS devices work in Linux, but it's true, and it's great. Linux and Palm OS devices work nearly perfectly together. And there is lots of excellent software to use with them too. It's not even hard to install and configure. However, there are a few gotchas to explain, and some tips to give out. Read on for details about all the neat things I do with my Sony Clie NR70 and Linux.
Linux sure has a lot of security holes!!!
By: Greg on 2002-06-27 20:32:28
I'm sick and tired of it. I see it every day. I see yet another bit of FUD calling a bug in some obscure or not so obscure open source app a bug in Linux. It just ain't right. Read on to enjoy my rant and share my pain. I've already donned my flame retardant underpants...
Attacking Open Source
By: bilbrey on 2002-06-27 18:12:14
There have been two major vulnerabilities revealed in the Open Source camp this month. First, on June 17th, the Apache chunk handling vulnerability. Then, on Monday June 24th, Theo de Raadt posted a "pre-warning" about a remote root via overflow vulnerability in OpenSSH. There's been a lot of smoke and flame around these recent events, and some interesting speculations. In this short article, I'll throw my hat in the ring, too.
More OpenSSH Tips and Tricks
By: bilbrey on 2002-06-14 13:34:15
In the first of my OpenSSH articles, I promised to talk about auto-forwarding of X11 connections as well as more generalized port forwarding. In this second article I'll make good on that promise. Also I'll look at OpenSSH's escape sequences, using rsync with OpenSSH, Windows clients for ssh access to Linux hosts, and talk about a KDE extension (actually, a kioslave) called kio_fish. More about that in a bit. Are you ready?
