TODO: Make clear the license that we use here, for this content. I think this documentation is free, but we lack of a license.
Introduction
Welcome to our system administration page.
Nelson Castillo started this page. What an excellent idea, a page where we can all share our darkest secrets about system administration, useful tips. Alejandro Forero Cuervo, Igor Támara and Jhair Tocancipá quickly caught up and started improving the tips and adding tips of his own. Now we're hoping Juan Pablo Morales, Daniel Coletti, Juan Luis Baptiste and maybe even you jump to our train and start sharing the love.
You might also want to check the somewhat related software design page or even our wiki's main page.
Tips and howtos
The following pages describe simple tips that can be helpful. We encourage all readers to help us improve our tips or add tips of their own.
Ever had to get something working which required a lot of reading and tests? Document it and add it here in order to help others save time.
The following is a list of tips that are considered relatively complete:
- Apache2 SSL and Subversion in Debian
- How to configure a subversion repository in Debian.
- freebsd_adding_swap
- How to add more swap to a running FreeBSD system using a file. By neb at gigax dot org.
- A 5.000 words introduction to LDAP
- Introductory document by Alejandro Forero Cuervo.
- linux ldap howto
- A document by Alejandro Forero Cuervo explaining how to setup GNU/Linux to authenticate against a LDAP server using NSS and PAM LDAP modules. Explains how to set up both the server (covering MS Active Directory as well as OpenLDAP) and the client.
- mirror a linux installation
- Install Linux by making an identical copy of a given Linux machine using a Live CD (such as Knoppix), ssh and a either dd, tar or rsync. By Nelson Castillo and Alejandro Forero Cuervo, mostly.
- SLES Mail Server
- A document by Alejandro Forero Cuervo explaining how to set up SLES as a mail server using Postfix, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, UW-IMAP and SquirrelMail.
- ssh without password
- This tip, by Jhair Tocancipá Triana, explains how to login to different machines through SSH without having to give your password each time.
- ssh-port-forwarding
- This tip, by Nelson Castillo, explains how to use port forwarding with SSH. It describes poor man's VPN with PuTTY and OpenSSH.
- ssh watchdog
- Set machines to reboot automatically if another machine fails to establish a ssh connection for more than a certain number of minutes. By Nelson Castillo with some improvements by Alejandro Forero Cuervo.
- Useful Sysadmin Tools
- Tools that make our life easier. Software you cannot live without.
The following is a list of tips that are drafts and can still use some more work. Some are complete but slightly disorganized or inconsistent; we expect to improve them at some point and then move them to the real list.
- Apt
- Apt package administration summary
- apt-cacher
- Apt-cacher quickstart, for Debian users.
- chrooted-debian-server
- How to set up a chrooted debian server.
- debian-bridge
- How to build a bridge or brouter in Debian.
- firewalls
- Simple firewall and routing scripts.
- freebsd_upgrade_release
- How to upgrade your current system to a new release. By neb at gigax dot org.
- gvim_on_steroids_(windoze)
- Gvim On Steroids, making an Open Source "IDE" on Windoze using gVim and WinSCP ;-). jfalvarez at vesifront dot org
- heartbeat
- Heartbeat tips, tricks and problems.
- keepalived
- Keepalived tips.
- OpenOffice Installation
- The application that most users depend on. How to make it work when strange problems appear.
- php-ide-with-eclipse
- How to setup Eclipse PDT 2.0/Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede). jfalvarez at vesifront dot org
- qemu-debian
- How to run qemu as a normal user inside of Debian GNU/Linux.
- SLES Problems and Solutions
- A document by Alejandro Forero Cuervo explaining how to solve certain problems he has experienced with SLES, in the hope that they may serve others use it more effectively.
- set up a SWAP partition over NBD
- Just don't try to use NFS, NBD is better. You might need to do this in a small diskless machine.
- Installing Open-Xchange in SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
- A still-incomplete document by Alejandro Forero Cuervo explaining how to set up Open-Xchange in SLES. The official documentation for installing it in SLES requires installing apt4rpm, which isn't very nice.
- openvpn
- Configuración simple de openvpn
- Valgrind on machines with few memory
- Valgrind is a great tool for checking memory leaks in complex software. It requires a lot of memory though (at its core Valgrind is an x86 simulator). Here I document what to do if Valgrind barfs when debugging your software, due memory constraints. By Jhair Tocancipá Triana.
- Useful Sysadmin Tricks and scripts
- There are many tricks that can be done in a single line that speeds up your tasks.
- Configuring X
- Configuring XFree86 on Debian Woody
- postgres-php-debian
- Postgres with PHP in Debian
- bash-tips
- Let's document some bash tips and tricks.
- gmail-smarthost
- How to use gmail as a smarthost.
- simple-email-backup
- Making simple backups via email (SMTP).
- ganglia-quickstart
- Qick Start for Ganglia.
Links to tutorials and howtos we find useful.
- Complete Debian Linux Server Setup Tutorials
- Very Useful for all systemadmins and users
- Securing an Internet Name Server
- A very good read covering bind. It's important to disable recursive queries for untrusted networks/hosts.
Software we have written
The following pages describe software we have written.
Ok, currently most is software by Alejandro Forero Cuervo; wouldn't it be lovely if the other geeks, –Nelson, Igor–, started using this wiki to document their programs?
- FreeDFD
- A What You See Is What You Run Flowchart Editor and Interpreter. It allows you to represent algorithms as flowcharts and run them interactively. It's meant to be used by beginners learning to program, although complex algorithms, even using recurrent calls, can be built on it. It runs under Windows. You can run it and under UNIX using Wine.
- p2phttp
- A system to dynamically maintain central lists of multiple mirrors of HTTP content. By mirror we mean a caching proxy willing to share the content with the world. P2PHTTP adds functionality to HTTP to allow authoritative servers to dynamically adjust the lists as caching proxies download the content from them (or from other mirrors). This makes it possible for it to forward requests to the proxies should its receive more requests than its bandwidth allows it to handle. The system is still being designed; no code has been written yet.
- svnwiki
- The somewhat unstable and extremely lovable wiki software we use for these pages. All the information in the wiki is stored in a Subversion repository, allowing geeks to export it, edit it with their favorite text editor and then commit their changes. That's right, it means you can go offline, work in the wiki and synchronize your changes the next time you go online. And yes, it uses Subversion everywhere (for logs, history, solving conflicts, etc.). By Alejandro Forero Cuervo, mostly.
- scpmirror
- The highly stable and minimalistic program for updating remote mirrors over scp. Similar to rsync or unison but highly preferable in certain specific cases.
- maildir-mirror
- A program for synchronizing maildir folders. Get online, download all your new mail, go offline, work on your maildir (write replies to your messages, delete spam, mark messages as important, etc.), get online again and synchronize (two-way sync) your maildir with the one on your server. Similar to offlineimap, but, in some cases, highly preferable.
- SVnblog
- A system for creating web blogs out of Subversion repositories. The posts are represented in wiki format (using the syntax implemented by svnwiki). svnblog downloads/updates a copy of the repository, reads its contents and generates the files (mostly HTML and XML) that you should be visible in your web tree.
- torta
- Torta shows you where your disk space is being used. Its user interface is similar to that of the awesome program filelight. Unlike filelight, Torta does not need any graphical environment to run: it analyzes the file system directly and generates a Flash file that you can load locally or remotely on any Flash-supporting web browser.
Software reviews
- Javascript libraries
- a review of several JavaScript libraries (MochiKit, prototype, Dojo, jQuery, Yahoo User Interface)
Last update: 2008-07-20 (Rev 14404)