Try IRC with Irssi to communicate via chat

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Vincent Danen recommends the command-line based Irssi client as an extensible and powerful tool for communicating with peers via IRC. He tells you how to set it up. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 04/21/2008 @ 06:00:15 AM in Linux and Open Source

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Chroot users with OpenSSH: An easier way to confine users to their home directories

With the release of OpenSSH 4.9p1, you no longer have to rely on third-party hacks or complicated chroot setups to confine users to their home directories or give them access to SFTP services. Vincent Danen tells you how to take advantage of this new addition to OpenSSH. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 06/24/2008 @ 06:07:32 AM in Linux and Open Source

Use Fuse to mount remote ssh directories

Vincent Danen introduces the Fuse Project, a way to edit files remotely with plugins like sshfs, which transparently makes an SFTP connection to a remote system seem like nothing more than a local file directory. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 06/17/2008 @ 06:54:19 AM in Linux and Open Source

Realize the flexibility of OpenSSH

Vincent Danen explains the flexibility and power of OpenSSH. With it, you can access systems remotely and securely; transfer files securely (using scp, sftp, or even rsync over ssh); execute single commands on remote systems; secure normally insecure services; and much more. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 06/10/2008 @ 07:01:23 AM in Linux and Open Source

Delegate privileges to users with sudo

Vincent Danen offers a quick primer about sudo and how you can use it to delegate different privileges to users. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 06/02/2008 @ 12:02:17 PM in Linux and Open Source

Dig for more data in the /proc directory

Vincent Danen introduces you to the /proc filesystem, which you can mine for a lot of helpful information about your system and running processes on your system. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 05/23/2008 @ 07:42:46 AM in Linux and Open Source

Find and fix weak OpenSSL/OpenSSH keys: Debian-based Linux vulnerability

Vincent Danen reports on a recent vulnerability that affects Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu. This vulnerability caused OpenSSL to generate weak keys for anything relying on OpenSSL, including SSL certificates, OpenSSH keys, and OpenVPN keys. Here's what you need to do to protect your system. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 05/19/2008 @ 07:38:40 AM in Linux and Open Source

Log Linux services with runit

Vincent Danen explains how to configure logging for supervised services with the runit program. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 05/12/2008 @ 06:55:40 AM in Linux and Open Source

Use runit to supervise Linux services

Gerrit Pape's runit is similar to djb's daemontools and allows you to run supervised services, like daemontools, and also allows you to replace SysV init completely if you so desire. Vincent Danen tells you how to get started with runit. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 05/05/2008 @ 06:53:46 AM in Linux and Open Source

Learn to use the openssl command-line program

OpenSSL can be used to create, request, sign, and revoke certificates and can also be used to perform other cryptographic operations such as creating hashes for files, testing SSL connections, and more. [Read More] Posted By: Vincent Danen on 04/28/2008 @ 07:16:33 AM in Linux and Open Source