Debian GNU/Linux System Administration Resources

How to use any command in FTP ?

2008-04-25T12:09:30Z

I wanted to use the "find" command on a FTP space but it's not possible to use this command with any "normal" FTP client. So, I looked for a solution.

Logical Volume Management: How PVs form VGs for LVs

2008-04-22T16:19:05Z

When I set out to build my first system using Logical Volume Management I was surprised by the lack of information about how LVM relates to more "traditional" disk-level partitioning. There were plenty of articles with examples of how to use 'vgcreate' and 'lvresize' and no short supply of advice and white noise from the forums, but there was very little practical information about what the various strata of LVM were actually for or how they related to each other. In fact I was well into my search for information before I figured out where to put the file system.

Making Apache2 execute CGI scripts, globally?

2008-04-14T12:08:38Z

I have set up a Debian etch system with apache2, perl etc, but I cannot get apache to actually execute my scripts..

Using the dynamic DNS editor: nsupdate

2008-04-09T16:42:54Z

nsupdate is the little-known brother of nslookup. It is used to make edits on a dynamic DNS without the need to edit zone files and restart the DNS server. If you have declared a zone dynamic, this is the way that you should be making edits.

OpenSSH SFTP chroot() with ChrootDirectory

2008-04-01T10:49:45Z

The upcoming version of OpenSSH (4.8p1 for the GNU/Linux port) features a new configuration option : ChrootDirectory. This has been made possible by a new SFTP subsystem statically linked to sshd.

Checking password strength for squirrelmail

2008-03-28T10:39:28Z

I have successfully used the method below to configure the change_ldappass plugin of Squirrelmail to perform password strength checks using cracklib. I made a few assumptions, but it should be easy to adapt it to your own situation.

Introduction BackupPC part 1

2008-03-27T10:07:02Z

This HOWTO will describe how to install BackupPC (http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/) and how to create a simple backup using backuppc. BackupPC can offer a nice solution for both simple and complex backups.

pam_mount and sshfs with password authentication

2008-03-26T16:19:56Z

pam_mount is "a Pluggable Authentication Module that can mount volumes for a user session". It is used to automatically mount a network share or volume when a user logs in, and unmount it when the user logs out sshfs is a FUSE filesystem that allows mounting a directory using the SSH sftp subsystem.

Using pam-mount to create a sandboxed home directory

2008-03-25T09:37:33Z

My biggest fear when using a public computer is that the data I enter might fall into the wrong hands. One way for developers to combat data theft is to hold personal info only for as long as is absolutely necessary, thereby shortening the window of opportunity for an attacker. This is possible in Linux through a combination of tmpfs and unionfs.

OpenLDAP installation on Debian

2008-03-19T10:40:26Z

The purpose of this article is to give you a straight-forward, Debian-friendly way of installing and configuring OpenLDAP. By the end of this guide, you will have a functional LDAP server that will serve as a central authentication system for user logins onto all machines in the network, without the need to manually create users' accounts on individual machines.