News

Explore the Linux memory model by Chris Miles — last modified 2006-01-25 14:00

Want to know more about the workings of the Linux memory model? This article will give you a good introduction to the segment control unit and the paging models as well as a detailed look at the physical memory zone.

How To Set Up Database Replication In MySQL by Chris Miles — last modified 2006-01-16 19:54

Here is a handy tutorial for those that would like to use MySQL's replication functionality.

Comparison of NFS vs. others by Chris Miles — last modified 2006-01-03 00:41

Here is a handy reference on linux-nfs.org that compares most of the commonly available network filesystems against each other. NFSv3/NFSv4/CIFS/DAFS/WebDAV/etc... It is fairly brief, but provides a handy overview.

NetBSD 3 Released by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-12-27 20:19

The NetBSD team have released NetBSD 3.0. "NetBSD 3.0 continues our long tradition with major improvements in stability, performance, networking, security, also includes support for two new platforms (iyonix and hp700), and many new peripherals."

Case study - Consolidating the Sun store onto SunFire T2000 servers by Zac Stevens — last modified 2005-12-14 14:26

Sun has published a Blueprint describing their efforts to consolidate their online store onto the SunFire T2000 platform.

Time Management for System Administrators by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-12-14 14:28

Thomas A. Limoncelli, the author of "The Practice of System and Network Administration", has just released a new book, "Time Management for System Administrators". Even better, he has released a 43 minute video presenting important aspects of time management from the book. This video is available for free.

Sun Cluster is free! by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-12-03 14:53

Sun has been going mad lately (in a good way!) and releasing a lot of its products for free. Solaris 10, obviously, and just recently Sun Studio 11, Java Enterprise System and N1 Software were announced as being free. And as part of all that, a move which surprised many, is the release of Sun Cluster 3 at no cost as well. This is great news for those looking for high quality, enterprise grade, high-availability solutions. Ben Rockwood's discussion of the announcement is worth a read to understand what this means.

Building Trac on Solaris walk-thru by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-12-02 14:21

I have written an article on how to build all the dependencies for Trac on Solaris 10. Some of the dependencies do not build out-of-the-box, and some magic is required. This is what worked for me, anyway.

Jeff Bonwick explains RAID-Z by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-11-24 16:16

RAID-Z is an exciting new chapter in the story of RAID storage. ZFS makes use of it, and now that ZFS has been released, Jeff Bonwick explains what RAID-Z is all about.

A guided tour of the Microsoft Command Shell by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-11-17 18:09

Ars Technica has an in-depth review of the new Microsoft Command Shell (MSH). It looks like a very interesting combination of Perl and Python with some SQL thrown in. Time will tell if traditional command-line administrators embrace MSH as much as they have the bourne shell and all its friends.

The EDDIE-Tool 0.35 Released by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-11-01 22:43

Version 0.35 of EDDIE-Tool, a system and network monitoring agent, has been released. Includes support for two new platforms: FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. As well as Solaris 10 support. Better support for Linux kernel 2.6. SMTP response time monitoring. The FILE directive can show diffs when monitored files are modified. Disk/filesystem throughput measuring on Solaris. Many more enhancements and bugfixes.

OpenBSD 3.8 Released by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-11-01 22:35

OpenBSD 3.8 has been released. New features include improved hardware support, new tools, new functionality such as UDF (DVD) filesystem support and network interface aggregation, new functionality for ospfd & bgpd and various other improvements.

OSCON 2005 PostgreSQL Presentations by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-26 20:53

The OSCON 2005 PostgreSQL Presentations are a good read for those with an interest in PostgreSQL development.

Sun to update Solaris 10 by year end by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-25 21:37

Sun plans to release its first Solaris 10 update by the end of the year, featuring a new start-up process and smart software update features. However, the eagerly-awaited ZFS and Janus technologies will have to wait until next year, at least.

Security Forensics Using DTrace by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-25 19:26

Sys Admin Magazine has a great article on using Solaris 10's DTrace as a security forensics tool for analyzing suspicious files and processes.

A Comparison of Solaris, Linux, and FreeBSD Kernels by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-20 15:01

Max Bruning compares Solaris, Linux, and FreeBSD Kernels over at OpenSolaris, focussing on scheduling, memory management, and file system architecture.

Interview with Nmap author Fyodor by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-18 11:31

Whitedust has an interesting interview with the author of network scanning tool Nmap.

Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger released and reviewed by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-14 17:01

The latest Ubuntu release, 5.10 aka Breezy Badger, has been reviewed by Linux.com.

How to view current PostgreSQL queries by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-06 23:53

An important tool for debugging PostgreSQL performance issues is the ability to view all the currently executing queries. This Systems Admin .info article shows you how.

SystemsAdmin.info upgraded to Plone 2.1 by Chris Miles — last modified 2005-10-02 20:06

This site has now been upgraded to Plone 2.1, which adds a few fancy features like LiveSeach, kupu WYSIWYG editor, latest version of Zope 2 and improved speed. It wasn't a trivial upgrade, sadly, and the old forum had to be replaced with a more stable (but simpler) one, but we got there in the end.