Full Description
This unique and valuable collection of tips, tools, and scripts provides clear, concise, hands-on solutions that can be applied to the challenges facing anyone running a network of Linux servers from small networks to large data centers in the practical and popular problem-solution-discussion O'Reilly cookbook format.
The Linux Cookbook covers everything you'd expect: backups, new users, and the like. But it also covers the non-obvious information that is often ignored in other books the time-sinks and headaches that are a real part of an administrator's job, such as: dealing with odd kinds of devices that Linux historically hasn't supported well, building multi-boot systems, and handling things like video and audio.
The knowledge needed to install, deploy, and maintain Linux is not easily found, and no Linux distribution gets it just right. Scattered information can be found in a pile of man pages, texinfo files, and source code comments, but the best source of information is the experts themselves who built up a working knowledge of managing Linux systems. This cookbook's proven techniques distill years of hard-won experience into practical cut-and-paste solutions to everyday Linux dilemmas.
Use just one recipe from this varied collection of real-world solutions, and the hours of tedious trial-and-error saved will more pay for the cost of the book. But those who prefer to learn hands-on will find that this cookbook not only solves immediate problems quickly, it also cuts right to the chase pointing out potential pitfalls and illustrating tested practices that can be applied to a myriad of other situations.
Whether you're responsible for a small Linux system, a huge corporate system, or a mixed Linux/Windows/MacOS network, you'll find valuable, to-the-point, practical recipes for dealing with Linux systems everyday. The Linux Cookbook is more than a time-saver; it's a sanity saver.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Finding Documentation
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Understanding man Pages
1.3 Finding Appropriate man Pages
1.4 Finding Lost man Pages
1.5 Reading man Pages Without a man Viewer
1.6 Configuring Your manpath
1.7 Using info Pages
1.8 Printing man Pages
1.9 Printing info Pages
1.10 Printing Selected man or info Pages
1.11 Finding All of the Documentation for a Program
2. Installing and Managing Software on RPM-Based Systems
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Installing RPMs
2.3 Upgrading RPMs
2.4 Removing RPMs
2.5 Collecting Information on Installed RPMs
2.6 Collecting Information from RPMs That Are Not Installed
2.7 Finding Recently Installed RPMs
2.8 Rebuilding the RPM Database
2.9 Tracking Source-Built Libraries on an RPM-Based System
2.10 Fixing RPM Installation Problems
2.11 Installing Source RPMs
2.12 Customizing Build Options in a Source RPM
2.13 Installing Yum
2.14 Configuring Yum
2.15 Installing and Upgrading Packages with Yum
2.16 Removing Packages with Yum
2.17 Getting Information on Installed Packages with Yum
2.18 Maintaining Yum
3. Installing and Managing Software on Debian-Based Systems
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Getting Software for a Debian System
3.3 Installing Debian Packages from CD-ROM
3.4 Installing Packages on Debian-Based Systems
3.5 Removing Packages from a Debian System
3.6 Installing from Sources on a Debian System
3.7 Upgrading Packages on Debian
3.8 Upgrading a Debian System
3.9 Upgrading to a Newer Debian Release
3.10 Running a Mixed Debian System
3.11 Finding Out What Is Installed on a Debian System
3.12 Maintaining the Debian Package Cache
3.13 Resolving Debian Dependency Conflicts
3.14 Building a Local Debian Repository
3.15 Selecting Package Mirrors for apt-proxy.conf
3.16 Adding Your Existing Package Cache to apt-proxy.conf
4. Installing Programs from Source Code
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Preparing Your System for Compiling Programs from Sources
4.3 Generating a List of Files from a Source Install for Easy Uninstalls
4.4 Installing Programs from Source Code
4.5 Using CheckInstall to Create Packages from Sources
5. Discovering Hardware from Outside the Box
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Detecting Hardware with lspci
5.3 Using dmesg to Collect Hardware Information
5.4 Getting Live Hardware Snapshots with /proc
5.5 Viewing Drive Partitions with fdisk
5.6 Calculating Hard Drive Capacity
6. Editing Text Files with JOE and Vim
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Finding JOE Commands
6.3 Customizing JOE
6.4 Organizing JOE's Preferences in a Separate File
6.5 Copying Between Two Files in JOE
6.6 Searching and Replacing in JOE
6.7 Selecting Text Vertically in JOE
6.8 Finding and Opening Files in JOE
6.9 Learning Vim Quickly
6.10 Creating Autotext with Vim's Abbreviations
6.11 Mapping Commands to Keystrokes
6.12 Customizing Vim
6.13 Navigating Quickly in Vim with Marks
6.14 Picking Up Where You Left Off: Using Vim's Sessions
6.15 Setting Your Default Editor
6.16 Discovering Vim's Compile-Time Options
7. Starting and Stopping Linux
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Changing Runlevels After Bootup
7.3 Changing the Default Runlevel
7.4 Starting and Stopping X
7.5 Managing Debian's Runlevels
7.6 Creating Both Text and Graphical Login Runlevels on Debian
7.7 Managing Red Hat's Runlevels
7.8 Manually Configuring Startup Services
7.9 Manually Starting and Stopping Services
7.10 Shutting Down or Rebooting Linux
7.11 Disabling or Limiting Access to Ctrl-Alt-Delete
7.12 Shutting Down Automatically
8. Managing Users and Groups
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Sorting Human Users from System Users
8.3 Finding a User's UID and GID
8.4 Adding Users with useradd
8.5 Adding Users with adduser
8.6 Modifying User Accounts
8.7 Deleting a User
8.8 Killing User Processes the Easy, Fun Way
8.9 Disabling Accounts
8.10 Managing Passwords
8.11 Adding Groups with groupadd
8.12 Deleting Groups with groupdel
8.13 Creating a System User
8.14 Creating System Groups with addgroup
8.15 Adding and Deleting Group Members
8.16 Checking Password File Integrity
8.17 Adding New Users in Batches
8.18 Changing Masses of Passwords
8.19 Adding Batches of Users to Groups
8.20 Using su to Be Root Temporarily
8.21 Granting Limited Rootly Powers with sudo
8.22 Using Disk Quotas
9. Managing Files and Partitions
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Setting File and Directory Permissions with chmod's Numeric Notation
9.3 Doing Batch Operations with chmod
9.4 Setting File and Directory Permissions with chmod's Symbolic Notation
9.5 Setting File Ownership with chown
9.6 Doing Batch Operations with chown
9.7 Setting Up a Shared Directory with setgid and the Sticky Bit
9.8 Setting Permissions Defaults with umask
9.9 Mounting and Unmounting Removable Disks
9.10 Configuring Filesystem Mounts with /etc/fstab
9.11 Mounting and Unmounting Filesystems on Hard Drives
9.12 Finding Device Names for mount and fstab
9.13 Creating Files and Directories
9.14 Deleting Files and Directories
9.15 Copying, Moving, and Renaming Files and Directories
9.16 Creating Linux Disk Partitions with fdisk
9.17 Creating a Filesystem on a New Partition
10. Patching, Customizing, and Upgrading Kernels
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Adding New Features to the 2.4 Kernel
10.3 Slimming a Stock 2.4 Kernel
10.4 Upgrading to the Latest Stable Version of the 2.4 Kernel
10.5 Building the 2.6 Kernel
10.6 Adding New Features to the 2.6 Kernel
10.7 Adding a New Loadable Kernel Module
10.8 Patching a Kernel
10.9 Removing a Kernel Patch
10.10 Creating an initrd Image
10.11 Creating a Boot Disk on Debian
10.12 Creating a Boot Disk on Red Hat
11. CD and DVD Recording
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Finding the SCSI Address for CD and DVD Writers
11.3 Enabling SCSI Emulation for IDE/Atapi CD and DVD Writers
11.4 Making a Data CD for General Distribution
11.5 Building File Trees on a Data CD
11.6 Copying a CD or DVD
11.7 Erasing a CD-RW
11.8 Recording a Multisession Data CD
11.9 Creating a Bootable CD
11.10 Spanning a Large File over Several CDs
11.11 Recording Data DVDs
11.12 Recording an Audio CD for Standard CD Players
12. Managing the Bootloader and Multi-Booting
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Migrating from LILO to GRUB
12.3 Installing GRUB Without a Floppy Disk
12.4 Installing GRUB with grub-install
12.5 Preparing a System for Multibooting Linux
12.6 Adding More Linuxes to a Multiboot System
12.7 Discovering Boot Parameters from the GRUB Command Shell
12.8 Configuring the Boot Partition
12.9 Creating the GRUB Boot Menu
12.10 Customizing menu.lst
12.11 Adding Windows 95/98/ME to a Linux System
12.12 Adding Windows NT/2000/XP to a Multiboot System
12.13 Restoring GRUB to the MBR with a Knoppix CD
12.14 Protecting System Files with a GRUB Password
12.15 Locking Out Users from Individual GRUB Menu Entries
12.16 Creating a GRUB Splash Image
12.17 Booting Linux with LILO
12.18 Multibooting Linuxes with LILO
12.19 Multibooting Windows and Linux with LILO
12.20 Creating a LILO Boot Diskette
12.21 Password-Protecting LILO
12.22 Backing Up the MBR
13. System Rescue and Recovery with Knoppix
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Booting Knoppix
13.3 Creating a Knoppix Boot Diskette
13.4 Saving Your Knoppix Configuration on a USB Memory Stick
13.5 Creating a Persistent, Encrypted Knoppix Home Directory
13.6 Copying Files to Another Linux PC
13.7 Copying Files to a Samba Share
13.8 Copying Files to a CD-R/RW
13.9 Editing Configuration Files from Knoppix
13.10 Installing Software from Knoppix
13.11 Repairing a Lost Root Password
13.12 Installing Knoppix to a Hard Disk
13.13 Virus-Scanning Windows PCs with Knoppix
14. Printing with CUPS
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Installing a Printer on a Standalone Linux PC
14.3 Serving Linux Clients
14.4 Sharing a Printer Without Using Name Resolution
14.5 Serving Windows Clients Without Samba
14.6 Sharing Printers on a Mixed LAN with Samba
14.7 Building a Dedicated CUPS Printer Server
14.8 Distributed Printing with Classes
14.9 Restricting Users from Printers and Classes
14.10 Troubleshooting
15. Configuring Video and Managing X Windows
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Using Both X Windows and Consoles
15.3 Installing a New Video Adapter
15.4 Editing XF86Config
15.5 Enabling 3D Hardware Acceleration with XFree86/DRI
15.6 Troubleshooting 3D Acceleration Problems
15.7 Configuring a Multihead Display
15.8 Choosing Different ServerLayouts at Startup
15.9 Setting a Default ServerLayout
15.10 Configuring startx
15.11 Changing Your Login Display Manager
15.12 Running Different Window Managers Simultaneously with Xnest
16. Backup and Recovery
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Using rsync for Local File Transfers and Synchronization
16.3 Making Secure Transfers with rsync and ssh
16.4 Building an rsync Backup Server
16.5 Securing rsync Modules
16.6 Building an Anonymous Public rsync Server
16.7 Launching the rsync Daemon at Startup
16.8 Fine-Tuning File Selection
16.9 Automating rsync over ssh Backups
16.10 Limiting rsync's Bandwidth Requirements
16.11 Customizing Filepaths in rsync
16.12 Installing rsync on Windows Clients
16.13 Creating a Message of the Day for rsync
16.14 Creating a Bootable System Restore CD with Mondo Rescue
16.15 Verifying the Mondo Backup
16.16 Creating a Bootable System Restore DVD with Mondo Rescue
16.17 Using Mondo Rescue to Clone Linux Systems
16.18 Using the mindi-kernel for a 'Sane' Backup
16.19 Restoring a System from a Mondo Rescue Disk
16.20 Restoring Selected Files from a Mondo Disk
17. Remote Access
17.1 Introduction
17.2 Setting Up OpenSSH the First Time
17.3 Generating New Host Keys
17.4 Authenticating Via Public Keys
17.5 Using Multiple Key Pairs
17.6 Passwordless Logins with ssh-agent
17.7 Better Passwordless Logins with keychain
17.8 Passwordless Logins for cron Jobs
17.9 Shutting Down ssh-agent Automatically at Logout
17.10 Customizing the Bash Prompt for ssh
17.11 Tunneling X over SSH
17.12 Connecting from a Windows PC
17.13 Setting File Permissions on ssh Files
18. Version Control
18.1 Introduction
18.2 Building a Simple Local RCS Repository
18.3 Retrieving Older File Revisions from RCS
18.4 Comparing File Versions in RCS
18.5 Managing System Configuration Files with RCS
18.6 Using CVS for a Single-User Local Repository
18.7 Adding New Files to a CVS Repository
18.8 Deleting Files from a CVS Repository
18.9 Creating a Shared CVS Repository
18.10 Sharing a Single Repository Between Several Groups
18.11 Accessing a Remote CVS Repository
18.12 Updating Your Working Files in CVS
18.13 Retrieving Specific Older Revisions from CVS
18.14 Building an Anonymous Read-Only CVS Repository with Pserver
18.15 Mirroring a CVS Repository
18.16 Storing Binary Files in CVS
18.17 Creating Release Snapshots with Tags
18.18 Creating
Stable and Development Branches for a Project
18.19 Customizing Your CVS Environment
18.20 Calculating Storage Size for a CVS Repository
19. Keeping Time with NTP
19.1 Introduction
19.2 Building a Local Time Server
19.3 Connecting to a Local Time Server
19.4 Adding Access Controls
19.5 Deciding Which NTP Pools to Use
19.6 Connecting to a Time Server from an Intermittent Connection
19.7 Setting Up Multiple Local Time Servers
19.8 Using NTP Keys for Authentication
20. Building a Postfix Mail Server
20.1 Introduction
20.2 Building a POP3 Mail Server
20.3 Building a POP3 Mail Server on Debian
20.4 Testing the SMTP/POP3 Mail Server
20.5 Sending Internet Mail
20.6 Receiving Internet Mail
20.7 Installing Cyrus-SASL for SMTP Authorization
20.8 Installing Cyrus-SASL on Debian
20.9 Setting Up smtp-auth to Authenticate Users
20.10 Using smtp-auth to Authenticate Postfix to Another Server
20.11 Configuring a Fully Qualified Domain Name
20.12 Building an IMAP Mail Server
20.13 Connecting Your Users
20.14 Sharing IMAP Folders
20.15 Using Postfix's Virtual Mailbox Domains
20.16 Creating a Mail List with couriermlm
20.17 Administering a couriermlm List
20.18 Squirreling Around with Webmail
20.19 Table of SMTP Response Codes and SMTP Commands
21. Managing Spam and Malware
21.1 Introduction
21.2 Basic Checklist: Preparing to Build Spam Malware Defenses
21.3 Safely Testing New UBE Controls in Postfix
21.4 Basic UBE Configurations for Postfix
21.5 Creating Whitelists
21.6 Using DNS Blackhole Lists
21.7 Rejecting Messages with Attachments
21.8 Setting Up Clam Anti-Virus on a Postfix Server
21.9
Setting Up SpamAssassin on Postfix with Amavisd-new
21.10 Setting Up SpamAssassin Without Amavisd-new
22. Running an Apache Web Server
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Installing Apache 2.0 from Sources
22.3 Adding New Modules After Installation
22.4 Setting Apache File Permissions and Ownership
22.5 Accessing the Apache User's Manual Locally
22.6 Setting Up a Simple Public Web Server
22.7 Redirecting URLs to a New Directory
22.8 Giving Users Individual Web Directories
22.9 Starting Apache at Boot
22.10
Hosting Multiple Domains with Apache
22.11 Using Individual Log Files for Virtual Hosts
22.12 Keeping LAN Web Sites Off the Internet
22.13 Password-Protecting Individual Directories
22.14 Using robots.txt to Control Web Crawlers
22.15 Blocking Obnoxious Visitors
22.16 Making Custom Error Pages
22.17 Customizing Apache's Default Error Pages
22.18 Making Full-Length Directory Indexes
22.19 Using Content Negotiation to Deliver Pages in Different Languages
22.20 Using Favicons
22.21 Viewing Apache Access Logs with Webalizer
23. File and Printer Sharing, and Domain Authentication with Samba
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Building a Simple Anonymous Samba File Server for Windows
23.3 Building a Windows/Linux Peer Network
23.4 Enabling File Sharing on Windows PCs
23.5 Adding Authentication to a Samba Server
23.6 Batch-Converting System Users to Samba Users
23.7 Managing Samba Logins from Windows 95/98/ME
23.8 Dealing with Windows Encrypted Password Confusion
23.9 Controlling Share Access with Access Control Lists
23.10 Creating Public Shares for Users
23.11 Accessing Users' Home Directories in Samba
23.12 Building a Primary Domain Controller with Samba
23.13 Connecting Windows 95/98/ME to a Samba Domain
23.14 Connecting Windows NT/2000 Clients to a Samba Domain
23.15 Connecting Windows XP Clients to a Samba Domain
23.16 Enabling Roaming Profiles
23.17 Connecting Linux Clients to a Samba File Server or Peer Network
23.18 Connecting Linux Clients to Samba Workgroups with Command-Line Tools
23.19 Connecting Linux Clients to a Samba Domain with GUI LAN Browsers
23.20 Connecting Linux Clients to a Samba Domain with Command-Line Tools
23.21 Keeping Samba and Linux Passwords in Sync
23.22 Sharing Linux Printers with Windows
23.23 Sharing Windows Printers with Linux
23.24 Running Windows Applications on Linux with CrossOver Office
24. Managing Name Resolution
24.1 Introduction
24.2 Enabling Local Name Resolution with hosts Files
24.3 Setting Up a DHCP Server
24.4 Configuring dhcp Clients
24.5 Adding Static Hosts to dhcp
24.6 Running a Public DNS Server
24.7 Installing djbdns
24.8 Moving tinydns's and dnscache's Logfiles
24.9 Running a Local Caching Name Server with djbdns
24.10 Configuring Linux and Windows Clients to Use Your Caching DNS Server
24.11 Building a Public DNS Server with tinydns
24.12 Building a Private tinydns Server
24.13 Enabling Simple Load Balancing with tinydns
24.14 Synchronizing with a Second tinydns Server
24.15 Running a Local Caching Name Server with BIND
24.16 Running a Private BIND DNS Server
24.17 Checking Syntax
24.18 Configuring a Public BIND DNS Server
24.19 Building a BIND Secondary Server
24.20 Simple Load Balancing with BIND
24.21 Testing Your tinydns Server
24.22 Testing and Querying DNS Servers with dig and dnstrace
A. Finding Linux Documentation
B. Online References
C. Microsoft File Types
D. Init Script for CVSD
Index
