Carla Schroder

Specto is an excellent little Python script that monitors all manner of events, and then notifies you of any changes. It’s a lightweight alternative to the usual heavy-duty, complex network and system monitors, such as OpenNMS, Zenoss, Zabbix and MRTG. Specto does not replace these, but provides a useful alternative when all you want is […]

One of my favorite Linux features is its endless adaptability as a cross-platform rescue tool, and my favorite rescue Linux of all is the excellent Gentoo-based SystemRescueCD. SystemRescueCD comes with every imaginable necessity: Support for most computer filesystems, including Mac’s HFS+ and all Windows filesystems Samba rsync a useful assortment of network diagnostic and fixit […]

Remote administration of Linux, Unix, and Windows servers and PCs relies on a large, mixed bag of tools, depending on which operating system you want to log in from, and what sort of interface you prefer. SSH, Putty, VNC, NXServer, Rdesktop, and Webmin are some of the popular remote administration utilities. All require both a […]

The Gibraltar Security Gateway is yet another good open-source based security product. It contains a few proprietary bits, but the majority of it is genuine open source. It comes in several versions at different price points. While the (non-proprietary) source code is readily available from its download sites, the company also offers a free-for-personal-use edition […]

Users of GRUB legacy, which is version 0.97, are getting bitten by an e2fsprogs incompatibility that renders their systems unbootable. e2fsprogs is the utilities package for the Ext3 filesystem, so it doesn’t affect other filesystems. As this Ubuntu bug report states: “e2fsprogs ≥ 1.40.5 creates ext3 filesystems with 256 byte large inodes by default (in […]

Vyatta may be the first to try to commercialize a specialized networking Linux implementation in a big way. It’s going head-to-head with Cisco, and even publishing a handy comparison guide. Vyatta is based on XORP, the Extensible Open Source Router Project. XORP is an open Linux-based networking platform for network administrators and developers who want […]

While we’re looking at Asterisk alternatives, we’re going to take a tour of FreeSWITCH. Aside from the annoying capitalization, which is a contagious disease in the computer world, it’s a first-class softswitch and telephony platform. FreeSWITCH comes in two forms: a tarball containing just FreeSWITCH, and triXswitch, a bundle that includes FreeSWITCH, CentOS Linux, and […]

Knowing how to measure your own computer performance gives you mighty system and network tuning powers. It’s also fun to run various benchmarks on commercial products because most of them forbid publishing any kind of benchmark results–but they can’t stop you from talking to friends. We’re going to take a look at the brand-new Phoronix […]

Although SELinux and AppArmor get all the attention as the hot new Mandatory Access Control (MAC) infrastructures for Linux and Unix kernels, there is an oft-neglected, battle-scarred oldtimer that has long served well using Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC): grsecurity. RBAC is similar to MAC but is more flexible and easier to manage. Suppose you’re running […]

Power management on computers has three parts: selecting devices that are more power-efficient, tuning your systems to run more efficiently, and configuring systems to use less power during periods of inactivity. Servers, desktop machines, and laptops usually need different power management schemes; there isn’t a one-size-fits-all. The first step is finding the power hogs on […]