Netcat and Reverse Telnet by KIVILCIM Hindistan
The venerable Unix utility cat has all sorts of uses, but it's limited to the local machine. Enter Netcat, a network-aware cat. KIVILCIM Hindistan introduces the Swiss Army Knife of networking. 05/29/2003

Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators by Æleen Frisch
Æleen Frisch, author of the best-selling Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition, offers the final installment in a five-part series on the most useful and widely applicable open source administrative tools. The countdown concludes this week with the number one utility, Cfengine. 05/29/2003

Distributed Computing: Distributed Communities by Howard Feldman
The growth of the Internet, the rise of personal computer power, and the increasing acceptance of broadband connections have lead to greater adoption of distributed computing techniques. Recent years have seen several legitimate research projects farm out number-crunching to anyone willing to donate spare cycles. Howard Feldman examines the history and current state of distributed computing and recommends several worthwhile projects. 05/22/2003

What I Hate About Your Programming Language by chromatic
Choosing a programming language is rarely ever as easy as making a list of features and choosing the best ones. Like programming, it can be messy and opinionated. Every language has its own philosophy, and whether that fits your own mind is often a matter of taste. 05/12/2003

Secure Programming Techniques, Part 4
In this fourth and final excerpt from Chapter 16 ("Secure Programming Techniques") of Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition, we offer tips on using passwords more securely, and on generating random numbers, both of which play important roles in maintaining computer security. 05/08/2003

Secure Programming Techniques, Part 3
An overwhelming number of Unix security problems have been caused by SUID/SGID programs. In this week's excerpt from Chapter 16 ("Secure Programming Techniques") of Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition, we offer tips on writing SUID and SGID programs. And as an added bonus, this excerpt also includes advice on using the chroot( ) system call to enhance the security of your programs. 05/01/2003

Open Source and Open Standards by Peter Saint-Andre
Open source means open code. It usually also means open standards. Are they really so tightly intertwined? Which is more important to openness in technology? Peter Saint-André explores these thoughts. 04/29/2003

Secure Programming Techniques, Part 2 by Simson Garfinkel, Alan Schwartz, Gene Spafford
In part two in this multipart series of excerpts from Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition, you'll find tips both on what to do and what not to do when you are coding a new network program. And check back to this space over the next few weeks for more tips, all selected from Chapter 16 on "Secure Programming Techniques." 04/24/2003

Soldiers Renege on Hackers by Ian F. Darwin
O'Reilly author and UNIX old-timer Ian Darwin comments on DARPA cutting funding to the OpenBSD project. 04/18/2003

Secure Programming Techniques by Simson Garfinkel, Alan Schwartz, Gene Spafford
In this first installment in a multipart series of excerpts from Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition, you'll find tips and general design principles to code by that will help you avoid security-related bugs. And check back to this space over the next few week for additional tips, all selected from Chapter 16 on "Secure Programming Techniques." 04/17/2003

Building an Address Book with OpenLDAP by Dustin Puryear
LDAP's most sensible example is, perhaps, managing contacts throughout a company. There aren't many good examples of this, however. Dustin Puryear wants to change that. In this article, he demonstrates how to build and populate a company-wide LDAP address book. 03/27/2003

Name Resolution and Browsing in Samba, Part 2 by David Collier-Brown, Robert Eckstein, Jay Ts
Part two of this excerpt from Chapter 7 of Using Samba, 2nd Edition starts by describing browsing in a network that contains only Windows systems, then shows you how to add a Samba server. 03/20/2003

Name Resolution and Browsing in Samba, Part 1 by David Collier-Brown, Robert Eckstein, Jay Ts
This excerpt from Chapter 7 of Using Samba, 2nd Edition focuses on name resolution using WINS, which is supported by Samba with the nmbd daemon. Learn how to configure your network to handle name resolution any way you want. 03/13/2003

Creating an Apache Site with Public and Secure Access by Peter Laurie
If you want Apache to do anything useful, you have to write a config file. And while it's a common task that programmers perform regularly, they usually start with an existing file and simply modify it. Peter Laurie, coauthor of Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition, walks through a typical configuration file for an Apache web site that combines public access to a database with a secure back door for maintenance. 02/27/2003

Running Samba on the Mac OS X Server by David Collier-Brown, Robert Eckstein, Jay Ts
Mac OS X Server differs from Mac OS X in how it deals with the configuration of Samba-based services. In this excerpt from Using Samba, 2nd Edition, learn how to set up SMB files and printer shares, enable client user access, and monitor activity, all on Mac OS X Server 10. 02/27/2003

Custom Error Pages with PHP and Apache by David Sklar
Turn your "Page Not Found", or "404" messages into more than just bland error reports. Serve an alternate page based on the name of the page that was not found, create a page on the fly from a database, or send an email about the not-found page to a webmaster. David Sklar, coauthor of PHP Cookbook, shows you how, using PHP and Apache. 02/13/2003

Network Impact of the MS SQL Worm by Iljitsch van Beijnum
Iljitsch van Beijnum, the author of BGP and a network manager, describes how he dealt with the MS SQL worm attack. 01/28/2003

How to Get Rid of Denial-of-Service Attacks by Iljitsch van Beijnum
Getting rid of DDoS attacks means filtering traffic. It's complicated by spoofing and congestion -- but Iljitsch van Beijnum, author of BGP, has three modest proposals. 01/23/2003

Traffic Engineering: Queuing, Traffic Shaping, and Policing by Iljitsch van Beijnum
In the fifth and final installment in this series of excerpts on Traffic Engineering from O'Reilly's BGP, learn how to increase performance for certain protocols or sessions using special queuing strategies, traffic shaping, and rate limiting. 01/23/2003

Falcon's Eye: The Making-Over of Nethack by Howard Wen
Few games have the staying power of Nethack, yet its interface hasn't strayed from its roguelike roots. Enter Jaakko Peltonen's Falcon's Eye. Gaming author Howard Wen explores the new clothes on a classic game. 01/02/2003

Traffic Engineering: Specific Routes by Iljitsch van Beijnum
In this fourth installment on Traffic Engineering, excerpted from O'Reilly's BGP, learn how to balance incoming traffic by announcing more specific routes. 01/02/2003

Return of the Independent Game Developer? by chromatic
How different are games from other potentially open source programs? The recent Independent Game Developers Conference lead chromatic to ask that very question. Find out what's happening in the game development world and why some people think independent developers are about to become very important. 12/26/2002

Cooking with MySQL by Paul DuBois
Paul DuBois has selected sample recipes from the hundreds you'll find in his book, MySQL Cookbook. In this third and final series of excerpts showcasing these recipes, learn how to compute team standings, how to calculate the differences between successive rows, and how to find cumulative sums and running averages. 12/26/2002

Getting Started with FreeRADIUS by Jonathan Hassell
This excerpt from Chapter 5 of RADIUS focuses on practical applications of this protocol: implementing it, customizing it for your specific needs, and extending its capabilities to meet other needs in your business--all using a RADIUS server called FreeRADIUS. 12/19/2002

Slinky SliMP3: An Affordable MP3 Stereo Component by Nat Torkington
With Christmas right around the corner, what does self-respecting geek Nat Torkington want under his tree? A hardware MP3 player that connects to his stereo and his home network. Read on to find out how well he likes it. 12/11/2002

Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators by Æleen Frisch
Æleen Frisch, author of the recently released Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition, offers the fourth installment in a five-part series on the most useful and widely applicable open source administrative tools. As the countdown continues this week, we've got number two, Nagios. 12/05/2002

Traffic Engineering: Incoming Traffic by Iljitsch van Beijnum
In this third installment on Traffic Engineering, excerpted from O'Reilly's BGP, learn how to balance inbound traffic. 11/28/2002

CVS Third-Party Tools by Jennifer Vesperman
CVS is an essential part of many developer toolboxes, but it has its limitations. Jennifer Vesperman has put together a list of add-ons and interfaces to the popular source control system. 11/21/2002

Cooking with MySQL by Paul DuBois
Paul DuBois has selected sample recipes from the hundreds you'll find in his book, MySQL Cookbook. In this first in a three-part series showcasing these sample recipes, find out how to interpret results from summaries and NULL values and how to identify duplicates in a table or record. 11/21/2002

Today's Unix: New All Over Again by Shelley Powers
Shelley Powers, coauthor of the recently released Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition, says today's Unix is sexier and friendlier than yesterday's Unix. Gone is its tough, geeks-only image. In this article, Shelley maps out why Unix's blend of old and new has made it more easily accessible to everyone. 11/14/2002

TriSentry, a Unix Intrusion Detection System by Glenn Graham
Security isn't only about locking your doors. You have to know when and where the bad guys are sniffing around outside. Glenn Graham's convinced that the tripartite TriSentry suite can help keep your network secure. 11/14/2002

Running Zebra on a Unix Machine: An Alternative to a Real Router? by Iljitsch van Beijnum
Iljitsch van Beijnum, author of O'Reilly's BGP, looks at whether Zebra, the host-based routing software, can be used as an alternative to a real router. 11/07/2002

Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators by Æleen Frisch
The countdown continues this week with number three, GRUB. This is the third installment in a five-part series on the most useful and widely applicable open source administrative tools, by Æleen Frisch, author of Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition. 11/07/2002

SquirrelMail, a Web-Based Mail Server by Glenn Graham
As remote computing increases in popularity, it's becoming harder for regular users to send email. While running mail servers from customer laptops is one solution, a good Web mail package may be even easier. In this article, Glenn Graham thinks SquirrelMail may be your best choice. 10/24/2002

Traffic Engineering: Local Routing Policy by Iljitsch van Beijnum
In this second installment on Traffic Engineering, excerpted from O'Reilly's BGP, learn how to influence the BGP path-selection process. 10/17/2002

Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators by Æleen Frisch
The countdown continues this week with number four, LDAP. Æleen Frisch, author of Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition, offers the second installment in a five-part series on the most useful and widely applicable open source administrative tools. 10/17/2002

Traffic Engineering: Finding the Right Route by Iljitsch van Beijnum
In this first installment on Traffic Engineering, excerpted from O'Reilly's BGP, learn how to find the best route in a multihomed setup--the one that will take advantage of all available bandwidth. 09/26/2002

Nagios, Part 2 by Oktay Altunergil
Oktay Altunergil walks us through the configuration of Nagios after its been set up. 09/26/2002

Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators by Æleen Frisch
Æleen Frisch, author of the recently released Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition, offers the first installment in a five-part series on the most useful and widely applicable open source administrative tools. We'll begin the countdown with number five, Amanda, a network-based enterprise backup utility. 09/24/2002

SpamShield: A Perl-Based Spam Filter for sendmail by Glenn Graham
As soon as system administrators finish building roadblocks to spam, spammers find ways to knock them down. This article focuses on one viable solution to spam, SpamShield 1.40 -- a Perl-based spam filter for sendmail. Learn how it works and how to install and configure it on your server. 09/12/2002

Installing Nagios by Oktay Altunergil
Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify, alerting you when things go bad and when they get better. 09/05/2002

Which Table, Which Column? by Jonathan Gennick
Jonathan Gennick, O'Reilly editor and coauthor of Transact-SQL Cookbook, writes about why you should always use table aliases in SQL. 08/22/2002

SSH Public-Key Authentication by Daniel J. Barrett and Richard E. Silverman
Passwords--even encrypted ones--sent over the Internet can still pose a security problem. However, with public-key authentication, you don't need to send passwords at all. Excerpted from Chapter 8 of SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide. 08/15/2002

Lycoris: A Linux OS Good for Grandma by Howard Wen
Would you give your grandmother a PC with Linux as its main OS? Howard Wen takes a look at Lycoris, a Linux startup that has developed Desktop/LX--an integrated Linux desktop OS that the company expects will be easy enough for anyone. 07/18/2002

Controlling Resources with Solaris Projects by Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci
Gian-Paolo Musumeci looks at Projects--a powerful new way to control resource competition in Solaris 9. 07/05/2002

Getting Loopy with Python and Perl by Aahz
How do Python's loop constructs stack up to Perl's? Aahz, one of the featured speakers at this July's Open Source Convention compares the two. 06/27/2002

Seven Common SSL Pitfalls by Pravir Chandra, Matt Messier, John Viega
Here are seven common pitfalls to avoid when deploying SSL-enabled applications with OpenSSL, by the authors of Network Security with OpenSSL. 06/27/2002

Skimpy Forum: An Application of Perl and XML by Erik T. Ray
Erik Ray shows how a little Perl and XML can be used to create a working Web application. Erik is the coauthor of Perl and XML. 06/20/2002

12 Months, 25 Men, One Woman and a Dictionary by Aidan Mark Humphreys
Although English is the most dominant language in open source projects, many don't start that way. Aidan Mark Humphreys explains how to get involved. 06/13/2002

A Journey to the Dimension of Pain: Paging Space by Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci
Gian-Paolo Musumeci takes the pain out of analyzing paging space and virtual memory issues, and shows how they can impact system performance. 05/30/2002