Fine software projects, news and thoughts from the Linux world.

Persuading VMware Workstation 7.1 to cooperate with Linux kernel 2.6.35

This time compilation fails with:

make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vsock-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
MODULEBUILDDIR= modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux'
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vsock-only/linux/af_vsock.o
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vsock-only/linux/af_vsock.c:312: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vsock-only/linux/af_vsock.c:359: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type

Repartition Linux Hard Drive Using "sfdisk" Command-line Utility

Is your current Linux drive partition structure not fulfilling storage requirements? Do you need to repartition your Linux disk? Linux enables you to do this using 'sfdisk' command-line utility. This tool has four uses: list hard drive partitions, size of particular partition, check partitions on hard disk, and repartition the drive. Before you proceed for the Linux hard drive repartitioning, you must create an absolute backup of your significant data on the hard drive. A minor mistake while repartitioning the Linux cdisk can lead to severe data loss. At this point, you must go for Linux data recovery if you do not have an updated backup.

You must keep in mind that sfdisk utility does not understand GPT (GUID Partition Table). It is not developed for the large Linux partitions. This Linux hard drive repartition utility has the following four invocations:

Shrinking VMware virtual disk from command line

While shrinking virtual disks is very functional using VMware tools from the guest machine while it is running, from time to time it may be convenient to do it offline, from command line. Here's the procedure to do that (linux host, windows guest):

First we have to mount the virtual disk on the host machine, to prepare it for shrinking:

vmware-mount vmachine.vmdk /mnt

If your guest is also windows OS, you need to make sure that you have ntfs-3g installed on your system. Most linux distributions nowadays have it enabled by default.

lbzip2: parallel bzip2 utility

lbzip2 is a multi-threaded bzip2 compressor/decompressor utility that can be used on its own, in pipelines, or passed to GNU tar with the –use-compress-program option (or with the –use shorthand).

The main motivation for writing lbzip2 was that I didn’t know about any parallel bzip2 decompressor that would exercise multiple cores on a single-stream bz2 file (i.e. the output of a single bzip2 run) and/or on a file read from a non-seekable source (e.g. a pipe or socket). Thus lbzip2 started out as lbunzip2, but with time it gained multiple-workers compression and single-worker decompression features. Due to the input-bound splitter of its multiple-workers decompressor, it should scale well to many cores even when decompressing.

Top 50 Open Source Blogs

SR Education Group’s Guide To Computer Training site just published a series of “best of” lists all featuring tech blogs. The topics range from Apple Blogs to Web Development Blogs and Linux Insight was featured on the Top Open Source Blogs list. All of these lists were carefully researched and handpicked by the SR staff. The informative commentary, fantastic insight and great guest bloggers on Linux Insight were some of the many reasons that the blog was chosen for our list. Head over and check out the rest and let us know if you have any suggests or requests for future iterations of these lists!

Buntfu.com - Linux PC Computer Systems

I started Buntfu.com a few years ago now. I had the idea well before that but had not had the opportunity to launch it. I started off with the idea that with Linux being at the point of everyday usability and the learning curve to do so had diminished so dramatically, which made Linux more accessible to the average user. Also taking into account not needing a license to load the OS on any computer, it really opens the doors to the small company and average person who has one or a few old or new computers to sell.

They can now sell a complete working PC with a beautiful stable OS that handles everyday tasks no problem and has equivalent software for just about everything most users will ever need. Not needing to bank roll licensing fees or buying individual copies of an operating system to load on a computer you have for sale allows you to compete on price and still make a profit. Regardless of the business side of the idea, I really wanted to figure out a way an average guy like myself could really help contribute to the promotion and use of open-source software. Totally from a moral and ethical standpoint this is something I'm not only passionate about but something that I believe needs to be done for the good of everyone and our digitally dependent future. I've always appreciated the listings from the current companies that have trusted myself and the site enough to showcase their Linux or BSD computers for sale here.

GNU/Linux Advanced Administration

Authors: Remo Suppi Boldrito, Josep Jorba Esteve
Coordinator: Josep Jorba Esteve
Licenses: GNU Free Documentation License, Creative Commons Attribute ShareAlike License

The GNU/Linux systems have reached an important level of maturity, allowing to integrate them in almost any kind of work environment, from a desktop PC to the sever facilities of a big company.

In the module called "The GNU/Linux operating system", the main contents are related with system administration. This book is the main documentation for the module.

We will learn how to install and configure several computer services, and how to optimize and synchronize the resources.

The activities that will take place in this module cover the studied topics in a practical approach, applying these concepts in real GNU/Linux systems.

Sun releases VirtualBox 3.1.0

Version 3.1.0 is a major update with the following major new features:

  • Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to another
  • VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well ("branched snapshots")
  • 2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for overlay stretching and color conversion
  • More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to an arbitrary IDE controller, and there can be more than one such drive
  • The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running
  • Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher
  • Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging)
  • Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface)
  • Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net)

Key sequence to kill the X server (Control + Alt + Backspace)

Current default for X servers as shipped in various distributions is to not enable the traditional Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination to kill the X server. If you would like to re-enable this feature, you may do so in your desktop's Keyboard Preferences application. You may also enable it for the current session using the command "setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp".

10 straightforward but proven ways to harden your LAMP servers

Over the years I have had to harden a great number of LAMP boxes, I have found some methods work for better than others. I will now share with you all my favorite 10 along with methods to implement them on Debian/Ubuntu.

10. Lock SSH access right down. I do this by disabling root logins, disabling password authentication and using denyhosts.

To disable root logins do this: vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config and look for the following line: PermitRootLogin yes and change it thus: PermitRootLogin no

To disable password authentication (you will have to use public/private keys) do this: vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config and look for the following line: #PasswordAuthentication yes (note its commented out) and change it thus: PasswordAuthentication no

To install denyhosts do this: apt-get install denyhosts once installed it shouldn't need any configuration, but you can tweak the settings if you wish in /etc/denyhosts.conf

9. Always use Sudo for root access, This is one of the things Ubuntu does really well and its about time other distros did the same.

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