Unix as a Second Language 
by Sandra Henry-Stocker
Sandra Henry-Stocker has been administering Unix systems for more than 18 years. She describes herself as "USL" (Unix as a second language) but remembers enough English to write books and buy groceries. She currently works for TeleCommunication Systems, a wireless communications company, in Annapolis, Maryland, where no one else necessarily shares any of her opinions. She lives on a small farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
This blog offers advice for every-day Unix systems administration and some clever ways to approach more challenging problems.
Send comments and suggestions to mailto:bugfarm@gmail.com.
Unix Wizdumb: Clean up empty "in use" files with "cat /dev/null"
Ever run into the problem of a 100% full /var file system? Who hasn't? It's so tempting to whip out the old rm command and start cleaning out files. But what if you remove a file that's eating a huge chunk of space only to find that none of the space is freed up? Oops!
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Unix: Impossible File Types
In spite of its long history as one of the tried and true Unix commands, even the tar command can offer some surprises. My first encounter with "impossible file type" errors took place earlier today.
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Unix: Adding swap space on the fly
Swap space can be critical to the performance of a Unix system. Even if you think you have sufficient memory (1-2 GB), you might find that the demands on your system cry out for more. You can resolve a swap space shortage in a pinch if you have an unused partition on your disk or just extra disk space on a mounted drive.
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Network Know-How: An Essential Guide for the Accidental Admin
If you find yourself getting calls from all your neighbors just because you're a systems geek and can pull a network together in your sleep, here's a great source of fundamental network know how that you might recommend.
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