Unix as a Second Language

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Sandra Henry-Stocker has been administering Unix systems for more than 25 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 company that builds innovative technologies to make critical connections happen -- where no one else necessarily shares any of her opinions. This blog offers advice for everyday Unix systems administration and some clever ways to approach more challenging problems. Send comments and suggestions to mailto:bugfarm@gmail.com.

by Sandra Henry-Stocker

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  • Samba swings both ways

    Posted Nov 12, 2012 - 10:20 pm

    The most typical use of Samba is to make Unix home directories or shared files available on Windows. Being most comfortable on the command line, I generally do this by opening a Command Prompt and entering NET USE commands.

  • Counting processors on your Linux box

    Posted Feb 04, 2013 - 11:52 am

    The quickest way to determine what and how many processors are installed on a Linux system is to turn to the mighty gateway of kernel data -- the /proc pseudo-filesystem. In it, you'll find a file called /proc/cpuinfo that provides a lot of information in the processors in your system. Read on to see how easily you can get answers to questions and an explanation of what those answers really tell you.

  • 13 Things that a Unix sysadmin will never do

    Posted Dec 09, 2012 - 07:17 pm

    that we Unix admins would never do ... and how that keeps us out of trouble.

  • How to harden your RHEL 5 servers

    Posted Dec 17, 2012 - 09:03 pm

    Hardening tips for Unix systems have been issued for decades, but when's the last time you stopped to review how your servers stack up against the latest advice from the sages? Let's check out some of the recommendations provided for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and see what you might gain or lose by implementing them.

  • How to freeze Unix accounts

    Posted Jan 07, 2013 - 08:31 pm

    Before the chilly winds of a RIF blow in your direction or a pile of your friends take off for greener pastures, you need to be prepared with an easy way to freeze account and preserve what might be of value in the abandoned home directories. In today's post, we'll look at some commands for inactivating accounts on Unix systems and provide some starter scripts for you to adapt to your environment.

  • Unix Tip: Grepping on Whole Words

    Posted Nov 03, 2009 - 06:55 pm

    If every time you grep for a specific word or string, you get a pile of lines that don't match what you were looking for, maybe it's time to learn about whole word searching. In today's column, we examine two ways to get what you want, the whole of what you want and nothing but what you want.

  • How to enforce password complexity on Linux

    Posted May 06, 2012 - 08:17 pm

    [chunklet]

  • Unix tip: Using Bash's regular expressions

    Posted May 05, 2013 - 08:37 pm

    Bash has quietly made scripting on Unix systems a lot easier with its own regular expressions. If you're still leaning on grep and sed commands to get your scripts to do what you need from them, maybe it's time to look into what bash can do on its own.

  • Unix How To: Using nmap to Map Your Network

    Posted Feb 17, 2010 - 02:20 pm

    It is certainly well known that "hacker tools" can be used for many legitimate purposes. Nmap, the Network Mapper and security scanner is no exception. These days, it is used routinely to identify the operating systems, applications and software versions running on targeted systems.

  • Unix: Timing your cron jobs

    Posted Apr 28, 2013 - 11:11 pm

    Cron is not in charge; you are. All you need to do is tell it what you want done and when you want it done.

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