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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  • Unix How To: The Linux /etc/inittab file

    Posted Apr 07, 2010 - 07:55 am

    One of the files that the average Unix sysadmin rarely looks at, almost never changes and yet depends on every time he or she reboots a system is the /etc/inittab file. This modest little file controls what happens whenever a system is rebooted or forced to change run levels. Let's take a look at the configuration lines that tell your system what it's supposed to do when you hit that power button.

  • Linux command: Side by side diff

    Posted Nov 26, 2008 - 01:46 pm

    Tired of looking at strings of "28,30d27" characters separating the differences between files you're comparing? Try a side by side diff listing that works the way your brain does.

  • The Big Move Toward Collaboration

    Posted Jun 23, 2010 - 11:20 am

    If only one thing impressed me at last week's FIRST conference in Miami, it was the extent to which the security community is moving toward collaboration. The FIRST community, now in its 23rd year, has long been about collaboration. Even so, this year's event highlighted companies, organizations and even international law enforcement deeply exploring the ways in which they can collaborate further and better to hold the line against the increasingly virulent opposition -- the bad guys.

  • Unix How to: Thinking in Unix Time

    Posted Jan 06, 2010 - 01:27 pm

    The new year rolled in at 1262304000, Unix time that is. It's a little hard to imagine that Unix is now more than 1.2 billion seconds old. Seems only yesterday that I was trying my first pipes and grep commands while thinking "Wow, this is groovy". OK, maybe not quite "groovy", but close!

  • Making sense of memory usage on Linux

    Posted Jun 10, 2012 - 12:24 pm

    Let's look at some basic commands that report on memory usage. The first that probably comes to mind is free. The free command will tell you about used and unused memory and about swap space. Physical memory is the random access storage provided by the RAM modules plugged into your motherboard.

  • Unix tip: Monitor disk arrays with sccli commands

    Posted Dec 04, 2008 - 11:13 am

    Disk arrays take a lot of worry about disk failure off your shoulders, but that's no reason not to notice when one goes bad. The sccli command can tell you a lot about what's happening with your StorEdge arrays. Let it warn you about disks gone bad.

  • A better way to learn Unix

    Posted Apr 22, 2012 - 11:35 am

    Having used Unix for nearly 30 years and taught it for more than 10, I am all too familiar with the glaze that comes over new users' eyes when they are introduced to the all-powerful Unix command line. Many, in fact, find it quite difficult to understand why the command line is needed at all on modern operating systems.

  • Unix tip: Making do with less

    Posted May 20, 2009 - 12:26 pm

    Know the less command? Really know the less command? If you don't use it routinely, you might be surprised at how many things this modest little command can do.

  • Rediscovering sar

    Posted Jul 22, 2012 - 07:00 pm

    Monitoring system performance with sar is as easy as enabling the sar tasks. While sar is bundled into many versions of Unix, it's often disabled until you take steps to get it running. To find out whether sar is running on your Unix server, just type sar and see what happens.

  • Unix tip: Inter-host trust on Unix, part 1

    Posted Jan 07, 2009 - 01:35 pm

    Inter-host trust can be a boon to user productivity and a nightmare to sysadmins. Here's how it works using rsh (remote shell) configuration files. Next week, we'll look at ssh.

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