September 2013 Issue of Linux Journal: HOW-TOs

How’d Ya Do That?

I tend to read science fiction or fantasy for entertainment and/or escape from reality. more>>

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Dynamic DNS—an Object Lesson in Problem Solving

The other day in the Linux Journal IRC room (#linuxjournal on Freenode),
I was whining to the channel about no-ip.com deleting my account
without warning. My home IP address hadn’t changed in a couple months,
and because there was no update, it appeared abandoned. more>>

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Home, My Backup Data Center

New Linux users often ask me “what is the best way to learn about
Linux?”
My advice always comes down to this: install and use Linux (any distribution
will do but something stable works better), and more>>

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Troubleshooting with Telnet

Poor telnet, it used to be the cool kid on the block. It was the program all
sysadmins turned to when they needed to connect to a remote server. Telnet
just wasn’t that good at keeping a secret—all communication went over plain
text—so administrators started switching to SSH for encrypted remote shell
sessions. more>>

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Python Scripts as a Replacement for Bash Utility Scripts

For Linux users, the command line is a celebrated part of our entire
experience. Unlike other popular operating systems, where the command
line is a scary proposition for all but the most experienced veterans, in
the Linux community, command-line use is encouraged. more>>

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Getting Started with Salt Stack-the Other Configuration Management System Built with Python

I was proudly wearing one of my Salt Stack shirts the other day when my daughter
asked me, “What is Salt Stack?”
I began by explaining the problem it solved.
If you have multiple servers and want to do things to those servers, you
would need to log in to each one and do those things one at a time on each one.
They could be fairly simple tasks like restarting them or checking how long
they have been running. Or, you might want to do more complicated things like
installing software and then configuring that software based upon your own specific
criteria. You also might want to add users and configure permissions for them.
more>>

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