Top 10 reasons why we should use Linux

Linux is different from other operating systems in many important ways. It has become one of the most adopted systems by many users in and around the world. Whether you want to use it for business or any other home operations, Linux offers the most reliable system to adopt.  Most of the world’s largest data centers across the globe use Linux. There are various reasons that answer why should we use Linux, out of which lets see the top ten reasons.

1. Linux is free of charge

Main reason behind Linux power and popularity is its open source nature. The code used to create Linux is free and available to the public to view, edit and for users with the appropriate skills- to contribute to.

2. Linux is more secure

Virus and malware are alien to Linux world. Linux community offers the security fixes for any technical or security threat that encounters. Moreover, Linux users also offer regular kernel updates and regular security patches. In this regard, it is not mandatory for you to have an anti-virus program for your system. Switching to Linux will save you some more as you won’t have to buy an antivirus.

3. Easy to Operate

Ideally, there is no need for intensive training to know how to use the Linux operating system. Besides, it has all the functionality that you look for in Windows. If you are looking for a system that is reliable and can be used by anyone in your business, then this could be the best system to adopt.

4. Compatible with lower end hardware

Most of the other servers do constraint you with a lot of features. Windows 7, 8 and 10 require at least 1GB of RAM. Running Windows 7/8/10 on the minimum configuration will be a real painful experience as it will be extremely slow and almost unusable.

However, Linux is such a lightweight operating system and hence does not constrain you in terms of a memory capacity of your system. It can thus be used by any of your systems.

5. It comes inclusive of drivers

A Windows user must have struggled with drivers. Finding the correct driver for your system is a difficult task. But with Linux, most of these drivers are supported directly by the Linux kernel. This means it is more like plug and play for Linux. And it saves you money as well.

6. Easy Updating Process

Updating windows can be very challenging and stressful. But in Linux you will be regularly notified that updates are available. And these updates include not just system and security updates but available updates for different applications installed. Unlike Windows, you won’t have to wait at shutdown or start time. Updating in desktop Linux is a matter of one click.

7. Software repository

Most of the desktop Linux OS have their own ‘app store’ or ‘software repository’. You can look for any kind of application, libraries at one single place without the need of Googling all over the internet for it. Moreover, the software thus installed will be safe, compatible with your OS and will be getting automatic updates.

8. Linux is speedy

Since Linux is lightweight, it is therefore far much speedy compared to any other operating system. In any business operation or gaming experience, time is the most crucial factor. Linux is the best system to adopt as windows get slower days after days.

9. Linux has a community support

Probably the best thing about Linux is the Linux community. You have a platform where you can share everything with fellow users. If you drop any question you have, you will definitely get its answer from someone. Such is the support of Linux community.

10. Linux features a powerful word processing program

The word processing program in Linux is Libre Office. You can use it for free in editing, opening and send Microsoft documents. You, therefore, save more and more money you could spend buying such a program.

ABOUT AUTHOR:

Naveena K.S. is B.Tech Graduate in Electronics and Communication. She has done her professional studies from College of Engineering Cherthala. Though her specialization is in Electronics and Communication she has a strong liking towards IT. She is very active in technical forums and Medias learning and sharing her views with community. Currently she is doing RHCE programme from IPSR.

Promulgation of the hottest job skills 2015 – 16

Cloud and distributed computing is now the most vibrant opportunity among the varied IT and IT enabled skills that gets hired by employers in India. This was revealed by Professional networking website LinkedIn in a survey on the most potential Job skills that enabled a job seeking aspirant to achieve the best job in 2015. Sohan Murthy, data analysis Linkedin said “We noticed that companies were still recruiting and hiring for these skills well into the final months of 2015, so we expect these skills will remain in-demand in the early part of 2016.”

Promulgation of the hottest and potential job skills on the lines of generalization from data analysis results from Linkedin has raised possibilities of the top rated skills to continue on demand throughout 2016. The trend analysis on placement data from various placement gateways revealed that cloud computing, Storage System Management, Networking and Information Security, Virtualization, and Max, Linux and Unix System has made a good deal towards the end of 2015 and continues its trend in the opening of 2016.

Incredibly, the huge scores in academics alone doesn’t seem to be pivotal criteria in making a successful deal in placement. Excellence in professional and technical skills in the lines with the new trends and industrial requirement will serve as a better prelude in steering you to success. So guys get going but set your sail in the right direction.

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Microsoft with huge requirement of Linux professionals

Gone are the days when Microsoft was at war with Linux and the whole of free and open-source software movement. The tech giant now has narrowly slimmed down the rivalry, outstanding against Linux, the most successful competitor to windows. Mr. Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft and Mr. Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure have endorsed this sensational remark “Microsoft loves Linux” on the changed outlook of Microsoft to Linux in many occasions.

 Addressing a conference at Raleigh, North Carolina, Mr. Mark Russinovich remarked that “If you’re a Linux or open source developer, Microsoft wants to work with you, and maybe even hire you.” Also he added to 1,700 person crowd of open source and Linux coders assembled there to “Pass your resumes up,” that there are nearly about 500 job openings... Read more

For more details on Linux training & certification, please visit:  //www.ipsr.edu.in/red-hat/red-hat-linux-training.html

Linux: a stuff of collaboration and master of perfection

Despite, many ridicule and challenge in the inception, the collaborative stuff Linux has set fire to an explosive revolution in IT. Today Linux is dominating the most potential techno powered zones like mobile devices, web infrastructure, data centres, supercomputing, cloud computing and many more. The penetration of linux to a common man’s life space is quite relevant from the following figures. It is estimated that Over 850000 android phones running linux activated every single day compared to 30,000 windows phones according to latest reports.  Over 700000 TV are sold every day most of which are running linux. 8 out of 10 financial trades are powered by linux, 9 out of 10 worlds super computer runs on linux. Google, face book, amazon.com and twitter are powered by linux.

When linux make such a big leap in the techno front and become a throb in the pulse of all social medias it would be a matter of interest to know How is linux developed? And how the development project is networked?

Unlike other operating systems Linux is build collaboratively across companies, geographies and markets resulting in the largest collaboratively development project in the history of computing. It is amazing that just from 2005 over 8000 developers from 800 companies contributed to the linux and these collaborative processes resulted in the contribution of 15 million lines of codes. This is not about the sheer number of lines of codes it is also about how quickly and about how linux is developed and released. To add wonder to astonishment a major new kernel comes about every 2-3 months compared to years of competing operating system

Developers make changes in the individual unit called patches. It describes the lines to be changed added or removed from a source code. Each patch can add new features, new support for a device, fix a problem and improve performance or rework things to be easily understood. Once a patch is developed it is mailed to developers mailing address. Patches are accepted by senior kernel developers or maintainer who manages hundreds of section of kernel. When this is accepted it is a guarantee that it goes to the main line. Then it is set to more extensive evaluation, when the maintainer finishes the review he or she will sign on the patch and send it to linux creator. Linux foundation fellow Linux Torvalds who has the ultimate authority on what is accepted in the next release. Almost 10000 patches goes into every new release and about six patches are applied to the kernel every hour

Thus Linux rate of development is simply unmatched and hence could claim the title the master of innovation and perfection

What is next????  Because together the emperor is ready with an empire of opportunities, and that the questions sustains is ARE YOU READY TO ENJOY IT????

With Linux in the Industry

The scenario of the IT industry in the recent past mirror a drastic growth in the open source technologies  Linux related accomplishment over these year tend to view the industry as a barometer for gauging the efficiency, scope and immense possibilities in this sector. The advancement in embedded and mobile platforms has integrated open source solutions into platforms such as automotive computers, android-based mobile devices, tablets, Chrome books and many other related areas.

With the establishment of the Open Stack Foundation and the maturation of Big Data platform open source has paved the toehold in the cloud market. Despite of this huge accomplishment Linux foundation paid relatively little heed to the success. The issue is highly topical, perhaps these technologies are open source but not powered with Linux Kernal but sill their prevalence in the enterprise cloud infrastructures means Linux.

Recently Ubuntu has launched an intense development effort to port Linux over to Goolge’s Nexus 7. This would be a promising effort for the fact that Nexus device sales continue to rise and availability on popular standard platform like Nexus would make it easy accessible in reasonable pricing. Also a notable explosion in the sales of the system with desktop Linux pre-installed has opened the possibilities to substitute proprietary software from desktop environment. Dells Project Sputnik which released a high-end Ubuntu based laptop might turn to be a big deal in US and Europe. Thus commercialization of desktop Linux has been a remarkable development in the open source channel.

Booming Asian Market shows an even higher percentage of respondents looking for Linux talent. Nearly nine in 10 (86%) of survey respondents from Asia say that hiring Linux talent is a priority in the year ahead, citing an increased use of Linux as the primary driver. This is consistent with reports about the increasing use of Linux among consumer electronics makers largely concentrated in the Asia/Pacific market. Hence for people with well-honed Linux skills and up-to-date training, the job market is thriving — and the opportunities put Linux professionals directly in the center of disruptive and exciting innovations that are changing the way we work and live.

Linux opportunities everywhere but no sufficient talents to find

Extract from the 2012 IT Job reports reveals

81% of the recruiters globally say hiring linux talents is a priority

63% of the employers seek more linux talent relative to other skill areas

85% of hiring managers say linux talent is hard to find

Nearly 1/3 of companies are offering above normal pay increases to linux pros

Despite this abundance in possibilities of tech job in Linux souk, the scenario of job seeking in the contemporary Job malls is like an attempt to identify the right choice by keeping the eyes closed and keep believing that nothing exists. The right choice is at the hand reach it’s just a matter of keeping the eyes open. 

It is an undisputed fact that it is the tech jobs that fuel the global economy to a greater extend. In the remarks of the US President in his recent State and Union address stated that there are as many opening in the Science and technology sectors as there are people to fill them. It is also a generalized scenario of the global industry which is unveiled from the facts and figures of the global statistics on demand vs supply of talented human capitals. But now the matter of concern is where exactly are these jobs? And who exactly fits in?

Today, we have a more genuine and valid data that helps us understand where are the tech jobs and that tells us we need more trained people in the most profitable and rewarding areas of tech.

From the reports of The tech Job News, the two most lucrative area in the tech job market are Linux development and System administration and it is said that Eighty One percent of recruiters surveyed says hiring Linux professionals is a priority in the year ahead (2013 – 14)

And Sixty three percent will be hiring Linux talent over candidates with other skill sets.

A NYU Professor recently said "code is the literacy of the future" (CNN: Computer Geeks King in Job Hunt). We agree. And, we believe that Linux is an important currency in that future. It powers the Internet. It runs Google, Face book, Amazon, Twitter and millions of other Internet technology companies. It runs the world's supercomputers, data centers, smart phones, financial institutions and stock exchanges, and the list goes on. It's no surprise that with its widespread ubiquity that today there is also growing demand for talent to support it. In fact, when the Linux Jobs Report survey respondents were asked why hiring Linux talent was a priority in the year ahead, most reported their companies are growing, increasing their use of Linux and requiring in-house expertise to support the OS.

But what brings wrinkles in the forehead of employers who are seeking for the right skills is that Linux and open source developers can be hard to find. Eight-five percent of those surveyed say that finding Linux talent is really difficult.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Qualcomm, IBM, Intel and hundreds of other companies who rely on Linux to support their businesses, especially their highly-valued data centers and embedded systems, are paying big bucks to find and retain Linux talent. The Linux Jobs Report shows that nearly 1/3 of the companies surveyed are giving pay increases to these professionals that are above the industry norm. Dice's 2012 Salary Report backs this up, showing that Linux professionals have seen salaries go up by 5% over the last few years, while tech professionals overall have seen just a 2% increase. The 15% bump in bonus payouts to Linux professionals just solidifies the point.

When the tech job industries are flooding with opportunities it is quite ridiculous to see tech aspirants wandering in search of jobs. For a good entry in a sustainable tech job market just keep the eye open and enjoy a cool career as penguin is quite cool.

Content courtesy: http://www.linuxfoundation.org

Redhat the best fit in the new world of IT

Gone are the days where the major stakeholders of IT and government worldwide keep relying on high cost, high risk and elusive returns of proprietary software. With the advent of open source philosophy in the IT, cost and risk driven factors do not make any sense for the government’s biggest IT challenges. 

The triple rings of security, freedom and cost saving are the priorities for any industries that are focusing to anchor their business in the port of sustainable development. Customers need reliable solutions that can meet mission-critical IT demands at all levels. It is in this frame that the government agencies and other stake holders rely on redhat solutions to securely deliver services to the end users.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, including the KVM hypervisor, has been awarded the Common Criteria Certification at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4+ – the highest level of assurance for an unmodified commercial operating system – for the Operating System Protection Profile (OSPP) including extended modules for Advanced Management, Advanced Audit, Labeled Security, and Virtualization for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 on Dell, HP, IBM and SGI hardware. This is viewed as a token of trust and creditability among the stakeholders and government agencies.

The future GOV submit 2012, Asias largest official gathering for government modernization has expressed their concern on data governance and security. The Summit 2012 hosted 151 leaders, advisors and implementers of technology programs from 22 countries, who were joined by 15 senior government speakers from across Asia Pacific, North America and Europe, along with the editorial team of FutureGov magazine, to discuss the challenges faced by governments now, and in the near future.

From the reports of the submit it was highlighted that the results of live polling sessions at the event, more than 50% of attendees were concerned with issues of data governance and security when moving to the cloud. 

In the session Mr. Damien Wong, General Manager, ASEAN, Red Hat presented at an interactive discussion session on the topic of “The Cloud: A Channel for Government Service Delivery”, and Mr Sivaram Shunmugam, lead solutions architect, South East Asia, Red Hat led a workshop with Intel on “Towards Open Government: Platform modernisation in government, education and healthcare.”. These sessions has highlighted the potentials ambiance of redhat solution in meeting the demands of Government service delivery.

Few success stories of global stakeholders of redhat 

Melaka State Government Reduces Costs, Gains Flexibility and Prepares for the Cloud with Red Hat Solution. In order to overcome the challenge of information and systems in various silos, the company embarked on an IT consolidation and virtualization journey led by Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Red Hat Virtualization Delivers Cost Savings and Increased Performance for University of Sydney. The University of Sydney needed to quickly and cost-effectively develop a high-availability platform to support a web-based file repository, enabling the University to comply with new Government regulations. Read on to see how they achieved results through Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In the rings with Apple iOS 6 and Antroid 4.1 Jelly bean

Here the rings are not the boxing platform but the arena of apps, games and other digital contents and the title is to become Smart, Smatter and the Smartest, omg!!!….and now the battle is on to own the crown of the smartest.

The scenario of smart phone OS technology during the past few years witnessed a tech race to win the supremacy of the smartest icon. Android and the Apple iOS the twin Ace of the lot is entangled in a never ending battle to claim the chair. When google launched the latest version of Antroid operating system code Jelly bean to power the hundreds of millions of end users, Apple countered it with the latest iOS 6 to neutralize the hype of Jelly Bean. The dependence of Apple on Google applications like google Maps and others has been defied in new release of  iOS 6 by integrating self sustaining features like Apple maps etc.

 When punches and counterpunches dominate the rings it feels essential for a tech lover to watch out who hit a Bolo punch and who knocks out of the bout. Here for a better appreciation and evaluation of the strengths and weakness of the two tech giants an interrogation into their features are designed

Smart Widgets a straight punch

Android 4.1 introduces improved App Widgets that can automatically resize, based on where the user drops them on the home screen, the size to which the user expands them, and the amount of room available on the home screen. This new feature of responsive widget helps the user to manage the home screen space by dragging and dropping widgets where all the other icons and widgets will make space for them,

. Apple has not embraced widgets in iOS, and while Microsoft has created customizable "live tiles" for Windows Phone, they are still static boxes tied to a single home screen. Android's widgets are now smarter and will be easier to integrate on an Android's variety of home screens. 

Additions to Google Beam a Jab punch

In Android 4.1, Android Beam makes it easier to share images, videos, or other payloads by leveraging Bluetooth for the data transfer. When the user triggers a transfer, Android Beam hands over from NFC to Bluetooth, making it really easy to manage the transfer of a file from one device to another.

Google continues to lead on NFC smartphone integration. With two new Beam features, Android Jelly Bean is way ahead of the competition when it comes to NFC. For instance, this is the first time we have seen NFC connect devices over a wireless connection with the ability to tap your phone to a Bluetooth device.

New Google Voice Search a hook punch

Google voice search… looks like Apple's Siri but could ultimately be more robust. Apple ties its search results to particular databases and search engines like Wolfram Alpha or Yelp. Google voice search in Android ties it to the company's robust search engine. Add responsive voice feedback and the new card-based interface, and mobile search is taking a step ahead.

New "Platform Developer Kit" a straight right hand punch

The "Platform Developer Kit" is a really smart move by Google considering its large manufacturer and partner base. You don't often think of hardware as something that can be "opened," but the ability to institute the very basic aspects of Android with one simple kit will make it much easier for hardware companies to start building on new versions of the platform.

Smart App updates an upper cut punch

Smart app updates is a new feature of Google Play that introduces a better way of delivering app updates to devices. When developers publish an update, Google Play now delivers only the bits that have changed to devices, rather than the entire APK. This makes the updates much lighter-weight in most cases, so they are faster to download, save the device’s battery, and conserve bandwidth usage on users’ mobile data plan. On average, a smart app update is about 1/3 the size of a full APK update.

Rich Push Notifications a rabbit punch

Android 4.1 brings a major update to the Android notifications framework. Apps can now display larger, richer notifications to users that can be expanded and collapsed with a pinch. Notifications support new types of content, including photos, have configurable priority, and can even include multiple actions.

Google has long been ahead in push notifications with Android. Even Apple has had to catch up, with the prime example being how Apple created a drop-down menu for notifications in iOS 5 last year. Google has now taken that a step further by not just making notifications easy to develop for, but also integrating rich media into the drop-down menu. There are some things that iOS, BlackBerry or Windows Phone do better than Android. When it comes to notifications, Android will continue to lead the way.

Google Maps vs Apple Maps a combination punch

Google’s turn-by-turn navigation is better even though Jelly Bean pushes it to a separate app, Google just recently revamped their Maps to include 3D mapping and offline maps. The offline maps are a killer feature, they are useful when you have no service, Offline Maps, transit, and walking directions give Google a point in this category, Apple has a long way to go if it wants Maps to be on par with Google, When we first found out Apple was developing its own Maps app, we were excited, Then we actually saw the maps, and we were completely underwhelmed, Apple’s Maps don’t include walking directions or transit directions and that’s a big let down for a lot of users…

As the ring continues to be active

As of now Jelly Bean and iOS 6 are both great mobile operating systems and they’re both improvable, It is wise not to expect the outcome to end up like it did, Overall Google’s Android OS is much more robust and feature packed than Apple’s, Apple has polished its operating system and added a lot of nifty features.

So Let the ring continue to be active as, what we have seen is nothing when compared to what we ought to see and let us keep enjoying all great features that suits us the best…

Content courtesy: Ambily P.S, Technical Consultant, ipsr solutions                                    

Cloud and Realities

A group of technically empowered people with liberal thoughts and creative ambiance has given birth to a community with openness as its icon. This open source group has always stood for building up better technologies and allowed freedom to look at the codes and to change it for more compatible application. This collaborative process has catalyzed the growth of IT to incredible heights and provides more value to the end users

The open source provides a solid foundation to the emerging technology of cloud computing. It is estimated that over 90% of the public cloud are powered with linux and other open source software. The scalability, stability, performance and robustness to cope with the requirements has propelled the cloud computing technology to crest of major application in IT.

Even when IT community rate Cloud computing as the next step towards future, there are a few who do have a spell of ambiguity in the concept of cloud computing. In a very simple sense cloud computing could be conceived as computer resources delivered as a service through network. With the advent of high speed internet and machines with greater capabilities, cloud computing has gained more popularity and has become a cost effective contemporary technology. The end user even taps into the resources offered by the providers even without realizing that they are availing the benefit of “cloud”

The technology of cloud computing is performed at various levels – public, community, hybrid and private cloud. Private clouds can be considered as the modern day equivalents of the mainframe and terminal solution used by organizations in the past. However, private clouds can now be completely outsourced to a host, who ends up providing the required services and infrastructures, While the end user taps into the resources offered by the provider.

As the technology evolves, larger virtual storage areas will become tangible and servers will gain greater performance capability. The mode of communication between the end user and the service provider will get to a new dimension, where all storage will become cloud based.

Redhat the master vender in linux distribution has established its own platform as the de facto standards for open cloud computing

With its API 1.0 release, Deltacloud offers a variety of front-ends, which is to say interfaces through which users make a request to a cloud provider. New is a basic Amazon EC2 front-end, which can be used to communicate with a variety of cloud providers using the popular Amazon Web Services interface. This is primarily intended for users looking to migrate between EC2 and another cloud provider.

These developments has set the stage to a new era in IT

Is Linux, an Unix like operating system?

It is astonishing to note that over the past couple of years there are a few bug of uncertainty among the techno loving generation in conceptualizing UNIX and Linux. Most often Linux is viewed as an UNIX like operating system which is strongly disagreed by “open group, an industry standards consortium” and they weigh it as an attempt to misuse unix trademark. 

UNIX is copyrighted name where only big companies are allowed to use the UNIX copyright and name, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris and HP-UX all are UNIX operating systems. This operating system is mostly commercial in nature. The Open Group holds the UNIX trademark in trust for the industry, and manages the UNIX trademark licensing program.

Admit all the reportage of the argument of all forums and groups, Linux as read from official Linux kernel README file is stated as ”Linux is a Unix clone written from scratch by Linus Torvalds” aiming toward POSIX compliance. While Unix is originally developed by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Lab in 1968 and initially ported to government commercial firms and educational institution. The Unix operating system are complete operating system which has many utilities inbuilt along with kernel the master control program.

Linux is just a kernel and Linux distribution makes it complete usable operating systems by adding various applications. Hence all linux distribution includes GUI system, GNU utilities (such as cp, mv, ls, date, bash…etc), installation & management tools, GNU c/c++ Compilers, Editors (vi), and various applications (such as OpenOffice, Firefox) etc.

Regarding the file system, Linux by default supports and use ext3 or ext4 file systems while UNIX comes with various file systems such as jfs, gpfs (AIX), jfs, gpfs (HP-UX), jfs, gpfs. When comparing the system administration tools and security firewall, Unix system comes with its own tools and products like SAM on HP-UX.for sys admin and ipfilter based firewall. While Linux uses open source netfilter/iptables based firewall. While analyzing on the end user perspective the difference is not big on an average, both uses same shell (e.g. bash or ksh) and other development tools such as Perl or Eclipse development tool.

While diagnosing it from a cost frame Linux is free you can download it from the Internet or redistribute it under GNU licenses. You will see the best community support for Linux. Most UNIX like operating systems are not free (but this is changing fast, for example OpenSolaris UNIX). However, some Linux distributions such as Redhat / Novell provides additional Linux support, consultancy, bug fixing, and training for additional fees.

At the enterprise level linux flavor grids most of the server and cloud platform where RHEL tops the tally. To know more about the advantages of RHEL visit advantages of RHEL

Linux Project at IPSR Selected as Best Academic Project

IPSR, through its OSBRC (Open Source Based Research Centre) offers free Linux based projects for students, along with their RHCE. Since its inception in December 2010, OSBRC has helped many students take up unique projects for their academic requirements.


Mr. Libin Balan, Mr. Anup Shaji , Mr. Jeeno Mathew Jacob and Mr.Thomas Chacko, who are BE students at Sri Nandhanam College Of Engineering And Technology, Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu had chosen IPSR for their academic project, because of our strength in Linux and Open Source. Their project topic was ‘Efficient Data Restoration for a Disk Based Network Backup System’. During the in-campus assessments, this project was rated as the Best Academic Project.

IPSR also offers all kinds of academic project assistance to MCA & B Tech students and during the previous year also, projects of our students were chosen as best projects in various campuses.

We congratulate Libin, Anup, Jeeno & Thomas on this achievement, along with all team members at OSBRC.

Update:  Also, the academic project titled "Web Hosting Server", done by Mr. Shamnad Shaikh Meeran,  Mr.Varun V, Mr. Varghese Antony and Mr. Roun Antony was adjudged as 'One of the Best Academic Projects' at Sri Nandhanam College Of Engineering And Technology, Tirupattur.
 

Network Administration Tips

Linux system administration has a lead role in the domain of Information Technology. To work as a successful system administrator one should know installing and configuring server to protecting the filesystem from crackers.  A system administrator should have knowledge of current advancement in technology. When a new technology comes, such as Linux Virtualization, they need to know how to apply the same.

To begin this year, here are some basic system administration tips that may be useful to protect your computer security, to provide back up for the entire hard disk, manage basic trouble shooting problems etc.  Network administration is not a difficult task until it is managed properly. 

 

Data loss is the major problem faced by system admins. There are many ways to back up data. “dd command” is one such way.  With this “dd command” one can provide back up for the entire hard disk or can create image of the hard disk. If server is accessed simultaneously from multiple sources its better to provide back ups for the server data and manage the resources so that it won’t affect its performance.

“rsync” is another command which is used to synchronize files and directories from source to destination.

RPM (Red Hat Package Manger) command is used for installing, upgrading, listing, querying, checking, and uninstalling RPM packages on Linux system. RPM checks whether system suits the software in RPM package and finds out the location and install it in the system and adds software into database of installed RPM packages.

A professional system administrator needs to know a number of tasks associated with networking and providing services to users.  Here is a handy list of  about 50 tutorials which might help you with common system admin tasks and teach some tips and tricks

Bash Commands For Programmers

Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It offers functional improvements over sh for both programming and interactive use; these include command line editing, unlimited size command history, job control, shell functions and aliases, indexed arrays of unlimited size, and integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four. Bash can run most sh scripts without modification. Bash Tricks are widely used for both programmers and system administrators. But this article focus about the tricks for bash programmers
Bash has several commands that comes with the shell (i.e built inside the bash shell). When you execute a built-in command, bash shell executes it immediately, without invoking any other program. Bash shell built-in commands are faster than external commands, because external commands usually fork a process to execute it.

Join Command

Join command combines lines from two files based on a common field.
In the example below, we have two files – employee.txt and salary.txt. Both
have employee-id as common field. So, we can use join command to combine
the data from these two files using employee-id as shown below.

# cat name.txt
1 bob
2 john
3 sunil
4 jane
5 alice

# cat percentage.txt
1 80%
2 90%
3 69%
4 56%
5 89%

# join name.txt percentage.txt
1 bob 80%
2 john 90%
3 sunil 69%
4 jane 56%
5 alice 89%

Export Command Example

export command is used to export a variable or function to the environment of all the child processes running in the current shell.

#export variablename=value
#export -f functionname # exports a function in the current shell.

It exports a variable or function with a value. “env” command lists all the environment variables. In the following example, you can see that env displays the exported variable.


# export ipsr=redhat
# env
GDM_XSERVER_LOCATION=local
PWD=/root
INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
XMODIFIERS=@im=none
ipsr=redhat
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
KDE_IS_PRELINKED=1
GDMSESSION=gnome

# echo $ipsr
redhat

“export -p” command also displays all the exported variable in the current shell.

hash Command Example

hash command maintains a hash table, which has the used command’s path names. When you execute a command, it searches for a command in the variable $PATH.
But if the command is available in the hash table, it picks up from there and executes it. Hash table maintains the number of hits encountered for each commands used so far in that shell.

# hash
hits command
1 /bin/egrep
18 /usr/bin/ac
3 /usr/bin/man
1 /usr/bin/clear

You can delete a particular command from a hash table using -d option, and -r option to reset the complete hash table.

#hash -d egrep
# hash
hits command
18 /usr/bin/ac
3 /usr/bin/man
1 /usr/bin/clear


readonly Command Example

readonly command is used to mark a variable or function as read-only, which can not be changed further.
# readonly computer=IT
#echo $computer
IT
#read computer
CSE
bash: computer: readonly variable

test Command Example

test command evaluates the conditional expression and returns zero or one based on the evaluation. Refer the manual page of bash, for more test operators.
#! /bin/bash

if test -z $1
then
echo "The positional parameter \$1 is empty"
fi
Note: Here ‘z’ option checks the length of STRING is zero

set Command Examples

set is a shell built-in command, which is used to set and modify the internal variables of the shell. set command without argument lists all the variables and it’s values. set command is also used to set the values for the positional parameters.
$ set +o history # To disable the history storing.
+o disables the given options.

$ set -o history
-o enables the history

$ cat set.sh
var="Welcome to ipsr"
set -- $var
echo "\$1=" $1
echo "\$2=" $2
echo "\$3=" $3

$ ./set.sh
$1=Welcome
$2=to
$3=ipsr

Note: The args follwed by “–-” option is used to set the values to the positional parameter. If no arguments follow this option, then the positional parameters are unset.

unset Command Examples

unset built-in is used to set the shell variable to null. unset also used to delete an element of an array and to delete complete array.
$ cat unset.sh
#!/bin/bash
#Assign values and print it
var="welcome to ipsr"
echo $var

#unset the variable
unset var
echo $var

$ ./unset.sh
welcome to ipsr
In the above example, after unset the variable “var” will be assigned with null string.

let Command Example

let commands is used to perform arithmetic operations on shell variables.
$ cat arith.sh
#! /bin/bash

let arg1=12
let arg2=11

let add=$arg1+$arg2
let sub=$arg1-$arg2
let mul=$arg1*$arg2
let div=$arg1/$arg2
echo $add $sub $mul $div

$ ./arith.sh
23 1 132 1

printf Command Example

Similar to printf in C language, bash printf built-in is used to format print operations.
In the above example, the script does arithmetic operation on two inputs. In that script instead of echo statement, you can use printf statement to print formatted output as shown below.
In arith.sh, replace the echo statement with this printf statement.
printf "Addition=%d\nSubtraction=%d\nMultiplication=%d\nDivision=%f\n" $add $sub $mul $div

$ ./arith.sh
Addition=23
Subtraction=1
Multiplication=132
Division=1.000000

Display total connect time of users

Ac command will display the statistics about the user’s connect time.
Connect time for the current logged in user
With the option –d, it will break down the output for the individual days. In
this example, I’ve been logged in to the system for more than 6 hours today.

On Dec 1st, I was logged in for about 1 hour.
$ ac –d
Dec 1 total 1.08
Dec 2 total 0.99
Dec 3 total 3.39
Dec 4 total 4.50
Today total 6.10



To display connect time for all the users use –p as shown below. Please note
that this indicates the cumulative connect time for the individual users.

$ ac -p
user1 3.64
root 229.12
user2 88.17
john 105.92
jane 111.42
total 538.27

To get a connect time report for a specific user, execute the following:

$ ac -d root
Aug 13 total 13.30
Aug 14 total 13.49
Aug 16 total 17.67
Aug 17 total 20.20
Aug 18 total 15.41
Aug 19 total 58.67
Aug 26 total 31.13
Aug 28 total 51.24
Today total 8.35

posted by:
IPSR linuxgroup

Best Academic Projects of our Trainees make us Proud

IPSR is happy to know that the academic projects done by some of our student-trainees have been rated as the "Best Academic Projects" in their campuses. We congratulate Ms. Soji Joy, Mr. Partheeban, Anju P. Rajan, Mathew, Lubina Latheef, Melwin Marian Isac and Preeja Prasad in the successful completion of the efforts they made. Take this initial accomplishment a foothold to more possibilities.

1. The Academic Project "REMOTE FIREWALL CONTROL SYSTEM" done by Soji Joy and her group from College of Engineering, Kalloppara, as part of their B. Tech curriculum, has been rated as the "Best Academic Project" in their campus. The project study was primarily focusing on network administration that can help LAN administrators to systematically control the firewall settings of all client systems. The project was successfully finished in making a Remote Firewall Control System, which facilitates administrators to manage and control all the client systems' firewall configuration without much effort. Other group members of the project are Anju P. Rajan, Mathew, Lubina Latheef, Melwin Marian Isac and Preeja Prasad.

2. "Architecture and Algorithm for Web Server Cluster based on Linux Virtual Server", project done by P. Partheeban from Tamil Nadu, also wins the best academic project award in Sastra University. The project study was on resolving the SPOF and bottleneck problems caused by the single head Balancer. He is a B. Tech in IT with RHCE, RHCSS and CCNA certifications. Moreover, he is a young with high proficiency in Linux, who took RHCSS certification at the age of 20 from IPSR during his B. Tech studies. Now he is at IPSR Linux Training division as a Linux faculty.

IPSR is a leader in Kerala, in offering academic projects to students of various IT courses. We offer MCA Projects, B. Tech/Engineering Projects, BCA Projects, BSc/MSc Projects etc.

Update: in 2011 also, out student projects are being rated as best.
 

Open Source in Education

Open Source can be a great resource in education. Here are some great tools you can use. Read this great article by Cynthia Harvey in Linux Planet.