LINUX NEWS
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Thursday, June 14, 2001
Read By 6,000 Linux Enthusiasts Weekly!TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Sean’s Notes
2) Linux News
The Joy of Linux
Maximum Linux Security
Reduce your Premiums, run Unix
Magic Passage VPN Appliance3) Linux Resources
Portscanning -- an Introduction
Getting a GNOME Session with VNC
More on Linux Device Drivers
Free Chapter from LPI book
Linux Cryptography4) App o’ the week
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1) Sean’s Notes
One of the most common frustrations people have with installing Linux has to do with partitioning the hard drive. In the Windows world, we’re used to having C:, and maybe D: when we add a new drive. Swap runs right on the same partition as your data, so you don’t have to plan that out either.
In UNIX, everything is one big filesystem–there are no drive letters. However, in the install, you’re prompted to partition the drive and assign mount points. What gives?
I’m going to make things simple for you: only two partitions are really needed. Swap, and the root (/). Swap is the space that is used to temporarily store memory in order to make room for other programs or data (thus, to swap it out). Like its Windows counterpart, it lets your computer act as if it has more memory than is actually installed.
I generally make my swap partition 1-2 times my physical memory, but never less than 128M, on the low side for workstations, and on the high side for servers. Others might say differently, but this is just one guy’s opinion. You can always add swap later (even temporarily), and experience will guide you into the future. Some of the confusion with swap comes from older versions of Linux, where swap partitions were limited to 128M. This limitation has since been overcome.
The root filesystem can then take up the rest of your hard disk space. This is where all your data, utilities, applications, and kernels go.
That was too easy… so why does everyone complain? UNIX is set up so that the filesystem can span multiple devices, by assigning parts of the tree (ie /home) to specific devices. It’s all transparent to the user; when they are in /home/foo/, they don’t care if they are on the primary master drive, the fifth drive on a SCSI chain, or even another computer. There are some places that administrators tend to break up the filesystem, though.
/boot is a special partition used to overcome limitations of PCs. LILO, the software used to boot Linux, relies on BIOS routines to access the hard drive. Thus, it is limited to the first 1024 cylinders. By creating a small partition called /boot, the installation can ensure that this resides under the 1024 limit, and then temporarily use it to boot the system until the kernel takes over. 16M is all that is needed for this partition, since it only stores kernels.
This three partition setup, swap, root (/), and /boot is what you’ll get if you select a workstation installation under RedHat. It has some advantages in that you don’t have to manage your space. If you have a drive under 2 gigs, you may wish to leave it at this, because breaking up the partitions any further will require some good estimations as to growth and usage.
The first partition you might want to break off is /home. This is where all your users will have home directories (even if the only user is you). There are a few big advantages to this.
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If you re-install your system, you can opt to keep this partition for the new install. Voila, you never lose data between installations!
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The fewer files on the partition, the less chance of corruption. If your other filesystems had problems, your data will be saved. On the same token, if /home gets corrupt, you’ll at least still have the system.
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Running one partition out of space (the /var and /tmp directories are notorious) will still allow you to save data to /home.
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It’s easier to select files for backup
The size of this partition varies…with drives being as big as they are nowadays, a couple of gigs is a good idea. Depending on how else everything goes, I sometimes just check the “assign unused space to this partition” option.
/usr is where you store most of your binaries and libraries, and is also a good candidate for its own partition. I try to give this one at least a gig, if not two, since I tend to install a lot of stuff. (Staroffice currently takes up 243M …Ouch!) Once again, this is a trade off between what space you have and future growth. Besides the advantages listed above, if you have multiple servers you could set them up to share the same /usr partition over NFS (Networked File System). Upgrade one computer, they all get the upgrades.
/var is where all the variable files (ie logs) go. Your RPM database is here, and so is any mail if your machine is set up properly. Depending on the use of the machine, this partition could be 100M and up. If you plan on serving mail, collecting logs, or running a database or web server, you’ll want to up this number.
swap, /, /boot, /home, /usr, and /var make up the basic partitions you’ll want to look at separating. Most anything is a candidate, but /bin, /dev, /etc, /lib, /sbin, and /tmp should always remain on the root partition, because critical files needed to boot up the system (and by extension, the other partitions) are there. You’ll want to make sure that you’ve got about 250M for these directories, plus whatever else you keep on the root partition.
Once again, experience will be your guide. Using the three basic partitions (swap, /, and /boot) is a good way to get a feel for what goes where.
Long live the Penguin,
Sean mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com
Visit the Linux News Board at http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbt.asp?b2
2) Linux News
The Joy of Linux
This might be the perfect book to get your significant other who doesn’t quite understand all this Linux jazz that keeps you up until the wee hours. The book is all about the Linux culture, though it manages to introduce some basic technical concepts in a friendly way.
http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU1301
Maximum Linux Security
If you have any machines exposed to the Internet, you know what kind of stuff is out there. Take a look at your system from the viewpoint of a hacker. The included CD will also keep you entertained for weeks with cool software toys.
http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU1302
Reduce your Premiums, Run Unix
One insurance firm has decided to charge a 5-15% premium on hacker insurance for those companies running NT. It was ”…found that system administrators working on open source systems tend to be better trained and stay with their employers longer than those at firms using Windows software…”
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0%2c4164%2c2766045%2c00.h tml
Magic Passage VPN Appliance
Magic Passage is a relatively new VPN box that runs Linux, and is wrapped up into a nice little package. The price looks great, around the $400 US mark. Looks like a nice solution for those that need some easy VPN services.
http://www.linuxwizardry.com/magicpassage.html
3) Linux Resources
Portscanning - An Introduction
Confused as to what portscanning is? Know what it is, but don’t know what your system has open? This article covers all the basics, plus some of the portscanning tools out there. It’s best if you scan yourself and know what’s open, before someone does it to you!
http://www.linux.com/enhance/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid424
Getting a GNOME Session with VNC
If you’ve ever used VNC (much like PC Anywhere), you know that it brings up a really sparse desktop when you’re connecting to a Unix box. This How-To explains the procedure to turn that boring desktop into a full featured GNOME session.
http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU1212
More on Linux Device Drivers
One of the more interesting things going on in kernel development is in the driver arena, because they are the pieces that end up doing the productive work. One of the developers, and co-author of the O’Reilly device driver book takes some time out to make some comments on what the future holds for 2.5, and thus 2.6.
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/06/08/drivers_update.h tml
Free Chapter From LPI Book
In more news from O’Reilly, they’ve just released a book covering the LPI certification exams 101 and 102. Along with this release, they’ve published the chapter on Linux Installation and Package Management on their web site.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lpicertnut/chapter/p2_ch04.html
Linux Cryptography
This presentation by Michael Warfield of Internet Security Systems is a great introduction to cryptography, and some of the services available for Linux that support it.
http://www.wittsend.com/crypto98/index.html
4) App o’ the week
The web is a great place to put data, since it’s easily accessible from anywhere. I’ve always had the need to put a few simple forms on the web, nothing fancy, but I just didn’t want to code the backend database stuff for each form. Phormation is a set of PHP scripts that allow you to describe the form elements, and then it will build both the input and edit screens, along with an index page that lets you sort and browse all your forms.
http://www.peaceworks.ca/phormation.php
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