Advice for everyday Unix systems administration and some clever ways to approach more challenging problems.
Takes a look at the kind of information that might be stored in digital photos (possibly including your location) and shows how to use the exiftool to edit or remove it.
A different way to loop line-by-line in a bash script
Review of a seriously geeky book on Python projects
The curl command is a versatile tool for working with web sites and web applications.
Short breaks during the day can improve your mood and productivity. Maybe you should consider taking some non-smoking breaks.
How Software Works: The Magic Behind Encryption, CGI, Search Engines, and Other Everyday Technologies by V. Anton Spraul gives a surprisingly lucid view of how some of the key technologies that we use today perform the "magic" tricks that ....
Programmin' and shoutin' like a scurvy pirate be not so different!
Pulling together stats to give you a better idea what a directory or file system contains
Questions sysadmins should ask and precautions they should take when troubleshooting
An introduction to automating processes built to be interactive -- using the expect command
Using awk to perform simple numerical calculations is easier than you might imagine.
Unusual things you can do with the vim editor
A song to make Sysadmin Day extra special.
Identifying and generating prime numbers on Unix is easier than you might imagine
Using find commands to display important file system statistics
Preparing for the CCSK exam with a set of classes from intrinsec
Using the join command to avoid quoting arguments
While there are many things you can do to secure the systems you manage, the key to getting a Unix system to pass an ISO 27001 audit is knowing what the auditors are likely to ask and what they will need to see.
There are only two times when you need to dig through piles of data to get your job done: When you know what you're looking for and when you don't. Here are the best tools and techniques for both situations.
Listing group members on Unix systems, including commands and a helpful script
There's more than one kind of swap file -- this kind is is created by your system to help ensure that you don't lose important file content when something goes wrong.
Bryson Payne, no starch press, 2015
If you're a bash user, you can also use your history file to record the date and time when you used each command. You simply have to specify a format for your command time display using a special variable.
Book review: Build an HTML5 Game: A Developer's Guide with CSS and JavaScript Karl Bunyan, no starch press, 2015
If you'd like your search terms to be more visible when you use the grep command, you can use an alias like this. It will put the term that you're looking for in a different color so that you can spot it more easily on each line of text. He....
If you work with file archives that come in many different "flavors", you might find this little trick to be a handy one.
A waterproof safe dropped into the deepest part of the ocean is not as 'secure' as it is useless.
Using fail2ban to dynamically block attackers
Making use of HTTP status codes to make everyday life run more smoothly
One way to restrict what users can do on your Linux systems is by using rbash -- the restricted Bourne Again shell -- but only if you take some additional steps to ensure that your users can't break out of their cells
Black Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters Justin Seitz no starch press, 2015
The Unix command line provides numerous ways to make our work easier. Here are 15 "tricks" that I use often to make quick work of various tasks.
2014 drawing to a close presents us all with an opportunity to consider what we might do better in the year to come. And, hint hint, it's not all about working harder.
Building apps for Android or thinking about it? This book on Android Security is a must read.
I've heard that those who can't remember history are condemned to repeat it but for Unix users, repeating history is not only advantageous, it's something of a skill.
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