Awk & sed Snippets for SysAdmins

March 2, 2022 – 2:00 pm

Books have been written on the subject of awk and sed. Here’s a small sample of commands I put together over the years that are useful for everyday system administration tasks. Most of these tasks …

Read the full story »

Networking

Unix and Linux network configuration. Multiple network interfaces. Bridged NICs. High-availability network configurations.

Applications

Reviews of latest Unix and Linux software. Helpful tips for application support admins. Automating application support.

Data

Disk partitioning, filesystems, directories, and files. Volume management, logical volumes, HA filesystems. Backups and disaster recovery.

Monitoring

Distributed server monitoring. Server performance and capacity planning. Monitoring applications, network status and user activity.

Commands & Shells

Cool Unix shell commands and options. Command-line tools and application. Things every Unix sysadmin needs to know.

Home » Archive by Month

Article Archive for August 2013

Configure Anonymous FTP on Solaris 10

August 25, 2013 – 2:30 pm

Below are basic steps for configuring anonymous FTP service on Solaris 10. Use with caution.

Enable Basic FTP Server on Solaris 10

August 22, 2013 – 2:22 pm

Here are a few simple steps to enable a basic FTP server on Solaris 10.

The bash script below will scan the specified IP range and use dig and nmap to try to determine the fully-qualified domain name, type and the operating environment of any device that responds to network …

Basic Samba Configuration on Solaris 10

August 20, 2013 – 2:21 pm

Here’s a sample process for installing and configuring a basic Samba server on Solaris 10.

Solaris 10 NFS Server Configuration

August 16, 2013 – 2:01 pm

As far as NFS servers go, I think the best platform in terms of performance and stability is Solaris running on SPARC architecture. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that NFS was created for Solaris. Over the years I’ve been working with NFS servers on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, BSD, etc. It always worked better on Solaris.

RPC: Authentication When Mounting Solaris NFS Share

August 16, 2013 – 1:37 pm

When mounting an NFS share from a Solaris 10 server, you may encounter the “RPC: Authentication” error. You may notice that you are able to mount the share via NFSv4, not not NFSv3. On the NFS server the /var/adm/messages may show the following errors for the client…

Commands & Shells »

Plundering Facebook Photo Albums

Let’s imagine you need to download all the photos in a Facebook photo album. It can be a public album, a friend’s, or even your own. Sure, you can do this manually, but you probably …

Scraping a Web Page in Bash

Just a scripting exercise because I need to do something important, but I am procrastinating. The idea is simple: grab some URL with text containing somewhat structured data and convert it into a spreadsheet. I …

More articles »

Applications »

Processing Videos with ffmpeg and Lightroom

On occasion I wondered how to apply advanced photo filters to my lackluster GoPro and drone videos. You know, not the basic exposure/contrast/saturation or the cheesy special effects you find in video editors, but something …

Searching Twitter

Here are just a few hopefully useful tips for searching Twitter to get more relevant results and buy cheap twitter followers.

More articles »

Data »

Scraping a Web Page in Bash

Just a scripting exercise because I need to do something important, but I am procrastinating. The idea is simple: grab some URL with text containing somewhat structured data and convert it into a spreadsheet. I …

Generating Random Text Files for Testing

Sometimes you need dummy folder structures populated with random data for testing your various scripts and processes – backups, file transfers, encryption, compression, etc. Every time I need something like this, I end up writing …

More articles »

Monitoring »

Finding Cron Jobs

Cron is an indispensable tool for system administration. The difficulties in working with cron in a large environment stem from its decentralized nature. Cron jobs multiply like rabbits, and keeping track of them is not …

Understanding Memory Utilization in Linux

This is a depressing – and all-too-common – scenario: a user runs the free command and opens a support case because he sees zero “free” memory on the server.

More articles »