http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com Linux & F.O.S.S. in the Hudson River Valley. Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:29:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In most cases, Ubuntu desktop systems will automatically detect and mount removable media, and this is largely done with software that is part of the X Windows system; for server systems without X Windows however, this sort of thing requires a bit of work. Now some may ask, "Why automount removable ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2010/01/20/automount-removable-devices-on-ubuntu-servers/ Sound problems fall in to three basic categories, and the first thing you want to do is determine which one you're dealing with. The easiest thing you can do is test your speakers with something else, using the same cable. If your speakers and cable are confirmed to be in ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2010/01/02/diagnosing-sound-problems-in-ubuntu-linux/ prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic config., port fwd, proxy conn. I don't often have the opportunity to experiment on computers running Windows, but every once in a long while it simply cannot be avoided. I recently found myself wanting to look up a password in Revelation, a password manager for the ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2009/12/26/ssh-coolness-even-on-windows/ prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic configuration This post is as much about customizing the root shell as it is about SSH environment variables, but I'm adding this to my OpenSSH collection because it's applicable to any user. I occasionally work on servers where, for a variety of reasons, I share an account ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/11/01/openssh-environmental-override/ prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic configuration, port forwarding Network address translation (NAT) is a very common method of providing secure access to hosts on a private network. Given the limited amount of IPv4 addresses, computer networks with relatively few, very few, and even a single public IP address are common. A ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/10/17/openssh-proxy-connections/ prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic configuration Port forwarding is a versatile feature which informs several popular concepts, including X Forwarding and tunneling which are briefly explained below; more advanced port magic will be addressed elsewhere. X Forwarding At the end of the previous installment of this series is an example SSH client configuration ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/10/16/open-ssh-port-forwarding/ Having discovered the advantages of á la carte VoIP pricing, I pondered how to extrapolate my experience for general discussion while avoiding the pitfalls of interpolation and abridgement. The Reference Book of Rates, Price Indices, and Household Expenditures for Telephone Service published by the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau provides a ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/10/04/i-have-seen-the-light/ prerequisite concepts: prelude If you're not already using a config file (~/.ssh/config) you should peruse the documentation to see what it offers; an ongoing benefit I enjoy is that it allows me to accomplish more while typing less. Suppose, for example, you need to access two mail servers which are both ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/09/26/openssh-basic-configuration/ This is a prelude to a series of articles focused on how the sophisticated power of OpenSSH may be harnessed to great advantage with less effort than one might think. Readers already familiar with OpenSSH and passwordless authentication may wish to skip ahead: OpenSSH: Basic Configuration OpenSSH: Port Forwarding OpenSSH: Proxy Connections OpenSSH: Environmental ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/09/25/openssh-prelude/ AppArmor, introduced to Ubuntu with Gutsy, is yet another security tool unleashed upon the infosphere. In part, AppArmor is intended as an alternative to SELinux, which can easily be seen as daunting to configure; unfortunately, many such projects are daunting for those admins forced to walk the plank of unfamiliarity ... http://cdfx.penguins-on-hudson.com/2008/09/24/doctor-ive-got-audit-complaints-about-my-kernel-log/