When I set up a server I use Debian.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tadelste Nov 29, 2005 3:30 PM EDT |
When I'm not writing for Lxer I do sys-admin work primarily on servers for the Internet. I use Debian and do almost everything from the command line. I've used midnight commander a lot. I'm in the middle of writing a book about system administration for the same guys that publish Carla. I started putting Linux on name brand computers back in 1999 and that how I met Dave. That's how Bynari got started. In writing my administration book I had to get across to everyone up the chain of command that we had to show the reader how to build a server and get it on the Internet. My pitch is really simple: You can't learn system administration if you don't have a system to administer. So, I have a list of things I use to build my stock platform. Once I get my chapters done, I'll take Hans up on his offer to list the utilities. Anyone who administers debian, let me know what you use and I'm put you in the book. Cheers! |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 29, 2005 4:25 PM EDT |
Mostly, I use Ping. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140502416 "Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized." But seriously, I'm such a haphazard admin that I still use dselect, which _appalled_ the last real Debian Developer I talked with. That and vi. |
| dinotrac Nov 29, 2005 4:44 PM EDT |
I am so impressed at the Debian-heads hanging around these parts. The thing I like best about Debian is that it hasn't been on any of my machines in something like 5 years now. OK -- Maybe I'm holding that KDE grudge for a long time... |
| bstadil Nov 29, 2005 4:59 PM EDT |
I use webmin for most server stuff. Some modules like Apache you need to know what you are doing, but most are pretty idiot proof. As of today there are 327 different modules, so your need has to be pretty esoteric for you not be able to use Webmin. http://www.webmin.com/ http://webadminmodules.sourceforge.net/ |
| jdixon Nov 29, 2005 5:29 PM EDT |
> The thing I like best about Debian is that it hasn't been on any of my machines in something like 5 years now. I've tried Debian and a couple of Debian based distro's. The last one I tried was Mepis. I tried adding Firefox (it used the full Mozilla browser at that time). It told me it would have to remove something like 250 MB of packages, and download and install something like 300 MB of packages. This for an 8 MB program, and me on dialup. I gave up and I'll stick with Slackware, thank you very much. This particular "feature" has bitten me every time I've tried Debian. It may be great if you have broadband, but forget about using its update features over dialup. |
| chris Nov 29, 2005 6:27 PM EDT |
I installed Debian, once, and it was quite a chore. It turned out that the floppy-based installer was hideous and simply failed and failed again to work with my hardware. I tried many, many times. For example, it would not even recognize my network card. However, out of desperation, I bought my first cd-burner and made an install CD because some other distributions only had CD installers. But I tried first with Debian, and the "same" installer program on the CD worked perfectly on the first try. That was very frustrating. Anyway, now I use Gentoo and SuSE, and the tools I can't live without are generally those taken for granted: * bash * grep/egrep * find * tar/gzip Then a few more exotic tools: * ltrace * strace * pgrep/pkill * netcat * lsof And of course, if you call emacs "just a tool", that's tops on my list. :) But the systems I work with, while networked, are generally internal. So security is not as big of a deal on my machines--they are not exposed to the outside world in the first place. I do a lot more programming than (C++) than system administration. -- Chris |
| tadelste Nov 29, 2005 7:43 PM EDT |
You know that if you use anything besides Debian you aren't really using Linux. Whatever you think you're doing is just a shadow of Linux. Oh well, to each their own. If you want to wander around never really developing your skill set use something else. |
| dinotrac Nov 29, 2005 7:51 PM EDT |
Tom, Tom, Tom... As a happily recovered Debian user, I can only hope you get into treatment soon. Remember...The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. |
| tadelste Nov 29, 2005 8:09 PM EDT |
That's right. And, it's pretty obvious that you are in denial. So, check yourself back into the treatment facility and call me in the morning, son. There's an old saying you might want to consider. Look back if you must , but don't sit down and stare. When you get out, don't forget to go to your meetings. Or have you lost your sponsor too? |
| jimf Nov 29, 2005 8:27 PM EDT |
Don't worry tadelste, there are always some warped individuals in any group who's judgement is really warped. Bad childhood, poor toilet training, who can say why? :D |
| tadelste Nov 29, 2005 8:58 PM EDT |
Jim: I think he just misses Paul. |
| wjl Nov 29, 2005 10:05 PM EDT |
I agree with you about Debian, Tom, and anyone who says he/she doesn't like it maybe only tried it for his or her personal desktop... (tho even at that I am perfectly happy with it) Anyway, besides the tools mentioned here (which we all use I suppose), there are some higher-level programs available for almost any Linux or BSD distri out there, without which management of servers would be much more difficult. Think Cacti (we all cannot say thanks often enough to Toby Oetiker for his RRDTool), Nagios, or even OpenNMS (depending on the size of your network or the task to do, you might prefer different things). Beside these full-blown management programs, did anyone mention ssh already? Or wget? Apt? When putting in a new harddisk at our home lately, it was dpkg --get-selections and -setselections and dselect. The list goes on and on with these command-line tools, and some Debian-specific things are really important for me today. They make a sysadmins life easier ;-) cheers, wjl |
| mvermeer Nov 30, 2005 12:06 AM EDT |
No need to use a GUI tool for multiple renaming: there is rename (man rename) from util-linux. And then there is the mmv (multiple move) package. I use bc a lot too. bc -l for floating point math. |
| hkwint Nov 30, 2005 12:36 AM EDT |
Thanks for all suggestions. You should know, this article is a complement to the article http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/10/26/216203... called "My sysadmin toolbox" which appeared on Newsforge a while ago, so check that one out as well if you didn't. It mentions wget, vim (Paulie: Especially mentioned it for you!!!) and other stuff. I really don't know why I forgot strace by the way, since I use that one also a lot. Since I don't have a server myself, this article isn't really aimed at servers, I have to admit. Anyone using Debian just lacks the real Linux skills of mastering Gentoo by the way, because why would anyone ever need that precompiled non-optimized garbage if you can compile it yourself, with 22 CFLAGS and 53 USEFLAGS? Open source, the name says it, is all about source eh? And not about binary's, because than it would've been called "Open Binary". Besides the Linux skills, who of us doesn't like shit (gcc output) scroll by for several hours? (And then redoing it because you used -O4 in CFLAGS and forgot "static" in your useflags while compiling Xorg in an hardened environment). ( ^ people with no clue: Sarcastic) |
| wjl Nov 30, 2005 12:45 AM EDT |
hehehe... that was a good one - thanks, hkwint! |
| tuxchick Nov 30, 2005 5:33 AM EDT |
pf, Gentoo is for wimps. Real Linux Geeks do Linux From Scratch, http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ |
| dinotrac Nov 30, 2005 5:57 AM EDT |
tuxchick -- Still Wimpy. Relies on GCC. REAL geeks sit down with the source and type in the corresponding binary code with an outdated version of vi. I expect to have kernel version 0.1 running any year now. |
| Tsela Nov 30, 2005 6:03 AM EDT |
Vi?! Real geeks sit down with the source and move the bits in the hard drive manually with a strong magnet! My next goal will be to install Linux on my abacus. |
| dinotrac Nov 30, 2005 6:06 AM EDT |
tsela - Hard to argue with you there. I must admit to my fat-fingered unworthiness. I tried the magnet thing, but utterly screwed it up. Error-handling code was hopelessly broken, thing would crash for no discernable reason. A total botch. On the bright side, Microsoft bought the rights from me and released it as Windows ME. |
| number6x Nov 30, 2005 6:24 AM EDT |
Imagine a beowulf cluster of abucusses... Whoa, sorry a slashdot flashback! |
| hkwint Nov 30, 2005 8:32 AM EDT |
On the other hand, we really discussed getting NetBSD on my graphical calculator, a TI 89 running on a M68k, but we figured out 1M of flashmemory wouldn't be enough, and NetBSD would't know how to handle the 96x64 monochrome screen. And I also knew a few binary Z80 instruction for the TI 83: CD5547, which clears the screen, and CE is a jump. When I didn't know what an assambler did, I thought you'd have to translate the ASM-code to hex-code manually (still have the printed ASM to HEX tables of the TI83). Anyway, if you wanna laugh about Gentoo, check http://funroll-loops.org/ Best quote of the site: "I essentially started using Gentoo because my ....ing KDE clock would never show the right time in Red Hat." |
| salparadise Nov 30, 2005 8:48 AM EDT |
It may be great if you have broadband, but forget about using its update features over dialup. Sorry to rain on your parade, but I work with someone who lives "in the country" and he has a 33k modem and maintains 8 debian laptops. Several of these were installed with Debian over four or five years ago and are now all running 3.1. You don't need huge bandwidth you just like having it (as do I). Once you strip out the logos, the installer and the package management system, whatever distro you use you're using Linux. Distro schmistro. Oh man, we do get into a state over what the outside of things looks like! |
| SFN Nov 30, 2005 8:53 AM EDT |
Real men use Linux From Scratch. |
| sbergman27 Nov 30, 2005 12:58 PM EDT |
Well... Real People ("Real Men" is just too sexist) study the source of Qemu until they have it memorized. Then they can just skim over the binaries for LFS's kernel, glibc, and whatever user space programs and do whatever they wan't right in their own brains. You can actually memorize the kernel and glibc part and execute the stuff directly in your brain without Qemu, but in that case DON'T FORGET TO DO A "/sbin/lilo" BEFORE THE FIRST REBOOT!!! |
| tuxchick Nov 30, 2005 1:10 PM EDT |
Now is the moment when some mossy geekbearded oldtimer needs to step in and say "In my day we were so primitive we didn't even have 1s and 0s. We had to use Os." |
| sbergman27 Nov 30, 2005 1:15 PM EDT |
... with cardboard stuffed in to keep out the snow ... |
| jdixon Nov 30, 2005 1:53 PM EDT |
> Sorry to rain on your parade, but I work with someone who lives "in the country" and he has a 33k modem and maintains 8 debian laptops. Several of these were installed with Debian over four or five years ago and are now all running 3.1. Good for him. I've tried it (I believe 3 times now) and it never worked for me. Since it doesn't work for me, I don't use it. Like I said, I'll stick to Slackware. |
| tadelste Nov 30, 2005 2:45 PM EDT |
In my day we were so primitive we didn't even have 1s and 0s. We had to use 1s and then somebody invented the wheel which gave my third cousin by his second wife's son Jemijamembra the idea to create the binary numbering system. Afyer that, we spun some silver thread and wrapped it around a long pole. We hung tin cans oft it and used hemp to tie the cans together at short distances. Yep, those were the good ole days. It was my brother's great-great grandson's second cousin who came up with the magnetic coding device which lead to the 3 kbps modem and he used water to generate electricity. He also found a way to turn alcohol into gasoline and created a piston engine which led to international communications. Yep, those were good days. I remember like it was just yesterday. Mossy old geekbearded bart that I am. |
| jimf Nov 30, 2005 3:50 PM EDT |
Now you're just bragging tadelste. We know that's just a digital gin mill you're describing. |
| tadelste Nov 30, 2005 5:10 PM EDT |
Darn. Caught again. |
| wjl Nov 30, 2005 9:47 PM EDT |
Hehe - what in the world have you guys (n gurls of course) smoked or drank during the last 24 hours? I want the same! ;-) |
| jimf Nov 30, 2005 9:59 PM EDT |
The output of tadelste's digital gin mill of course :) |
| helios Dec 01, 2005 2:32 AM EDT |
/homehelios$ slocate -i sanity |
| salparadise Dec 01, 2005 3:08 AM EDT |
nux@deb1:~$ apropos sobriety sobriety: nothing appropriate |
| hkwint Dec 01, 2005 5:18 AM EDT |
kwint 1 ~ $ slocate -i sanity | wc -l
51 Not bad, eh? |
| cls Dec 01, 2005 7:21 AM EDT |
I've been using Debian since '97. The last distro I was really comfortable with was "HJ's GCC." There are quality holes and the installer still isn't automatic enough for Grandma and stable is obsolete. But none of that is important as the quality and maintainability. Dedicated server 150 miles away, customers with CMSes, would you do a dist-upgrade on Mandriva? |
| tadelste Dec 01, 2005 8:01 AM EDT |
All joking aside, a difference does exist between opinion and empirical information. I respect people's opinion about their favorite distributions. Given the empirical information I have about stable Linux distributions only three exist. SUSE 9 SLES, Red Hat RHEL, and Debian. You can obtain Debian for free. It's also the most fundamental of the three and allows me to work on other distributions. So, it's the mother-ship for me to learn and advance with Linux. I still work on other distributions, but only when I went with Debian did I find myself building a solid foundation in system administration. |
| jdixon Dec 01, 2005 9:06 AM EDT |
Tom: > Given the empirical information I have about stable Linux distributions only three exist. You can add Slackware to your stable list. In my experience, it's stability is comparable to Debian's. Like Debian, it's also available as a free download. |
| helios Dec 01, 2005 10:46 AM EDT |
I do no work on the server end of it so my only experience has been the Debian clones on the desktop starting with Knoppix then Kanotix. I rave about dpkg and apt-get. For those new to Linux, I find teaching them these simple command line tools gives them confidence to explore the cursed cursor further. Say those last three ten times. When they see what they can do with the power of apt-get et al, it spurs them onto other commands...least it did for those under my guidance. I think I'm up to 6 now. |
| tadelste Dec 01, 2005 12:08 PM EDT |
jdixon: The context of this thread relates to commercial system administration. What do people use in enterprizes. So, Munich picked Debian over Red Hat and SUSE. Slackware is a great distribution. It's not considered commercially stable for enterprise use. I wrote an article for O'Reilly about this subject called Defining the Enterprize: http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/09/16/linuxen... I don't wish to quibble over words here but in the domain of software stable has a specific meaning. It doesn't mean your favorite distribution isn't stable. |
| jdixon Dec 01, 2005 4:29 PM EDT |
Tom: > I don't wish to quibble over words here... But then that's exactly what you did. :) > The context of this thread relates to commercial system administration. What do people use in enterprizes. Commercial use and enterprise use are not exactly the same thing. Enterprise use is only a subset of commercial use. > but in the domain of software stable has a specific meaning. I don't see the word enterprise anywhere in the previous posts Tom. Had you made it clear that's what you were talking about, I wouldn't have responded, as I have little experience in that area. In the domain of "enterprise software" stable might have a specific meaning which differs from the standard meaning. I wouldn't know. In the less specific domain of "software", including non-enterprise level commercial usage, Slackware's stability is legendary. It sounds like what you're actually saying is that Slackware doesn't have an enterprise ready support structure. Fair enough, but then neither does Debian. Both are dependent on third parties for support. I will admit that Debian's third party support has a higher profile than Slackware's. |
| tadelste Dec 01, 2005 4:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:It sounds like what you're actually saying is that Slackware doesn't have an enterprise ready support structure. Fair enough, but then neither does Debian. Both are dependent on third parties for support. I will admit that Debian's third party support has a higher profile than Slackware's. OK. |
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