Category: Linux and UNIX

Your keyboard and mouse are your interface to Linux, so you should customize them to match your personal tastes and habits. First of all, make sure that the has the correct keyboard layout, so you get the correct character when you press a key. But beyond that very fundamental step, you may want to remap […]

Bob Cromwell, the other security author on this blog, wrote about the GHOST vulnerability in the Linux glibc library. He explained what glibc (“the C library”) is and about the origin of the GHOST vulnerability. He ended with, “Patches are easy to check and easy to apply, so keep your servers safe!” Since I updated […]

The vi editor is the standard editor for the UNIX family of operating systems. It will be there, and as long as you get your terminal type correctly defined (VT100 is usually a safe and adequate choice), it will work. It doesn’t need graphics, and it does not rely on having the special keys defined. […]

The recent “Ghost” bug has brought some attention to the GNU C Library or glibc. What is glibc? First, get your Linux systems patched! Patches are available, get your system updated and protected! If you are curious about the details of Ghost, see the announcement from Qualys or their detailed analysis. OK, now that your […]

Last week I mentioned that systemd has replaced the traditional init program in Linux. Let’s see some capabilities it adds! Systemd organizes tasks into units which can include initializing hardware, mounting file systems, and starting services that will daemonize and run in the background. The active units are those which are enabled (that is, configured […]