linux for the rest of us -- or -- how a non-unix person is using linux today

Linux for the Rest of UsLinux for the Rest of Us-- or ---- or --

How a non-Unix Person is How a non-Unix Person is Using Linux Today Using Linux Today

Mark Kushinsky - mdspc.com - [email protected] 2

What is Linux?What is Linux?

Back in August of 1991, a student from Finland began a post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup with the words:

“Hello everybody out there using minix..”

“I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby...) for 386(486) AT clones.”


What is Linux? (Cont.)What is Linux? (Cont.)

The student was Linus Torvalds ([email protected]), and the "hobby" he spoke of eventually became what we know today as Linux.


How to Pronounce "Linux"? (inquiring How to Pronounce "Linux"? (inquiring minds want to know !)minds want to know !)

http://www.linux.org/info/sounds/english.au

-- or if you prefer in Swedish –

http://www.linux.org/info/sounds/swedish.au

Why a Penguin ? http://www.linux.org/info/penguin.html


Who are the major suppliers of Who are the major suppliers of Linux Distributions ?Linux Distributions ?

Red Hat Caldera Mandrake Slackware SuSe debian and many more….. Burn baby Burn ! go to http://www.linuxiso.org/ to d/l

your favorite flavor ! FREE !!!


Getting started !Getting started ! I decided to use Red Hat… Why ? It’s popular ! They have started to look at it where

I work and wanted to make myself more marketable in this economy.

It’s has a reputation of being easy. Lots of utilities to help the newbie.

RPMs! Red Hat Package Manager - database/package that ease the installation/upgrade of applications/utilities.

Red Hat tracks your installed RPM’s and emails you when a critical update becomes available.


What are the What are the minimumminimum hardware and hardware and space requirements for installing Red Hat space requirements for installing Red Hat

Linux on a PC?Linux on a PC? 1620 MB for Server, 450 MB for

Workstation , and 120 MB for Custom Install

16 MB RAM Intel 386


Getting started !Getting started !

Burn those ISO files to CD. You can d/l a boot.img file and install using

FTP but unless you have a fat pipe I would suggest installing from CD.

Decide what kind of box you want - I wanted a server !

Not knowing what I was doing I just accepted the defaults and figured I could fix anything I wanted later !


Getting Started (Cont.)Getting Started (Cont.)

Well this is boring. What can I do now ??? I know... let’s register a domain !

http://www.weblaunching.com/ bgaddict.com is MINE for the low low cost of $12/yr.

(such a deal ! godaddy.com is cheaper!) OK I have a box. I have a domain. What’s missing ???

DNS ! http://www.zoneedit.com/ - FREE DNS Hosting (up to

5 domains) !! Oh yeah BABY ! Don’t forget DDNS ! ddclient

-http://freshmeat.net/redir/ddclient/1777/url_rpm/ddclient-3.4.2-1.noarch.rpm


OK Now what ???OK Now what ??? Apache is installed and loads at boot. Well I always wanted a web

server ;-) http://www.apache.org/ SSL ?

http://www.apache-ssl.org/ How about some remote control ?

http://www.webmin.com/ Install webmin SSL ! Restrict access via IP change the port !

Time to Samba (SMB) – isn’t this a dance step ? http://us1.samba.org/samba/samba.html


OK now what ?? (cont.)OK now what ?? (cont.)

Sendmail anyone ? http://www.sendmail.org/ Don’t forget to set up a backup mail server. Zoneedit.com to the

rescue but this time it costs ! ($11/yr) Make sure not to relay mail for the internet (Can you say

SPAM ??) . Test ! : http://zoneedit.com/smtp.html?ad=lookup

I know, let’s email the heck out off all my friends and family ! Mailing list sever anyone ? WooHoo ! Mailman - http://www.list.org/ Web based user management - Better than Majordomo ! Join the mailman-users list. Good info.

FTP ? Setup dummy users, set to “no login allowed”.

Ya can’t get there from here -- or -- don’t forget to open the ports on the firewall!


OK now what ?? (cont.)OK now what ?? (cont.)

CRON is your friend ! Great place to run logrotate or email you status reports or…..

Inspect your LOGS on daily basis ! /var/logs

ONLY open the ports to the net of the services you really need ! NEVER RUN LOGGED IN AS ROOT !

This is what keeps Unix systems secure. When you need to execute a command that requires root privileges, you can use the "su" command to temporarily assume root privileges.

Set up disk quotas – very important if you are going to be allowing anonymous FTP access !

SSH never TELNET from outside (telnet uses plaintext even when using the su command)

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !


Resource PageResource Page http://www.bgaddict.com/ - My web site ;-) http://www.linux.org/ - Linux Online http://www.redhat.com/ Red Hat http://rute.sourceforge.net/ - Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition

by Paul Sheer - START HERE ! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ - home of NHF’s (Newbieized

help files !) http://www.zoneedit.com/ - DNS hosting http://www.linuxiso.org/ - Get your ISO D/L’s here. /http://rpmfind.net/ - Get your RPM’s here ! http://www.tldp.org/ - The Linux Documentation Project comp.os.linux.misc -- and -- comp.os.linux.help


Resource Page #2 (thanks Josh !)Resource Page #2 (thanks Josh !)Here's a typical directory structure on your newly

installed Linux system:

/ (The root directory - roughly equivalent to c:\) /bin (A few system-wide programs and your shell live here) /dev (Don't go here. Really. It's where all the interfaces to hardware

live) /etc (Configuration files and such for the system and most services -

typically in plaintext) /home (This is where all your user directories live - the equivalent of

everyone's profiles) /lib (The home of system-wide libraries, equivalent to Windows' system

DLL's) /mnt (Where drives are mounted into the filesystem) /opt (A place where some Linux/Unix systems install user-added software) /proc (a place for programmers to look at running processes and read memory

directly) /root (The root user's home directory) /usr (Most of your applications are here, and in subdirectories off this) /tmp (Where system temp files are stored. This is normally cleared at

shutdown.) /var (Log files and a lot of related files are written here. Some systems

put the files used by the web and FTP servers here - others put them under /home)

linux for the rest of us -- or -- how a non-unix person is using linux today

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