Syslogd: Remote logging

There are times when you need a central syslog server which collects system logs from various systems. In order to preserve logs in the case of a system compromise, for example, remote syslog’ing is a wonderful solution, where logs are sent to the remote syslog server the moment they are created on the client system. [...]

SSH Tunnels (Port Forwarding)

It is surprisingly easy to set up SSH tunnels. All you need is SSH access to a box with Internet connection that will act as the port forwarder. Something as simple as the following command with set up an encrypted tunnel that will forward the local_port on the ssh box to the remote_port on the [...]

Remote X Login (GDM, XDMCP, Xmins, oh my)

At work, I’ve got a separate CentOS box on which development [by one other colleague besides me] is done, and an XP workstation which I use most of the time. I have used the XDMCP HOWTO to configure GDM on the CentOS to listen for remote connections. On the XP workstation, I use Xmins [...]

Deathful wishing :(

Today has been one of those days where I wished, driving at 102+ on a busy highway, that I rammed into a car and died. :-(

Running PHP4 and PHP5 on the same box.

As the sole systems administrator for the Linux box hosting the University’s website, I was asked nicely by the lead web developer, last to last week, to set up php5 alongside the existing php4 installation. A new component of the website uses php5, and rolling out that component was on top of the list.
I used [...]

Logflusher

Logflusher is a dirty little tool to clean login traces on a Linux box. I needed a tool that could conveniently and quietly clean login information from WTMP and UTMP files (under Linux). There were a few tools around, but I wasn’t satisfied. Thus, I wrote logflusher.
I released version 1.1 of logflusher last week (I [...]